You either pay attention or pay through the nose. I would rather pay attention.
I can’t say I am disappointed that Kingsley is gone.
I just hope that his replacement pays attention to some of the things that make it easy to cheat our electoral system.
And if you don’t believe me on how easy it is to cheat our system, just ask this guy.
I wanted to drop a quick post on here before Santa shows up. I know that many of you will be loitering around your computers tomorrow so don’t be shy and tell us what Santa brought you in between opening gifts, services, Christmas dinner and family time.
I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.
John Duffy, the Liberal known for supporting the “beer and popcorn” quote has put his name behind a website called climateliberal.ca.as one of the founders. The website was initiated as a forum to 1) Focus on the Climate Crisis, 2) Use the Liberal Party as a vehicle, and 3) Organize via the web. Ironically, they refuse to scientifically argue the Climate Crisis, and as you will read below, the website seems to be going nowhere fast. But aren’t Liberals glad they have such a well organized group preparing to dip into envirodollars one day?
The site is clearly a failing prospect. To quote one of their recent commenters:
Slick appearance and over-the-top promotion aside, this website is a dud — from its patronizing, self-congratulatory home page to its unused forums.
Unless Liberals take the entire month of December off — that might partly explain Canada’s retreat from its Kyoto targets during their tenure, I would have expected them to flock to this site after the convention. Everybody there wet their pants in excitement at the prospect of this Internet Leviathan single-handedly toppling the hapless Conservatives. But, nobody came — not even Harry Potter and his “dream team” have bothered to participate.
Not simply putting my trust in the commenter, I took a peek around and found the comment above quite accurate. The forum section is not only unused, but when it is used it is clearly not open to discussion, which is the whole point of a forum.
There is a great initial post by Tom Harris about the flaws in Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth that presents Tom’s credentials as someone with a M. Eng in Thermofluids and links to an article he wrote with tons of great information on climate change and global warming.
The counter argument by the webmaster, Al Booth is as follows:
I Googled you Mr. Tom Harris. I think others visiting this forum might like to know the following (simply in the interests of transparency).
Here’s what Ajax-Liberal MP Mark Holland has to say about you on his web site in an article titled…
Petroleum money drives Conservative climate change skepticism
Here’s the part about you:
Tom Harris, once a legislative assistant to former Conservative Environment Critic Bob Mills, has been a prolific writer of anti-Kyoto op-ed pieces, typically quoting scientists associated with Friends of Science. He is a lobbyist with High Park Group, a firm with a number of energy industry clients. Previously working as an associate with the public relations firm APCO Worldwide (Canada), he organized a news conference of climate change skeptics in 2002. Most of those who spoke at the news conference have ties to both Friends of Science and the petroleum industry.
So a masters in engineering with a specialization in thermofluidity presents technical documentation on a website dedicated to addressing the enviromental issues surrounding climate change and it is met with what, in essence, translates to “You’re a filthy conservative, you’re science isn’t good here!”
What I find especially disheartening is that Tom was even nice enough to follow up and address all the concerns regarding his past ties to Bob Mills and the Conservative Party, but even that gets a response like this:
The one critism that can legitimately be leveled at Al Gore’s film is that it understates the threat to our planet and it doesn’t suggest any really workable, effective solutions. Changing a few light bulbs certainly won’t solve our problems.
What we need are huge federal programs and massive expenditures immediately invested in clean, green energy and totally revamping housing construction and our transportation system.
Even the NDP are calling the site sleezy. You know when the party that is traditionally known as the environmentally friendly party calls an environmental site sleezy, something REALLY has to be wrong with the site.
And the Liberals wonder why the greenest Prime Minister in history was a Conservative. And when Kyoto is explained as a carbon dioxide problem and not a pollution problem, people begin to understand why the previous government, and it’s environement minister, Stephane Dion, do not have a leg to stand on.
I would even go so far as to say that this site is a preliminary ploy by liberal supporters to lay the groundwork to receive a nice big paycheck should the Liberals be returned to power and pour millions, if not billions, into the environment. Can we say Enviroscam?
That payday would buy Mr. Duffy a heck of a lot of beer and popcorn.
This morning, at 11:21am I received an email from Rogers Cable telling me about all the great programs on their Rogers On Demand offering. It pointed me to Holiday Fun on channel 100. Yet all 38 movies displayed are Christmas oriented. Why would they not call the category Christmas Fun?
The main page had four subcategories:
I then drilled down in the Holiday Classics section:
(click to view larger image)
Each of them Christmas oriented.
I then popped open the Animated Favourites section to see what was available:
(click to view larger image)
Each and every animated one a Christmas movie.
I then scanned the Santa Specials knowing what Holiday these would celebrate:
(click to view larger image)
And finally the last section, Holiday Hits:
(Click to view larger image)
So there you have it. Thirty Eight Movies. Thirty Eight Christmas oriented movies and Rogers has the politically correct gaul to avoid calling these categories Christmas names.
This is exactly the kind of bullchips that drive me insane. I would be perfectly happy to have overlooked this whole thing if there was a single movie based on any holiday other than Christmas. In fact, for the sake of equality it would have been nice to see others there. But when each movie is Christmas oriented, have enough respect for Christians to call it a Christmas movie section.
The movement is afoot. The fans of Vancouver Canuck defencemen Rory Fitzpatrick have been promoting for him to start in the NHL All Star game and the young defender has over 400,000 votes and is kicking some butt in the balloting, behind only Scott Neidermeyer by about 20,000 votes.
He is a write in name, so this total is quite amazing.
But tonight I heard that Wayne Gretzky, the elitist that he is, is asking the league to intervene to keep Fitzpatrick from playing.
I am usually up for the top players showing up, but it really irks me that the Great One would try to undermine the support this player has received.
Wayne was a great hockey player. The best. But when it comes to democracy, he needs to take a valium. Heck, he can take two, they’re small.
I say Vote For Rory just to teach Wayne a lesson.
You can go to the nhl.com website, click All Star Ballot on the left hand side, then click Canada, and choose Rory Fitzpatrick from the Write In Western Conference List below the main selections.
This morning I heard that there is now a case of a man who claims Canada played a part in his human rights abuse.
He came to Canada as a refugee and Canada refused him and deported him back to Egypt where he was, allegedly, beaten and tortured.
CTV News has now obtained photographs and videotape, allegedly of the same man, which show fresh injuries on his back. They appear to be burns and welts, which he claims were inflicted by Egyptian authorities. He alleges that, since he was sent back, two security officers from Egypt’s State Security Investigations (SSI) have detained, interrogated and threatened him several times. He also claims he was shocked with electricity, doused with water and beaten.
CTV News has also obtained an audiotape recording, which his supporters said is the man pleading for help.
“I feel very afraid. Very afraid. Save me please. They tortured me. They tortured me a lot all over my back,” the man on the tape said. “They told me, we decorated your back like your Jesus. All my body was shaking. I could not control myself.”
“They were laughing. They were laughing. Let your Jesus come to save you.” The man broke down in tears. “Please, I beg you, I beg you save me, save me. Save my life.”
I feel for anyone who is tortured. I hope that whoever did the actual torture should rot in hell. But I am NOT willing to let Canada take responsibility for this.
How much do you want to bet a lawsuit as big as Maher Arar’s is in the works? Remember, Arar is suing for $300 to $400 Million dollars.
Last year, many of you may recall that my Christmas wish was for one of those cool trapper skin hats Roots provided to our Canadian Winter Olympians. Well last year Santa stiffed me.
So in keeping with this tradition of not getting my Christmas gift request, I thought I would share this years request. I know it won’t be under my tree, but a guy can dream, can’t he?
Some guys want Ferraris. Some guys want Porsches. Others want a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW.
Me? I want a Tesla.
Tesla Motors is a start up auto company based in Silicon Valley and it was started with seed money from the owners of Google, Ebay and Paypal. Pretty good business partners, I would say.
They build an electric car, that unlike Toyota’s, uses standard off the shelf laptop batteries to power it. I imagine they avoid Sony batteries. They take advantage of the high volume, low cost laptop battery market which is constantly improving itself in terms of capacity, recharge speed and weight. This utilization of the high volume consumer market will help them as a company.
The car can go from 0 to 100kph in less than 4 seconds and it can go about 400km on a single charge. The average fuel cost is 1 US cent per mile according to their website.
I remember reading an article about them in Wired magazine and recall that the car does not generate heat from operation. So the company put an electric heater in it which begins working right away (but does limit the driving distance). This is an interesting feature for the Canadian winters. It may end us having to assume the ‘winter position” of being hunched over with our hands wedged between our legs as we wait for the car to heat up.
This company sold out of their 2007 models in a mere four months and they are taking orders for their 2008 models now. You can get yours for a cool $92,000 US (base price). I suspect the price will eventually come down as more Ontario MPPs, unionized teachers and the head of Hydro One snatch them up.
Oh, and did I mention, that other than a slight whining of the rotor, the car is pretty much completely silent. No engine revving, no gears shifting. It’s truly 100% electric and packs a whallup. This car can theoretically hit about 13500 rpm and go 130mph and takes as little as 3.5 hours to charge up.
Today I wrote our Prime Minister asking him to invest in getting a Tesla manufacturing plant in Canada. A nice green move, jobs and a great looking car for the press photo op.
But, alas, for now I will just have to keep staring at the pictures of this car and dream. If anyone out there is interested in donating to the “Get Mulder A Tesla” fund, let me know.
In 2006, this blog hired no one. But we also did not have to restructure and lay off anyone either.
(disclosure: we are not a company and their is only one person who blogs here…me. I am the marketing department, the news department, the sports department, the editorial department, the financial department, etc.)
But TorStar Corporation, the parent company of the Toronto Star newspaper, announced they would be restructuring and laying off about 85 employees. The cause, according to local radio, was lower revenues from advertising.
TORONTO, ONTARIO – December 20, 2006 – Further to the formation of the Metroland Media Group and the Star Media Group, Torstar today announces that its newspaper division has undertaken a combination of voluntary and involuntary restructurings which will result in a net reduction of approximately 85 positions. Torstar expects that the restructuring charge, which will be recorded in the fourth quarter, will be approximately $11.0 million. The savings associated with this initiative are expected to be in the range of $5.5 million annually.
This tidbit is meant to be a bit of inspiration for all you bloggers out there. The MSM is taking their hits and it is showing.
In a busy Parisian cafe, a tourist is sitting alone, enjoying a crème caramel. Another tourist approaches:
Me sit here?
No problem…
Thank you, very nice…
Are you on vacation?
Me, I arrive yesterday…
What country are you from?
Norway. You?
From Quebec.
Quebec? Me not know Quebec…
Quebec… near the Atlantic, next to Ontario, the Great Lakes…
No, me not know these places.
Never mind then, I’m from Canada…
Ah! Canada! Canada I know! So why you tell me you come from Quebec?
Because, my first country is Quebec!
Oh, you were born in Quebec and immigrated to Canada….
No, no, I was born in Quebec and I stay in Quebec…
Oh, then your father is from Canada?
No, no, my father, my mother, my wife, my dog, everybody, they come from Quebec…
So why you say Canada?
For Christ sake, because you say you don’t know where is Quebec!
OK, but if you say you not know Norway, me I not say that my country is Japan…
Crap! Canada isn’t Japan. Canada, it’s my country.
Oh, your country not Quebec anymore?
My country is Quebec. But my country, it can be Canada too, if the
person I speak to not know where is Quebec, Tabarnak!
Me not understand…
Look, it’s simple: I come from the Province of Quebec, in the country of Canada.
Ok! But me not ask you what province you’re from, I ask you what country. Me, I come from Lofoten region in Norway, but I answer you Norway when you ask me what country I come from…
I know, I’m not stupid, Coulisse! But me, when they ask me what country I come from, I answer Quebec. Even if it’s the name of my province. For me, it’s my country.
Oh, now I understand. You are a separatist, you want your Quebec province to be your country…
Are you crazy, Hostie? I don’t want to know nothing from that crap!
Me, I not understand anything anymore.
I tell you before, it’s simple! You ask me what country I come from, I answer Quebec because Quebec is my country, but I don’t really want it to be my country, it would be too much trouble. I just want to say it. So, why don’t you just let me say it?
Me all mix up. You have passport from what country: Quebec or Canada?
CANADA, Hostie!
So why you not tell me Canada right away?
Because it don’t feel right. For me, Canada is Anne Murray, the Calgary Stampede, the Mounted Police, SARS, it’s not my home all that. Home, it’s La Famille Plouffe, Saraphin Poudrier, La P’tite Vie, Falix Leclerc, La Poune, Les Canadiens de Montreal, Les Bougons… Do you understand???
Less and less…
Listen, forget all that crap. Ask me another question.
Ok, what town you come from?
Mmm…, I don’t know anymore…
You not know what town you come from?
Yes, yes, I know what town I come from, but my town it merge with another town, but soon it is going to demerge from the town that was supposed to be my town…
Oh, that very complicated! When you write your address, what do you write?
I don’t know anymore. Before, I used to write Hull, but Hull changed to Gatineau, but they tell us to wait 3 years before stopping to write Hull to not mix up the mailman. But now, the Liberals they pass a law that make it ok for Gatineau to be Hull again, but I don’t know if we have to wait 3 years to be able to write Hull, or when the 3 years are passed, if we have to write Gatineau for 3 years, and after we write Hull. Unless, of course, the PQ come back in power and we remerge with Gatineau, then we’ll have to write Gatineau for 3 years.
I leave now; I have hurt in my head…
It’s so simple Tabarnak: My town is Hull, my country is Quebec. But if you prefer, my town is Gatineau and my country is Canada.
OK, I think I understand!
It’s about time. Anyway, it was fun talking to you, if you come around where I live; maybe you come and see me…
OK, but where? Hull in Quebec? Or Gatineau in Canada?
You’re a pain in the ass. Forget the whole thing
H/T to my friend Sandy
No more. I hate to say it, but no more.
For all you legitimate charities out there, you are the big losers. After organizations like MADD have reportedly put 80% or more of the donations they receive towards promoting for more donations … No More!
After a telemarketing ring in Montreal was busted yesterday with over 30 people tied in, I have to say … No More!
I think the BEST way I can help stop telemarketing fraud, and shady charity practices is to stop giving money to anyone who comes to my door, emails me, or telephones me.
When the money from stupid softhearted people like me dries up, the scams will stop.
Here’s a tidbit of information for you:
The Phonebusters Canadian anti-fraud call centre estimates that 500 to 1,000 criminal telemarketing boiler room operations are conducted on any given day in Canada, grossing about $1 billion a year.
I will continue to give to the one charity our family has always given to, and I will probably add a second charity this year, but beyond that, it had better be a good one and it had better be supported by numerous media outlets.