Aural Fixations

The Canadian - American Pollution Fight

2005-12-19T22:47:00.000-06:00

"It's really dumb to lecture them (the Americans) at a global forum on global warming, when Canada has been notoriously far more profligate in its greenhouse gas emissions than the United States. That's simple hypocrisy and the Americans are smart enough to know that." From an article in the BBC

Okay, the United States does have a better record than Canada on reducing greenhouse gases even though Canada has ratified the Kyoto agreement and the USA has not.

But let's look deeper at the US drop on emisssions. The last few years have seen rampant corporate corruption in the USA (Enron, etc) which wiped out the savings of a lot of regular people, at any given time 138 000 workers are out of the country to fight in Iraq, and we all witnessed the destruction of New Orleans. There have been announced layoffs at GM and Ford, none of these things bode well for the economy but may have a positive impact on pollution levels.

On the other Canada has large oil reserves and has seen growth in the oil and gas sector and helped to supply China's booming economy with raw materials. The Canadian dollar is higher and unemployment is lower than they have been in decades. Foriegn investors such as Toyota have off-set some of the lull in the North American auto sector in Canada. So yes, Canadian emissions have gone up. This is wrong but we have not many of the recent economic issues the Americans have, and I am not sure the American reduction has much to do with American priorities.

Racial Differences and Genetic Relations

2005-12-17T12:35:00.000-06:00

More data on the myth of race

From the Article:

Because modern humans originated in Africa, genetic variation among people of African descent tend to be the greatest of all ethnic groups. That means that a person of African descent and a European can be more closely related genetically than two people of African descent, he said. For example, Ethiopians with dark skin are more closely related genetically to Europeans than to West Africans, he said.

Operation Valkyrie?: The Generals Against Bush

2005-12-10T12:27:00.000-06:00

The Generals are now against the Bush War

From the Article

"Defense budgets are being cut. Personnel costs are skyrocketing, particularly in health care. Choices will have to be made. We cannot allow promises we have made to our military families in terms of service benefits, in terms of their health care to be negotiated away. Procurement programs that ensure our military dominance cannot be negotiated away. We must be prepared.

"The war in Iraq has caused huge shortfalls in our bases at home. I've been to three bases in the United States, and each one of them were short of things they need to train the people going to Iraq.

"Much of our ground equipment is worn out.

"Most importantly -- this is the most important point -- incidents have increased from 150 a week to over 700 in the last year. Instead of attacks going down over a time when we had additional more troops, attacks have grown dramatically. Since the revolution at Abu Ghraib, American casualties have doubled."

Sorry for the lame commentary, but this is an article worth reading

How to Avoid a Christmas Election and Respect Democracy

2005-11-14T19:10:00.000-06:00

Not that I think this is going to happen, nor am I that sure of how exactly this works but please indulge me...

If Liberals have lost the democratic right to govern by losing a vote in house that suggests they resign, I believe Steven Harper can go the GG and request that he be given a chance to see if he can form a government.

This both avoids the election nobody wants and puts Harper in coalition talks with the Bloc and NDP which rehabs his image as an idealogue and gives Bloc and NDP supporters some new influence - although I can see how this would all three leaders squirm. At minimum, this is a big media circus which makes the Tories, Bloc and NDP look like they really care what the voters think (not that I believe they or the Liberals do - with all due respect this is a battle of the egos).

Far-fetched? Yes. But interesting I think.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

2005-11-11T18:26:00.000-06:00

Rabble.ca hit a home run with this article on Spanish Civil War Veterans

The Spanish Civil War was a proxy war that took place just prior to World War 2. A group comprised of rightist Spaniards and fascist troops from Nazi Germany and Italy fought a group of folks usually classified as a bunch of anarchists and communists - especially in literature of the period. North American and most European governments held to the idea that fascism could be contained through diplomacy and sat on the sidelines while Spain fell to Franco and the fascists.

Canada had no official involvement in the conflict. North Americans who fought in Spain, crossed the ocean on forged documents to meet mysterious agents in France who trekked them onto battle. International volunteers in Spain dealt with tough conditions and existence in a dangerous and sometiems seedy underworld.

History should be very kind to veterans of the Spanish Civil War - the republicans who opposed the fascists in Spain seemed to understand what the fascist movement was capable of, something the rest of the World would only realize when Germany invaded Poland.

While Canada did not officially particpate in the Spanish Civil War, a fitting tribute or monument to the men who fell battling fascism in its early stages is certainly appropriate.

A Solemn Dignified Remembrance Day

2005-11-11T11:10:00.000-06:00

For the first time ever, no World War I veteran was present at Remembrance Day services.

As this era fades into the pages of history, it is important to reflect on the lessons of that war - Industrial Age War is a serious business, not to be taken lightly.

While tyrants must be dealt with, we must always remember it is not the leaders of a nation or the captains of industry who die in battle - and when selecting leaders we must always keep this in mind.

It must also be said, that Canada's Commander-In-Chief Michelle Jean seems to take her role very seriously - and shows genuine concern for the welfare of the military and military families. I hope all Canadian soldiers past and present come to respect and admire our new Governor General.

Belinda Stronach Raises Some Issues

2005-11-10T17:58:00.000-06:00

Belinda Stronach, pictured left has again raised the bar as far as our level of political discourse in Canada goes. Yep, I am talking dick jokes on This Hour has Twenty Two Minutes

"You know, I recommended to Stephen once that to rise in his polls he should take a little Viagra," she told Jones. "But the pill got stuck in his throat and all he got was a stiff neck."

Okay, maybe it wasn't a dick joke and more of a joke about being out of touch - a bit crude and maybe a little clever. Not terribly funny unless you picture how Steven Harper might react to it.

Belinda gains some press and a pot-shot at a political rival which amounts to a minor victory in that upcoming battle of the egos we are calling the Canadian federal election. Sure, I get to blog about Belinda talking dirty, and have an excuse to post a picture of one of Canada's more striking MP's - but seriously I would like to hear something about how the Canadian political class is going to improve the lives of regular people.

I am not sure what it says about our society if we keep electing agressive, gimmicky politicans full of quips, sound bytes and salesmanship. This is the commercialization of politcs and leadership, and I am fearful of the implications this has for our civilization.

Canadian Election Talk - Why I Hate This

2005-11-09T19:20:00.000-06:00

So it looks like Canadians will be going to the ballot box, most likely sooner that later.

Our last election was just over a year ago. Canadians already knew about the sponsorship scandal last year, the major players are all the same, and except for this nonsense and claptrap coming out of Ottawa it was a pretty quiet year.

Saskatchewan and Alberta received Royal Visits, the Canada games took place. There were no new peacekeeping missions for the military, no signficant tax changes, no real change in the mood of the country. We don't need to vote, fast forward one year since the last election and tell me what has changed besides the calendar?

Harper, Martin, Layton. With all do respect to these men, this is nothing more that a battle of egos. Each of these men think they are smart and special enough to improve on their performance last year. Not true. Harper is stiff, wooden, and has a mean and bitter streak. Martin talks a good game but seldom backs it up and Layton is a dick. It is damn near impossible to vote in Canada without feeling used.

Cynical you say? I used to be a total democracy geek. Last year, I helped a candidate canvass in the rain for several hours. I was a footsoldier, and now I am pissed off and feel burned by the political process. I am going to take this out on anyone unfortunate enough to cross my path and if the February 24, election day holds true - I will be dealing with these people after several months of prairie cold and darkness.

How am I going to vote? I will send out a slightly modified version of this rant - best reply wins my vote. Something along the lines "Given I think you are lower than weasels, why should I vote for you?".

Race and Football: A breakthrough

2005-09-25T12:18:00.000-06:00

I am a huge fan of the Canadian Football League, and I was actually at the game when the Saskatchewan Roughriders played the Toronto Argos.

So I was amazed to find when the Toronto Argonauts played the Saskatchewan Roughriders, it was the only time in professional football when two teams coached by black men played two teams quarterbacked by black men

Saskatchewan's GM Roy Shivers is also black and has a great eye for talented running backs.

More importantly it was a great game, won by the Roughriders and celebrated by the Rider nation. Go Green!

Drinking With Ernest Hemingway

2005-09-24T13:59:00.000-06:00

I found this article in Modern Drunkard Magazine - it is billed as true account of one man's attempt to drink Ernest Hemingway under the table.

I’d set myself up as the heroic hunter out to kill a murderous old lion , but he’d tricked me somehow and now I felt like the beast

Its a good read, and the writer picks up on some the ambience of Hemingway's writing but for some reason it rings as bullshit. Good bullshit, though.

Speaking of Hemingway, here is another good article on papa in disinfo
Documents released under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests show that Hemingway was semi-hired to spy on "unspecified insurgents" in Havana, and be paid with "special funds" by the US embassy. In 1942, the vigorously anti-Fascist Hemingway organized his own small spy-ring to watch for Nazi-sympathizers in Cuba.

Called the Crook Factory, the group was composed mainly of Hemingway's drinking circle, which was quite pervasive, as well as a few professional operatives. He bought a boat and named it Pilar, stocked it full of machine-guns, and homemade ordinance, then he and others would cruise the Caribbean, on the lookout for Nazi U-boats to hopefully drop a bomb down their hatch.

The Times printed a story that left the reader feeling that Hemingway was an unsuccessful spy, a traitorous, wheedling, backstabber for cash. According to a Hemingway biographer, he was "all too willing to inform on friends who trusted him, and all for $500 a month, from the FBI which he claimed to hate." This seems to be precisely what Robert Leddy, the FBI agent that was assigned to deal with Hemingway would most liked to have accomplished, the continued vilifying of Hemingway's sanity and honor years nearly forty years after his death. Hoover would have been proud.

Buried deep within the story comes this passage: "Leddy also worried that Hemingway might uncover American links to corrupt Cuban officials, such as the head of the secret police." Those signs of official US corruption must have been readily apparent even at that time, as the Mafia-gambling interests in Cuba were multi-million dollar enterprises, as well as the sugar industry. While Batista and his cronies robbed the Cuban people blind, Hemingway's amateurs gathered intelligence places where lips are loosest-in bars, over drinks. Hemingway may very well have uncovered something along the way, although there is no proof of that, because he left Cuba for World War II Europe in 1944, and was never nice about the FBI again.

...Again probably bullshit, but interesting bullshit. This article suggests that old, paranoid Hemingway was an ex-spy on the outs with the American establishment and fearing for his safety.

Land Reform in South Africa

2005-09-24T11:42:00.000-06:00

A white farmer is about to have his land taken away in South Africa.

This instance of land redistribution is not especially disturbing, the land may have been acquired improperly and the sticking point on negotiations is the price that the government is willing pay for this land compared to what the farmer is asking.

The scary thing about this situation is that people in the South African government feel they should seize lands faster like Zimbabwe. Land reforms in Zimbabwe have caused the currency to deflate, inflation, and shortages of most goods. At one time Zimbabwe was a rich country but troubled country, today it is poor enough to receive food aid. Giving farm land to non-farmers was a real blow to agricultural production and caused related problems like soil erosion.

South Africa has the potential to be a real light in Africa, the Zimbabwe course of action should not be taken and people in the west should monitor this situation closely, and encourage our governments to do the same.

The War in Iraq and the War in Vietnam

2005-09-15T23:21:00.000-06:00

All hell broke lose today in Iraq, and some far-left types are categorizing it as a Tet-like offensive and provided several comparisons to Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese who fought the US military. Iraqi militants were given heroic and flattering comparisons to an idealized Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh.

I jumped into the debate by mentioning that Ho Chi Minh was old and sick during much of the American war, and in fact died seven years before it ended. I went on to say that Ho Chi Minh had no more effect on the American War than King George had in World War 2 - he was simply an inspirational figure. I was called simple and lectured that I did not understand that this was the man who signed the plans to fight the Americans and the effect he had on Southeast Asia.

I am actually quite familiar with Vietnam where I spent several months living and working. So here's what I think of as a more balanced approach to the career and legacy of Ho Chi Minh.

Ho Chi Minh's early career is a mystery, he worked various labour jobs in Europe under many different assumed names (the name Ho Chi Minh itself is an assumed name) and probably discovered communism by hanging out with French intellectuals and then moving onto Soviet schools.

Ho returned to Vietnam and became the leader of the large and most successful nationalist faction and as the smaller factions working for Vietnamese unity were slowly smashed their members gravitated towards Ho - Ho was a charismatic figure who grew around him a still existent cult of personality (think North Korea) while visits from people like Fidel Castro only helped cement the perception he was a truly national leader instead of the head of a large nationalist faction.

Ho was often a pragmatist and his form of communism was not anti-American or anti-Western like the Al-Queda leaders he is presently compared to, in WW2 Ho doubtlessly saved American lives by advising the Vietnamese to hide downed American pilots until they could be turned over to Chinese forces instead of captured by the Japanese. At this time Ho probably did not anticipate he would bring about conditions that would later result in the Americans killing huge numbers of his people.

As mentioned, military victory had been obtained by North Vietnam following Ho's death by some seven years and the victorious communist movement consolidated its power by assuming control of all the good land in the South, and keeping that region poor and ignorant. Children and grandchildren from who families who fought on the American side 30 years ago do not receive equitable admission to University. Right now in the Mekong Delta there is one University that serves 30 million people, although some small technical schools are starting to pop up. Talk about these things and be prepared to spend the next several years being re-educated.

Ho was a good organizer, and understood the Vietnamese far better than the Americans or French. Outside of Vietnam he was less successful, the communist party he seeded in Cambodia evolved from Vietnamese Communist Party control into arguably the most murderous regime of the 20th century on a per capita basis.

Other legacies which extent through to today include one of the most restrictive presses in the world, internal travel restrictions to regions populated by the folk the Vietnamese call the "hill people" possibly to mask atrocities, and considerable religious persecution in the second most Catholic country in Asia. The first practice seems to go ignored and the second has only slowed recently because it tended to offend a small but very wealthy pool of Christian Korean investors.

So I would say Ho is a much less romantic and more complex figure than he is presented here and he did not create a socialist utopia. Ulimately I would call his career a success but I think many qualities and accomplishments are being wrongly attributed to him and his legacy is mixed at best.

The Canadian Red Ensign

2005-08-23T16:12:00.000-06:00

The flag you see here is Canada's old flag.

This is the flag that was carried in World War 1 and World War 2 by Canadian troops, in places like Vimy Ridge. These battles provided much of Canada's modern identity, and made the great powers realize that Canada deserved to speak with its own voice in world affairs instead of as an appendage of Britain.

The Red Ensign also tells the story of Canada's founding, The Union Jack in the corner shows that much of our parliamentary and democratic traditions come from Britain. The shield represents Canada's provinces.

This flag has always been popular among soldiers, descendants of loyalists, and monarchists. As these groups have become more far-flung and diminish in number, racists and other members of the far-right have tried to co-opt the Red Ensign as their own.

Quite clearly, this is an attempt by racists to distort history and attach themselves to an otherwise honourable Canadian symbol. John Diefenbaker was the most tireless advocate of the Red Ensign flag and strongly in favour of keeping apartheid era South Africa out of the British Commonwealth. Another thing to keep in mind is that the Red Ensign was carried by Canadian soldiers in Normandy, Sicily and other battles against fascists. I am not sure why racists would attempt to make claims to a symbol most notably attached to values diamatrically opposed to everything they believe in - but they are.

I call on every Canadian to see that this proud flag, which speaks to so much of our history is appreciated, respected, displayed and understood by all Canadians.

While it may be true the Red Ensign flag changed for mostly political reasons, all young Canadians were born or arrived under the Maple Leaf Flag - a good, attractive flag which stands out and continues to gain significance. In the meantime, lets' keep the cranks and racists from sullying the good name of Canada's former flag or Canada's history.

Boo! There is a Computer Virus Out

2005-08-16T19:38:00.000-06:00

Alright folks, I am a computer expert and work on a very large Windows server farm which requires better than 99% uptime.

Here is what you do to protect yourself:

1) Download your patches from Microsoft, a lot of people don't do this. An unpatched operating system is like a gate swinging in the wind.

2) Make sure your virus definitions are up-to-date. There are a few free anti-virus programs out there if you don't have one.

3) Firewalls really don't help much with viruses but are kind of nice for other kinds of attacks, install one - hardware firewalls work even better and have gotten cheap.

4) TURN YOUR COMPUTER OFF WHEN YOU ARE NOT USING IT. Be careful about doing this in the office - IT Departments will often push out patches etc to your machine at night.

5) Don't keep credit card numbers, or other important data on a machine that is connected to the Internet if at all possible.

6) Be very careful of the software you download - especially warez, these often have Trojans. There are some very good programs which remove spyware, run them periodically in safe mode.

7) Linux, Mozilla and other things hyped by the geek community are not anymore secure than your Windows/Intel machine unless you know what you are doing. Very few people are truly Linux/Unix experts and it is vey difficult to track down an engineer who could repair say a large scale network problem with that O/S - which is why you find it mostly on things like web/mail servers (which standalone and perform fairly simple functions that haven't changed much over the years).

Mozilla is a good browser - but it needs frequent patches and updates, it is not heavily centralized and "secure versions" may be tough to locate. Its okay on a home machine, or a standalone computer but it worries me on networks.

Why Fans Should Boo Rafael Palmeiro

2005-08-14T23:28:00.000-06:00

I watched the Toronto Blue Jays play Baltimore today, and saw the mixed reaction of the fans when Viagra spokesman and noted George Bush supporter Rafael Palmeiro came to bat.

Hopefully this post will reach a few fence sitters.

You see, today Rafael came up to bat in a critical situation, 2 outs, 9th inning - men in scoring position. A hit in Palmeiro's final at bat gives Baltimore a tie or possibly a win but it wasn't a fair fight - the situation was Juiced guy vs clean guy, Palmeiro flew out - but if in an alternate universe he gets a hit and Baltimore beats Toronto, Raf's cheating pays off and the Blue Jays walk home empty-handed - falling even further behind in their faint hope pennant chase. Since every baseball game is a playoff game, the current steroid solution is no good.

A few guys have been suspended for using steriods this year, Palmeiro is just the most famous. For the integrity of the game, a ten game suspension is just stupid, the steriod user is still going to be juiced on his return. The steriod suspension should be 40 games minimum, this costs the player a significant amount of money and some damage to a career and leaves more time for the drug effects to wear off. For a second offence the ban should be a year, and third time offender should receive a lifetime ban with no possiblity of entering the hall of fame.

Second thing, Rafael Palmeiro stood up and called Jose Canseco a liar when he said baseball was full of steroids, and testified before a grand jury in the US that he had never touched them. So now Rafael is not only a cheater, his medical testing proves he is a liar. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying and he even said he was sorry.

I could probably forgive Palmeiro if he showed a little humility and apologized to the Baltimore faithful and baseball fans. Instead Rafael was talking about how his steriod suspension caused stress to himself and his family. Not one word on how Palmeiro stressed and hurt the game that made him more money than he will every spend.

Fans, boo Rafael Palmerio he doesn't care about you or the integrity of the game you love.

Our Terrorism Policy

2005-07-09T15:30:00.000-06:00

A Good Quote

2005-07-03T02:44:00.000-06:00

"Too many policemen, no liberty; Too many soldiers, no peace; Too many lawyers, no justice." Lin Yutang (1895-1976)

Why I Hate Rockstars, Part 2

2005-06-22T19:19:00.000-06:00

In a taped message played at the Tuesday news conference announcing Canada's venue, Geldof told Martin (Paul Martin is the PM of Canada for my non-Canadian friends) in no uncertain terms to not bother attending the "wealthy" G8 meetings next month if he isn't prepared to cough up even more financial aid for Africa saying, "There's no use your prime minister coming to Scotland unless he's prepared to do this deal. If he's not prepared, stay at home, just stay at home, don't come." Geldof admitted later to purposely using bullying tactics adding, "We don't have the time now for niceties . . . What is the point of coming to a G8 if you're not prepared to go along with the agenda?

As Dennis Leary would say, let's pull this bus over the side of the pretentiousness turnpike.

Bully-boy rants from aging rockstars aside Paul Martin has had a fairly generous African policy, and whether he agrees with Bob Geldof or not he was properly elected to speak for Canada and has every right to put forward his position at the G8 conference in Scotland. Martin has a much better mandate to speak for Canadians than Geldof - I can't say I know anyone who has even downloaded Sir Bob's (aka "The World's Worst DJ") records for free.

In fact, musically the Canadian lineup is not made up of current chart-toppers - it consists mostly of bands that are at or near the end of their run. As a cultural phenomenon, it may miss the point. This isn't the Beastie Boys push for freedom for East Timor at the height of their popularity.

As a charitable act, putting on Live 8 may make Bob Geldof and Motley Crue feel pretty good, but anyone who has been in Africa for something other than a photo op or a resort vacation knows there are problems that throwing money at won't fix. Zimbabwe for example is a donor state, living off foreign handouts and bulldozing people's homes to scare off rivals to the regime of dictator Robert Mugabe. Giving away money here may be a bad idea, sub-Saharan Africa is a very cold place this time of year.

I don't want to encourage people to boycott Live 8, but donate to your favorite causes as you normally do and don't put up with rockstars trying to push around democratic governments.

Arab - Israeli Relations

2005-06-20T23:41:00.000-06:00

I don't have the answer to the problems in Palestine.

I don't really have a theory either.

But I wish both sides would begin and end with the basic principle that killing people is wrong.

Conspiracy Theory and Freemasonry

2005-05-29T02:04:00.000-06:00

I read an article called Freemasonry: mankind Death Wish I am an active Freemason, and I read but usually don't like to enter public debate with anti-masons as I don't like their ideas reaching any kind of wider audience but the tone and content of this particular article needs to be addressed.

From the article:

Lina and others who attempt to alert humanity to its real condition are routinely slandered as anti-Semitic, fascist, and right wing "haters" by people indirectly employed by the bankers.

This tactic shields the conspirators from scrutiny and makes discussion of our grim predicament impossible

Fine, I won't call the good doctor anti-Semitic, fascist or right wing - but this IS a conspiracy theory based on wild leaps of logic, unconfirmed rumors, partially-understood Masonic thought and ritual, and a few outright untruths.

The common goal of these Masonic inspired movements is to undermine race, religion, nation and family ("all collective forces except our own") by promoting social division, self indulgence and "tolerance" i.e. miscegenation, atheism, nihilism, global-ism, sexual "liberation" and homosexuality thereby reducing humanity to a uniform dysfunctional and malleable mush.

None of this is stated anywhere in Masonic ritual. I won't link to it, but the entire body of masonic ritual can be located on the World Wide Web through a google search, it is available if you wish to read through it. As for these other movements reported to be promoted by masonry, there is little basis in reality for these claims. Sexual Liberation was never discussed in the 18th century when the present-day form of masonry emerged and Masons are taught to value family, religion and community above all else. An atheist cannot be a mason and a belief in a higher power is necessary to be initiated. Again, you can look this up.

The Great Seal of the United States on every dollar bill is a Masonic symbol. There are 33 steps on the side of the pyramid representing the 33 degrees of Freemasonry. The Masons established the United States as a base to advance their goal of world supremacy.

Similarly, the emblem of the United Nations is also a Masonic symbol. The world is caught in a grid consisting of 33 spaces surrounded by acacia leaves, which signifies intense activity in masonry. (215)

It is true that the pyramid on the back of the American one dollar bill is a Masonic symbol - many of the signers of declaration of independance were Masons and formed a considerable part of early American government but this business about 33rd degree masons is not true. Freemasonry, "craft masonry" or "Blue Lodge" has only 3 degrees (Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason). A 33rd degree Mason belongs to another Masonic organization, often called a "rite" either York or Scottish - most masons belong to neither of these organizations, they expand upon the teachings of the three A 33rd degree York/Scottish Rite mason does not "outrank" a 3rd degree mason. Nor are Blue Lodge masons ignorant of masonry's "true functions" as the article goes on to say - does the title "Master Mason" sound like a title awarded to someone ignorant of his own organization?

As for the United Nations symbol, I have never heard of this - this is numerology and conspiracy theory.

Three-quarters of US presidents in the Twentieth Century were high-level Masons. Both Bush and Kerry are Masons (Skull and Bones.) FDR, Churchill, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin were masons. Most Zionist leaders were and are Masons. Gerhard Schroeder, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair are Freemasons. So is Sadaam Hussein, which suggests the Iraq war could be a sadistic charade.

I am not familiar with the biographies of all these individuals but this list contains a few facts thrown in with a bunch of speculation and outright lies. Several US Presidents were masons - George Washington was a very active freemason. FDR and Churchill are correctly identified freemasons (Churchill was initiated but not very active).

Neither George W Bush or Bush the elder are masons - Skull and Bones is not a masonic organization. Some of this confusion stems from the fact that George HW Bush took his oath of office on a Masonic Bible - but is not himself a mason. I have read several books and articles on John Kerry and I cannot find one verifiable source that identifies him as a mason.

Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin were all Soviet leaders, and consequently athiests who could not be masons. Tony Blair is often regarded as anti-masonic for his governments' call for masonic judges and police officers to identify themselves on a list.

Is masonry stage-managing world history behind the scenes? No, the percentage of liberals and conservatives in masonry is about the same as it is anywhere else in the world and getting such an ethnically and culturally diverse group to agree on how history should play out while maintaing strict secrecy is impossible.

Consider this, powerful men like Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton (who did in fact, at one point belong to a youth organization related to Masonry) could not keep their affairs secret - imagine a cabal of local people in your town trying to keep a plan for world domination under wraps. Human nature dictates my lodge seldom agrees on what kind of beer to buy for our dinners.

Friends, simple explanations are usually correct. Be reasonable.

Another Iraq Buzzkill Posting

2005-05-27T20:35:00.000-06:00

Judging by google news, the story that Abu Musab al-Zarqai is injured and out of the picture in the Iraq is hardly a cause for much joy.

The media places too much value on the big names in world affairs.

We've all seen this before. The capture of Saddam was hardly a turning point in the Gulf War- very few people in world history as individuals had enough power to convince others to wage war. To suggest that removing al-Zargai will stop the rebellion is like suggesting the death of Pope John Paul II would end catholicism.

History has shown us that the Soviet Union continued without Lenin and Stalin, and Communist China survived without Mao - there are no easy answers.

More encouraging, is the proposed show of force in Baghdad.

Iraq's government said on Thursday it would pour tens of thousands of Iraqi troops into Baghdad in an unprecedented operation to seal off the city and hunt fighters

The armchair general crowd - not an excitable lot - seem to think this is a good strategy.

Francis Tusa, editor of the London-based Defence Analysis newsletter, said it will depend in large part on whether the Iraqi troops are well-enough trained and equipped.

"In terms of this type of conflict -- low-intensity counterterrorist type -- usually a lot of manpower is frequently the only solution," he said in an interview. "This type of warfare tends to always take up many more troops than just literally going out and having a good kick-in."

As for whether the Iraqi soldiers are up to the task, even while backed by 10,000 U.S. troops in the capital: "Let's wait and see," he said.

Mr. Tusa said the technique of flooding a city with roadblocks and patrols has worked elsewhere to control insurgencies. He cited the way French forces closed off the casbah (market quarter) of Algiers in the late 1950s, during the war for Algerian independence.

The French "may have lost the war, but they did win that one and they did it by literally flooding the entire area," he said.

Source

Times Change in Africa

2005-05-27T14:21:00.000-06:00

Times changes, empires rise and fall. Once again we see evidence of that old truth happening in South Africa as the capital, Pretoria is changing its name to Tshwane. Over the last 20 years or so, this has happened in a number of African countries where a place with a European or colonial name changes to an African name (which is problematic in its own right - South Africa, has several official languages and a minority European-descended population which has lived in the region for centuries.)

However, I approach this change as one who has lived in South Africa - I was there for several months from 2002 to 2003 and visited the city then known as Pretoria. Changing the name of Pretoria to Tshwane won't build any houses, create any jobs, or stop the spread of AIDS. South Africa faces a lot of very real problems, and I tend to think the people would benefit more from a government that concerned itself with bread and butter issues over a rather problematic change of political symbols.

I am not against the name change, this is the stuff of history - Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul are the same place but these names reflect different rulers and phases of its development. As the democratic regime in South Africa puts its stamp on the country the name change makes sense, but with so many other problems in South Africa I think it is an unwise use of resources.

Basketball's MVP: Shoot baskets not people

2005-05-11T23:48:00.000-06:00

Some details on Steve Nash....

Nash was the first high profile athlete to come out against Dick Cheney's "war of a generation" showing up at the 2003 All-Star game in 2003 wearing a T-shirt that read, "Shoot baskets not people." When questioned on his incendiary attire, Nash said, "I think that war is wrong in 99.9 percent of all cases. I think [Operation Iraqi Freedom] has much more to do with oil or some sort of distraction, because I don't feel as though we should be worrying about Iraq." He also showed far more prescience than Bush, Cheney, Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice saying, "I think that Saddam Hussein is a crazy dictator but I don't think he's threatening us at this point in time. We haven't found any nuclear weapons -- no matter what anyone says -- and that process is still under way. Until that's finished and decided I don't think that war is acceptable." He then reiterated his position that, "Unfortunately, this is more about oil than it is about nuclear weapons."

Nash also took issue with the pro-war media. Two years before the New York Times and The Washington Post were forced to issue apologies for their slavish, slothful pro-war coverage, Nash said, "I think a lot of what we hear in the news is misleading and flat-out false, so I think it's important for us to THINK deeper and find out what is really going on." He didn't backpedal from this stance despite criticism from his boss at the time, Mavs owner Mark Cuban and Spurs center David Robinson who said, ""If it's an embarrassment to [Nash] maybe [he] should be in a different country." Nash also was profiled in one mainstream paper earlier this season where he casually mentioned that the last book he read was The Communist Manifesto.

full article

Wow. it is really nice to see that some athletes care a little bit more about things other than money and fame.

Thank You Alanis Morrissette

2005-04-20T21:42:00.000-06:00

You know, I am sometimes troubled by the fact that I used to be an international development worker, sleeping under mosquito nets and earning a few bucks a month while now I worry about RRSP's, and car payments which I pay for with money earned from a big corporation. I can't help but worry that one day I am going to be old and need the money to take care of myself.

I think of myself as a sellout, I admit - the only reason I am where I am today is because of the money.

Luckily, I have Alanis around to write angry little pop songs and call herself a "a dirty little hippy" this woman is a millionare, lives in Los Angeles, and just signed a record distribution deal with big, corporate, globalist, Starbucks. I thought I was spoiling myself when I bought an imported car.

But it gets better...

quote:
You've recently become a US citizen. Why did you decide to take the oath? And are you proud to be an American?

Prouder than I thought. At the swearing in, I was actually a little choked up. The US and Canada are very different so there was a cultural shock when I moved here 11 years ago. Canadians are a lot more interactive. Americans, especially in Hollywood, tend to just monologue at each other and think they are having a conversation. But I love America; it's been good to me.

What was this for? To vote for George Bush? Tax Breaks? or just another angle to help rip the last dollar bill from the American market?

I remember an Alanis song called "Thank You", Well Thank-you Alanis for showing me I am a very little fish in the selling out game. Kevin Smith was right, you really are a god - and I think I have discovered your sphere of influence.

The Best HST Eulogy

2005-04-17T00:33:00.000-06:00

Here is the Hunter S Thompson tribute from Modern Drunkard magazine

Quote:
Nowadays the main rule is Play It Safe. Not only should you look before you leap, you should think very seriously about attending a Leapers Anonymous meeting and discussing the possibility that you have a leaping problem. We’re all told at one point to tone it down, to start behaving responsibly and settle into that grey lockstep toward the prison of death. Nearly everyone eventually bows to that pressure, which is what made Hunter such a rare creature. He never backed down, he never sold out the ideals of his youth; instead of toning it down he cranked it up.

Amen

Ultimate Warrior vs Something Awful

2005-04-15T22:36:00.000-06:00

If you were a kid like me in 80-90's chances are good you know the Ultimate Warrior.

These days, he talks (or rants) rather than wrestles.

Here is an exchange between UW and something awful This may be the funniest thing on the Internet.

The Pope and Politics

2005-04-08T00:23:00.000-06:00

The pope did not end communism from Slate.

Other news on the passing of the pope...

Robert Mugabe attends papal funeral in spite of EU travel ban. I guess stealing elections and starving your populace is not a good enough reason to keep Mugabe out of Italy.

The Papal funeral causes a bump in Chinese/Taiwanese relations

Historical Comparisons and Mental Exercise

2005-04-08T00:16:00.000-06:00

The 14 characteristics of Fascism. Heavy reading verson or shiny objects version

This isn't really happening is it?

Again Do Not Believe the Hype - They Want YOU to be Scared

2005-04-07T23:21:00.000-06:00

I live in Canada, do not believe articles like this which refer to Canada's Death Row and discuss the shortcomings in Canadian medical care.

First, there is no such thing as "Canadian Medicare", healthcare across Canada is administered by the provinces and the standards can vary quite considerably. The author of this piece has little regard for truth, objectivity, or the feelings of regular Canadians.

Knock on wood, I have no longstanding health issues at present. Everytime I have walked into an emergency room spurting blood, or wracked with pain I was well taken care of, usually shortly after I walked in the door.

The system is far from perfect, and a lot of people find fault with the system but when polled most Canadians (around 3/4) were happy with care they received last time they went to the hospital. Tommy Douglas, the founder of Medicare was just voted the "greatest Canadian" on CBC television. (he didn't have my vote, but he won fair and square)

I know I have been treated well everytime I was in pain or injured - so to my American friends - demand better and don't be afraid of these lies.

On Bullshit

2005-03-20T22:51:00.000-06:00

Slate, has an article discussing the use of the term "bullshit"

Quote:
"It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth—this indifference to how things really are—that I regard as the essence of bullshit....

For example:
Richard Nixon knew he was bombing Cambodia. Does George W. Bush have a clue that his Social Security arithmetic fails to add up? How can he know if he doesn't care?

What not to put in an Internet Personals Ad

2005-03-20T21:25:00.000-06:00

I am not going to claim to be a love doctor or anything like that, but I would like to mention here the things that will trigger red flags when I am reading an Internet personals ad. This is just my personal list, do take it as you will...

These are the the things that will turn me off:

- A really general ad. "I am usually an easy to get along with person, and I am pretty much up for anything". This sounds eager to please, which is a good thing - but I think people who are too willing to make big compromises in the beginning are heading for big trainwrecks later.

- Ads which proclaim love for booze and drugs. Amazing the number of these you see, and there was a time in my life when I couldn't list any of my hobbies on my resume - but this isn't the kind of woman I want over the long term.

- Married women, going through a divorce is married. This is a minefield.

- Putting kids in the profile picture. I am open to a woman with children, but this invites the question of just what that woman's primary relationship is. I am nearly 30 years old, and I know that the women I meet aren't virgins - but putting the children's photo on your profile shows me a mind and heart that is somewhere else. I want the woman of my dreams to be both a great lover and companion, and a good mother.

- Rap and chat speak, from anyone over the age of 23. Sorry, but to me this shows a lack of an intellectual life.

- Any slagging of the ex-boyfriends, again this shows what (or who) is front and centre in the person's mind and since she is saying these things about some other unknown man, he is innocent until proven guilty and I wouldn't want to be in his shoes and won't place myself in this position.

My tip: put some content in there. Tell me about something you love, or hate, or fear. Give me something to wonder about, act on, or ask about... you want to build a mystery here.

My New Adventure in Internet Personals Ads

2005-03-20T20:58:00.000-06:00

I admit having tried Internet personal ads a few times without much success. My total success - One date with a nice, but slightly weird girl which never ended up with a second, it is hard to say what went wrong but I wasn't much interested in a second and I don't think she was either. No spark maybe, but I can't say I am disappointed that she is not having my babies.

I haven't exactly been burned through Internet dating but I think it may be a general waste of time. The people who have big problems with dating on the 'net I find, are generally the type to have big problems with everything. I am about to place another ad, because I happened to surf a couple of profiles that pretty much fit my criteria for a future wife exactly. I was quite taken aback to find more than one profile that worked for me. I'm just going to try these couple of women and if it doesn't pan out, quit again for a while.

I admit the nerd factor on this is pretty high, but given the fact I use a computer for everything else - I might as well use it to try and find a woman. My hairline is receding at a rate I find alarming, my 30th birthday is in a matter of months, and I am finding it harder and harder to stay in halfway decent shape in spite of the fact I am working out like a demon. I am aging and this is motivating me perhaps more sincerely than before.

I don't go to bars, and you rarely catch me in the mall. I haven't set foot in a church in years - so I don't really meet a lot people but I can't help but be bothered a little bit by the dating scene. I think most of our style, aesthetic, fashion and perception of what is cool and desirable are motivated either by greed or narcissism. There are places and people that are not like this, and I hope to find one.

A Call for Colonialism?

2005-03-11T21:57:00.000-06:00

I was a little taken aback by this article and more specifically this quote, which is discussing strategic mistakes made by the West towards the Muslim world:

The first strategic mistake made by the West was to assume that its long-term interests were best served by a world in which Islamic states were mired in poverty and backwardness.

The West made a strategic mistake to not see the huge importance of encouraging the success of Muslim moderates in Islamic societies in time.

The second strategic mistake, which flowed from the first, was a policy never articulated, perhaps never conscious, but nevertheless very real not to share the successful policies of modernization with the Islamic world.

The United States had a Marshall Plan to develop Europe after World War II even a plan to develop Japan.

Well, one does not democraticize a tolitarian region with group hugs...

The modernization of Germany and Japan took place solely for strategic reasons - these nations presented a very strong and immediate threat to Western society, and their transformations required a very stern military presence which did not ease for several decades after World War 2. The cost in terms of lives and dollars spend was astronomical and could not possibly be carried out on a world scale.

Furthermore this analysis also fails to note that in the years following World War 2, that the Soviet Union propped up alternatives to democracy and capitalism which made it tough to spread these values to other nations. Western military adventures in Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines were prolonged, deadly, and unfufilling. The Soviets themselves became bogged down in Afghanistan, while flare ups including African nationalist movements and the founding of the State of Israel made world politics, and military conflict inherently more complex. The newly created United Nations gave less powerful nations a stronger voice in world affairs which generally frowned on occupation, and the advent of nuclear weapons raised the stakes of military conflict even higher. Considering that the occupation of most Muslim countries would have put Western troops right on the Soviet border, the potential for causing a catastrophe in an attempt to democraticize a Muslim country was very high.

So, no - there was no real effort on the part of the West to democraticize, and spread the values of the enlightenment to Muslim countries - historically that ship had sailed and any attempt to interfere in the affairs of those nations would have been far too deadly to be carried out.

Things really haven't changed that much in the new millennium, and so far the Bush doctrine is not returning many successes even without a power like the Soviet Union to prop up its opponents. On the other hand, India and China have modernized independently without a significant Western contribution - forces within these countries caused those changes. Change will come from within when the time is right.

Evangelical Christians Getting Into Environmentalism

2005-03-11T00:07:00.000-06:00

I had often thought that the Evangelical view of environmental issues was that if humans poisoned the Earth - Jesus would rescue believers, yet the New York Times is reporting that some Evangelical churches are starting to take stewardship of the Earth seriously.

A quote

climate change would have disproportionate effects on the poorest regions in the world. Hurricanes, droughts and floods are widely expected to intensify as a result of climate change

Naturally the above mentioned problems cause concern for suffering and public order which affects even Evangelicals - so there does seem to be room for dialogue.

Personally, I would gain a lot of respect for the Evangelical movement if this turns out to be true.

Habitat for Humanity Fires Founder

2005-03-10T22:24:00.000-06:00

Habitat For Humanity putting aside semi-legendary founder Millard Fuller is an interesting move.

At one time, Fuller was a wealthy lawyer who found life unsatisfying and his marriage falling apart so he and his wife founded Habitat for Humanity, repaired their marriage and found meaning in life. Today he is reported to live a fairly modest life somewhere in the Southern United States, and counts among his friends respected public figures including Jimmy Carter.

I have no doubt that Habitat helps people. I have said on this blog a few times that people often worry about correctness and end up doing nothing at all, Habitat is an active organization and I have first-hand insights into the effects of their works. I know literally hundreds of Habitat for Humanity homeowners and saw some of them move from shacks to their Habitat for Humanity homes. Often a new house is just a house, but sometimes a break like HFH provides can turn people's lives around.

As good as Habitat is, it can have undesired effects on an area. For one, I know that Habitat's use of volunteer labour and corporate donations are being held up in some areas as an example of a way to dismantle the government social safety net and take care of the poor at the same time. I am not sure this is such a good thing, as even very active Habitat for Humanity affiliates do not build more than a few houses per month - in spite of the publicity it receives - Habitat forms a very small part of the housing solution in virtually any area it operates. Habitat dislikes being used politically that way, but it happens.

As for Fuller he is an icon and has done his part to build up his own legend, a quick search of Amazon.com will bring up books the former President has written expanding on his transformation from covetous, sinful, plundering lawyer to a Pius, humble, Christian builder of homes for the poor. How this story breaks down I am not sure, but Millard Fullard was offered a salary of $76 000 USD for life to retire just a few years ago which still places him in pretty elite company:

With a salary of $76 000/year

You are in the top 0.743% richest people in the world.
There are 5,955,376,435 people poorer than you.

Source

I don't doubt Millard Fuller has done a lot of good but whatever may come of the allegations leveled against him regarding sexual misconduct, I am pretty sure he is a person I am in no position to emulate and has little in common with the average HFH homeowner he champions.

But that is being cynical, I still think people should support Habitat for Humanity in spite of one's politics or feelings towards individuals - the key here is to care about the regular people, I mean the mothers who will get the chance to move from a shack to a house - the well-being of the little guy is what is important in both Habitat's and Fuller's work.

Marijuana Party Founder Joins Liberal Party in Canada

2005-02-28T22:58:00.000-06:00

The right-wingers in Canada get a few more softball insults.

Why make is so easy?

UN Troops, Sex Abuse and the Bush Doctrine

2005-02-28T00:26:00.000-06:00

There is an article on Reuters about violent and exploitative sex acts being committed by UN troops on peacekeeping missions.

I've already seen some bloggers use this article to downplay what happened in Abu Ghraib, because there is a knee jerk impulse to say "see, other countries do this too".

Wars have a tendency to create confusing messes. Rapes, theft and violence occur with alarming frequency when armies pass through a territory - soldiers mixing with a civilian population are in a very unequal power relationship because in a war, might makes right. There are still sometimes problems between American soldiers and Japanese civilians on Okinawa - and nobody in Japan is under the kind of pressures faced by military personnel in Iraq or the Congo.

We have other examples of this.

During the conflict in Somalia, one of Canada's elite units - the Airborne was disbanded for killing civilians and making new members go through a disgusting hazing ritual. I believe this was in large part, the fault of the Canadian government. Canada sent its' most elite unit of trained killers into a politically sensitive, delicate and unstable environment and they responded by doing what they knew best - destroying the enemy. This type of mission would have been much more suitable for some kind of police unit or civil response team, sending the guys who shoot first and ask questions later was a mistake.

In a secure area, which Iraq is not - the duties of rebuilding a country and establishing a civil society are best performed by civilian aid workers rather than soldiers or military contractors. The cost of one cruise missile can fund several thousand aid workers - recruiting, training, and deploying an aid worker to Africa for six months costs about $15, 000 - a big portion of which is air travel, so the number goes down the longer the volunteer is in the field.

I am not saying that aid workers could overthrow Saddam, but they could be useful in helping to fill the vacuum after the war.

Danny Finkleman Retires

2005-02-26T02:34:00.000-06:00

Canadian radio is losing an icon in Danny Finkleman. For those of you who don't know who he is, Finkelman plays old records and complains about new-fangled gadgets, the modern world and technology he can't use. I can't say I am a big fan, but I have listened a few times.

Here's my most vivid Finkleman memory...

I have returned to Saskatchewan after spending the better part of two years overseas and I am staying at my parent's house. My brother has his annoying girlfriend over, I grab my golf clubs with the intention of hitting a bucket of balls or two at the driving range - getting something to drink and heading home later.

The driving range is about 15KM out of Regina and I live close to edge of town. I take the back roads as a shortcut. Driving in rural Saskatchewan is a lot like driving in the Arctic, sometimes there are no landmarks at all on the flat prairie.... Somewhere I miss the turn to the driving range.

I hit the Qu'Appelle valley and the plains start rolling into valleys and I know I've gone too far, but after winding through the valley I don't even know which direction I'm going. This unsettling because it is kind of like being lost in your yard - this is the way to the beach and I used to go crazy-carpeting out this way - but damned if I can remember the directions. Still I'm kind of enjoying taking these valley, gravel topped corners too fast - I see a few deer. The grass is tall and uncut on the side of the road, and I'm in my car sitting low - not a good vantage point, I hope no deer suprise me...

I start getting a little scared as the fuel indicator hits the E-mark as I still don't know where I am. It's getting to be a coolish evening, there are no cars around, and the air is thick with mozzies - I'm in shorts and a T-shirt, with no bug repellant, so this would be a thoroughly unpleasant walk - made even worse because I don't even know which direction to go when I start.

I put these thoughts aside because there is still a chance I can drive out. My tires are a little overinflated and I'm still taking the curves fast, oversteering on purpose, braking, and sliding on the gravel for thrills and I am not sure who this display of bravado is for. My crazy, erratic driving is set to songs about sock hops while Finkleman rants about the reliablity of washing machines.

WTF! I'm starting to lose it, and Finkleman is on the radio talking about front loading washing machines and the Maytag Man... I curse Finkleman for his failure to evolve, I curse 50's pop music for it's cheery outlook and innocence, I curse my broken mind for forgetting directions in an area I should know. There is a real world out there Finkleman, and I am lost in in it - make yourself useful and talk about say..... survival techniques.

I round a curve - success! A yuppie home. I am in the small bedroom community of Lumsden, where I bought gas, a bag of cheezies and a Pepsi before taking the main highway home..

Condi Rice's Outfit

2005-02-26T01:32:00.000-06:00

I just didn't want to be the last blogger not to comment on Condi Rice's outfit.

She is not an altogether unattractive woman, and is kind of stylish - usually when I picture a politican's style I come up with Ralph Nader. That is to say, Nader looks like he forgot to take off his clothes when they were last washed.

Ideally politics is about substance over style but this isn't something you see very often.

An Interesting Result from a Political Test

2005-02-22T22:54:00.000-06:00

Well, I took the moral politics test and was deemed a "moderate conservative".

Matches

The following items best match your score:

1. System: Conservatism
2. Variation: Moderate Conservatism
3. Ideologies: Capital Republicanism
4. US Parties: Republican Party
5. Presidents: George H. Bush (86.56%)
6. 2004 Election Candidates: George W. Bush (81.12%), John Kerry (70.94%), Ralph Nader (57.10%)

Statistics

Of the 46460 people who took the test:

1. 0.3% had the same score as you.
2. 42.6% were above you on the chart.
3. 50.3% were below you on the chart.
4. 9.3% were to your right on the chart.
5. 87.1% were to your left on the chart.

Folks, you've seen my views on George W Bush, and party card I am referring to in my previous blog was one for a socialist party. This test is bunk, but kind of fun anyway - I think it weighs values of equality and poltical correctness too high and there were a couple of questions I didn't like any of the answers on...

Burning the Party Card

2005-02-21T16:10:00.000-06:00

I have been reflecting a lot lately on my past political involvement.

I've worked on campaigns, canvassed, made phone calls, and spend my free time fighting for the work of people and causes I considered honourable but found there was basically no climate for my ideals to grow in.

The voters often voted for smart fools or didn't care at all, the media was uncritical and seemed to print press releases verbatim without comment, I received a number of minor assaults on my character and all kinds of unflattering characterizations. I met some good people, but I also met a large number of individuals who could not even maintain decorum and civil discussion even over a couple of what I thought were friendly pints or coffees.

I have become tired of being told I am doing the right thing while I see the lives of normal people get worse on an everyday basis. Fighting the good fight is at best a cold and intellectualized form of comfort. We live in dark, dark times. The values of the elightenment, democracy, and civil society as we know it are under constant, unrelenting attack and the right can just keep blaming the government, taxes, or organized labour. Just as often, the left blames big business, the patriarchy, imperialist attitudes or whatever cookie cutter seems to fit the "movement" at any given time.

I am not going away, but I think I can accomplish more by donating money and time directly to the causes I believe in, gathering my energies and deploying them at critical points, and ensuring my own house is in order.

Hunter S Thompson's Death and the World He Left

2005-02-20T23:34:00.000-06:00

Perhaps he found what he came here for, but the odds are huge that he didn't. He was an old, sick, and very troubled man, and the illusion of peace and contentment was not enough for him-- not even when his friends came up from Cuba and played bullfight with him in the Tram. And finally, and for what he must have thought the best of reasons, he ended it with a shotgun.

The above quote was HST speaking on Ernest Hemingway and now HST, like Hemingway is dead at his own hand.

HST could be ranting, raving, drug addled and paranoid but every once in a while he achieved clarity that few others could muster. I will paste below his thoughts on Bush the younger, and the comparison to Richard Nixon is pretty telling considering what HST thought of the former US president.

HST overfocused on the sixties like many of his generation, and that makes this piece below all the more interesting.

Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

by Hunter S. Thompson

Let's face it, the yo-yo president of the U.S.A. knows nothing. He is a dunce. He does what he is told to do, says what he is told to say, poses the way he is told to pose. He is a Fool. This is never an easy thing for the voters of this country to accept. No. Nonsense. The president cannot be a Fool. Not at this moment in time, when the last living vestiges of the American Dream are on the line. This is not the time to have a bogus rich kid in charge of the White House. Which is, after all our house. That is our headquarters, it is where the heart of America lives. So if the president lies and acts giddy about other people's lives, if he wantonly and stupidly endorses mass murder as a logical plan to make sure we are still Number One, he is a Jackass by definition. A loud and meaningless animal with no functional intelligence and no balls. To say that this goofy child president is looking more and more like Richard Nixon in the summer of 1974 would be a flagrant insult to Nixon. Whoops! Did I say that? Is it even vaguely possible that some New Age Republican whore-beast of a false president could actually make Richard Nixon look like a Liberal?

The capacity of these vicious assholes we elected to be in charge of our lives for four years to commit terminal damage to our lives and our souls and our loved ones is far beyond Nixon's. Shit! Nixon was the creator of many of the once-proud historical landmarks that these dumb bastards are savagely destroying now: the Clean Air Act of 1970; Campaign Finance Reform; the endangered species act; opening a Real-Politik dialogue with China; and on and on. The prevailing quality of life in America, by any accepted methods of measuring, was inarguably freer and more politically open under Nixon than it is today in this evil year of Our Lord 2002.

The Boss was a certified monster who deserved to be impeached and banished. He was a truthless creature of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a foul human monument to corruption and depravity on a scale that dwarfs any other public official in American history. But Nixon was at least smart enough to understand why so many honorable patriotic U.S. citizens despised him. He was a Liar. The truth was not n him. Nixon believed, as he said many times, that if the president of the United States does it, it can't be illegal. But Nixon never understood the much higher and meaner truth of Bob Dylan's warning that "To live outside the law you must be honest.

The difference between an outlaw and a war criminal is the difference between a pedophile and a Pederast: The pedophile is a person who thinks about sexual behavior with children, and the Pederast does these things. He lays hands on innocent children, he penetrates them and changes their lives forever. Being the object of a pedophile's warped affections is a Routine feature of growing up in America, and being a victim of a Pederast's crazed "love" is part of dying. Innocence is no longer an option. Once penetrated, the child becomes a Queer in his own mind, and that is not much different than murder. Richard Nixon crossed that line when he began murdering foreigners in the name of "family values", and George Bush crossed it when he sneaked into office and began killing brown-skinned children in the name of Jesus and the American people. When Muhammad Ali declined to be drafted and forced to kill "gooks" in Vietnam he said, "I ain't got nothing against them Viet Cong. No Cong ever called me Nigger." I agreed with him, according to my own personal ethics and values. He was Right. If we all had a dash of Muhammad Ali's eloquent courage, this country and the world would be a better place today because of it. Okay. That's it for now. Read it and weep.

See you tomorrow, folks. You haven't heard the last of me. I am the one who speaks for the spirit of Freudian and decency in you. Shit. Somebody has to do it.

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn't today, and will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever.

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us, they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.

And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.

World Sports vs North American Sports

2005-02-13T00:16:00.000-06:00

When a man in Wales is severing his own testicle to mark a Rugby victory, I was asked why most North American sports fans generally don't live and die with their teams to the extent fans in Europe (especially Britain) do.

In Canada, the national game has been canceled at the elite level - leaving Canadians without a big league presence in their favorite sport. As Ken Dryden put it, maybe this is showing that NHL hockey is Canada's habit, much more than Canada's passion.

I think there are a few reasons

In North America, the teams are spaced further apart. In rare cases, you get say an Oakland vs San Francisco game, but in most instances there are games between teams in distance cities. Large cities in Europe can have a handful of professional football clubs in one city, and even international matches can be reached by train within a few hours. Rival fans mix in Europe to a much larger extent than fans of North American sports, and that makes loyalties and rivalries much more intense.

Second, poor North American fans usually can't afford to attend games. Basketball is a hugely popular game in poor parts of the United States, yet the people who attend games are usually professionals and not the type to cause much trouble. To make matters worse, North American sports are increasingly moving to cable with very little local broadcast television coverage. Consequently, it is getting more and more expensive for North Americans to enjoy their favorite games at the elite level, and probably out of reach for many.

Third, North American teams remain "elite" no matter what they do in competition. In English football, an under-performing team can drop into a lower division while an up-and-coming team can get promoted to a higher level. Owners must ensure their teams are competitive or they lose their elite or major league status along with the associated television and merchandise benefits. Poorly managed clubs in Europe do not remain elite teams if they do not perform at the elite level.

Finally, elite teams in North America rarely have significant historical roots. The Quebec Nordiques and to a lesser extent the Montreal Canadiens had a strong ethnic identity at one point, and their successes represented the aspirations of the people who provided their fan base (Quebecois or French Canadien). Today the star player on the Montreal Canadiens is from Europe and most North American teams are corporate divisions.

European teams are increasingly corporate but often represent religious, ethnic, or labor divisions and people's loyalties to their clubs are strongly tied to their roots.

So why are North Americans generally less fanatical about sports? North America has less regional diversity and a more spread out population which tends to cool rivalries, the elite leagues are costly to fans and monopolistic in their management,
while the teams themselves are often the soulless products of corporate thinking... Sports are just less interesting in the New World.

Reason enough?

White Farmers from Zimbabwe Mark New Territory in Nigeria

2005-02-08T22:02:00.000-06:00

If you don't follow events in Africa, you might not know about Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe used to be a very properous country, but a white minority ruled over a black population.

In the 1980's following a long struggle, Zimbabwe came under the power of a black African leader - Robert Mugabe. Mugabe started with a lot of potential, hope and international assistance. As years past, the government of Zimbabwe became less about justice and wealth redistribution and more about Mugabe's increasingly mad quest to hold on to power. Eventually the land of white farmers was seized and redistributed to Mugabe supporters, often illegally.

The land redistribution took considerable human toll. Many white farmers left the country, many black Africans became unemployed, and Zimbabwe's food supply began to shrink as the new landowners rarely knew how to manage farms. As time passed, Zimbabwe's economy went to shambles.

Interestingly, some of the farmers are being brought in by Nigeria because they are experienced at large scale commerical farming operations and may be able to turn virgin land outside Shonga into a booming agricultural region.

But even with this good will, can the project really succeed?

It is a hugely ambitious scheme, and one that invites scepticism.

Nigeria is currently ranked as the third most corrupt nation on earth, and many people do not trust government officials to keep their promises.

It is also a volatile country, with thousands of people killed in inter-communal violence in the last five years alone.

The Zimbabweans, however, are ready to face these challenges and determined to build a new life.

As one of the new farmers mentions "Africa is never easy". Well, let's hope of the best... for all concerned.

Say it Ain't so, Jose.

2005-02-06T19:24:00.000-06:00

I like Jose Canseco, after the baseball strike it was watching Jose hit home runs and steal bases for the Toronto Blue Jays that made me a fan again.

Canseco's new book talks about steroids in baseball and how he, Mark McGwire, I-Rod, Jason Giambi, Juan Gonzalez, and others made their mark by using drugs - and in other gossip he confesses that he never slept with Madonna. There is even a GWB connection made in the book.

I'd like to see and older, wiser Canseco chuckling with a sportscaster about his youthful excesses and maybe asking some pointed questions of the people who profit from steroids and exposing the flaws in the system.

Canseco could point out that a lot of players do steroids. Baseball now has 2-MVP's who are admitted users (Caminiti and Canseco) while several others have been accused. I have no doubt that most people if confronted with a chance to go on the juice for a couple of years to become the best ballplayer in the world and fantastically wealthy would do it.

It is also debatable if this hurts the game. I can sit here, at my desk right now and undeniably state that the 1989 Oakland Athletics - the rivals of my beloved Blue Jays were cheaters. On the other hand, I cannot deny that the home run record chases caught people's attention and drew fans, and Jose was fun to watch.

So the question is - do fans want to see real athletic competition or the very heights of chemically-aided human potential?

I hate it when writers try to make people who just scrape by feel sorry for millionaries and I will not do that here (feel sorry for this guy's family) - but maybe I am looking at this wrong.

Perhaps if Jose wasn't on the juice he would have been injured less, maybe he would have got into less trouble off of the field, maybe teams would have taken more of a chance on him late in his career, and perhaps today we would be talking about Jose Canseco as one of the greats. Instead we talk of one excellent but troubled ballplayer, who seemed to age before his time and had his career cut short while he struggled with fading from public attention.

A lot of question here but not many answers.

Update: George Bush Unaware of steroid use, players refute Canseco

The F-Word in the USA

2005-02-06T14:11:00.000-06:00

Will the War to Export American Democracy, Destroy American Democracy

Really this isn't an anti-war or anti-Bush blog, and I regret its taken on that tone but this article can't be missed.

For an analysis of fascism in general, try this article.Again this isn't an anti-war or anti-Bush blog, so I will let you read this and draw your own analysis.

Man, here is more. This article is about the experience at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba for prisoners.

Keeping Warm on Bob Marley's 60th

2005-02-05T17:08:00.000-06:00

It's February, and if you are like me and stuck in the north - this is probably the most miserable month of the year. Let's talk music from the Carribean.

Reggae is not a genre I really know much about, but everyone knows Bob Marley. Bob Marley's sixtieth birthday is coming up shortly and they are holding a music festival in Ethiopia to celebrate. Marley's connection to Ethiopia is via Rastafarianism, which has roots in African Nationalist movements and in short belives:

Self-reliance and self-determination for Africans, and that Ras Tafari (Haile Selassie I, last emperor of Ethiopia who died in 1975) remains a living messiah who will lead the world's peoples of African descent into a promised land of full emancipation and divine justice. The term Rastafarian comes from Emperor Selasi's pre-coronation name, Prince Ras Tafar Makonen.

Haile Selassie was a Christian who didn't like the "living god" idea, but met with Rastas and allowed them to live on some of his personal land where a small number remain. Some sources are reporting that Marley's widow would like the reggae great's remains reburied in Ethopia. Marley's home town - Trench Town is also holding celebrations which include a foot race, and a craft exhibition.

Feel free to post about how you intend to keep warm, or celebrate Bob Marley's Birthday.

The Bushies War on Roosevelt

2005-02-04T21:57:00.000-06:00

I work with American financial people everyday, to the extent I tend to work on Canadian holidays (I am Canadian) and take American vacation days off. One thing I picked up on the social security privitization idea proposed by Bush is that American money people are not exactly thrilled about picking up the extra business.

For the most part privatized social security accounts will contain small amounts of money, meaning their administrative overhead is pretty high and the capital pool is not so big. For the financials, these social security accounts mean big expenses, and tight margins but not big money.

It's hard to figure out who is getting rich here and government regulation of the economy is not always a bad thing.

Far from turning the United States into a Western version of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, the New Deal allowed the United States to function as the world's bulwark against both. The institutions that stood at the heart of the American experiment—representative democracy, the separation of powers, a system of managerial capitalism, liquid capital markets—survived in a world gone mad.

From a political standpoint is also a weird point-of-view. I don't see any advantages to privitization over the short-term and project problems in the long run. I didn't really understand why the Bushies were pushing for this until I saw how Daniel Gross explains this....

It's difficult to discern the short-term political gain for Republicans to try to dismantle Social Security now. So the payoff must be more psychological or intellectual. Now that they indisputably control all three branches of government, Republicans finally have the opportunity to slay some of the liberal demons that have been bedeviling them for so long.

Generally I am all for intellectual and psychological payoffs, hell that is what this entire blog is about... but geez people, how is this going to make your lives better?

Post-Election Buzzkill: Why Iraq Is Still A Debacle

2005-02-04T01:18:00.000-06:00

Arianna Huffington is one my favorite US poltical commentators, I cheered for her when she ran against Ah-nuld in the California recall election.

This article is one of the best pieces on Iraq I have seen in a while. I have to admit the story of the Iraqi election is a pretty amazing one - people voted when there was a pretty good change of bombings, shootings, and worse. In most Western democracies, poor weather harms voter turnout - it is good to see the Iraqi people are made of such stern stuff.

Arianna does a good job of putting this in perspective.

So amid all the talk of turning points, historic days and defining moments, let us steadfastly refuse to drink from the River Lethe that brought forgetfulness and oblivion to my ancient ancestors.

Arianna discusses in detail how the images we see today could be another Jessica Lynch story and it doesn't change the fact that Iraq's infrastructure is still terrible, food is in short supply, some of the most extreme violence of the conflict has been seen in the last couple of weeks, and fraud and corruption are everywhere......

Good clear-headed analysis, an excellent read

In Defence of John Kerry

2005-02-01T01:05:00.000-06:00

I really don't agree with the blood-letting that some folks are leveling at John Kerry. The Bush people are pretty happy, because they won while some Democratic types are looking for someone to blame. That finger is getting pointed at John Kerry fairly often. I don't think it is justified and here's why:

First, if you read the article - the headline is a little misleading. Kerry basically says that he didn't feel that "Americans didn't want to shift horses midstream" during a war while the Bin Laden headline was a bit of oversimplified analysis....

I don't think a lot of the critiques of Kerry are fair. For example the "skull and bones buddy" attack, or the general idea that Kerry was ivy league educated, a former senator and an elite. This is all true, but Kerry was not born rich -he earned his way into elite circles while Bush rode around on other connections. Kerry's war record was the best example of this. Bush stayed out of harms way while Kerry fought. In a lot of ways, Kerry represents the "American Dream" which has faded so much... maybe that should have been the theme of his campaign.

Politically Kerry was no loser either. His campaign was well-executed. I felt he won all the debates, and more people voted for Kerry than voted for Gore last time around. Kerry won virtually all the states he was expected to, and signed up a ton of voters. Nobody expected the soccer mom vote to go to Bush and Kerry took the wind out of Ralph Nader's popularity.

Kerry was not the most progressive candidate but he had some victories, he did manage to bring the issue of black voters being disenfranchised to the forefront. He made the "libertarian" right look foolish, because he pointed out they didn't care on that issue... He discussed real issues on the environment when Bush was talking about how cutting down trees prevents forest fires.

From a personal standpoint, he is not a warm likable man but he is stable, rational and has a good mind. I could not say this about Bush, or even Howard Dean (I liked General Clark, Kerry was my second choice). I think it shows guts that he has not faded as a public figure... his offensive on Condi Rice was top drawer, - Kerry is still spirited, feisty, and relevant (maybe to an even greater extent than he was during the election) while Gore, and Dukakis stayed out of the public spotlight following their defeats.

I am not an American, just an interested observer, I have no reason to "spin" you...

So what do I feel are the real issues around the Kerry loss? The cultural divide in America between rural and urban, the soccer mom demographic picking up on the homeland security theme and voting for Bush, and the Hispanic voters putting their conservative social values ahead of their economic standing.

Being Mean to the Greens

2005-01-30T13:22:00.000-06:00

The Geo Green Alternative indentified By Thomas Friedman proposes to deal with the possibility of weapons of mass destruction in Iran as follows:

The geo-greens believe that, going forward, if we put all our focus on reducing the price of oil - by conservation, by developing renewable and alternative energies and by expanding nuclear power - we will force more reform than by any other strategy. You give me $18-a-barrel oil and I will give you political and economic reform from Algeria to Iran. All these regimes have huge population bubbles and too few jobs. They make up the gap with oil revenues. Shrink the oil revenue and they will have to open up their economies and their schools and liberate their women so that their people can compete. It is that simple.

While Mr Friedman thinks the "Euro-Wimps", will never be able to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran, and US cannot stretch itself any further militarily - he does promote the above model. I take a number of issues with this piece.

First, the Europeans are not wimps. The US destabilizing the Middle East puts a major problem on the doorstep of Europe, which the Americans can walk away from if it gets too hot. With an increasing population of Turks, Algerians, and other nationalities living in European countries, the incentive for Europeans to talk first and shoot later, is much higher.

Mr Friedman also makes the mistake of believing that the opposition to the Iraq War was related to a failure of diplomacy. The fact is very little negotiationg was going on with Saddam at the point of Gulf War 2 - he was operating out of a small box and his ability to oppress his people, or develop additional weapons capacity was not very strong. In fact, Saddam's greatest enemy - The Kurds had effective self-government. The anti-war people believed that war was a last resort and given these other factors, this war was not necessary. Europeans dealt with wars on their own soil over the past sixty years and understand its consquences, the American military has not defended the American homeland directly in a formal war in many, many generations.

Europeans and most Canadians are sympathetic to America's anger over 9/11/2001 but don't relate Iraq to 9/11.

So let's talk about Mr Friedman's "simple plan". Since the United States is one of the largest consumers of oil, Friedman's plan is a very responible one. I believe that the reforms discussed by Friedman would occur if oil were to reach $18 but cutting consumption of oil, and oil prices by more than 50% is way easier said than done.

Since Mr Friedman's analysis leaves the reader to work out the details (like most Green policy it is not big on substance). In an America which refuses to ratify the Kyoto agreement, we could be talking about severe restrictions on vehicle type and usage, traffic bans in inner-cities, the creation of a commodity-style markets in pollution credits as well as a monitoring infrastructure, mandatory conversion of home and business heating/cooling systems to more efficent models, wide-scale garbage sorting, and pretty much a complete re-think of everything ranging from industrial policy to human diet and clothing. In other words, a complete societal overhaul which would result in several segments of society encountering a greatly reduced quality of life - the type of thing that divides nations, and causes instability and political strife.

Or would the average American prefer the Europeans try to reach a political solution through negoation?

Teen Writer of MS Blaster Worm Sentenced to 18 Months

2005-01-30T01:57:00.000-06:00

I saw this article, and my first instinct was that sending an 18 year old kid to jail would probably do him and the community more harm than good. On second thought however, he caused a significant amount of damage and headache to the people he infected - but on further consideration, I feel the sentence is about right.

The estimated damage to computers and servers caused by this version of MS Blaster is probably overstated. In all likelihood Jeffrey Lee Parson's virus did not infect many business critical machines, compatibility problems with software, configuration errors, and hardware failures cause more headaches for your average server tech than any number of computer viruses.

Why don't most techs get scared when the newest virus comes out? Computer viruses are usually not very well-written and follow a fairly limited number of patterns. These virus patterns are well-known by security folks, and are fairly easy to pick up on. With a few precautions, which take no more than a few minutes time each week one can effectively block nearly all virus infections. Even the average home user who keeps an up-to-date operating system and downloads patches, runs an up-to-date virus scanner, and takes the extra precaution of using a firewall should encounter very, very few problems with viruses.

Consider that the majority of the most destructive viruses currently circling the globe are well known. The causes, effects, and removal of these viri is fully understood and they will cause no damage to a computer using up-to-date tools. Not every place is fully up-to-date, and they suffered damage but running an under-protected computer system is comparable to leaving one's keys in the ignition of a car and hoping nothing bad happens.

Unfortunately for Mr Parsons, a car thief taking the car in the above scenario still goes to jail, and I think that is a reasonable place for him to go in the short term. I hope he comes out of this experience a little smarter and largely unharmed.

The Return of Lyin' Brian?

2005-01-28T01:08:00.000-06:00

I work for a Quebec-based company and buzz around my water cooler is that former Canadian Prime Minister and Labour lawyer Brian Mulroney may be called on to help settle the NHL hockey strike.

An interesting move - Mulroney is experienced in this area, has all kinds of corporate connections, and may be motivated to rehab his image somewhat.

Interesting, but take this as rumour.

Sit Down, Be Quiet, Maintain Your Dignity.....Your Child is Not Going Pro

2005-01-25T19:41:00.000-06:00

I am a sports fan, and a hockey fan. Anyone who did not find the Calgary Flames run to the Stanley Cup final or play of Team Canada in the 2002 fascinating does not have a human heart.

Sports on some level are pure, a one-on-none breakaway is simple and undeniable. It's dramatic - two people with opposite goals, and one of them has to be denied.

Yet, there is less of this drama out there. The NHL hockey talks are at an impasse. No less a figure than Wayne Gretzky says the hockey strike may wipe out two seasons. If NHL hockey is gone for two seasons, is it ever coming back? Currently we sit with two sides shouting platitudes at each other, no progress is being made - and there seems to be little hope of making any.

Hockey fans face a real prospect that there never being another NHL game. Elite pro hockey will start again in some form, but the NHL as we know it may be history.

Yet this does not stop some hockey parents from pushing their kids to new heights, assaulting coaches, and badgering referees. According to sources in minor hockey in Ontario, this is "by far the worst year ever for hockey hooliganism" (my source on that one is CBC radio's As it Happens). Stories such as this man receiving a five year ban from minor hockey arenas, barely seems to garner any attention any more.

What is it that turns otherwise normal people into maniacs when they get to an arena?

Hope. Frustration.

I know what it is like to grow up working class in Canada. You face a shrinking job market, lousy weather, a government that doesn't represent you, declining standards of life, increased taxes on beer, and the general sense that the world is closing in on you. Most of the fans I saw at the last CHL game I attended were 30-something mothers with young children - no man in the picture.

Hockey is not the way out, not for you, or your child (unless you are that young mother at the above mentioned game with the lovely long dark hair and black bubble jacket, call me). Assuming the coaching is good, the natural talent is present, the child is the right size and shape, the child remains healthy, doesn't fall in with a crowd of non-athletes,gets noticed at the right time, and doesn't get a reputation for being "selfish" or "undisciplined", there is a very good chance it won't happen. Believe it or not, the track to the juniors and ultimately the NHL begins when these kids are 12 or 13 years old. All of this to be among the hundreds of thousands of amateur players in North America, who compete for only a few hundred spots in the NHL (a number which has recently dropped to zero) - drawn from all over the world. Cracking the NHL is against all odds, and may not be worth the energy.

Sports are good for kids. I have lived in countries were kids wear school uniforms and are required to play on at least two school teams - everyone is a "jock" - and this was the most polite and disciplined bunch of youths I have ever encountered.

Ease up, let the game be fun, leave the referee alone - he is probably a volunteer and a kid. Keep in mind the other people in stands are your neighbors and co-workers, barbaric behavior won't go unnoticed.

Most Depressing Day of the Year

2005-01-25T01:12:00.000-06:00

Well, it is January.

It is cold outside, the holiday bills are coming in, and the next long weekend is months away - so, January the 24th has been dubbed by researchers as the most depressing day of the year.

The good news? You made it through.

NYT Talks About the Making of a Molester

2005-01-24T23:53:00.000-06:00

I read a lot and its rare that I find somethings that is both interesting and hard to comment on, and I found it in this NYT magazine article

To sum it is the story of a guy who becomes attracted to his young teenage stepdaughter, begins to eavesdrop on her computer transmissions and becomes intrigued with her first romantic impulses, plays some inappropriate games with her and a friend, and eventually he propositions her... and is turned down. His actions are reported to the police and he is now facing something like 36 years of probation, but is married, plays in a band and seems fairly well-adjusted. This is not the guy feeling himself up in a trench coat....

His life has certainly taken a turn for the worse but I don't feel sorry for him, even if he had little concept of right and wrong - which I think he does, he certainly knew the law. His presentation as the guy next door may be a front - but he is either a pathological liar or trying really hard to fight his impulses.

I find myself on the same page as the author of this article - not knowing what to think, this article raises more questions than answers - but it is an interesting piece because it is a topic that is discussed so little.

Be Kind to Wal-Mart Workers

2005-01-22T23:18:00.000-06:00

I use Wal-Mart as a source of highly addictive 2 litre bottles of Pepsi and older computer games, most of my purchases at the place amount to less than ten dollars.

While they don't get many of my dollars, Wal-Mart's annual revenues are 2 percent of US GDP, and eight times the size of Microsoft's. In fact, when ranked by its revenues, Wal-Mart is the world's largest corporation. On sheer size, Wal-Mart is an immense, impressive organization.

I thought I had a pretty good idea of what was happening in the head of a Wal-Mart associate and I was pretty critical of the shoddy service one gets there, see I hit a rough spot and worked a few months at Sears not too long ago. At Sears, I was paid $7.70 (CDN) an hour, rarely worked more than 5 hour shifts, had to wear a shirt and tie (sometimes for moving portable air conditioners) and stood on a concrete floor for hours at a time - which killed my back and legs. Sometimes I would close the store at 10 and be there again in the morning when it opened....

With the exception of the store manager, the managers were reasonable and while most of them could not be counted on to level any kind of positive reinforcement - it was usually possible to stay out of their way and avoid trouble. I had one spot in my department where none of the managers could see me standing around, but I could keep an eye for customers. My co-workers were generally a nice and pleasant lot, although the store split between about 50% of the people making a career and 50% who were trying to stay out of trouble until something better arrived. We had lots of sales meetings, but they were always on the clock.....

It was not pleasant, but I think things are worse at the local Wal-Mart. Consider these quotes from the article at this link:

The location and timing of work at a Wal-Mart store is determined by the flow of goods entering the store through the back entrance, and the flow of customers entering the store through the front.

Neither of these flows is constant or entirely predictable, and workers may have to be moved from one task to another as the flows change. An employee may begin the day by unloading and unpacking goods at the receiving dock; she may then transfer to shifting goods from the dock into the store; then to stacking goods on shelves or in special displays; and then finally to registering the sale of goods at one of the many checkout counters and making change.

Since there is no assembly line at Wal-Mart its senior management uses blunter methods to achieve higher levels of productivity from the workforce. These methods are governed by a simple principle: when deciding how many workers to employ, Wal-Mart management relies on a formula guaranteeing that the growth of the labor budget will lag behind the growth in store sales, so that every year there will be more work for each employee to do. In her paper "The Quality of Work at Wal-Mart," presented at the conference in Santa Barbara, Ellen Rosen of the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis described in detail how this squeeze on labor works. Each year Wal-Mart provides its store managers with a "preferred budget" for employment, which would allow managers to staff their stores at adequate levels. But the actual budget imposed on the store managers always falls short of the preferred budget, so that most Wal-Mart stores are permanently understaffed. The gap between the preferred and actual budgets gives store managers an idea of how much extra work they must try to extract from their workforce....

That is brutal folks

... Some 50 percent of Wal-Mart workers employed at the beginning of 2003 had left the company by the end of the year. At the retailer Costco, where employees are better treated, turnover in 2003 was just 24 percent...

Wow.

Smile at these people when you are line, and put your change in their hand rather than on the desk... they are probably having a bad day.

Canada and US Relations: A Plea for Reason

2005-01-21T20:32:00.000-06:00

Trolls Discussing Canada

I used to find Anne Coulter (the skinny blond woman in the clip) funny. She had this way of making the "sigh and pontificate" crowd absolutely furious. These days she's become so self-referential that she is nothing more than a living joke - that says things no sane person could possibly believe.

I will take an example from the video where she discusses the worst elements of the US going to Canada, and gives draft dodgers as an example.

Number of US Draft Dodgers in Canada, at is peak: 125, 000
Number of people in Canada (1975): 23, 000, 000
Percentage of US Draft dodgers in Canadian society: 0.005%*

* Most of them eventually returned to the US when Pres. Carter provided amnesty

What's worse is she could have talked about real things: Canada and the US were at war from 1812-1815, and a few cities were burned to the ground. No less a General than George Washington led an attack on Quebec and in Ontario you will find some fairly old fortifications and defensive structures in place - built in the 1930's and not for fighting the Germans.

Here is a story about a US plan for invading Canada

Yes, it is intense stuff. But let's be honest, we are not Israel and the Arabs or even Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, and this kind of thinking hurts us.

If we in North America are going to prosper in the 21st century the way we did in the 20th, we are going to have to consider that the European Union formed between countries that actively tried to wipe each other off the map a few generations ago.

If the EU can work together, survive and prosper as a unit, are we really better off in North America bickering with each other over the comments of some political hacks who can't even be bothered to do research...

Finally, even if you flip burgers for a living you have a better job than Tucker Carlson (the bow-tied guy) - he was recently fired from CNN (that and John Stewart called him "a dick" on his own show).

50 Most Loathsome People of 2004

2005-01-20T21:29:00.000-06:00

The list It's supposed to funny, but a lot it rings true.

My spin: I have no idea who some of the American television personalites are, and I think Halle Berry is hot.

On Responding to Terrorist Acts

2005-01-19T20:27:00.000-06:00

I was at work when the story broke about a possible dirty bomb in Boston on Matt Drudge and a few other news sources. That said, Matt Drudge is not the most sober, thoughtful news site, and I would tend to take most things said there, with a grain of salt.

Yet people couldn't get enough of the idea, and in spite of the fact that the Drudge Report is a fairly popular site - the site traffic was overwhelming. Few other news sources picked up on the story, maybe because it does read like a hoax. Regardless, in the first few hours of the story nothing was mentioned about it on Fox or CNN.

Maybe the silence is a good thing. Over the weekend I saw on BBC world documentary about Israeli bus drivers. Suicide bombers favor buses as targets, so the life of a bus driver in the State of Israel is a scary one - the documentary discussed all the security on Israeli buses and showed the aftermath of one bus bombing. An angry crowd gathered, and were dispersed - the scene was pressure-washed to remove the scorching and blood, a new bus was put on the route, and the BBC reporter remarked how "an hour later it was hard to tell that anything happened".

The woman killed in the bombing was young and beautiful, her family was just devastated to lose her. Yet, for the community at large there seemed to be a real effort to put forward the message of business as usual. I don't doubt the community was damaged by the loss of this woman, but an angry public response to her slaying would cause more tragedy. The public, especially when forming mobs cannot be trusted to approach problems with a long-term, thoughtful perspective.

The reason terrorism works is that carrying out relatively small scale actions, can reach and haunt the thoughts and minds of great numbers of people causing them to bend and sway in their opinions and actions - perhaps scaring people into accommodating terrorist goals.

Israel has a lot of troubles but seems to put forward it's best face when confronting danger and remains a functioning society. By contrast, I remember serious discussion on the days after 9/11 of not resuming sports, and other "frivolous" pastimes.

Terrorism can shut down a society, but does it need to? Terrorists are like ads, they only meet their goals when you pay attention to them.

Ernest Hemingway and Political Correctness

2005-01-18T20:55:00.000-06:00

I visited a site I used to post on, on a regular basis - I am not even going to give them a link here, they are really in my doghouse for a thread called "Great Writers you Hate". To make a long story short, the regular posters gave it to Ernest Hemingway with both barrels.

I shouldn't be surprised as the board in question is a very PC board, and it is hard for the regular posters to acknowledge that a guy who's greatest joys in life were hunting, fishing, drinking, and making love to women was an absolute master with words and made exotic places come alive.

I've been to Africa, friends. If you want to get a feel for being a foreigner in for the dark continent, minus the quaint level of technology The Snows of Kilimanjaro - is the best source. I bought my copy from a leathery old bookseller, a stone's throw from the Indian Ocean.

I'll share a passage with you:

You kept from thinking and it was all marvelous. You were equipped with good insides so that you did not go to pieces that way, the way most of them had, and you made an attitude that you cared nothing for the work you used to do, now that you could no longer do it. But, in yourself, you said that you would write about these people; about the very rich; that you were really not of them but a spy in their country; that you would leave it and write of it and for once it would be written by some one who knew what he was writing of. But he would never do it, because each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at all. The people he knew now were all much more comfortable when he did not work. Africa was where he had been happiest in the good time of his life, so he had come out here to start again. They had made this safari with the minimum of comfort. There was no hardship; but there was no luxury and he had thought that he could get back into training that way. That in some way he could work the fat off his soul the way a fighter went into the mountains to work and train in order to burn it out of his body.

More at this link

It doesn't get any better.

Sartre, Camus, and countless others wrote about WW2 and disillusionment with war. Hemingway wrote about driving an ambulance in a war zone (Farewell to Arms), Sartre -still a darling among intellectuals and fellow Nobel prize winner - wrote about moping around a prison camp. Both men hated war, but the Hemingway's character was engaged - the Sartre character was escapist.

Engagement vs Escapism.

Is this what political correctness is all about? I accept, that people should be treated well, as equals, and with kindness and consideration whenever possible - but being politically correct or admiring political correctness often means rewarding people for things that they don't do. "I didn't offend so and so", "I didn't buy the goods at Wal-Mart", "I don't drive a gas-guzzling SUV". Addition by subtraction? maybe... but how are things any more valuable to the "movement" than sitting at home doing nothing?

Michael Jordan and Moby on Selling Out

2005-01-17T21:43:00.000-06:00

I am not a basketball fan, not even a casual one but I know who Michael Jordan is - he sold batteries, underwear, shoes and played basketball. These days he is much more of a businessman, and the game has moved on without him while he cashes in on his legacy.

Is Jordan really just the cynical pitchman that the writer of the article says he is, or is he like Moby who talks about growing up poor and the need to distance himself from the poverty he faced as a young man.

Quote:
a question that i'm often asked is 'why do you license your music to advertisements?'
which is a good question. i have numerous answers that are all relatively true:
1-it's a good way to get music heard.
2-everybody does it.
3-it helps to generate revenue for the record companies to which i'm signed, mute and v2, who are both relatively independent.
and other answers that are all true and valid.
but there's one answer to this question: 'why do you license your music to advertisements?' that just dawned on me recently, and the answer is 'growing up in poverty'.

- From Moby.com 1/8/2005

Everyone needs money, but is there a third option, beyond the commercialization of art and sports? Is the starving artist worthy of respect? I don't know, but these two pieces are among the most interesting I've read these last few days. Maybe it is because I have been engaging in more Moby-like behaviour recently.

I used to work in international development, spending my weekdays teaching and my weekends building houses for Africans while I earned $500/month. That was great, and had its rewards, but I am geting older and my retirement savings are pretty skint. I'm not married. Sometimes I get a little stingy, almost mean and its these things I think of.

US Blogger Fired By Delta Airlines

2005-01-17T17:22:00.000-06:00

I saw this story a while back. I am not sure what to make of this story, this woman was fired for inappropriate images on her blog. Here they are. Now I can understand this airline wanting to protect their image, but I don't see how this hurts them - the young woman in this photograph is quite attractive and airlines around the world have used attractive women providing good hospitality to sell their flights for years.

Without knowing her employment record, and if this is her only offence we are witnessing puritansim of the worst form. Ever hear the term Singapore Girls?. Honestly folks, the most beautiful group of women I have ever seen were Bulgarian flight attendants.

This woman seems fun, easy-going and a little wild. I would much rather have her accidently dump a pitcher of water on me, and then tell me I am screwed on my connecting flight much more than the cool, aloof, let's-keep-it-professional people I encounter on most airlines.