Look, I’m all for equality. If gay people want to get married and get divorced like everyone else, I’m all for it. While marriage has always been tightly defined as the consummation between a man and a woman, to me it’s all semantics. The act of marriage, and the unification of two people is a bond for them, and while traditionally one that was condoned by the church, it has moved past that, and I have no problem with gay’s getting married. However, this little story seems absolutely ridiculous to me.

Quick breakdown. A lesbian couple in Nova Scotia is claiming discrimination because the birth certificates only have a place for Mother and Father, no second Mother.

Birth certificates are about parentage, not love. This woman claims she is 100 per cent this new girl’s mother. But she isn’t. She didn’t carry her, she did not provide the egg, and unless she’s post sex change, she didn’t contribute the sperm. The fact is, she should have to adopt… just like step-father’s do. Parity actually exists here. If a woman is impregnated by someone else, and then the guy runs off, or whatever, any further father figure would be forced to adopt. And yet, because we’re talking about gays, it’s somehow not the same thing. It’s absolutely fucking ridiculous as far as I’m concerned. As a friend argued, putting this woman’s name on it, as opposed to say her actual genetic father, is doing the child a disservice. (If the father’s unknown, then it should be left blank.) Actual genetic parentage is what the birth certificate should be putting on there, and if Nova Scotia makes changes, then they will have to do the same thing for men in the same situation, and at that point, they might as well stop recording the parents, since medically and genetically it won’t actually mean anything.

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Ottawa Cenotaph - 2006

Remembrance Day has come again, a poignant reminder of those people who gave their lives to ensure the freedoms we enjoy today. Freedom of speech, and thought - freedom to live in a society where individual rights are protected, and with a government that is open, and watched by a (hopefully) ever vigilant press.

This year, as I watched the ceremony on TV at the Victoria Cenotaph, as the familiar bagpipe played, and the horns sounded, and the shots were fired, it was a little more powerful to me. My great Aunt recently passed away. Her and her husband both served in the Second World War. At the service on November 3rd, Judy, their eldest daughter, gave a moving eulogy that covered both her father and mother’s lives together, but also that of their lives as veterans. She said, “do not think that the only ones who laid down their lives were the ones who died. Those who came back had also laid down their lives, because the war was forever a part of them. It had molded and irrevocably changed an entire generation of young people. Anyone who has lived with a veteran knows this. The war was part of them.”*

As each November 11 comes by, there are more to remember, and fewer who were there. The powers that be willing, we hopefully shall never face war on the scale of The Great War, and the Second World War again. But for this to happen, we must never forget, we must never let the bagpipes stop, or the horns go quiet. If we forget, we never learned.

~QS
*That’s probably not a direct quote, it’s as close to what she said as I remember. She was likely more eloquent.

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That’s right, now that I’m living in the self-proclaimed, “Most Beautiful Place in the World,” (that’s the sign you see when you cross the border,) it’s time to get back to writing. Today we cover sex, Reese Witherspoon, and Vancouver drivers.
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The city of Ottawa has some serious issues when it comes to planning their reconstruction.
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Such a beautiful city, the city of Ottawa.
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Certain groups in the US (republicans, and fear mongering border scaredy cats), are saying
that Canada’s arrest of the homegrown terrorists is a sign Canada is not doing enough to combat terrorism. They’re right. If we were serious about security, we wouldn’t have had them under surveillance for several months, clandestinely searched their luggage when they travelled abroad, or arrested them. If we were serious about security, we would have completely ignored all the signs, let them blow stuff up, and then started invading countries at random.*

There’s my random thought for the evening, now here are the odder but interesting articles making their rounds on CBC.ca.
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In part of my effort to provide more updates, and nifty links I run into, along with interesting news stories, I’ve decided to mix up the site a bit. While a full redesign would be great, it would also be a lot of effort, and just a further delay in getting actual content out. Instead, what I’ve decided to do is move articles to their own pages, instead of this goof ball blog set up, so that I can do more nifty layout things, make pictures fit, AND differentiate between news posts and actual articles. I think it will mean more short blurbs, and more effort spent on actual articles. The idea is to increase article quality, and quantity. As it currently goes, I post things quickly when I think of them, because I want to get stuff out there, but great ideas I don’t want to screw up get left on the back burner forever. New individual pages means I can hone articles, and hand out brief little tidbit rants at the same time. Make sense? No - ok, well, main page, news-posts with goofy tidbits, and links to articles. Articles, hidden behind first page on their own little pages. Re-read above with new information, too lazy to edit/further explain.

For a quick trip down memory lane for those for you who used to eat lunch with me and the gang at Carleton University during the 2000-2001 academic year, check out this video.

Also of recent interest to me is the amusing little rants of Foamy the squirrel.

Look forward to what is probably going to turn into a series of articles in regards to the self entitlement that Ottawa people seem to feel when they go into retail shops, later this week - followed by a documentary on how the hyphen and run on sentence have partnered up to kill decent sentence and paragraph structure, eliminating good language skills - all coming to you on Sanitybox.com.

- QS

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A budget for the poor, that’s the only way I can describe the current budget. Let’s briefly run through it, just so you understand where I’m coming from, and how much I love sarcasm. A decrease on business tax, retroactively eliminating the federal capital tax , (which was originally to be phased out by 2008), elimination of the funding of the Kelowna Agreement, elimination of funding of the Kyoto agreement for a “made-in Canada solution,” and an increase in the lowest income tax bracket by half a per cent. There are also tax credits for physical fitness, public transit, work… etc. It goes on. In fact, a new degree will soon be offered at Conservative taxing college in “remedial conservative tax credit 101″ due to the increase in complexity of the new tax code.

Now you say, new tax credits, reduction in GST, saving money on silly agreements made with all provinces and territories and first nations people, how could this possibly be a bad budget?

Well let’s examine the tax credits first, since this is where all the flash is. To get a tax credit, you have to spend money. If you do not have money to spend, (say because you’re in the lowest tax bracket, and they just increased your taxes to help fund the capital tax break for the ri.., I mean socially responsible people who have money to invest), then you can’t exactly get a tax credit. And keep in mind, these tax credits are up to certain amounts. For physical activity, if you spend $500, you can get a percentage of that back, %15.5 per cent… which in Ontario is just more than the tax your paying on your purchase, so really what they’re saying is, well… we shall refund you the tax your paying for physical activity. (Keep in mind, the income you’re spending on this physical activity was already taxed through income tax, so what they’re now doing is eliminating the double taxation you suffered under, not actually eliminating the taxes.) Now if you’re not physically minded, or let’s say, after your income tax, don’t have enough money to pay for sports, (remember that a tax credit doesn’t mean anything until tax time, so you’re still paying for everything up front), then of course, you don’t save your $12 or whatever ridiculously large amount of money it is you’d be getting back until you file your taxes.

Then there’s the of course, the federal capital tax they are eliminating, which is fine, since rich people re-invest that money, (and always in Canada), and create more jobs for the people, (the people in the lowest tax bracket), which can then be taxed at 15.5 per cent, which is higher than it used to be, thus increasing revenue for the government, allowing more tax breaks, (like the corporate tax drop from 21% to %19), which allows for more profit, which, in trickle down economics means more investment, (again, always in Canada), which leads to more job growth at the bottom… it’s a great cycle. It worked very well in the US after the First World War. I suggest scrapping labour laws, and banning unions, because they hamper economic growth through needless spending and higher wages - if this saved money has to be wasted protecting the people, then it can’t be properly spent expanding economic output, thus hurting the trickle down effect.

So, while the poor are being treated so very well with this focus on investment savings and corporate tax cuts, the government is doing even more to pay down the deficit, and breaking their national agreements for the better of society. Instead of the $5 billion dollars they were to frivolously throw away into an agreement brokered over two years with all provincial, territory and native leaders to help the poor urban native’s people, they are wisely, (and unilaterally), spending a couple of hundred million on addressing the slight socioeconomic gap.

Which is good, because these savings can be used to further drop corporate and higher bracket tax brackets, so that we have more capital, which will of course, entirely be reinvested in Canada, and thus help the poor.

The only bright light, and by bright, I mean dim, is the drop in GST, which is less than promised. As someone who helps run a small business, I know what it costs to collect GST. I also see the cost on the consumer. I said it before the election, if you want to do something with GST, get rid of it. The eliminated costs on the government side of collecting GST would cause big savings, and you can see the big savings for businesses. We employ a quarter of a person soley dedicated to dealing with collecting GST. While eliminating the GST would cost jobs in collecting and administering, the extra %7 per cent in consumer and business hands would mean I could employ that quarter of a person in doing something that actualsly makes us money, and they would be better suited to do it with lower prices.*

Quick run down on the budget?

Really, if you don’t have money to begin with, you’re getting worse than shit - you’re getting a tax hike. If you’re rich, well, fuck, I hope your sides burst and your guts spill out onto the streets as you laugh all the way to the bank, which you likely own.

Bravo Stephen Harper - you continue to prove you really are a man of the $1000 dollar a plate dinner people… at least we, the little people can take small delight in knowing the minimum wage people who serve your food on your fine china plates are likely adding their own body sauces to your caviar.

-QS

*The fact is, eliminating the GST would not lead to a corresponding %7 drop in prices. While consumers seem to believe they take all the burden of such a tax, business margins also take a hit, and the actual drop in prices would be probably be somewhere closer to the middle, (like %4), depending on the type of product, and the margin currently made. Taxes are rarely passed along to the consumer in their entirety, unless demand is inelastic, meaning a change in price will have little effect on demand, necessary goods, say like heating oil or gasoline, in which case, there is little incentive for businesses to incur any of the costs of a tax, since demand is not likely to be affected, so you bastard ass oil companies, that currently profit on prices that are increasing due to no real economic influence, do not actually lose any money due to gas taxes. (I do not consider the idol speculation of old white guys on Wallstreet as an real economic influence - a real influence being supply, demand, etc… Instability in the middle east has nothing to do with oil prices here since nearly all of our oil comes from the western hemisphere. Oil reserves have actually be increasing since the 1970’s.)

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Just some old and news, and new developments in old news to bring to your attention.

If you’ve not heard this yet…

Here’s CBC’s take on it.
And Yahoo’s. Though who knows how long that will stay up. They do their URL’s weird.

The gist of the story, outspoken Senator bashes US after a family wrote a letter to Canadian parliamentarians denouncing the seal hunt.

This senator said, likely what most of us are thinking - stop trying to moralize to others United States, while you continue to be one of the worst and destabilizing forces on the planet. I would shake this Senator’s hand if ever given the chance, and it’s likely I’ll write a brief letter of support if she doesn’t end up apologizing. I find Quebec politicians are pretty good at standing up for what the believe in, and considering she can’t lose her job, well…

I mean, if your country is pulling crap like this, who are you to talk? Abducting people from other soveign countries to have them tortured in other countries? Ok, it’s just an allegation, but the fact the entire European Union seems to be holding inquiries, it really makes you wonder. Anyway, don’t tell us to prevent people from making a living off killing seals when your use of S.E.A.L.S is much more malicious.

Calinfornia is kicking smokers in the ass in what is being described as one of the toughest tobacco bans in the U.S.

“No more smoking in the park. Lighting up on the sidewalk could bring a fine. Dining on the restaurant patio? Don’t bother asking for matches.
One of the strictest tobacco bans in the United States went into effect in the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas last week, making smoking off limits in public places where someone else might be exposed to secondhand smoke: indoor businesses, outdoor businesses, parks, outdoor cafes, apartment building common areas.”

I applaud their efforts, and quite frankly, would love to see the same type of law enacted in Ontario. California continues to be one of the most progressive areas when it comes to combatting air pollution, with their trade-able air pollution credits for industry and now this all out ban. Bravo.

Too bad the rest of the U.S. have their heads firmly buried in the ash tray.

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A little break can go a long way to prevent a burnout. Taking myself as a rather odd case study, let’s examine. This past Saturday (5 am morning) I came down with the flu. Serious enough to leave me bed ridden, and quite weak for the past couple of days. Now, while this has done nothing good for my physic and physical strength, it has done wonders to revitalize my mental prowess. For instance, this evening, while finally having the strength to sit at a keyboard for more than a couple of minutes, I have actually started three different articles. One for this site, (which seems to be documenting my evening), one for the magazine to which I contribute (as well as a side project attached to it), and one of my own little personal sites I do for a friend. To top it off, I’ll probably scrabble down a few ideas for my other web site, one that involves me and my cat’s intimate thoughts. I won’t be posting a link here anytime soon, but if you know me personally, and haven’t yet heard of it, let me know, I’ll throw you the url.

There’s one thing that’s good about being sick, and it’s the rest. My brain has been shut off for quite a bit, and when it’s not been enjoying the entertainment put forth by my subconscious, it’s been idly staring at the ceiling without feeling the least bit bored. It’s been on a mini vacation. Sure, those first twelve hours it was busy screaming at the rest of my body to stop trying to expel my stomach’s content every thirty minutes, but once the body listened, it was free to do as it wished. What it wished was to pull up a mental beer, to the mental dock on the mental lake, and watch the mental sun go down. I promise, I’ve not gone “mental” during my sickness. I’m also picking up a Tungsten E Palm Pilot-navigator-vinegar-propelled-remote-controlled-anti-enema-protection-projectile-shark-skin-shaving kit, for stupid cheap, which will be entirely for taking down any spontaneous ideas on the spot so I don’t lose them anymore. While my body is weary, my mind is feeling a little at peace. So, since it’s been given a break, and my body doesn’t want to drift off, I’m going to catch up on all the ideas that have been roaming through my head since election night.

The fact is, I should have sat down, that very night, after watching Paul Martin’s retirement speech, but I didn’t. It was after one thirty in the morning, the majority of the country had already stopped watching, and I did have work early the next morning. So, a little late, here it is:

Phew - I have to admit I was a little concerned. Going into election day, the Conservatives seemed to have a much better chance at gaining a majority than I thought. But as election night rumbled onward, it became apparent that the best possible outcome was to be had. A minority conservative government. The fact is, the Liberal party needs a serious clean up. They’re out of leaders, out trust, and out of ideas. A couple of years in opposition might bring forth some new blood, and if not, well, hopefully the Green Party might attracted a wily Trudeau-esque* type leader that will lead them onto the political main-stage. They are still probably two decades away from forming a government, but you have to start somewhere.

The reason I say it’s the best possible outcome is because, let’s face it, this is both a big and small “L” country. The Liberal Party has always done what parties in a democracy should do - take the popular ideas, that the majority of the country supports, and run with them. It doesn’t matter who came up with them, if all the popular ideas are supported by one entity, then that’s who the people will vote for. It’s why the Liberals have run the country for most of its history. This gives the party time to sit at the back, listen again, and get rid of all those people we distrust from scandal.

The other reason this is a good result is it allows people that change. “Yep we’ve had it with Liberal’s doing whatever they want, swindling us, and all that. Now we have a different government and change is in the making.” Yeah. A conservative minority government is really going to change… perceptions. That’s about it. They will be, for the most part, a caretaker government. I don’t have a problem with that. How much trouble can the conservatives get into with Liberals and NDP watching? As long as they don’t try to keep any of their ridiculously over the top wasteful spending promises, which I doubt they will, they should be fine. Everyone gets to SEE a different government for a couple of years, while Canada’s true governing party gets to renew itself and come back to rightfully take the reigns. The fact is the conservatives are on a very short leash, and they know it. This is their chance to show Canada that they aren’t the children eating, western grown devil worshippers that people have been led to believe. That the Alliance party is dead, and that the Conservative Party is trustworthy. They know it, and they are going to be awfully careful not to fuck it up. I just think it’s funny, because Resistance it Futile. Just like the Borg, the Liberal’s assimilate and adapt, and they is no defeating them. Despite what conservatives might hope, Stephan Harper is not Jean Luc Picard.

-QS

*Trudeau-esque in an intelligent, charm filled way. Not an overspending, hand in the treasury, let’s burn money type of way.

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I know some people out there are confused, or even better, considered themselves educated in the dupe that is the Blockbuster end of late fees. After spending some time dealing with Blockbuster, becoming a special member, with “special privileges,” I thought I would help clear the fog of of misunderstanding from your minds.

First - the five rentals in a month to get one free rental - it has to be done at the same fucking store. So if you rented the first 3 DVD’s of say, 24 from store A) and the second 3 DVD’s from store B), you still have to rent two more movies at one of the stores to get your free rental. Yeah, that’s right, Blockbuster is a national chain, but apparently the different locations don’t talk to each other. It’s like collecting Subway stamps, but every single location has their own stamps and you can’t redeem them anywhere else. Pretty crappy promotion if you ask me.

Second, I’ll start with my theory. Blockbuster had a difficult time collecting on late fees, or lost DVD’s made on parents credit cards from delinquent students, or some other such nonsense. They needed a way to ensure that if you didn’t return the rental, they could make people return or purchase late rentals. Thus, late fees were replaced with stocking fees. Essentially, if you refuse to return a movie within a week, you’re agreeing to BUY the movie from Blockbuster. (This is with New Releases.) Upon returning the movie within 30 days, you would be issued a refund, with a so called restocking fee.

Now, for the non-business majors, a restocking fee in most retail outlets covers not just the trip back to the shelf, but any repacking, and paperwork that needs to be done to re-enter the product into the system. Someone has to go through, cancel the sale, correct tax collection forms, cancel or return any newly ordered replacement product, etc etc. There are a lot of hidden costs that are generally not covered by a 15% restocking fee.

In Blockbusters case, since they are actually completely set up for the return of items being a rental business, have a system that does all of this at a keystroke, or three. They couldn’t function without the ability to quickly re-enter stock and perform the requisite changes. In fact, the cost of that system would assumably be built into the original cost of the rental.

So this restocking fee that Blockbuster has really isn’t a restocking fee, since within 30 days, no real extra work needs to be done to get it back on the shelf. In fact, it’s really just to help absorb the lost revenue from potential rentals that may have occurred while you had the copy. Now, since this fee is fairly low, and in the case of new rentals, often guaranteed to be there, it’s rare that they actually do not have spare copies. So most of the time that you delay in returning your movie, you’re not actually costing the company any money.

I understand if I keep a movie a long time, especially popular movies with limited stock, I am indeed costing the company money. However, when there’s half a dozen unrented copies sitting on the shelf, I’ve cost them nothing.

I also understand if I don’t return it, I should pay for it. That’s why I agreed to give my credit card in the first place, to set up an account. What I do not like is being lied too. Their system hasn’t really changed all that much. They’ve essentially changed new releases from being two day rentals to one week rentals. At the end of the week you’re charged a late fee. But it’s not a late fee, it’s a restocking fee. But really, it’s just a fee you pay because it’s late. So, what their campaign, if you really wanted to be accurate should be called is, “All movies are one week rentals now, and late fees are now called restocking fees.” Or perhaps, “The end of transparency.”

Under the old system, I understood I was late with a movie if it wasn’t back before the return time, and I’d be punished with a fine to pay for the extra time - now I understand I’m buying a movie unless I return it within a week.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Blockbuster for obfuscating the truth from customers, everyone does it - Dell says they sell good machines, Microsoft tells us they hire people and not monkeys to program, (really they’re hybrid human-monkeys,) and McDonald’s tries to convince us they have products not created entirely with grease. What we have to learn is that, just like McDonald’s claims of healthy alternatives, or GM’s talk of quality, is that it’s a relative term.

Yeah, we’re still fucking you from behind, but unlike the past, we’re using a bit of jelly.

- QS

[Editor's Note: I've been informed that Microsoft indeed uses humans for the actual programming of their software. They actually have helper monkeys that get employees food and drink. It's suspected they sometimes sneak in and add their own code when the programmers are not around. I wish I worked for Microsoft, I could seriously use a helper monkey, or better yet, a helper penguin... swweeeet.]

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I got blasted for my previous post for mixing my religious views with Christmas. It seems to me that maybe we’ve gotten just a little over the top with political correctness when a person can’t talk about religion and Christmas at the same time without offending some conservative whacko. And he was conservative, much like those who practice religion, he seems to blindly follow the rhetoric of the conservative party and allow others to tell him what to think. Good for him. This way he’s not wasting my tax dollars on getting an education. The rest of the essay he submitted to me was essentially a commercial for the Conservative Party, except it actually listed some of their platform, which is unusual for a political advertisement. However, since I do not endorse the Conservative Party, their politics, or their rather stupid party members (click here or here or here for a summary of their intelligence), I did not approve the comment, and you will not read his long winded ramblings here. I would also like to point out that this page, despite it’s serious name, is not always serious in it’s subject matter, and I do pity those who get overly worked up with our attempts at comedy.

As I posted before, I don’t feel there are any real options for Canadians in this election. The Green Party is the only one with a well defined platform that not only makes social sense, but economic sense, but their leader is not particularly TV friendly, and does not seem to be able to speak in public. The NDP is fiscally irresponsible, and can’t be trusted with the nation’s coin purse, let alone our cheque book. The Conservative party is socially removed from the majority of Canadians, and they seem to have forgotten the basic platform of their party, fiscal conservatism, as they’ve been trying to outspend the Liberal and NDP combined. The Liberal party needs to be removed from office for a bit, as their corruption has gotten much too public lately, which leaves us with the Bloc, which would destroy our country… if they were running outside of Quebec.

While I refuse to post the Conservative ad that was e-mailed to me, I have no problem with discussing the ads being run on TV. The Liberal ads are trying to paint Harper as evil - and Canadians, most of whom realize this to be true, are tired of being told the obvious. The Conservative ads that are trying to connect the Gomery report and the corruption to Martin, despite his being cleared, are infuriatingly misleading. The NDP is a joke, so no need to comment. After reviewing all the ads, I’ve decided to vote milk. Their ad is sassy, got lots of sex, represents a broad base of Canadians with minorities, hip hop, and farmers being represented, and it actually expresses several of their ideas - it’s not just a negative ad saying the other person is no good. I mean, if they were running a negative ad, I imagine it would go something like this… an ominous picture of a carrot, with a deep dark voice talking slowly… “Carrot juice says it’s good for your body, but then why did it smack you around when you broke your diet? Carrot juice says its low in calories, then why did its cake add so much to your thighs? Do you really want to trust your body to something that makes your pee orange? We even heard that it sleeps with tomatoes and double dips in the V8. We’re not making this up, we’re not allowed to. This drinking season, drink pure, drink Milk. This ad was paid for by a registered representative of Milk.”

So I guess Milk has gone the high sexy road because, well, it would ruin its good for you image. While neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives enjoyed a reputation as wholesome as milk before the election campaign kicked off, it doesn’t mean they both need to slink to tarring the other guy. Canadians want to know what the parties stand for, and while I admit that the Conservatives have been more successful this election season in getting their ideas across, they’re still bad ideas, to quote my dad, “Harper makes my skin crawl.”

On January 23rd, vote for wholesome nurturing government, vote Milk - it does a nation good.

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With the onset of the final days leading up to Christmas, I find myself in the same funk as many people over the holidays. I think of people, loved ones, life and all that fun stuff. Now, considering Christmas has very little significance to me, except I generally work more, I find it a little odd that I do so much reflecting this time of year. My religious views clearly have no reason for any festive joy or contemplation. I do not believe Christ died on the cross, I do not believe a devine being created us, cares for us, or provides us guidance. For my beliefs, it would be best to take a refresher at said previous link. Fate is bullshit made for the weak minded who can’t make their own decisions, and always has been. You make your own luck, and when opportunity fails to knock, you build your own door. Those are my beliefs, I’m just a shitty and apathetic carpenter.
In all seriousness though, I think for me, life reflection has more to do with the new year, and my upcoming birthday. I’m still young, I don’t think I’m getting old by any means, but you clearly have to look at what you’re doing, where you are in life, and if you’re not happy, in your clearly little defined rut, something has to change, and you are the instrument of your own change. The perfect opportunity doesn’t just come along, you have to go looking for it, and if you can’t find it, then make it. The situation is never hopeless, and I need to get off my ass and do something…

….ok, I lie. Some situations are hopeless. Yep, now it’s time to talk politics. I was listening to one of the Conservative advertisements - but if you aren’t watching the TV, it really gets your hopes up. Canadians are seeing a new government that will change things… I was like… what, the Green Party ditched their leader and their twit media prep boys? Did the DDRP get a federal party? I was all optimistic about this new party that had a connection with actual Canadians. Then it said, “Vote for the Conservatives and Stand Up for Canada.” Um. What the hell? The Conservatives are still delusional whackos. My Canada does not have Stephen Harper or his idiocy and his two tier rights for straights only, lets make meaningless tax breaks on GST running things. For the record Harper, you want to do something with the GST and have an actual impact? Eliminate it. Idiot. %2 is nothing. Eliminate it, the cost of administering it, and put cash back in the hands of Canadians, stop this double taxing our income crap.

I digress. My point is the Conservatives are clearly living in their own little world. They don’t seem to realize most of Canada is at heart, liberal socially. We don’t want a leader that kisses American conservative ass, rides roughshod over gays, (muwahahah… imagery…), and looks like he is a reanimated corpse. I mean, damn, have you seen those eyes? I realize now why the Conservatives haven’t realized he’s a bad leader, they’re too busy trying to keep him alive, sacrificing virgins, and making deals with the devil. Harper just can’t be human. Ugh… soulless, soulless eyes.

I assume we’ve all seen the www.Beernotkids.com petition by now that Rick Mercer set up. (My signature is in the top thirty!) I mean, really a couple of measly dollars a month for childcare? How does that help? Does it cover the gas to get to the daycare centre? It’s not even enough to cover a bus pass in some cities.
And then there’s the complete lack of clarity. I know what the Liberals stand for. Essentially, all the good ideas every other party has that turn out to be popular, and reasonably fiscally responsible. (Aside from their constant Scotty routine with the budget. “It’ll take five hours to fix the engines Cap’n.” “You’ve got two.” “Alright… we’ll see…” And BAM he does it. Seems a lot like… “we’re going to only have $1.9 billion this year, time to tighten our belts, ohh wait turns out it was $9.1 billion… uhh.. we had a really good year?”)

What do the Conservatives stand for? All I know is that Harper will over turn legislation and make the traditional definition of marriage the “correct” one and rob gays of their rights, despite the courts already having decided the charter already trounces old school legislation. I know he thinks the Liberals don’t have the morale authority to govern, and that he felt a sponsorship scandal taking over 9 years to steal $250 million is a good enough reason to have a $300 million election. I know he said that he’d still love his children even if they were gay, (but would take away their rights to be equal citizens. Hey, love may be unconditional, but the charter isn’t.) I also know he said he wouldn’t use the notwithstanding clause on “this issue,” when referring to gay rights, which makes me wonder what issues he WOULD use it…
What I do know is this: As long as the Conservatives have the corpse of a zombie leading them in a campaign of obfuscation and confusion, I won’t vote for the Conservatives. What makes the whole situation so hopeless is I don’t really want to vote for anyone. The country I love so much, is so royally screwed.

Christmas, what a depressing time of year.
~QS

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Let’s say your neighbours, very very nice people they are, start quarrelling. It seems Mr. Smith has, over the last nine years, quietly diverted part of the Smith’s shared earnings into his own pockets, and spent the money on things without his wife knowing. Things like beers with the fellas, strippers, and power tools. The amount of money, $25 thousand. Now, the Smith’s, very wealthy, have a shared income of about three hundred thousand dollars per year. So, in retaliation, after only a week of thinking about it, Mrs. Smith decides to have Mr. Smith audited. Now remember it’s a shared income, and the audit turns out to cost the Smith family, $30 thousand in expenses and owed taxes. Well, now Mrs. Smith has actually doubled the lost income, and why? Because she acted hastily without thinking. Fortunately the Smiths are fairly wealthy, and the $55 thousand this cost them total isn’t such a big deal, and little Sarah Smith still gets her tuition paid, but now she has to work to pay for housing. She’s pretty pissed. In fact, she’s so mad, she’d really like take the cheque book away from the two of them, and keep watch over the money herself. Well, she’s a kid, and has no power, so Mr. and Mrs. Smith are ok.

Now, let’s take all the money and multiply it by 10 thousand. Then we’ll take the family of three and multiply it by 10 million. And instead of it being Mr. and Mrs. Smith, let’s call them the Liberal and Conservative party. And the Smith’s just became Canadians.

It allegedly took the Liberal Party of Canada 9 years to steal $250 million* from Canadians. It took the Conservative Party one day to bring down the minority government and cost Canadians an estimated $300 million. Quite frankly, I’m more mad at the Conservatives than I am at the Liberals, and for several reasons.

1. Efficiency. Yes, efficiency in government is what we all would love to see, but by blowing more money than the Liberals allegedly stole in a tiny fraction of the time, they’ve shown to me that their efficiency in money management belies their so-called conservative fiscal management message. In fact, it says to me they will be a lot less likely to think of where our money is going than the Liberals, who, to steal Rick Mercer’s words, are fairly thoughtful in their efforts to bribe us with our own money.
2. Ego. The Conservatives would not work with a Liberal government - at all. In fact, during this Parliament, they have actually caused delays by bringing forward motions to stop work, keeping any sort of progress in legislation to a stand still - for an entire week.
3. Their platform, or lack there of. If you want Canadians to believe you don’t have a hidden agenda, then tell us what it is. All I know about the Conservative platform is that they would have a free vote on Gay marriage, (which quite frankly, has already been decided by the courts, so it’s not even an issue, just formalize the legality already), and that Stephan Harper has no idea what his federal prosecutor could or would do. Aside from that, I have to get all my information from the Liberals, and they’re saying the Tories have a hidden agenda. Well, considering they won’t tell me what it is, it does seem awfully hidden. Just tell me, or I’m going to assume it’s evil.

The fact is, I’m pretty ticked at politics in Canada. It’s pathetic. The race is only a few days old, and already it looks to be the same ole, same ole’. No ideas, just bickering and bitching, and hitting below the belt. The Conservatives aren’t going to win us over just by telling us the Liberals are corrupt. The Liberals will be able to scare most of us over the hidden agenda, but not enough to get a majority, and the NDP is likely to end up the lonely girl at the party who the two guys are gonna try to seduce because they realize they can’t have sex alone. (Sex being a majority.)

I think Canadians need to take a lesson from CBC management about getting tough. Let’s stride up to Parliament Hill with the biggest damned chain we can get, some stupid big padlocks, and lock that sucker up. No one gets to go to Parliament, it’s time Canadians locked out the workers.

I don’t want another round of ineffective government, or another campaign run on trying to belittle the other guy. Let’s get some ideas, or none of you are going to work in the New Year. It’s time to lockout the politicians, and take away their cheque book. I’m tired of being the powerless Sarah Smith - who’s with me?

-QS

*Gomery report says it was something more like $147 million spent on advertising, and who knows how much legitimate, but at the same time, they spent more on the sponsorship program than they originally said they did, so $ 250 million seems good to me.

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I don’t get why French people in this country as so pissy. After spending a weekend trapped in a room with a high percentage of Quebecois, it’s become apparent to me that the mindset of the average Quebecois forty-something has nothing to be unhappy about…
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So my rant from earlier this rant about how NAFTA is at stake by the American refusal to accept the NAFTA’s board ruling seems to have been ahead of the curve. Now that all the immediate devastation of the hurricanes has passed, everyone is chiming in with the same idea. The Canadian Trade Minister, the Globe and Mail, and now even Mexican PresidentVicente Fox” are all saying the same thing. Makes a guy feel good about his analytical abilities, especially when he spends most of his time drunk off his ass. Just thought I’d toss that out there.

And at the same time, apologize for the last article. I think I wrote that over three weeks, with different parts being written at different times, and I was so lazy putting it together, I just figured, “I’ll toss in an ellipse or two and it’ll be all good…”

… so I’m sorry. Muwahaha…

- QS

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A couple of articles published by CBC.ca lately have made me laugh out loud at the complete stupidity of those interviewed. I’m not sure what those whom were quoted were thinking, but clearly their connection to reality is about as solid as a ginger bread house built on a foundation of Jello on a teutonic fault line in San Francisco.

Read this yet? Give it a quick read before you read the rest of this. Done yet? Of for Pete’s sake…. done? Sheesh. Finally. So…

Oh yeah, that’s it - people in Vancouver are more healthy, but only if you think coffee and Starbuck’s is healthier than Coke. It has nothing to do with health choices and everything to do with drinking preferences. If you’re too busy wasting your money on gobs of Starbuck’s coffee, and over stimulating your yuppy nerves, then you’re likely not drinking Coke and rotting your stomach. You don’t chose coffee over Coke to be healthier, you chose it because you’re a junky with expensive tastes.

Another story where I found the quote completely laughable, was this beauty covering the recently passed Pit Bull ban. One breeder, a retired grandfather says the government is forcing him to move away from his kids and grandchildren so that he can keep breeding his pit bulls. Yeah, that’s right, lay on the sob story about separating your family, because your priorities are clearly in order. You realize how much more important it is to raise animals purely designed for killing small things, (like say rats, or umm, oh, small children, possibly grandchildren), than to spend time with your family, and help raise your grand-kids. Yeah, you have my sympathy, because it truly is a tragedy. How about this instead? You get out of my province, bread more of these vicious little killers, and hopefully, in a twist of appropriate fate, they devour you, thus once again proving the absolute authority of Darwin’s Law. Sounds pretty good to me.

I really wonder sometimes if maybe CBC just likes making people look like idiots, because they certainly do an excellent job of it, and I don’t just mean all of the other Canadian newscasts, (which can only be described as newscasts rather loosely - as everyone is learning as the lock out continues). I really believe they might be in search of candidates for the newest CBC show, yet to be revealed. I think it’s going to be called, “The Dumbest Canadian,” or the “Canadians you wish were American,” or some other great exhibition of mass idiocy.

- QS

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I’m trying to avoid having geek moments, and ranting about technology based things, unless it somehow boils down to how stupid humanity is, but I can’t help it in this case. What the hell is Apple thinking?
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The fundamental issue, I think, with softwood lumber these days is not the fact the US thinks we unfairly subsidize our lumber industry with artificially low stumpage fees, or that Canada thinks that the US has been unfairly collecting tariffs, or that this ruling is in our favour and that ruling is in their favour. The fundamental issue is that the United States cannot be trusted.

NAFTA and other trade-agreements took years to negotiate, to work out the kinks, and they were farsighted enough to realize there would be disagreements between trading partners. They, those who outlined the agreement, knew a system would have to be developed to deal with grievances. When Mexico, Canada and the US signed the agreement, they agreed to abide by the rules of the agreement, but also, they agreed to the system that was developed to deal with disagreements over how the rules should be interpreted. The US agreed to abide by decisions that panel created by NAFTA would hand down, as the deciding authority. But they don’t. In their usual unilateral way, the United States continues to ignore rulings, bully their way around, and generally act with indifference to it’s biggest trading partner.

So considering how the United States treats one of its closest allies and friends within an agreement they signed, promised to abide by, is it any wonder why the rest of the world doesn’t believe a single word the US says? Why should the rest of the world trust the US when they don’t even respect their own agreements with their best buddies?

If my best friend and I agreed to deal with who would restock the beer fridge by weekly games of rock, scissor paper, and we both agreed, sure I’d probably get a little irritated if he continually won, but the fact remains, I agreed to it. I can’t just ignore the fact because I don’t like the outcome. Because if I did, well, then my friend wouldn’t trust me when I said other things.

“Yes, her underwear was in my wash, but I didn’t sleep with your girlfriend. I think your wash just got mixed in with mine.”

If I’m always truthful, and I always hold up my end, he’s likely to believe that explanation. If I’m always ignoring our agreements, backing out of deals I’ve made and generally disrespecting him, he’s likely going to kick my ass. And why shouldn’t he?

Now the problem here is that the US is a big friend, with bulging muscles, and rather poor sense of when to use them. Clearly clubbing your best friend, and then sleeping with his girl friend is not going to make you popular amongst the rest of your social circle. Neither is failing to abide by trade agreements with your closet friend, and taking billions of dollars from them and acting like you’re trustworthy.

- Questionable Sanity

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…to all my
Past resignations
It’s been too long.

Hell ya, in the some five years since I’ve seen the Foo Fighters, they’ve compiled another couple of records, Dave has really evolved as a performer, and they learned to fucking rock the house. I mean, they were good last time, but they were just incredible this time. I can’t even really convey it in words. Now mind you, me and my musical appreciating partner in crime, were front and just right of centre, so not bothered by the crowd surfers, yet probably not more than ten feet from the band. It was awesome. When you can see Chris Schefield grinning to Taylor Hawkins as he starts doing crazy drum shit in the middle of a song, and Dave walks back with a big grin and starts playing off against Taylor… well, hell, it’s just a very intimate intense situation, where you see the band actually having fun, and rocking out.

I think that’s all I have to say, because, the fact is, I’m just really still riding that buzz, and it was an awesome show. I’ll have an article with top somethings on it in the next couple of days. I keep composing lots of things, but I never finish anything. Soon I shall have lots of free time, because I’ll be training five days a week. Speaking of which, the swelling in my hand has finally gone down to a point where it doesn’t look like a had a transplant from some super fat guy. And it only took five days. Not quite normal yet though… I’m a glutton for punishment.

- QS

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