Wow, I read my last two posts before looking at the dates they were posted. Things move a lot more slowly than we realize. My wit for one thing. I have not written much on here for a year, and I don't know why. Of course, it doesn't matter much since things don't really change much around here in so short a time. At least some things don't.
A long time ago, when pen pal ads were free and Gmail had a dating/ friendship service i used to troll for email pals. I could respond to a number of posts asking for friends and I even threw out a few pleas myself. I got a fair number of responses and corresponded with folks from Quebec, Australia, Zimbabwe and the US. Friends came and went, some lasting years, some only a letter or two. It was fun and educational. What was both striking and kinda sad was what I realized after getting a letter from a long lost pen pal a while back. WHen I wrote her back my letter was very much the same as the last one I had sent her, more than 2 years earlier. I was still working on the houses i was renovating. I was still trying to be a farmer. I was still off into the same bush a few months a year for real work. Those things are what i do for work i suppose and as such they are bound to remain fairly constant. The problem is that I always thought of my life as being full of adventure and freedom. I think perhaps that self employment is a little further from the promised land than i thought.
More distressing still is the astounding speed at which time flies by as one gets a little older. It is impossible for me to grasp that my eldest is 18 when it was only last summer ( a month or two ago really) that he was 16. The girls are 16 already! Thank God that they are all still children at heart. I cannot imagine what it will be like when I am in my 60's, 70's or 80's! My theory is that ten years for an octogenarian is like 10 days for a 50 year old. Therefor I am unwilling to sacrifice all those things i so dearly love (bacon, cinnamon buns, meat, candy, pop, loose women) in order to live an extra 10 or 20 minutes.
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Saturday, 10 March 2012
This is Us:
It is the middle class itself that has insisted on its own enfeeblement with continual demands for the regulation of daily life and for insisting on the elevation of concerns such as animal rights and the environment as if nobody would have to pay or as if there were a source of unlimited wealth to draw on.
Wisdom From Lord Moncton.
" It was the age of reason that built the West and made it prosperous and free. The age of reason gave you your great Constitution of liberty. It is the power of reason, the second of the three great powers of the soul in Christian theology, that marks our species out from the rest of the visible creation, and makes us closest to the image and likeness of our Creator. I cannot stand by and let the forces of darkness drive us unprotesting into a new Dark Age.”
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Is it Just me? Of course it is.
OK, since nobody else is going to say it I will. Where is it written that UN, US or any other intervention is called for in Syria? I think anyone with a brain realises that Libya had nothing to do with saving a few thousand rebel 'freedom fighters' and everything to do with removing Ghadafi and getting a new, helpless regime installed from which Europe could extract more oil and concessions. No? So we in the west always support people who are killed by their government? I think that would be news in Sudan.
But all quibbles and evil western motives aside, the question in my mind is what right we have to interfere. This isn't Korea, or Kosovo, or even Viet Nam. There is no shadowy superpower trying to overthrow the Syrian government. On the contrary, the Syrian government is trying to suppress a revolt. The protesters are not protesters, they are revolutionaries, as anyone in Egypt, or Libya could tell you. One might not support the Syrian style of govt. but it is as legitimate a govt. in the worlds eyes as the Canadian govt. is. SO why is it OK for the world to get involved with Syria's revolt when we would not want that sort of interference in our country?
The year is 2019. The federal NDP government, responding to the concerns of American and European activist and governments has shut down Oil sand production and introduced a hefty carbon tax on oil and gas development. The provincial government of Alberta has been driven into massive deficit and unemployment has spiked to 22 percent in the western provinces (with the exception of the lower mainland of BC, which no longer uses the term: unemployment, preferring the term 'government funded arts and recreation sabattical' for which it compiles no statistics (since it has been shown that statistics often offend the people involved).
Large demonstrations break out in major cities in the west, expanding to the rural areas and the oilfields, eventually shutting off oil and gas supplies to the east. Police and army are unable to quell the protests and secondary protests against the hardships caused by fuel disruption begin in eastern Canada. The federal NDP, concerned about falafel shipments rotting for lack of transport orders a crackdown. Violence ensues and escalates. The western provinces are awash with anger and the populace declare the government of Canada as illegitimate due to the violence used against their mostly peaceful protests.
Here is where it gets interesting. The US and Mexico, both under several severe fuel constraints, and wanting the oilsands back on line (so they can condemn them while buying the oil) decide that they must act against the imminent slaughter of western canucks at the hands of the evil federal government of Canada. Accordingly, they begin supplying the most radical elements of the western protesters with advanced weapons and commence bombing the shit out of every communication facility, airstrip, CBC station and the Prime Ministers house (they had info that he had a shortwave radio in there). After torching the country and turning it over to the rednecks (who basically just go home, secure and happy in the belief that the federal government will never be heard from again) the US offers aid and advice on how to deliver our good more cheaply and efficiently, while educating the new, weak government on the benefits of selling our resources directly to American and Mexican concerns (who just happen to be super PAC contributors).
Couldn't happen here? Sure, you are probably right. But it can and did happen in a few other countries last year, and folks are itching for another go. So how would you like it if it DID play out that way here in Canada. To put anti Western sentiment in perspective, how would you fell towards the Americans and Mexicans after the above scenario?
Hypocrisy is a wonderful thing isn't it?
But all quibbles and evil western motives aside, the question in my mind is what right we have to interfere. This isn't Korea, or Kosovo, or even Viet Nam. There is no shadowy superpower trying to overthrow the Syrian government. On the contrary, the Syrian government is trying to suppress a revolt. The protesters are not protesters, they are revolutionaries, as anyone in Egypt, or Libya could tell you. One might not support the Syrian style of govt. but it is as legitimate a govt. in the worlds eyes as the Canadian govt. is. SO why is it OK for the world to get involved with Syria's revolt when we would not want that sort of interference in our country?
The year is 2019. The federal NDP government, responding to the concerns of American and European activist and governments has shut down Oil sand production and introduced a hefty carbon tax on oil and gas development. The provincial government of Alberta has been driven into massive deficit and unemployment has spiked to 22 percent in the western provinces (with the exception of the lower mainland of BC, which no longer uses the term: unemployment, preferring the term 'government funded arts and recreation sabattical' for which it compiles no statistics (since it has been shown that statistics often offend the people involved).
Large demonstrations break out in major cities in the west, expanding to the rural areas and the oilfields, eventually shutting off oil and gas supplies to the east. Police and army are unable to quell the protests and secondary protests against the hardships caused by fuel disruption begin in eastern Canada. The federal NDP, concerned about falafel shipments rotting for lack of transport orders a crackdown. Violence ensues and escalates. The western provinces are awash with anger and the populace declare the government of Canada as illegitimate due to the violence used against their mostly peaceful protests.
Here is where it gets interesting. The US and Mexico, both under several severe fuel constraints, and wanting the oilsands back on line (so they can condemn them while buying the oil) decide that they must act against the imminent slaughter of western canucks at the hands of the evil federal government of Canada. Accordingly, they begin supplying the most radical elements of the western protesters with advanced weapons and commence bombing the shit out of every communication facility, airstrip, CBC station and the Prime Ministers house (they had info that he had a shortwave radio in there). After torching the country and turning it over to the rednecks (who basically just go home, secure and happy in the belief that the federal government will never be heard from again) the US offers aid and advice on how to deliver our good more cheaply and efficiently, while educating the new, weak government on the benefits of selling our resources directly to American and Mexican concerns (who just happen to be super PAC contributors).
Couldn't happen here? Sure, you are probably right. But it can and did happen in a few other countries last year, and folks are itching for another go. So how would you like it if it DID play out that way here in Canada. To put anti Western sentiment in perspective, how would you fell towards the Americans and Mexicans after the above scenario?
Hypocrisy is a wonderful thing isn't it?
Monday, 13 February 2012
Mindless
Is it just me or is it almost impossible to think without verbalising your thoughts inside your head? I find I talk to myself (silently) when i am trying to form arguments or thoughts. Of course i don't need to do so when i am talking to someone or when i am writing (typing) things out. I don't remember a time when i was not thins way, even studying for school, so what gives? When i dream i think very clearly. It must be all the mental noise cluttering up my conscious mind.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
To all the Arab Spring enthusiasts:
Screw You.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/muslim-brotherhood-takes-lead-in-egypt-vote-count-1.398753
It was bad enough I had to listen to ridiculous talking heads prattle on about how the muslim brotherhood is a secular organisation, or that the protesters were fighting for the pursuit of happiness, but to have so many supposedly intelligent people confuse democracy with freedom really turned my stomach. So now all you supporters (and the untold millions in the 'I don't know, but I am hopeful ' group can see what democracy can lead to in an arabic country. Egypt WAS our ally (of a sort) and WAS one of only two countries in the Arab world to recognise Israel. It IS now another islamist hole, bent on it's own destruction and that of the only free nation in the Middle East.
Take a bow.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/muslim-brotherhood-takes-lead-in-egypt-vote-count-1.398753
It was bad enough I had to listen to ridiculous talking heads prattle on about how the muslim brotherhood is a secular organisation, or that the protesters were fighting for the pursuit of happiness, but to have so many supposedly intelligent people confuse democracy with freedom really turned my stomach. So now all you supporters (and the untold millions in the 'I don't know, but I am hopeful ' group can see what democracy can lead to in an arabic country. Egypt WAS our ally (of a sort) and WAS one of only two countries in the Arab world to recognise Israel. It IS now another islamist hole, bent on it's own destruction and that of the only free nation in the Middle East.
Take a bow.
A lesson for Goverment Spendaholics.
I hear a lot about Italy and Greece these days. One of the things we hear is that Greeks and Italians don't pay their taxes. This moral failing is oft cited as a major reason for the countries being in the state they are in. I suspect it is vice versa. If my government were as prone to giving away my money as the Greek and Italian govts. are i would cheat on my taxes too. Think about it. Who are the people cheating on their taxes? People who make money and who have opportunities to cheat. That is: private sector employees and small businesses. Who are the folks that the government spends all their money on? Public employees, bureaucrats and the unwashed masses who, as a rule do not make enough money to owe taxes. So where is the incentive for honesty here?
Here in Canada things are more moderate. Our government has not yet completely spent us into the poor house, public sector employees make up less than half the workforce and people generally don't try too hard to cheat the tax man. But make no mistake. every time we read about billion dollar G20 summits, or lavish Governor General expense accounts, or any other profligate waste by our government or bureaucracy it has an effect.
People don't really understand billions and trillions of dollars. It has no real meaning. We understand wealth in terms of what we could expect to have or dream of spending. So when some government fat cat spends 100 grand renovating or travelling or partying , the average joe thinks: "shit. that's about as much as i can save up in 20 years, gone in a day". Or when the government tells Joe's dad that they are going to have to index his pension in order to make a dent in the deficit, the old guy thinks :" how many pensions do you need to claw back to pay for Strombolopolus to throw a music awards party at my expense? " The two men then start to see their obligations to pay their taxes in a different light.
Faced with morally bankrupt government spending of taxpayer money, the moral argument against cheating on ones taxes goes out the window. The more the government wastes, the less inclined we are to give them money, and the more inclined we are to break the rules in order to do so.
Here in Canada things are more moderate. Our government has not yet completely spent us into the poor house, public sector employees make up less than half the workforce and people generally don't try too hard to cheat the tax man. But make no mistake. every time we read about billion dollar G20 summits, or lavish Governor General expense accounts, or any other profligate waste by our government or bureaucracy it has an effect.
People don't really understand billions and trillions of dollars. It has no real meaning. We understand wealth in terms of what we could expect to have or dream of spending. So when some government fat cat spends 100 grand renovating or travelling or partying , the average joe thinks: "shit. that's about as much as i can save up in 20 years, gone in a day". Or when the government tells Joe's dad that they are going to have to index his pension in order to make a dent in the deficit, the old guy thinks :" how many pensions do you need to claw back to pay for Strombolopolus to throw a music awards party at my expense? " The two men then start to see their obligations to pay their taxes in a different light.
Faced with morally bankrupt government spending of taxpayer money, the moral argument against cheating on ones taxes goes out the window. The more the government wastes, the less inclined we are to give them money, and the more inclined we are to break the rules in order to do so.
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