now

...mid august was my last posting..much work here in Cobourg, a new garage roof,the driveway fixed, a new large solid deck was built in the back and a number of other related tasks have been completed..a new little Ford Ranger truck was purchased as well as this goofy little front loader yard tractor....

Canada-Ontario;Courtice,east of Toronto

Just a sign of life folks, yes I am still around. The puter still gives me some challenges but I am all hooked up now in the new town and ready to roll.

I hope to be able to get back and do some art in the near future, just as soon as all my junk is unpacked or disposed off.

computer virus etc

...somewhere down page I've been dealing with this problem, a Russian Rip off scheme which sells antivirus software that does damage instead. These bandits make millions off cheated customers and it does not appear that there is anyone to make a serious effort to curtail their activities.

Ten major viruses, Trojans, and spy ware applications that you may be at risk for.


This is an important announcement for all ParetoLogic customers to make you fully aware of the current major threats to your PC's safety and the security risks associated with them. Our analysis team has designated the top 10 threats affecting PC users worldwide: Privacy Center, Pro AntiSpyware 2009, Antivirus XP, Antivirus 2009, Antivirus 360, Internet Antivirus Pro, Ultimate Antivirus 2008, Ultimate Cleaner, Ultimate Defender, and Renus.
Malware threats such as these can lead to criminals turning your computer into servers for SPAM email and installing spyware applications. These threats can also allow intruders to steal address books, credit card numbers, private information, and browsing histories.
If you do not have proper virus protection,
please scan your PC with Anti-Virus PLUS today to see if you are infected.
Run a Free Virus Scan and See If You Are Infected
Thank you and best regards,
The ParetoLogic Email Teamhttp://www.paretologic.com/
I purchased this software a while ago and am quite impressed with it.
I am promoting this software because it works, there is no reward involved.

CP Train derailment...Oshawa Ontario Canada

Apparently 27 rail cars went of the track this week in Oshawa...CP this time...some of them ending up in residential backyards. People were evacuated until it was considered save to return to their homes. Toxic cargo. ...sooner or later there must be some changes made. What are we waiting for? Do we really need a huge disaster to happen and only then take any needed action,
should we not be proactive and fix this now?





I wrote about this sort of thing a little while back....Ratatat..see details on my blog.
Derailments will happen occasionally, one would think with modern technology this could be avoided or minimized...27 cars in a city that's serious stuff and just to clean the mess up...pay the customers for their lost or spoiled cargo and collect insurance is not good enough.
I believe we lost CN and CP...both sold out to American interests. Can't see them investing in new and relocated facilities any time soon although that should be a mayor consideration...get dangerous cargo..or in fact any cargo away from residential areas...
We live in the second largest country on earth, surely the time has come to invest heavily in the future and improve the railway system. I can not comment much on reasons or causes for these derailments, antiquated rail lines and equipment are only some of the causes....but there is one cause I can and should comment on.

Jim D. two doors up from my house in the city ( Torronno) worked for CN. It was his job to replace bearings on rail cars. Apparently they wear out after a while and need to be replaced.These things were not like the ball bearings we are familiar with. But instead they were cast brass and lead hunks of metal...sort of kidney bean shaped,about 40 pounds or more a piece, and they are placed around the Axel pressure or weight point of the rail car. As they wear out, they need to be replaced. Instead of installing and replacing these bearings Jim would simply take them to a scrap dealer...never mind the old ones...the brand new bearings never got installed. He did that for years. Sometimes several hundred pounds a week, straight from the repair yard brand new stuff to the scrupulous scrap dealer.
I would imagine that sooner or later as these old bearings get worn out....the axle runs hot, ceases up and there you have it...one of many reasons for a derailment....
...see my blog of Feb.17/09 with these comments...:-
Rut-tat-tut-rat-ta-tut.....a train with about 100 rail cars rumbles through town..a small town on lake Ontario, Port Hope or Cobourg..does it really matter?The point is,that these rail-links are old and should have been replaced long ago.Rail is about the cheapest way to move goods unless there is a possibility of traffic by water, a barge system.And yet we see thousands of transport trucks 18 wheelers with often overtired operators slugging it out on our highways.Does it not make sens to review our transportation system? Is it not time to have a good look at where we are and where we should be going with this. During economic so called hard times we should find or create the resources to fix or renew this part of our infrastructure. People are looking for jobs and things to do and are less likely to want to go on strike for unreasonable demands. We should claim our railways back, they once were the backbone of what we were as a country and this would be the time to update the antiquated system .Years ago I suggested to build a rapid rail-link between Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal with an international Airport in or around Kingston..If this system would have been implemented we could have, today one of the most modern commuter, people moving systems in the world.Instead multi millions were wasted acquiring land in Pickering ( east of Toronto) and a totally useless airport was built in Montreal ( Mirabel,now mothballed).

GM

....two weeks after my gm notes...they're bust...bankrupt...and as well as with Chrysler,General Motors will be in a chapter 11 situation.
Once more, Ford will be the only American Automobile manufactures in the USA, Ford once produced 55% of all cars made in the USA. That was in the model T days.
According to the news reports it looks like GM's Pontiac and Saturn operations may be shut down completely and the Chevrolet operations will be the only operating part of the once mighty General Motors.
Chrysler, after Chapter 11 may sell it's remnants to Fiat... and wherever that's going nobody knows.

mighty GM

For the once mighty GM corporation,today is the day the award winning small truck plant in Oshawa is closing down...apparently for good....gloom and doom all around. I live here and the change in the GM structure is taking it's toll on the town and the region.

They( the Motors)... are now frantically building the new Camaro here, about the only thing left out here to assemble...the new model Camaro, but to introduce a new muscle car at a time when gasoline is 96 cents a liter may not be the thing needed at this time to pull GM out of the dumps.

They say Saturn and Pontiac brands will disappear. At the same time it was announced today in the States that about 900 Chrysler dealers are about to shut down and the company will indeed declare chapter 11... Fiat takeover or not.

I have no idea where all this is going...obviously gross mismanagement of resources is one reason. It is easy enough to blame the Unions for their excessive and costly demands but I think most of that is just nonsense. Management is as much or more to blame for the ridiculous state GM and the industry as such is in today.

There will be cars built in North America, it's ironic that the two former enemies of the USA, Japan and Germany may end up supplying most of the future cars running in this region of the world built in USA or Canada.

One of the greatest creations of man, the "Automotive Car" or popularly known as the "Car" is a result of man's consistent efforts and perseverance. Over the years, the automobile industry has evolved as one of the main revenue generators, provider of employment and has progressed a lot.
Though the credit for the modern day automobile goes to Karl Friedrich Benz (from Germany), the first theoretical plans for a motor vehicle were conceptualized by both Isaac Newton and Leonardo da Vinci.

...the picture features a Tata Indica car made in India by the most rapidly growing car builder in the world....watch them grow and produce the cheapest quality car in the world...

Tamil

Much in the news here lately ( Canada Toronto Ontario ) people of Sri Lanka who more recently came to Canada as immigrants.... still much involved in supporting efforts in their former homeland to create a separate country on the formerly called island of Ceylon, south of India...

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), more commonly known as the Tamil Tigers, is a political and military group that is fighting for an independent homeland in Sri Lanka.
It emerged in response to tensions between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils in the island nation south of India.


(Source: Public Safety Canada)
The group's roots can be traced back to 1974, when several Tamil militants created the Tamil New Tigers (TNT). LTTE was officially founded two years later, in May 1976, by Velupillai Prabhakaran and members of the TNT,considered a terrorist organization by Canada, is known for its suicide attacks and is said to have pioneered the use of suicide vests.
The Tigers are fighting for an independent state in the north and eastern parts of Sri Lanka, an area they refer to as Tamil Eelam.
In 1983, 13 Sinhalese soldiers in northern Jaffna were killed in an ambush by Tigers, sparking anti-Tamil riots that led to the deaths of an estimated several hundred Tamils. It also forced thousands of Tamils to flee the country.
That marked the beginning of what the Tigers call the First Eelam War between the Tamil separatists and Sinhalese-dominated government.
It is a civil war that would continue to claim 70,000 lives over the years and is still not over.
Attempts at peace
In the 1980s, the Indian military service became involved in the conflict by helping train and arm the Tigers.The Tamil Tigers want an independent state in north and eastern parts of Sri Lanka. (CBC)
In 1987, India and Sri Lanka signed an accord in which Colombo agreed to create new councils for Tamil areas in the north and east. It also reached an agreement with India to deploy an Indian peacekeeping force to curb the violence in northern Sri Lanka.
But the peacekeeping force soon found itself embroiled in the bloody conflict and eventually withdrew.
On May 21, 1991, a suspected female member of the LTTE assassinated Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu in an apparent act of revenge against India for sending a peacekeeping force who ended up fighting the rebels.
The Tigers have been known to use women and children in their suicide attacks. UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, said they recorded more than 6,000 cases of children recruited by the LTTE between 2003 and 2008.
The Tigers and the Sri Lankan government agreed to a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire in 2002 that a war-weary public hoped would bring lasting peace. But talks broke off in 2003 and violence flared up yet again.
When the Boxing Day tsunami hit Sri Lanka in 2004, the civil strife was set aside as the country struggled to deal with the worst disaster in its history.
About two-thirds of the damage was in the northeastern areas of the island, parts of which were Tiger territory. However, in the aftermath the Tamil Tigers were reportedly preying on tsunami orphans to use as child soldiers, according to UNICEF.
When billions of dollars in foreign aid flowed into the country for tsunami relief, the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission brokered a deal between the Tamil Tigers and the government. The controversial agreement had the groups share responsibility for the money allocated for the disaster's survivors. But the Sri Lankan Supreme Court struck it down.
Fundraising abroad
In February 2006, the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government met for the first time since 2003 and agreed to extend the ceasefire. They also planned to meet again for more negotiations.
But it didn't stop the violence. Among the deaths blamed on the fighting was a deadly sea battle on May 11, 2006, that claimed the lives of 17 soldiers and about 45 rebels.
A Human Rights Watch report released in March 2006 said the Tamil Tigers were using threats and intimidation tactics to extort money from Sri Lankans living in Canada.

Fundraisers, often working in pairs, knocked on the doors of Tamil families to solicit donations.
The fundraisers were quoted as saying they were "collecting for the final war against the Sri Lankan government." The donation drive targeted Tamil families in Toronto, home to one of the largest Tamil populations outside Sri Lanka.
"Tamils unable to pay say they have been told by LTTE fundraisers to borrow the money, make a contribution on their credit card or even re-mortgage their home," Human Rights Watch said in a news release.
In April of 2006, the Canadian government added the LTTE to its official list of terrorist organizations for its use of suicide bombers and child soldiers in the conflict. The designation makes it a crime to fundraise for the group.
Ceasefire ends
The Sri Lankan government officially ended the ceasefire agreement on Jan. 16, 2008.
By early 2009, the Sri Lankan army said they had ousted Tamil Tigers from many of its strongholds in the north and said it was poised to defeat the rebel group in its heartland after the 26-year civil war. The government acknowledged wiping out sleeper cells across the country could take another two years.
Though many senior Tigers figures have been killed in the fighting, the group's leader and founder, Prabhakaran, is still at large.
In April 2009, Sri Lanka rejected a call from the UN for a ceasefire, saying that would allow the rebels to regroup.
But as the fighting continues, aid groups are worried about thousands of civilians who fled to an area declared by the Sri Lankan military as a no-fire zone earlier in the year and are now trapped near the fighting.
The United Nations estimates 150,000 to 190,000 civilians are trapped there, with dozens dying each day. The government says 30,000 to 40,000 still remain, and more than 23,000 civilians escaped last month.
Expatriate Tamils have condemned the government's offensive, accusing the government of targeting civilians.
The Sri Lankan government has also accused Tigers of using Tamil civilians trapped in the north as human shields against the military campaign.
International aid organizations accuse both government forces and the rebels of breaking international humanitarian laws, and warn of a high rate of civilian casualties.

one more star ***** for Colin Powell

CNN coverage by Larry King of the former VP, sour faced ( what's his name...Cheney the munition master) proclaiming that he was under the impression that C.Powell had already abandoned his party
( remember the Republicans ?) and joined the Democrats by supporting or rather endorsing Obama.
I think this bunch of misguided warmonger screwballs ( that's the former administration of shrub hangers on) should keep a low profile for a while and allow the new administration to clean up some of the horrendous mess they left.
Comparing Limbaugh with Powell is like comparing an elephant with a chicken...why is this loudmouth radio entertainer even being discussed..?
Iraq-Afghanistan-border problems-9/11 unresolved-incredible financial meltdown-AEG-inability to make progress on health care.....big industry going bankrupt, trade imbalance with former enemy China, the list goes on....

size....educating Sarah....

...and here is something else you really should know...
what are the largest ten countries in the world...?
1-Russia...or as it is now called the Russian Federation. About 12 % of the earths surface is under Russian control with a population of about 144 Million, even after the break up of the Soviet Union, Russia is still by far the largest country in the world today.
2-Canada...with just under 10,000 sq km as compared to Russia's 17,000 Canada is the second largest country, with a population of under 40 million. and 6.7% of the land area.
3-China, 9.6k sq km or 6.6% at about the same size as the USA
4-USA, about the same size as China 9.600 sq km or 6.5%
5-Brazil, 8,5k sq km 5.7%
6-Australia..country and continent at 7.700 sq km and 7.7% earths surface
7-India, 3,200 sq km
8-Argentina, 2,700 sq km
9-Kazakhstan, former component of USSR 2,700 sq km
10-The Sudan...1,700 sq.km

Places like Britain, Germany,France,Spain, Italy and Sweden are well down the list as an example GB is .16% of world land area, Germany .23%

Time.....

Long gone are the days when I could pick which Porsche I should drive that day...the red one or the white one...
or how much fun I could have with the horses.... at my own horse farm,
or take a walk along the ocean shore at Fort Lauderdale by the Sea and return to my own luxury suite by the ocean or the Oceanside pool. But times change...and yet if we refuse to learn from and understand yesterday it will be hard to anticipate what tomorrow will have in store.

Times change, the economy is down once again and we are looking at an extremely risky depression we somehow ended up in, without the necessary smarts or fortitude to work our way out of it. One can only hope that the new administration in Washington put things back on a positive path. Mr. Obama is on the right track but as he was saying the ship of state is large and turns slowly....too many immediate problems to face and deal with. But he is beginning to sound more positive.

Which reminds me as to how some events change the world....forever....
Way back when...somebody on a German submarine ( WW1) decided to torpedo a British Passenger ship...the Lusitania...Germany was at war with Britain and France and it was known that English ships were transporting weaponry from the USA. The passenger ship captains were told as well to ram the relatively small German U boats if they stumble upon them. It was generally assumed that unarmed passenger ships would not present a target to be attacked by the Germans. Bad mistake. Someone did sink the Lusitania with a torpedo to the bow..the ship went down with loss of life including many Americans who were on a cruise between the USA and the UK.








It is widely believed that this act dragged the USA ( by 1917) into the war, obviously on the side of France and Britain...and it is quite possible that President Woodrow Wilson, a fine and intelligent gentleman had little choice but to get involved.

Armistice, totally unfair and ridiculous treatment of Germany after 1918, installation of an allied created government ( Weimar Republic) made it possible for this idiot Hitler to eventually gain power...the rest is history. Total defeat of the Germans, rise of communism, iron curtain and attempts by the US to contain communism followed.
Today...the USA is involved in two wars...if one can call it war, with an unseen enemy with reasoning for their action difficult to sort out. And where do we go from here?

Brent Herbert:
As for ministers, you are preachers, and so I thought I would drop off a few sermon ideas. If you were preaching to some capitalist you might want to go with the ever useful all purpose sermon, 'repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.' Other good ideas for sermons would be that psalm, the one that reads, 'we dwell in a strong city, its walls are strong and tall. Open wide the gates and let a righteous people enter.' Or how about, 'My God trains me for battle. I leap over walls.' The possibilities are endless.

About this whole oil thing....and more

Labeviere paints a detailed panorama of the evolution of the special Saudi, US, Islamist movement relationship from the time when Roosevelt made his first deal with King Ibn Sa'ud in February 1945 on board the Quincy. The kingdom holds 26% of the world's proven oil reserves and agreed to provide the bulk of America's fuel needs at moderate prices for sixty years. The companies now are tenants and in the year 2005, the wells, installations and material will return to the monarch's possession. The premium paid to the king is 18 to 21 cents a gallon for each barrel of oil. In return the US agreed to unconditionally support the stability of the kingdom internally and externally. (A monarchy which beheads 200 people a year…) Not in the contract, but in return, the Saudi's have invested some $350 billion in the US and have developed an almost exclusive economic, commercial and financial partnership. Together they funded, trained, armed bin Laden, and helped to create the famed Al Qaeda network in Afghanistan through the Pakistan ISI, but they also met directly with bin Laden.

Like Christian and Catholic movements, the Islamist movement is complex and multi-layered with competing Sunni and Shiite backers. Saudi Arabia (Sunni) has done everything in its power to counter the Iranian Shiite influence that has grown since 1979. Each supports movements likely to help "the cause" and the winner will embody the political future of "true Islam." The oil monarchies give without counting and without requiring accounting, but Iran has confined itself to giving assistance to where it can influence some degree of control.
There is so much misinformation, screwball news, lies, fiction and made up stuff it is simply astounding.

A lot of it is without purpose or simply sensless propaganda. Take the recent uttering by this fellow McCain for instance(ex presidential Republican hopeful).
He stated about a week ago...somewhere, publicly, that the 9/11 hijackers came into the USA via Canada, therefor the Canadian borders must be beefed up as it were. Misinformed nonsense,it is clearly understood that the 9/11 criminals came to the USA directly and quite legally, visitors or immigrants, not sure...and that they took flying lessons in Florida. So much for war hero McCain and his screwball utterances. By the way this fellow was bombing innocent women, children and other folks in Hanoi,when his plane was shut down he was captured and lingered in prison as a POW for a few years. Does that make him a war hero? More like a push button killer with talent and skill to fly an airplane.

Occasionally I keep reading about President H.Truman who caused to have the atomic bombs produced.Not so.Roosevelt during his last term authorized the Manhattan project, the creation and testing of an atom bomb. He did not communicate much with Truman and when President Roosevelt died his V.P. Harry T.had no knowledge or understanding of these super bombs...but once he became president he quickly authorized their deployment over Japan,partly, probably to impress Joe Stalin but that's another story.

Without the Billions of American Dollars and munitions there would not have been a Soviet Union, Stalin " Man made of Steel"...managed to turn the tide on Hitler only with the support of the USA, the rest is history.
What followed was almost 50 years of cold war with the Soviets, Iron curtain and wars in Korea and Vietnam to contain Communism..

the year was *1*9*4*5*...

I remember clearly...as if it was just weeks ago...the situation I found myself in back in 1945...about this time of the year..mid or late April, in a tiny village in Franken..Germany.

( File picture not related to my story)..
We,mother and four small kids( 6-4-2 and 1 year old) were evacuated to this town called Zeubelried, near Oxenfurt and Frickenhausen because our hometown of Pirmasens( 50,000) was already 80% destroyed,bombed, army boots were produced there and the US army decided that boots are a critical war support product, I guess they were.

In any case...one day late April 45 my mother and a few other mothers of small children argued with a bunch of German soldiers and tried to persuade them to leave this little chicken town , but they, the somewhat ragged looking soldiers had other plans.

Apparently, the church roof was visible from a km away...about the only sign that there was a town. And so about 35 of the Wehrmacht decided to take a stand, remove ( destroy) the church so the rapidly advancing US Army would not see the town..I guess they wanted to defend the Vaterland no matter what the consequences.
They did...finally blow up the wonderful little church along with the schoolhouse next to it.
The U.S.Army did take the town and swiftly moved on to conquer the rest of what was left of the Reich.
About 34 corpses of the Wehrmacht were brought to town in a couple of oxen drawn wagons and so the war ended for me as a 7 year old, with the clear images of headless and bloodied bodies of the defenders, one got away ...,what a totally senseless undertaking.

History,Geography and political science....... Sarah, read this please...

Anyone even remotely interested in a political career should as a basic understanding of how the world works...have some idea of History, Geography and a comprehension as to just how we got to where we are today.
With the great scientific strides made over the past few decades
( computers, medicine, exploration of space and communication data processing to just name a few),
it is incredible how primitively we still conduct our life in so many areas.
It is astounding to see how little understanding of "must know" subjects many of our political leaders actually possess.
Is it any wonder then that we find ourselves in the almost catastrophic mess we are in today. The financial world has crumbled
(banks,insurance companies,government sponsored and other mortgage lenders,large stock brokerage houses),
industrial giants such as the auto and steel industry are on their knees looking for government bail outs and the folks in power do not appear to have the background or ability to get us out of the mess we somehow got into.
We are in a worldwide recession, if not already a depression and by the looks of it there appears no clear way out of this quagmire. Unless....we act now to change all that.
But:-
There is a way out of all this but it takes bold actions and as the Americans call it a bipartisan effort. Now is the time to do it, or we will indeed be into the worst depression ever.

USSR by the numbers...

1-Armenia

2-Azerbaijan, 86,000 Sq Km

3-Belarus

4-8-& 9, Estonia,Latvia, Lithuania the 3 Baltic countries swallowed up after WWII

5-Georgia, 69,000 Sq Km
7-Kazakhstan

6-Kyrgyzstan, 2,780,000 Sq Km, earth land surface 2-3/4% 9Th. largest country in the world

10-Moldova

11-Russia, now The Russian Federation...17,000,000 Sq. Km, still the largest country in the World 12% of earths dry land surface 11 timezones...

12-Tajikistan,

13-Turkmenestan, 488,000 Sq Km. .33%

14-The Ukraine, 603,000 Sq Km., second largest country in Europa .41% of earth land surface

15-Uzbekistan 448,000 Sq Km .30% of land surface of the earth

Just to compare: other countries within Europe....

France- 633,000Sq Km .43% of world dry land surface

Germany- 357,000 Sq Km .24% of world dry land surface

U.K.,Britain- 243,000 Sq Km or .16% of Worlds dry land surface

Russia & America....

This map shows the areas directly controlled by the former Soviet Union...most of it the northern part of Asia.

Area 11 is the Russian Federation of today, still by far the largest country in the World. The map does not include communist ruled Countries closely controlled by the USSR (Poland, Hungary, Tchekoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Roumania , East Germany)..

The USSR Population then (1989)was 290 Million, the USA about 250 Million

Today,Russia only has about 144 Million inhabitants (above area 11)...USA over 340 Million.
Comparison between USSR and USA 1988/1990

according to 1990 CIA World Factbook
Population (July 1990)
290,938,469 USSR
250,410,000 USA
Labour force (1989)
152,300,000 USSR
125,557,000 USA

The USA has or had about 2,500 nuclear devices ( and about as many active or recently retired Generals and Admirals); the Soviets were estimated to own 16,000 smaller warheads.

now read this....Brent Herbert

I rarely if ever promote any ones stuff...but here is a fellow well worth reading. His ideas are down to earth and his subjects many. Much research appears to have been done by him on the subjects of the USA and the Americans effect on( or to conquer) the rest of the world, wars etc.

He deals a bit with the Scriptures as well, ideas on evolution, science and what impressed me most of all, his attitude as to what one could consider decent, acceptable and or vulgar. I agree with most of it.I particularly like his detailed comments along with accurate data facts of and about the current so called wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

...here are common places where children find unexploded bits and pieces of dangerous ordnance...

*I*R*A*Q* more

Remember now:

The invasion of Iraq was in no way what it seemed to be.

Saddam Hussein was never a threat to the United States.

His "weapons of mass destruction" remain invisible, his terrorist connections remain unproven, and he had absolutely nothing to do with the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Most cynical of all was the "liberation" lie, the administration's sudden concern for the helpless citizens of Iraq. Saddam, as grotesque as he was, wasn't getting any meaner, and "liberators" like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were doing brisk business with him when he was in his murderous, citizen-eating prime (and in Cheney's case, as recently as 10 years ago).

It would take half a page to list all the US-sanctioned dictators, killers of their people, who will be sharing hell's hottest corner with Saddam Hussein. serendipity...

nuclear protests..topless women of Paraquay

Recently

a demonstration prompted female protesters to go topless..a bit painted up...

the official photographs taken are not so great so we copied this picture from a remote village to take it's place..

In a more serious protest....

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — Two women let themselves be crucified on wooden crosses and carried around Paraguay's capital on Friday as part of citywide protests demanding President Fernando Lugo grant funds for low-income housing.
Members of various homeless organizations nailed the women's hands and bound their feet to crosses in a plaza to pressure the Social Action Secretariat to give them $1 million to purchase land and build homes.
The women were identified as Laura Raquel Ramirez, 37, and Naida Villaverde, 41. One of them fainted from the heat and pain, said Blas Vera, one of the movement's leaders.
Several men heaved the crosses on their shoulders and bore the women through Asuncion, joining dozens of other protesters

Dear Sarah....more!

Sarah says...
"What is it exactly that the VP does every day?"
Sarah Louise Heath Palin is the governor of the U.S. state of Alaska. She was the Republican vice presidential nominee in the 2008 United States presidential election race, chosen by Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain on August 2008.
What Do You Think of Sarah?
Sarah Palin is smart. She is usually honest and sexy.
They think of her as a beautiful, classy and a fearless sweetheart.
Peter Principle Pimps Palin!
December 2006, Sarah Palin made history by becoming governor of Alaska, the first woman and youngest person to be elected to the post. She was elected after upsetting the incumbent in the Republican primary. As governor she declared that education, public safety, and transportation would be the three cornerstones of her administration. Prior to becoming governor, Palin served two terms on the Wasilla, city council from 1992 to 1996, and was elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996 and 1999. Palin was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors in 1999. In 2002, Palin made an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor of Alaska.

Sarah was born in Idaho. Her mother worked as a school secretary, and her father a science teacher and track coach. Her ancestry includes English, Irish, and German. Her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant.
At Wasilla High School in Alaska, Palin was a point guard and captain of the basketball team. She was also the head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter at her high school. She was the prayer leader before each game. Palin was originally baptized as a Catholic, but was re baptized at age 12 by the Wasilla Assembly of God Church. She is a member of The Church on the Rock, an independent congregation. She describes herself as a non-denominational Christian.
She was Miss Wasilla in 1984 and later lost a pageant to become Miss Alaska; she got second place.
Palin received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho, where she also minored in political science. She started her professional career as a local news and sports reporter for the local Anchorage TV station KTUU. She later served as city councilwoman and mayor of the town of about 9,000 before being elected governor of her home state in 2006.
She married Todd Palin in 1988, her boyfriend since high school. She is the mother of five children. Her husband works for the oil company BP in a non-managerial position and works as a fisherman in his hometown during the summer. He is a world champion snowmobiler. Neither her husband nor her son Track are registered Republicans, and neither have ever registered with a political party. Over half of Alaskans are registered as nonpartisan or undeclared.
Palin has two sons and three daughters. Her youngest child, 2008 has Down syndrome. Palin's decision to have the baby was applauded by the pro-life community. Track, her eldest child, is in an infantry brigade in the U.S. Army.

A biography written about Sarah Palin, Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment on Its Ear, by Kaylene Johnson was released April, 2008. Immediately after McCain announced his VP choice the biography soared to number 12 of all books on the online merchant web site Amazon.com. The book ranked number one in the political biographies section of the web site.
Among the criticisms of her as a vice presidential nominee is that she has no national experience, not to mention international experience. McCain's VP choice seems ironic given the money he has spent in an attempt to portray Barack Obama as lacking the experience necessary to be president of the United States.
Palin strongly supports and promotes oil and natural gas resource development in Alaska. She believes that "a changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state" but she would not "attribute it to being man-made." This statement was announced after securing Senator McCain's VP nomination.
In March 2007, Palin presented the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) as the new legal vehicle for building a natural gas pipeline from the state's North Slope. In August 2008, Palin signed a bill into law giving the state of Alaska authority to award TransCanada Pipelines. A license was granted to build and operate the $26 billion pipeline to transport natural gas from the North Slope to the Lower 48 through Canada.
In May 2008, Palin objected to listing polar bears as an endangered species. She filed a lawsuit to stop the listing fearing it would hurt oil and gas development. Palin strongly supports drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
In response to high oil and gas prices, Palin originally proposed giving Alaskans $100-a-month energy debit cards and proposed providing grants to electrical utilities so that they would reduce customers' rates. She subsequently dropped the debit card proposal, and instead paid Alaskans $1,200 each from the windfall surplus the state earns due to higher oil prices.
Palin's selection as the 2008 Republican party vice presidential candidate came as a surprise. John McCain had only met Palin six months earlier at a meeting of the National Governors Association, and he had only spoken with her about the position once, on the Sunday before he formally offered it to her.
A month prior to being named McCain's nominee, Palin was quoted on the CNBC show Kudlow & Company as saying, "But as for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I'm used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we're trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S."
At the beginning of October 2008, the McCain campaign used Palin to attack the character of Barack Obama. Palin was quoted at a California political rally as saying about Obama: "Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country." The attacks, which were at once nonsensical and untrue, only eroded confidence in Palin as a potential future president.
In November 2008, three days after she and McCain were defeated by Senator Barack Obama and his running mate Senator Joe Biden, Palin lashed out at critics of her performance in the campaign, calling them "cowards and jerks" according to the Associated Press. Palin was criticized for accepting an expensive wardrobe paid for by the McCain campaign, her apparent belief that Africa is a country rather than a continent and her inability to name the three countries in the North American Free Trade Agreement (the United States, Canada and Mexico). reprinted...mono
my comments....:
I'm sure Mrs. Palin is a wonderful mom and wife, probably a good Governor of her state as well. The population of Alaska is about 650,000 I believe that is similar to North Dakota or for that matter South Dakota or in fact a suburb of my hometown Toronto (which has nothing to do with it).
Surely there are vast differences in administering the affairs of this state as compared to say California with a population of over 38 million. Or the country with 380 millions.

*AFGHANISTAN*

And now,...another three Canadian Soldiers return in boxes...I watched the scene in Trenton on TV as the families of the three participated in another military ritual...this time numbers 109-110 & 111.

Killed like most of the casualties by an explosive device blowing up their patrol vehicle.

I know we all believe we make a difference in being there,offering our talents, young men and women to try and help in a land that has to be one of the strangest places on earth. More so it appears that the population as a whole does not want our help or interference in their culture. If it's a matter of digging up BinLadin then all efforts should be made to find him and his band..wipe them out and be done with it. Beyond that I can't think of what good we are doing there.

We've had a successful peacekeeper role in many places of this universe, perhaps in the near future we can assist in Somalia and other flash point places once there is a peace to keep. But in Afghanistan we are in a middle of a tribal warlord scene much of it over dope and for what little good we are doing I for one am not sure it is worth it.

I*R*A*Q just what are we still doing there?

Bush would lead, he declared, "a coalition of the willing" (consisting in fact merely of the US, Britain and — to its disgrace — Australia), which would "disarm" Iraq and thereby remove an imminent threat to the entire world.
But efforts by warmongers such as former CIA Director R. James Woolsey failed to turn up any credible evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda or other groups of "Arab terrorists", particularly prior to September 11th, 2001. Investigatons by the CIA, the DIA, and the State Department failed to find any evidence of linkage between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11th.
As for Iraq's alleged "weapons of mass destruction", the problem for Bush was that United Nations inspectors had been scouring Iraq for months and had found no evidence of the existence of any. The Americans tried to concoct such evidence (such as Colin Powell's claim of a "poison factory" in Northern Iraq, later shown to be non-existent, and documents purporting to show that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Niger, later shown by the IAEA to be forgeries) but only ignoble and servile lackeys such as the prime ministers of Britain, Australia and Spain pretended to believe this evidence. Nevertheless the Bush administration maintained this rationale for its invasion of Iraq, and continued to do so even after it was clear to all that this was a lie.
But after the regime of Saddam Hussein was overthrown, and US forces were able to inspect any place in Iraq they wished to, where were these "weapons of mass destruction"? None were found. That's because by November 2002 there weren't any, as former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter had already told the U.N. Security Council. The US rationale was a fiction, as was eventually revealed.Serendipity...

FIRA(Canada)

The Steel Company of Canada( Stelco).... sold out to USS ( United States Steel) a few years ago...not sure why was it that we Canadians figured the Americans could run the company better than we or was there an investment of capital anticipated to modernize this aging facility?
Same what later....somehow.... the Government ( Province of Ontario ) kept this business running with the infusion of 100 Million Dollars , a loan or a grant by Ontario.

Whatever happened to the watchdog
FIRA
Foreign Investment Review Agency
This Federal agency was set up under The Trudeau Liberals to avoid fiasco's by foreign takeover situations.
Stelco has just been shut down.., mothballed, who knows if this former Canadian Steel Mill will ever produce it's wide range of quality steel products again.
That leaves Dofasco, apparently this outfit too was sold to foreign control.I believe the other steel mill of note, Algoma is long gone.

Some ( many) years ago I was purchasing agent of a metals, mostly steel distributor ( the company was called A.C.Leslie Co. This firm was a metals warehouse, over 100 years in business)..
I also worked as Purchasing Agent for a time for another large volume slitting operation (cut large rolls of steel coils into smaller ones, about 300 tons a day.
The reason I state my background is merely to indicate that I have some idea as to what type of steel products these mills were producing, bars, structural and flat rolled, sheet & plate as well as rails and construction beams. A couple of other steel producing running mills were Burlington Steel and Dosco, Dominion Steel & Coal..

NOW...would be a good time to revive this industry...we need steel to rebuild the rapidly crumbling infrastructure, even concrete bridges and buildings require massive amounts of steel reinforcement structures. I have already commented on a previous blog on railway and rail-link improvements..but hey...the two railways as well ( CN & CP) have ended up under foreign control. If the railways are in the hands of people who are only looking for a return on their investmet, don't look for any significant improvements or modern addition to the existing lines any time soon...

boom..bust..depression..solutions..

Rut-at-tut-rat-ta-tut.....a train with about 100 rail cars rumbles through town..a small town on lake Ontario, Port Hope or Cobourg..does it really matter?
The point is,that these rail-links are old and should have been replaced long ago.Rail is about the cheapest way to move goods unless there is a possibility of traffic by water, a barge system.And yet we see thousands of transport trucks 18 wheelers with often overtired operators slugging it out on our highways.
Does it not make sens to review our transportation system? Is it not time to have a good look at where we are and where we should be going with this. During economic so called hard times we should find or create the resources to fix or renew this part of our infrastructure. People are looking for jobs and things to do and are less likely to want to go on strike for unreasonable demands. We should claim our railways back, they once were the backbone of what we were as a country and this would be the time to update the antiquated system .Years ago I suggested to build a rapid rail-link between Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal with an international Airport in or around Kingston..If this system would have been implemented we could have, today one of the most modern commuter, people moving systems in the world.
Instead multi millions were wasted acquiring land in Pickering ( east of Toronto) and a totally useless airport was built in Montreal ( Mirabel, mothballed).

democracy

Hampered by massive corruption and lack of quality leadership and human capital, the Government of Afghanistan is one of the weakest governments of the world, the Pentagon has said in its latest report to the Congress.
...meanwhile...there are slums, people begging in the streets and warlords building themselves fancy homes...
...tell this boy about freedom...democracy..

the ugly American...10

America...world domination in limbo...
The message of this document, stripped of its cynical euphemisms and calculated evasions, is unmistakably clear:
The United States government asserts the right to bomb, invade and destroy whatever country it chooses.
It refuses to respect as a matter of international law the sovereignty of any other country, and reserves the right to get rid of any regime, in any part of the world, that is, appears to be, or might some day become, hostile to what the United States considers to be its vital interests. Its threats are directed, in the short term, against so-called 'failed states' that is, former colonies and impoverished Third World countries ravaged by the predatory policies of imperialism.
But larger competitors of the United States, whom the document refers to, in a revival of pre-World War II imperialist jargon, as 'Great Powers,' are by no means out of the gun sights of the Bush administration. The wars against small and defenseless states that the United States is now preparing — first of all against Iraq — will prove to be the preparation for military onslaughts against more formidable targets. —
David North, The War against Iraq and America's Drive for World Domination

We don’t have wars.
We have conflicts
campaigns
operations
escalations
missions
offensives
preemptive strikes
We don’t have soldiers.
We have peace keepers
troops
servicemen
service women
forces
coalitions
units.
We don’t have mistakes in combat.
We have
incidents
accidents
friendly fire
flawed intelligence.
We don’t have death.
We have
casualties
loss of life
collateral damage
What we do have
is a careful vocabulary.

Wagner, Ann. 2008.

"America At War".

the new great depression..

Under the capitalist system the human condition is one of chronic anxiety because the capitalist system is based upon ruthless dog eat dog competition and people are routinely thrown to the wolves. You can even find them living in cardboard boxes under bridges. It is required that capitalism deliberately create poverty in order to maintain this constant state of chronic worry and anxiety in order for the capitalist system to function. If there was full employment, then we would have capitalists looking for workers instead having workers going cap in hand to capitalists and hoping to become the lucky chosen one our of a horde of such begging workers. When power is transferred to the workers and it is the capitalist looking for a worker, then a capitalist loses profits in order to meet a worker's demands and then there is a lack of money for a capitalist to invest and the system collapses. It is for this reason that whenever unemployment goes down and poverty decreases such outfits as the Federal Reserve will then deliberately jack up interests rates causing enough economic damage to result in the loss of workers that will then bring back into equilibrium what is known as ‘the ideal rate of unemployment' in a capitalist system, which is also the ‘ideal rate of poverty', the ‘ideal rate of slums', and the ‘ideal rate of homeless vagrants'. It is this deliberate policy of creating poverty on purpose as well as creating the social mentality that accepts ruthless dog eat dog oppression of workers who get thrown to wolves that then creates the chronic state of worry and anxiety that is characteristic of everyone who must live their lives under the domination of that capitalist economic system.Brent

Troubles....more of the same...

Israel...Palestine,Gaza.
While there is no shortage of venom heaped on Israel's Gaza incursion, and plenty of chicken vs egg discussion of who started this mess, there is scant acknowledgement of one basic truth: that this war, with its civilian deaths and horrible infrastructure damage, is the desired outcome of carefully thought out strategies by both Hamas and the Israelis. The two sides are fighting two different wars, which happen to intersect in the streets and alleys of Gaza.

...dear Sarah.....!

I will try to work on this posting a bit more when I have a chance ...for now, just a few comments on what I think about the recent efforts by the Republican Party to run Alaska Governor Sarah as future V.P. of the ticket.

No question about it, she comes across as a wonderful down to earth, beautiful lady and she was obviously picked by the party to capture or convert the Hillary votes when it became clear that Mr.Obama had made up his mind not to ask Senator Clinton to be his V.P.

BUT:

To run for high office, president or vice, in the United States today,one should have a basic minimum of qualifications to be prepared for a job like this. A background in political science, history,geography and human relations should be an absolute base or minimum requirement...imagine the comment of D.Q. a few years ago I better brush up on my Latin so I can talk to people on my upcoming trip to Latin America..or something like that.Governor Sarah was under the impression that they speak African in Africa, she was not sure..is Africa a country or a continent.Incredible really....I will add more to this post soon...

...and the beat goes on:-

...events are rapidly taking shape...I look forward to the new Obama administration in the States, hopefully the end of the Bush regime will be a positive one, with some resolve or solution to the auto industry in North America and a positive bailout to this important sector of our economy...

Two groupes of three Canadian Soldiers blown up in Afganistan within the last few days make our participation in this troubled area of the world rather difficult. As well, our recently elected PC government is on shaky grounds and could soon be out of office, not a good time to plan or impliment drastic changes to our infrastructure or large capital projects which need the support of all parties and all Canadians.

Internet Fraud..indeed antivirus2008

...further to my last post,below, a friend now retired but for many years with IBM tells me that this horrible antivirus thing is a fraud sceme by what he calls the Russian mafia...figures...
Lots of information available on these horrible fraud artists if you take a few minutes to google for it... here is another typical complaint by a lady about this nonexisting fraudulent software...:
It appears that this lady somehow is under the impression that she is dealing with a normal business in Northamerica,....live and learn...I made the same mistake.
On May 18, 2008, while reading my e-mail, a popup from what I thought was my Windows Antivirus detactor indicated that my computer was infected with 41 different dangerous viruses, torjans and etc. I closed out my e-mail, and went back to the Windows Antivirus window, only to discover it had expired. Assuming that the popup was from Windows, I open the link to the Software-payment website, still thinking it was coming from Windows, I proceeded to purchase the Antivirus 2008 Software @$49.95, the AlphaWipe Tracks Cleaner 2008 @$34.95 and the Premium Support @$24.95. The purchase was done throught Software-payment.com with my Debt/Credit Card for a total of $110.24. If one does the math, the company also charged a $2.00 processing fee, of which was not mentioned in their Product Information Package. After I filled out the Software's online invoice, which included Name, Phone Number, E-Mail Address and Debit/Credit Card Number, a notation at the bottom of the invoice instructed that I would receive all download information through my e-mail address, of which they did do. The following is their portion of the e-mail I received: (My personal information is omitted)We appreciate you making your order.Product: Antivirus 2008 - 49.95 USDAlphaWipe Tracks Cleaner 2008 - 34.95 USDPremium support - 24.95 USD Site: www.software-payment.com Order Billed As: billinternet.com 8778717412 Order Number: 7164809 Your code for Antivirus 2008 is: a long list of complaint follows here...not needed to repeat ...these circumstance I have only been contacted once, by you, SO I AM MAKING THE FOLLOWING DEMANDS:I WANT MY SUBSCRIPTION CANCELLED AND THE PAYMENT OF $110.24 REIMBURSED TO MY DEBT CARD IMMEDIATELY. YOUR BILLING DEPARTMENT HAS ALL MY INFORMATION ON RECORD, SO THERE SHOULD BE NO NEED FOR ME TO DO ANYTHING FURTHER. Please be assured that I will not recommend that anyone purchase this companies products. Disgruntly Customer,Today is July 10th and I have yet to receive a reply from Robert.Thank you, I hope you can help me ......, Missouri U.S.A.
Antivirus2008 is a corrupt anti-virus tool that is widely promoted as a legitimate security application. In truth, it is nothing more than another scam of the countless army of malware parasites attacking computers via internet, daily. Antivirus2008 (also known as Antivirus 2008) is distributed through malicious websites that sell other fake anti spyware tools as well. Antivirus 2008 presents itself as VistaAntivirus2008 and System Antivirus 2008 as well. All these names hide the same fraud. The most common fabricated report displayed by these malwares is "Halt! Critical System Warning".Antivirus2008 is an unreliable program that displays exaggerated scan results in order to gain a purchase. DO NOT trust this scam and remove Antivirus2008 ASAP if you've been infected.

Canadian Federal Scene

Finance Minister Flaherty has already acknowledged that the government is considering the sale of assets in an attempt to reduce or eliminate any deficits. I agree that deficits must be strictly controlled and provide demonstrable direct benefits.
However, the presence in the Harper cabinet of Harrisites; Baird, Clement and Flaherty, all ideologues to the core, raises a large red flag if they are involved in the sale of government assets. Or....for that matter approve the sale of crytical privately owned assets sold into foreign control...
As a group, these men strongly endorsed the privatization Ontario Hydro. The problems Hydro faced at the time were mainly two fold;
1. A lack of transparency as demonstrated by the governments of all three political parties over decades. It was most evident by their interference with the setting of electricity rates and in the building of nuclear generating facilities.
2. Poor management practices in the running of Ontario Hydro. It was broken up and was sold at bargain prices, while leaving the public with a huge “stranded debt” and the new companies being managed by executives who are over-paid and have guaranteed golden-parachutes should all not go as planned.
This trio also endorsed the sale of the bargain priced 407 highway mainly to avert a deficit.
I can not understand or condone the sale of our public highway ( now a toll road) sold to a so called Spanish Consortium. The result was a momentary relief from a deficit while leaving Ontario drivers totally at the mercy of the private sector for longer than any driver at the
time would be driving.
This same group is in a position of influence in the evaluation of the possible sale of Canada’s assets. Potential candidates likely include:- Atomic Energy of Canada, just when nuclear power is about to become the main source for “green” power for years to come; the CN tower, a major communication hub in southern Ontario; Canada Post, surely a significant requirement in any nation; the CBC, for years an essential part of the life of the rural areas of the country. Based on their Ontario track record, I have doubts there will be any sustainable benefits for Canada.

INTERNET FRAUD ,from Russia

You have got to be kidding.....like a bat out of hell your antivirus promotion appeared on my computer...almost impossible to get rid of nagging efforts to sign me up...your software claimed to have found x number of viruses...after briefly installing your ware ( it was the only way to get rid of your promotion) this was to have been removed..Fraud, these virus items never existed in the first place.
...soonafter I received the same forced ads on my computer...again..this time called antivirus2009 instead of 2008...same or similar viruscomponent detected, fraud I figured and cancelled the thing.
I am not using your software, I have no idea what you want from me at this time and unless there is some kind of copycat outfit I consider what you are doing and your methods as clear fraud I want to expose...phonebusters.com will be sent a copy of this and I hope they will assist in stopping this kind of nonsense.I am using legitimate, purchased antivirus software, not your stuff and in order to clean up my computer I was forced to upgrade to xp professional, after dumping your software the machine never worked properly with the original xp.
This, above, was my response to an e mail just received....

This is the e mail, six months after the incident:-
>From: "support" <administrator1@antivirus2008y.com>>To: "F...L..." <xxxxxxx>>Subject: For user of the program «Antivirus 2008».>Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 07:23:18 +0100>>>>>>>>>>Esteemed F....L.... user of the program «Antivirus 2008».>>>>>On 2008-06-17 your have used the website http://www.antivirus2008y.com/ to purchase the copyrighted software «Antivirus 2008», which is our private property.>As the owners of the product we haven’t received the funds you paid for it yet. Your actions are in the nature of theft and fraud. We are preparing papers for the police and the courts to bring you to criminal liability to recover the monetary damages you brought.>For a complete clarification of the incident and to resolve the arisen conflict by a peace settlement, we need your cooperation. To do this you have to send us a written confirmation of purchasing our software. (the text of the letter you have to send is attached, please print it and fill in the fields «from ______», indicating your name, address, phone number, e-mail and other data identifying your person and sign the letter). Attaching the copy of a bank payment document confirming the payment for the purchased software (check, receipt, money orders, bank statements or other) to your letter is obligatory.>You must send good quality scan of your filled letter and bank payment document within 3 days after receiving this warning to e-mail support@antivirus2008y.com>In case no response from you is received we reserve the right to go to court and the police for your action are illegal to recover the monetary damage you brought.>>>Thank you for your understanding and look forward to a peaceful resolution of the conflict arisen.>>>Sincerely http://www.antivirus2008y.com/ site Administration.>>
><<>>

The rest of the story:-
Some six months ago my computer was molested with an ad message...for free...no charge ...a certain programme would scan my confuser and tell me if there were any virus components of any sort on my machine...
Impossible to get rid of this message, I took the FREE test and indeed..apparently 50 some odd serious virus related items were found by this outfit...free up to this point...but for a relatively small amount of money, they would instantly dispose of these nagging uglies on my machine.
I was stupid enough to give this outfit my visa info...and found later that I was billed not only for the antivirus program but also for two other items, a scan thing to use daily and a years free advise or something like that.
Aside from that....with my virus crap all cleaned up, supposedly, a new ad appeared on my machine....this time it was called the same as the last one,except instead of 2008...they used 2009...
Curious I took the test...and sure enough..the program detected 50 some odd virus related component on my machine. Guess I'm a little slow, but I suspected a scam, called my Visa/ Bank people and cancelled the payment.
A third party billing company apologised and eventually processed the refund....well.
I should have taken other actions, reported this to the Internet police or something but I'm getting too old to fight idiotic scams and let it go, unfortunately.
Now, six months later, it looks like this outfit, scam artists, is coming out of the woodwork, threatening me with police action and trying to collect money from me.

interesting times...

..the economy-the American scene--Canadian political troubles--housing market--wars and related terror aspects--failure by governments to act on urgent needs, infrastructure,trouble preparedness--Internet related happenings--world hunger--aids--china--India--Russia--Somalia--,

these are all topics we should have an opinion on. write about whether capability or talents as a writer are adequate or not, at least one should voice opinions and with some conviction stick with and promote new ideas...

CANADIANA CONFERENCE...

I recall clearly, as if it happened only recently, being sent to a conference as the local delegate from Scarborough East, to a happening labelled Canadiana Conference, some 40 or more years ago. At the long ago torn down hotel, 401 & Kennedy road somewhere in East Toronto a small liberal party delegation was appointed to look at future planning and related aspects...suggestions to the then Liberal Government in Ottawa.
It was in the days of creating a land bank in the east end of Toronto,Pickering area for the purpose of building a future new large airport replacing Malton/Pearson airport which had sort of outgrown itself.
There was also talk about a new similar project in Montreal, the feds were assembling land to construct what eventually ended up as the white elephant named Mirabel.

My suggestion to the planning group...chairman Colin Vaughan, broadcaster-architect, was to forget about a new airport for Toronto or Montreal but instead consider a new site, in or near Kingston Ontario for a now east-central region facility to serve Toronto-Montreal and Ottawas needs for long distance international flights. To bring passengers to the new facility, rapid-train links from the three areas to Kingston could be built, all of it probably at a far lesser cost with plenty of land available. After some discussion about the pros and cons, a working paper was to be submitted to the federal government.
..and that was the last I've heard of it.
C.V. commented " the french will never go for it".
The Pickering Seaton land thing is still unresolved an airport there will probably never be . The Mirabel airport has been built at great expense but did not work out very well, this multimillion dollar facility has been mothballed.
Times have changed much in the nearly two generations since I had the opportunity to participate in this planning conference. Many airlines have come and gone and the once existing Transcanada/TCA/Aircanada and CP Air are long history or have been sold.

The two Railways CN and CP are in foreign hands, little has been done to put new track where it should be, rail cars, many with dangerous cargo are rumbling through small towns, when new lines away from populated areas should have been built long ago.