Internet Software Tips

To err is human, but to really fuck-up you need a computer.
- Ancient Proverb

Norton Personal Firewall.

If you only have one computer on your network, you need not read this. If you have a home network, this might help. If you have Norton Personal Firewall installed on a computer it will no longer have the ability to communicate with any other computers on your home network. I can see no way to configure this. Uninstall it, but make sure you have anti-virus, anti-spyware and some software or hardware firewall, even windows firewall that comes with XP. Norton Personal Firewall may have come pre-installed with your computer so don’t shake your head trying to figure out how you installed it.

Firefox:

Firefox is, for utilitarian purposes, the best and safest browser. It had a severe memory leak but I installed an automated upgrade today (I am now at version 2.0.0.1) and it seems to be much better. There are many websites that require Internet Explorer (from now on to be called IE ) for security reasons or simply because of bad HTML, but most systems should allow you to install both browsers and you can experiment with each.

IE 7- Upgrade?

Be very wary of upgrading even though Microsoft is pushing this. The security updates are a huge plus in this version. But, like Firefox, many websites need Internet Explorer 6 or 5.5 and cannot function in 7. I don’t run any machine older than a P3 Celeron 1GB, and I do not run any OS older than XP so I don’t know the cojones that are required to run it. Many people require the use of a browser at work to access websites (such as government ones) and at home for important things like banking – you might be unable to use these websites (as I found out myself this week) with a browser other than IE 5.5 or 6. This is what is known as “industry standard”…or a monopoly.

Windows Media Player 11: Upgrade ?

It did not work out for me. I cannot get my iRiver MP3 player to talk to my thinkpad nor my workstation now - yes I did attempt to upgrade the firmware, it did not work, so now I have to use my video-streaming server to load and manage my MP3 player! That's like asking Shakespeare to write you a shopping list.

I think the rule of thumb is that maybe you should only upgrade things if it looks like you have to. "if'n it ain't broke, don't fix it!".

TWF

War of Terror - 5 Years In

9/11 changed a lot of things and I don’t think much was for the better. It is one thing to defeat an armed force on a battlefield but “terrorists” are not sitting over the next ridge. The United States had an opportunity to learn some lessons from a very horrific attack. They could have concluded that the can’t just go in to any country they wish, even with the consent of that nation’s government, and not expect some people to be upset with that. Bill Maher lost his TV show by pointing out, and I agree with him, that Americans were used to bombing people all over the globe expecting that they could never be hit, and now then were hit themselves – and right in downtown USA.

Did Bush conclude that American foreign policy needed to take a step back? No, he concluded it needed to get even heavier. Did he conclude that the obnoxious flag waving and self-love that no other nation really does needed to be toned down? No, he concluded that it needed to get worse. Did he conclude that it was OK for some people to have values other than the ones Americans have? No, he concluded that everyone needed to have American values shoved right down their throat.  

The decision to invade Afghanistan was a weak one and invading Iraq as it was a “threat” to the US was simply a lie. I do admit I too thought there would be some weapons of mass destruction as Sadam bragged about them so I don’t see the venture as a failure because they were not there.

Was Iraq full of terrorists before 2003? Nope. But it is now. In fact Osama bin Laden released a tape just before the 2004 US election. Why? Because Bush is good for business, that’s why!

War and rhetoric are old companions, back to at least antiquity. But the American media started to brand people as cowards and traitors if they dared to speak out against the Iraq war before it began and during its first few months.

Stephen Colbert put it the best in regard to how “detainees” have been handled “If you love freedom….set it free”.

Bush and his cronies are always telling us that the terrorists “hate freedom” – ignoring for a moment that that makes no sense at all, Bush has done a pretty good job of pissing on freedom himself.

CSI

I had been told by CSI fans that I would like it so I took the plunge and have watched the first 4 seasons. Yes, I do like it - it helps having the most beautiful woman on television in the cast, and she is even over 40 - purty rare for a US network these days !! They put in some gruesome (as opposed to "Grissom") stuff like skin peeled back to reveal a brain, but they get the mix right and it is not simply gore for gore's sake. The case-solving methods remind me of classic "whodunits" like Sherlock Holmes.

Yes, it is not a realistic portrayl of a CSI crew as they shoot people, arrest them and interrogate them. Remember McMillan the Chief of Police who solved every crime as did Quincy, the Medical Examiner. If I want "realism" I will sit on front lawn and take notes.

Grissom is just a wonderful character and a good leader, in the Picard mode, who can admit he's made a mistake, and preaches to his charges never to get emotionally attached to people on a case, which he of course does all the time!! Dawg dishes up The Bard, and in places where it applies which is cool with me.

The editing and music are awesome - smooth presentation!

TWF

It's all about corn!

Starting sometime between WWII and the early 1970s, in North America (the best America of all), corn started to seep its way further and further into our diet, First, it became cheaper to feed animals corn than grain. Then, corn syrup found it's way into more and more items such as breads and pops. Your happy meal - fries, burger and pop? corn + corn + corn. The fries are deep fried in corn oil, the burger bread has corn in it, the cow for the meat was fed corn and the pop has corn syrup.

Our Irish heritage has taught us the danger of relying on one product - in the 1840s in Ireland, the potato famine killed a million people and 5 million more moved away to avoid starvation when the whole potato crop failed.

Also, good idea for terrorists? Small doses of posion in corn fields and watch it concentrate its way into our diet (the DDT way).

Oh yeah and all that corn stuff is making us heavier and less healthy.

TF

"In Season"

It's a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be
- E.Y. Harburg, lyricist for
Harold Arlen



When was the last time you heard that phrase to describe, not fish or game, but regular food? Today if you want a food item, and I mean nothing special like the rarest caviar, but say tomatoes or blueberries, and you live in an urban enough environment, you can get it. That is because we no longer, on the whole, eat the plants and animals that are raised near us. Instead there is a huge global distribution system where most food now gets to market via truck, rail or even air and travels hundreds or thousands of KM to get to our tables.

This means yet another factor is adding to global warning - fossil fuels used to transport food to markets all over the place.

We don't say, as our grandmothers did, that blueberries are "in season", we say "put blueberries on the shopping list" and then we go get them.

Yes, you can investigate options for free range chickens and organic plumbs, but be prepared to quadruple your grocery budget if you do that for all of your food.

Many foods are shipped pre-ripe and actually ripen during shipping, or are "ripened" with a chemical agent nearer the end market. Compare the taste of a tomatoe grown in your own garden with one that came from 2,000 KM away!

Maybe we should explore "in season" again, but of course we can still import the odd treat here and there - they don't make Brie in Ontario like they do in France .

My source for this and for the corn article: Several science radio podcasts. Maybe in the old days if you wanted to know about food you would ask your grandmother (in my case my grandfather was a chef, and no NOT the French one).

TF

Website offer

Back a decade ago, after watching a tv documentary and reading about 8 big books, I got interested in writing some things about European history from 1870-1945. I ended up posting a website: http://www.geocities.com/greatwars. I worked on it off and on for about 2 years then in typical "me" fashion I moved on to other things. Even though it was one person's ideas about things, and not associated academically with anything, I did get mentioned as a source for a university, I think in Australia, for The First World War, and the "Battle of The Somme" in particular, one of two great battles that started on July 1st, my birthday (Gettysburg is the other).

I did not make it to 1945, only to about 1919.

A few weeks back I had an offer to "buy" the website, and I think he was as much interested in the Domain name as it had "great war" in the title, then in the actual articles. I thought about it and one idea was that since I hadn't looked at it much in so many years, that it might be nice for someone else to take it over and continue on.

I ran this idea past some friends who of course cautioned me that it would mean it would be totally out of my control. Google me and you get that website. I am associated with it for maybe all eternity! Worst case scenario would be that a person who does not share my views might steer it in a direction that it should never go in, such as, why the Nazis were not so bad a bunch of people, or that The Holocaust never happened.

I declined the offer.

TWF

AIDS

There has been a lot of AIDS talk over the past few weeks with the conference in Toronto. Unfortunately, since we still live in a mostly homophobic society, and AIDS struck the gay community in its infancy, there is still a stigma attached to this disease. Our wonderful P.M. , Harper, leader of the Reform Party, choose to skip the conference because he can’t handle homosexuality, even though AIDS kills people from all walks of life. He is likely to cut funding to the needle park in Vancouver and AIDS in general, not, in this case, due to any ideological reason beyond his party’s belief that government should only give money to people who already have gobs of it, or rather, tax them less, and to take away money given to people who really need it and not give them any more.

What a nice fellow!

TWF

Popular Music Thoughts

How much of popular music would be different if the "glad" did not rhyme with "sad"?

"We shall overcome". Would that, you know, hurt?

What, exactly, are the "pompitudes of love"? Are there pompitudes of hate? Indifference?

If a band is mostly male, but has one female, why is it likely she plays the bass?

If bass is as important as any other instrument, why do bass players, when they go solo, start playing guitar? (Paul McCartney, Mike Rutherford, Sting).

Back in the 80s when they started colourizing old black and white movies, in one film they gave Frank Sinatra brown eyes.

Is there anything worse than listening to a great live song recorded in the 70s than all of a sudden there is that 5-12 minute drum solo? That was just so everyone but the drummer could go to go get high, right? I Guess the drummer got high during the acoustic set?

Ian Gillian, on the album "Made in Japan" says, on a sound check, "I want everything louder than everything else". This is not an observation, but it is funny. The man played Jesus after all!

Once in 1983 while driving my parents' Dodge Omni, with some friends, one station played Genesis' "Supper's Ready". On the same night another station played the live version of that song. If you do not know, that song is 22 minutes long so the chances of that happening, even back then, are less than being shot by a terrorist, winning the lottery and being struck by lightning on the same day. Heck, there will be a black or female president of the United States before it happens again!!!

TF

Food for Thought

I read an article by Milvi Tiislar in The Toronto Star which was published on July 3rd 2006 and it really made a dent in my head.

We all know obesity and awful dietary choices are a problem in modern North America (I don't think we are any better than The Americans on this). The price of good food - fruits and vegetables - is much higher than sugary, starchy, fatty pre-packaged food. For most of us this just means you notice that when you look at the grocery bill. We have the choice to eat well if we spend a little more.

For very poor people, those on welfare for example, money is so tight that every penny has to be accounted for so you need to buy the cheapest food you can to can fill stomachs. This means that fresh fruit is just too damned expensive to even be considered.

In another article in The Star, way back in 1995, Thomas Walkom, who had the Queens Park beat then, hit the Mike Harris nail on the head: The problem was that poor people had too much money and rich people did not have enough money - this was not only wrong it was in fact "common sense" that we reverse that trend.

Well this is what we got folks - obesity and borderline malnutrition in poor people because they have no choice and obesity and poor nutrition in the rich who have all of the choices.

The rich can afford liposuction.

What helps you when your child has "rickets" ??

TF

Religion, in and of itself, is not a bad thing

Sir, I am a Catholic - I can feel guilty about anything
- Ben Stone


You may conclude, by reading some of these entries, that I think religion is stupid or evil or causes cancer in lab rats. I need to explain where I am coming from because I don't think any of those things.

When I take issue with people who hide behind religion, it is not the religion that I think is the problem - it is stupidity USING religion to make stupid things sound like they make sense. You can be a Muslim without flying planes into buildings, You can be a Jew and not be killing Arabs and you can be a Christian without beating Homosexuals to death.

I have a problem with stupid people in all walks of life.

Most Jews, Christians and Muslims are not out to hurt anybody: same as most Athiests.

I was born and raised a Catholic and attended Catholic school until grade 8. As a post Vatican II Catholic, I was taught not by sadistic nuns, but by Hippies who told us to be excellent to each other. Catholicism has many aspects to it and one of the aspects is that you question everything, including your religion and faith. Today you should want to be a Catholic knowing what it is you are getitng into.

Without Catholicism I would not be the person I am today. The education I received was far superior, in the 1970s, to that which was available in the public school system. Yes as "doubting Thomas" I was given an apt name!!

Anyway here are some straw man questions that I will attempt to answer:

1. Relgion and Science are incompatible, and you have to choose one or the other.

No way - people down South try and make people think this, but there are some people, even scientists, who not only say they keep their faith even though they teach evolution, they in fact see in evolution convincing evidence of God's existence. I just don't think creationism is a worthy theory to be taught in science class (Actually, this is also the Vatican's position on this). A Jesuit priest, Georges LeMaitre, created the Big Bang Theory. Copernicus - who changed our views that the Earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa as we thought before that, had his work commissioned BY the chruch.

2. You can't be gay and be religous.

Nonsense. The Bible tells you how to sell your daughter into slavery. If we can set aside that as a canon belief so too can we stop saying gays are evil people. A commentator on TV once put it this way: There are a few scattered lines about homosexuality in the bible - the fight against poverty is mentioned over 4,000 times - which is the piority?????

3. You can't be religous and accept homosexuality.

Nope - next question. You can totally suck and still claim to be religous.


I think you see my point.

If I wanted to go back to being a Catholic, I could pretty much be the same skeptical person as I am - I'd never make Pope, but I would not have to change more than 3 or 4 of my opionions.

Some of history's best science, art and music were created by very religous people. I not only recognize this, but see religion as woven into the fabric of history. Maybe one day American bible-thumpers will see that homosexuals too have created some of history's best art, music and science and that it too is woven into the fabric of human existence.

TF

Unprepared People

I think these are somewhere in between a Seinfeld "What's the deal with..." or a Carlin "You ever notice that..".

A year ago I renewed my drivers' licence. I looked up on the internet what was needed to do so and I downloaded the form and filled it in and had it signed before I even got to the registry office. Since my birthday is July 1st, the first long weekend of the summer, and since I falsely assumed that if I got there at a reasonable hour before closing that I could simply waltz in, I was shocked that people were lined up out the door. Other people were filling in forms in line and some even did squat until they were right up to the person at the booth.

People who made a valiant effort to fill in the forms were guided by the office staff. Those who got all the way to the booth having done nothing were told to go fill out their forms and they had to go right back to the back of the line.

When I finally got there the clerk said to me "It's prepared people like you who get screwed by people who put no thought into it".

Other people (a friend pointed this out to me) line up at Starbucks and put no thought into what they might like to order until they hear the words "can I help you?". They may be related to the people at the licence bureau, or one and the same.

I used to see this beautiful young woman on the bus most mornings. In places where I see the same people every day I mentally give them all nicknames like "Janet" (beacause she looks like a "Janet", whatever the fuck that means), "Mary Tyler Moore" , and "The Snow Bunny" (a lovely young redhead I first saw all bundled up in the dead of winter".

One that I used to see that I am thinking of here I called "Boobsie" because they were huge and either fake or in a push-up bra and she wore tight sweaters and made it clear to the universe that she wanted them looked at by as many men as possible. Anyway, Ms. "B" would often miss the bus, I would see her running as the bus pulled away, or if she didn't, she would be totally winded as she would just have made it in time. Ony then would she remember that a fare or pass was required to ride the bus. She would sit down and root through her purse and find either a ticket or the correct change. Then, she would get out her make-up kit and start applying all of her make-up (I guess while us bus folk were important enough to have her breasts on full display for us, her face was another matter). I was amazed at the way she would stick a mascara brush right in her eyelashes, while the bus (and as would have her boobs had they not been fake or pushed-up) bounced up and down. She managed to do it every day!

With some planning in her life, maybe she could have gone places - maybe even a job at the licence bureau or Starbucks!

TF

Euphemisms - The Other Side

I hate eupemisms especially those that are designed to conceal the fact that a nation or an organization is doing some nasty things to a group of people.

I had lost both of my two front by the time I was 10. You can do root canals a few times but at some point after more than 3 decades there is no tooth left. So I have been faced with a new solution. One is an implant for each tooth which is expensive and does not always work. The cheaper solution is to get a "permanent denture". While I liked it being far cheaper, just the word "denture" conjured up images of my grandmother going to bed with her teeth in a glass on her night table. I was just not prepared to admit that a I am well down the path to someday being old.

I think maybe "appliance", a total euphemism for sure, may have sounded nicer. How about "Freedom Crown"?

TF

Hill Street Blues

What with shows like "Green Acres" and "Gilligan's Island" being released on DVD, I wondered for longest time if not just silly 60s shows were ever going to be released but if great shows like "L.A. Law" would get their turn.

Back a few years a cable channel ran "Hill Street Blues" but ony the last 2 years of the series. I had always wondered what it might have been like when it began.

This spring Seasons 1 and 2 were released. I watched them all.

Have you ever seen a movie and you wanted to see it so badly and you built up expectations so high that you were disappointed when you saw it?

Einstein said that the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stanger than we can imagine.

Seasons 1 and 2 o f HSB was better than I could have imagined.

It started in 1981 and while the content of the shows is old hat by now, and nothing seems new to us in 2006, it did many things for the first time. I was still going to be in high school for more than a year in January 1981, that's how far back that is.

These days for a drama there is at least one recovering alcoholic. Captain Furillo was the first alcoholic to not only be treated like a real person, he was in fact the star of the show. One of his detectives, LaRue, is following the same path. In the 70s and before, on TV drunks were clowns like Foster Brooks, or in the movies like Dudley Moore. They didn't live next door or work with us.

A few things have changed since 1981. Bobby Hill, a black uniform, is subject to comments by people that may have seemed harmless at the time (nobody is burning crosses on his lawn) but which read as pure racism in 2006. Hill is in a funeral parlour where the director shows him the top of the line casket and says "This is the cadillac of caskets , especially popular among your people".

Your people.

Michael Conrad, Sgt Esterhaus, was one of the main characters but Conrad died in 1983 so I had never seen him before. I still remember him as Meathead's Uncle Stan on "All in the Family".

The cascade of actors that passed through the show, and I am doing this off of the top of my head, not searching IMDB: Dennis Franz, Barbara Babcock, Francis McDormand, Jon Cypher, Michael Tucker, Peter Jurasick, Danny Glover, C C H Pounder, David Caruso...

Like good drama, say Shakespeare, and good TV, say Six Feet Under, even though the drive of the show is serious, it is also FUNNY.

Oh, yeah I like the show.

P.S. In Spanish the show is "Capitiane Furillo" I guess the Enlgish title does not translate very well.


TF

Budget 2006

"Florida - that's like America's wang"
-Homer Smpson


I didn't read the entire budget nor did I watch it read live. I read the commentaries and I gather that over all there is good news and there is bad news.

The good news is: don't expect Harris style cuts to services to pay for tax cuts.

The bad news is, do expect Dubya style spending on big ticket items like the military PLUS tax cuts which will probably equal a deficit in the future.

I did catch that the lowest tax bracket has had their taxes raised. I guess Harper, as a child, was read "Robin Hood" as a bedtime story - upside down.

The government took back the large amount of money alloted to native people last year - well they should be used to that by now (who are the "indian givers" now?).

There was no money mentioned for the environment (as expected).

It was a minority budget so (luckily) it could not be full steam ahead Reform..er..Alliance...I mean Conservative....

Galbraith died this week and an old idea of his was this: America (and also Canada - "America Junior" as Homer Simpson calls us) is creating vast personal wealth for a few and neglecting public "wealth".

Galbraith lived long enough to see tax cuts for people earning over $200, 000 and no health care for about 1/3 of the population

Does America Junior want this too?

Tom.

White House Press Secretary

What I am doing here is something I really hate seeing when other people do it - make a criticism based not on my own observations, but on those of others (but at least others who think much like I do).

I have never even seen FOX news but from clips I have seen on places like The Daily Show, it is a right wing news agency that rah rah's the republicans, who can do no wrong. When Stewart runs a FOX news clip, he usually mentions that the clip is exactly as FOX aired it.

The new White House Press Secretary comes from a job at FOX news.

See above: and my comment is "it figures".

Thos.

Crash

“Crash” was a good movie. I don’t know/give a crap that it won the oscar for best picture.

Who is America’s favourite lovable loser girl in those romantic comedies? Sandra Bullock. I always found it funny how in the movie universe, girls who look like Bullock have trouble getting dates. I guess Bill Gates can’t get a bank loan in an upcoming movie and Osama Bin Laden is wearing a crucifix (maybe Doris Day really was a virgin).

In “Crash” she plays a total upper-class, illegal maid hiring bitch. She was great. If she has played other roles like this, I have not sent those films.

I think, by definition, a movie with Don Cheadle in it is going to be good.

I forget Mat Dillon exists from time to time and still see that young pretty boy from the early 80s. He plays a racist LAPD cop who did not want to be a racist but it just worked out that way (racism and LAPD are two words often found together) . He tells a rookie cop that he too will become a person very different from who he thought he would be after he has been on the job for a while.

The plot is sort of contrived, but that’s what fiction is.

Both of the characters played by Bullock and Dillon turn out not to be as bad as you think they are.

Marina Sirtas, who’s English/Greek in real life, plays a Persian woman – she’s a little pale for Persian, but that was ok.

I have only watched it once, but I think “Crash” is a film that you can watch over and over again and see different things at different times.

I give it 2 ½ thumbs up.

Well, I have to go and cruise for girls who look like Sandra Bullock as they might really need to get asked out for the first time in a long time.

TF

Role Models??

Harper seems to be modeling himself on Bush.

Why?

Was Nixon second on his list?

Dubya-ism stands for secrecy, torture, less rights for women, no consideration for the poor whatsoever….well you all know….

His visit to Afghanistan was a good move as we do need to be reminded when we send troops into a war that they are there and we do want to maybe have some idea of why we have sent them there (oh my: quite the run-on sentence). Yeah, he “photo-opted” it but that’s what politicians do.

Mulroney was voted the best PM we have ever had regarding the environment and he was awarded for that this week (I wonder how many SUV limos were parked outside).
That speaks volumes to me as how poor our leaders have been on this subject.

Once upon a time when I was young, the Murkans had a nice guy for president named Jimmuh, who, perhaps even a little ahead of his time for a world leader, started several programs to develop alternative energies to fossil fuels, and programs to conserve energy. Then he lost his job to a Hollywood actor, “Country Gentleman” as John Mellancamp called him, and that actor cancelled every one of those programs.

Harper has just done the same thing. Global warming is not hippie science any more it’s slapping us in the face.

See, the environment is just not one of his priorities. That’s like Pat Quinn saying goaltending just isn’t one of his priorities.

One wonders how good a PM you are going to be when you model yourself after an idiot and people wish Mulroney was still in power.

TWF

Ass over Tea Kettle Near Corktown

I was traveling on a streetcar yesterday going from Yonge to The East End. I did not get far enough to see the enflamed controversy re: “Beach” vs. “Beaches” but there is a “town” every block – Cork Town, Leslieville, Riverdale….

Somewhere on the outskirts of Leslieville, a young woman was moving towards the exit door and she was yaking on her cell phone. Nothing happened like the streetcar suddenly stopping, but she just went ass over tea kettle and landed right on her butt.

It was funny as hell (she wasn’t hurt – I really hope that is a factor).

It seems those things are dangerous not just when you are driving.

TF

..but the day is not over

Yesterday I met some friends downtown. While on the train I decided to text message 2 of my friends on their cell phones. We're all Trekkies, so I choose to send the expression that Klingons use when going into battle:

"It is a good day to die".

The first friend got the message and was amused. I do not realize at that point that the second friend had switched carriers and his phone number had been given away. A few minutes after the message was sent, I got a phone call, and my friend's ID showed on the display, but it was a 15 or 16 year old girl who was rather upset that I had sent such a terrible message to her. She insisted I apologize, which I did, as one could see how that message , taken out of context, might be disturbing.
TF

It Begins

Dubya has packed the supreme court with 2 right wing judges to replace a retiree and a death. The main reason for this? To outlaw abortion. South Dakota has passed a law to ban abortions unless the mother's life is in danger. There is not even an exception for incest or for a woman who has been raped.

Fuck.

Now let's face it - rapists' rights have been eroded over the last few decades. Unlike me, I guess some people feel that that is a problem that needed to be corrected.

Ladies, it's cold in Winniped but at least there your rights are considerd to be of more importance than those of rapists.

A San Fransisco paper took it a step further and brought up a possibility:

Are you tired of not having any kids because you can't get any woman to fuck you ? No probs. Just rape one. You may do 20 years but a lovable little child can call you "Daddy".

TF

An Intersting "Take"

I was listening to a podcast of ABC's "This Week" and George Will made a point similar to mine, regarding The Cartoons and Islam. Islam wishes to exist without critcism. Democracy, and open societies THRIVE on criticism - it is one of our core values. Like me, he thinks they need to grow up a little.

TF

Good Samaritan

Two nights ago I took a cab home from the train station - and my wallet slipped out and ended up in the cab. I did not realize it util I went to look for my wallet yesterday afternoon - just as I was escalating to panicked mode there was a message on the answering machine from a man in Burlington (two towns over from Mississauga) that he had found my wallet. I begged a ride to Burlington and picked it up. I insisted he take a $20 from me and I was soon on my way home with my wallet.

Yes Virginia, there are decent folk left in this world.

TF

Freedumb of Speech

Not content with that...We pull Jesus from a hat...
Emerson, lake & Palmer



Why is that if people are yammering about "freedom of speech" it usually means they are up to something that is going to piss off a lot of people (maybe even most people) ? Child Molestors and Nazis are two groups that come to mind.

The Danish incident where Muhammed was depicted a s a terrorist has pissed off..oh..about a billion people. I must ask one question: If The Prophet cannot be depicted, how can you know if he's being depicted in a cartoon??????? Of course, it is perfectly fine for Muslims to vow death to Isreal, or to burn the Amerkun flag or the Star of David, isn't it? I find it amusing when those who dish it out, can't take it.

The cartoons were in very poor taste, and papers here did not run them, but Islam needs to get a sense of humour. "Our" Cat Stevens is over there - can we drop him a line on this ?

TF

I don't Want To Harp.....

Maybe I was once too harsh in predicting I would never stop bitching if Harper were elected PM. While I am not going to pull a Kent Brockman and welcome our new insect overlords, I do think he should be given some slack, but I am still waiting for the refoooooooorrrrrrrmmmmm agenda to assert itself.

Ok, Martin – he is not going to be missed – he’s not a total loser PM like Turner or Campbell but he’s no better than a Joe Clark. Like Joe, he’ll be remembered more for all he did other than being PM. So, if we had to send The Liberals another message, and in our entire history the only other alternative we have ever turned to are The Conservatives, a week minority is the best result we could have hoped for.

I am proud of Canadian voters, this week – and of course, for me, if you abandon the Libs to vote NDP, I can live with it.

Harper was shut out in Toronto, Montreal AND Vancouver. Large cities have more problems which often require government policies to combat them –“law & order” policies, by themselves,  about all we’ve seen from Harper, aren’t going to cut it.

The GTA has not forgiven Mike Harris and were sceptical that Harper walked too close to Mike’s footsteps.

Harper may have to jettison the gay-hatin’, bible-thumpin’ creationists, or relegate them to the back bench if he has any hope of leading a majority government. If he leaves them in the front, he’ll loose the next election.

Well, it’s going to be interesting….

TF



P.S. I am squarely against “Intelligent Design” being considered a valid scientific theory. I have an ally on that – THE VATICAN. Yeah, that’s right, THE  F^$&n POPE agrees with me.

When Young People Die

Have you ever noticed that people who are anti-abortion, or, “pro-life” don’t care about those babies after they are born?

If you’re pre-born, you’re fine. If you’re pre-school, you’re FUCKED.
-George Carlin.

I once again re-state that poverty and cuts to social programs do not put guns in people’s hands. But, are we not seeing what most of us predicted in 1995, that Harris’s gutting of the province would lead to exactly what we saw in 2005 ??

Conservatives love forcing women to have babies, not giving a toss about them when they are young (maybe some of them will die thus reducing the surplus population) unless of course they commit a crime in which case you throw them in jail, or , and this really gets them hard, execute them. Conservatives also love war so they get all a-flutter when their children die...oh sorry…I mean other people’s children die and come home wrapped in the flag .

So, killing an unborn child is wrong – but watching them starve to death, get executed or die for rich people is somehow not wrong.

Doesn’t sound like “Pro LIFE” to me – sounds like Pro MY life and Fuck anybody else’s.

The good news at least some of those people who die are gay….(just not in the Military).

TF

Please - Make it a Minority !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s sad to watch a great travesty occur in a neighbour’s house – it’s much, much tougher to  have to sit through it in your own house.

In 2004, John Kerry ran a flat, uninspired campaign that handed re-election back to Dubya. In 2006, Paul Martin is running perhaps even a stupider campaign handing the country over to the Reform party.  

The great thing about democracy is that we all get a vote. The bad thing about democracy is that we all get a vote. The average person is not curious and does not think things through – not when considering something of extreme importance such as who is going to lead the nation.

What is going to be very frightening is that Harper will blindly follow Dubya – and there’s a regime that has been a disaster. Harper does not value human rights, women’s reproductive rights, the environment, health care or social programs. What he does value is raising taxes for the poor and cutting them for the rich. Tax cuts plus new spending means cuts to social programs. Ontario has been ruined for decades by half a decade of Harris-ment and Harper is going to do the same thing.

The only hope I see is a Harper minority – which will be tough on him because he’s not comfortable with minorities, such as gay Canadians.

If You Wish to Post Comments

I've had to turn on some feature that blocks my blog from getting spammed. If you find it too hard to post, e-mail me your comments and I will post them.
-Tom

Alternative Theories

I don’t actually enjoy criticizing the American right, nor do I go out of my way to do so. They just don’t value anything that I value - such as science.

For people who follow science, like I do, in an “artsy” way, in America, and only America, there is a “debate” whether “Intelligent Design” should be taught in science class along side evolution.  I think this debate ended in most other First World countries back when Kaisers and Czars were ruling.

I am always open to alternative theories – but if a school board is to allow “Intelligent Design” should it not also provide an alternate theory for human reproduction? I recall a theory espoused in 1970s commercials for pickles that The Stork delivers babies – should that board not also teach the “Avian Express” theory of human reproduction???

How come in America Pat Robertson gets on CNN – in Canada we don’t put those people on CBC Newsworld - we call them those people who have the misfortune of battling with mental illness, and they don’t make it to television, at least not as commentators for world events.

His latest assertion is that Israeli PM Sharon was “sent” a stroke from God for…well who the fuck cares what Robertson said was the reason…

Continuing one with the trend, should we not allow the possibility that bleeding people with leeches is sound medical treatment, that the Moon might be made of green cheese, that the world is flat, is the centre of the universe, and hangs from the heavens by large gold chains?

As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, another soul from Purgatory springs…

TF

Election 2006

It seems like every other year we have an election....

Not much of a narrative here - more a series of thoughts. Luckily this is a blog and not a term paper at McMaster University during the 1980s (I am reminded of this as I type on a computer and not a typewriter).

The only obvious issue is that the Liberals did some bad things that lead to the sponsorship scandal. The other party that could realistically form a government, Harper's Reform party (for Air Farce fans REFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORM) has wisely, to their advantage, pointed this out during every day of the campaign. The other "National" party, The CCF guys (and the only one with a good representation of gals), also began the campaign hammering the Grits for their corruption, as did the other party that wants to win all the Quebec Federal seats in a parliament it actually wants to leave (Le Bloc).

You know, even for French people, The Bloc are kind of odd.

Layton then realized that he shouldn't spend all his time demonizing the Liberals as this might drive some folks who voted Liberal in 2004 to switch to the Conservatives, so now he is letting us know that a Conservative Government would kill Canada as we know it (but he has left the door open to a possible Con-NDP Coaltion should the electorate return a Tory Minority).

As I have said before of myself, I am an "Orange Liberal", or, one that leans to the left of centre without being on the left wing. I guess that means I am still seateed in the fuselage but right up against the window??

Ok, we are ALL tired of The Liberal reign that began in 1993. But, and I cannot stress this enough, I want a better, or at least, not a worse regime in Ottawa to replace them.

Martin's defence is that it was OTHER Liberals who did those bad things - he had only a wee role in those governments: Finance Minister. Hardly significant at all, you know, like the tiny role David played in defeating Goliath.

I hate Harper and everything about him. If he is ever the PM, I'll never stop bitching about it until he isn't anymore.

I think though I need to separate Layton's moustache from his face - his rhetoric spewed during a campaign from what he would actually do as a Federal leader involved in a ruling coalition. I don't think he would be that bad, really. When he helped save the government in 2005, he did so with a set of NDP-style demands. He's just such a loud-mouth holier-than-thou fellow and I've had a problem with this since his days in Toronto politics.

If Martin scores anything less than a majority, he is done as Leader. I'll wait until that happens before I speculate as to who'd best replace him - Bob, Belinda, Lightfoot, Gretzky, Jerome The Giraffe..

Boy, these people with their accusations, half-truths and assertions are acting like children or, well, like politicians. (Aside: put "Or and "Well" together and you get George W Bush....).

I don't fear a hidden agenda from Harper -I fear what he has ACTUALLY SAID so far in the past two campaigns.

TF