DODGING the BULLET…

2019/04/15 Leave a comment

“I want immunity from prosecution” is the rallying cry of today’s capitalist. “Give me of dose of DPA and fill my pockets with tax money collected from the hoi polloi and don’t worry about the fallout”. Today’s Media news outlets are unable to sustain interest in the most egregious skullduggery in the marketplace because they are suffering from informational ADD. Obviously, while the quotes cannot be attributed to a particular business person the meaning and sentiment of these words can be proven beyond a doubt.

Exhibit A: SNC Lavalin, a corporation that has been trying to convince its friends in the Justin Trudeau cabinet that it is deserving of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement for several reasons: (1) it employs hundreds of Canadians, (2) it doesn’t want to go to court and face bribery and corruption charges like the common crook, and (3) SNC has been a long time contributer to the Liberal campaign kitty! Surely even if the former Attorney-General Jody Wilson-Raybould couldn’t understand that, many Canadians, especially those unconcerned about the proper administration of Justice in Canada could see the validity of giving SNC, that “signature” company, a free pass. After all, “we are a Quebec company playing for Team Canada.”

And not surprising, there are many Canadians who support the idea that you should be able to buy Justice. They support the idea that you should be able to buy your way around charges of bribery, kickbacks and racketeering. They say, why should you have to face charges in a Court of Law when you can pay money and get a DPA. Certainly people break the law everyday. I mean look at the Prime Minister. He broke four campaign related laws in 2016 and the RCMP knew about it and they didn’t blink an eye. As a matter of fact, the Mounties covered up the details for 818 days, violating the Access to Information and Privacy Act in the process.

So if the Prime Minister and the Mounties can get away with this kind of lawlessness, why not SNC Lavalin? Besides this Lavagate dust-up will be long gone before the election. The Media in Canada tire easily, besides boasting some of the laziest members of this fraternity in the free world.

Exhibit B: What ever happened to the great Canadian bread price fixing scandal? When was the last time any major media members wrote a follow-up on a status of the unresolved Breadscam? It’s been about a year and would still be collecting mould if it hadn’t been for the recent news that Loblaw has happily been given 12 Million dollars to install new refrigerators in their stores as part of Mr. Trudeau’s carbon-tax scam-(another story, for another time). This story involves the Bread Price Fixing Seven!!!

But here is Loblaw, a company that led the price fixing of bread for 14 years, costing each home in this country an estimated 400 dollars, getting free money from the consumer. Did we just brush off the immorality of price-fixing? Loblaw, with 6 fellow conspirators, fixed the price on the staff of life, sometimes the only item people can afford to buy regularly. And now, from the very people Loblaws stole from, it’s getting 12-million dollars for fridges. Fridges that could very well hold other products subject to price-fixing that we will never know about. Further to the incredible thought of anyone in this country fixing the price of bread is the lack of outrage by the consumer. And what about the Media? Have they forced the Competition Bureau to finish the story? They have not and consequently the Competition Bureau has not. Silence is the best information killer.

Price fixers, if found guilty, face a 25-million dollar fine or up to 14 years in prison. To date no convicted price fixer has ever seen the inside of a Canadian jail. Will Loblaw, Weston Bakeries, Canada Bread, Sobeys, Walmart, Giant Tiger, Metro ever be brought to justice? Of course not because three years after Loblaw blew the whistle on its disgusting conspiracy to fix Bread Prices–NO Charges have been laid and Loblaw has been given immunity–which means they won’t be prosecuted! The status of this um…”INVESTIGATION” continues in the great state of, “LIMBO”. This is a great country, isn’t it? If you have scammed customers over 14 years for, say 5 or 6 million of them, you just blow the whistle on your little scam and kazzam you give the little people a 25 dollar certificate and daddy in Ottawa will ‘smile and nod.’ “Love this immunity from prosecution-thingy.”

Exhibit #C: We are told that Canada is on the short list of countries vulnerable to drug money laundering transactions. As a matter of fact we have been designated as a major money laundering country where foreign drug-trafficking gangs are exploiting weak law enforcement and soft laws! Are you kidding me? Canada? Oh yes, there is a problem with a lax approach to law enforcement with respect to companies trying to avoid bribery and kickback charges. And the failure to demand that highly placed-politician(s) answer to law breaking. In fact the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the “national force for good” in the Country helped cover-up some law-breaking but surely that was all minor stuff. Nevertheless you know what they say–bad behavior starts at the top! An unsavory CEO usually means laxity and bad habits among the lower echelon. So I guess we shouldn’t be surprised if Canada is lumped with other International money laundering tramps like Afghanistan, The British Virgin Islands, China, Columbia and Macau. A recent report confirms crime networks, trafficking proceeds from China, could have laundered one billion dollars through the purchase of homes in Vancouver in 2016. Toronto’s real estate market has also been artificially bumped. One report says some tracking has zeroed in on more than 28 billion in opaque investments. Seems a little high but it’s probable 10% or almost 3 billion represents ill-gotten gains.

Surprised that Canada is lumped in with the worst of the worst in money-laundering? Don’t be. Most Canadian provinces fail to prosecute money laundering. The reports relating to this Canadian crime infestation make it quite clear that this country is under pressure from legitimate and illegitimate actors because the word is out, oversight in Canada is practically non-existent.

Even the Prime Minister will go to bat for you if you represent a “signature” presence in the country and you have a substantial sum to spend on his party’s re-election.

Canada is a mecca for the capitalist who craves immunity!

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Nazis in the newsroom…..

2018/05/17 Leave a comment

Once upon a time the reporting of  politically motivated events came to us from news correspondents well versed in the gamesmanship of propaganda.  They knew who was trying to make political points and said so.  Not anymore.

Case in vivid point: the reporting of the bloodbath in Gaza on May 15th, 2018.

I read with interest the front page story in the Toronto Star looking for the reasons why a so-called peaceful demonstration had turned up the bloodiest battle between the Israelis and the Palestinians in four years.  I didn’t get the reason on the front page.  What I got was a condemnation of  Israeli forces who, we were told, confronted the many who came to demonstrate peacefully with tear gas, bullets and snipers.  The story noted that some young Palestinian men brought knives and fence cutters.  I turned to Page 4 still looking for something definitive about the reasons for the violence.  Finally, halfway down the third column, the Washington Post reporters who wrote the story for the Star quoted a White House spokesman who said, “the responsibility for these tragic deaths (59 at last count) rests squarely with Hamas.” The rest of the story gave us no more insight on why the Israelis savagely attacked the peaceful gathering of Palestinians protesting the movement of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

But unless you are anti-Semitic or a moron you know the Star story courtesy of the Washington Post was incredibly incomplete.  There was no mention in  this story of the young men with Molotov cocktails, kite bombs, and other weapons to aid in the ultimate goal, “get inside Israel and kill some Jews”  Numerous reports reveal that radical Palestinian groups, especially the terrorist group Hamas, planned the chaos and encouraged the violence.  Photos and videos show a variety of weapons and explosives being used by the “unarmed, peaceful” Palestinians making the bloody scene more akin to war than a demonstration.  Not appearing in the Star story were the words of a 23 year old Palestinian, Mohammed Mansoura, who told the Washington Post Hamas organizers urged demonstrators to burst through the fence separating Gaza from Israel!

“We are excited to storm and get inside”, he said.  And then what, he was asked.”Whatever is possible, to kill, to throw stones.”

But the Star, The Post, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC–and the rest of the liberal mainstream media again gave us the familiar narrative: Israeli soldiers shot at and killed innocent, unarmed Palestinians who had arrived to demonstrate peacefully with their picnic baskets and children in hand.

The coverage of the “Riots at Zeitoun” May, 2018 tells me the spirit of Joseph Goebbels is alive and well.

The Nazis are back!

 

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BEYOND BELIEF……#26

2017/07/09 Leave a comment

It’s been a year since we last posted.  #25 was about the lack of honest, common sense oversight by the CRTC, the Canadian equivalent to the Federal Communications commission in the United States.

In the intervening 12 months not much has changed regarding CRTC oversight but the world has undergone a cataclysmic redo.

Hilary was Trumped.  Kim is trying to get his short fingers around America’s neck and the Democrats are wandering around Capitol Hill in a state of OZ.

CNN has switched from being the CLINTON NEWS NETWORK to an updated version of WKRP.  It’s a fact that Les Nessman was more balanced than Wolf Blitzer, and the KRP panels were more credible and far less strident and unbalanced.

In fact CNN has become the poster child for those media outlets who embrace the telling and re-telling of the Anti-Trumps.  In a lifetime of  media experience I  have never witnessed such blatant unprofessional story telling by the so-called legitimate press!  If it was just Fake News we had to contend with that’s easily handled, rather it’s the drumbeat of propaganda being passed off as the REAL story.  Propaganda dressed up as REAL news is designed to elicit from the viewer/reader strident emotionalism.  Unfortunately for America it reaches and motivates the simple-minded.

The fact is you don’t have to fake the news, there are enough stories that are real honest brain busters that make you wish they were fake.

Example one:  Paul Ryan, whose inability to gather together enough votes in the House of Representatives from among the majority members of his own party to pass legislation relating to a made in America health plan has delivered the unexpected.  He has issued an order to female members of the Media covering the House that they MAY NOT come to news “briefings” in sleeveless dresses and tops.  A JOKE?  Apparently not!!!

Example two: in the great State of Arkansas, once ruled by the Clintons for a couple of decades a law has just been passed that states a woman, “…who has been Raped must seek the permission of  the Rapist before she can have an abortion.”  A JOKE?  Definitely NOT!!!

The Blog rests:  who needs Fake news when you have the examples cited that ..”make you wish they were fake.”
Surely they can’t be real?  Surely they must have originated in some third world nation of despots and misogyny.

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When the Watchman sleepeth-Holiday’s Journal #25

2016/04/07 Leave a comment

Broadcasting in Canada was for years considered a privilege, a Trust, after all the airwaves are there for the benefit of all the people and to help maintain fairness and decency on the public airwaves through the years oversight was provided by first by, the CBC(a conflict); then the Board of Broadcast Governors(BBG)-a( loose aggregation-of political appointees) and finally the CRTC, today’s referee!

My broadcasting career began in the era of the BBG.  It was loaded with political appointees and did not provide good, effective oversight.

It operated in a state of somnolence.  Television was an infant but radio was a grown-up and as such attracted some very shrewd owners who were miles ahead of the BBG.  One day, probably over a scotch and soda two major media owners with the connivance of a Senator hatched a plot whereby they would enter the Toronto Television market via Barrie.  The transmitter would be in Barrie but the programming would be Toronto-centric!

Fortunately, the plot was foiled by a sharp-eyed Globe and Mail reporter.  The BBG said it was astonished.  That was in the 1960’s a decade that would see the BBG consigned to the dustbin of history and the arrival of a new sheriff,  with a promise to do right as a trustee of the public airwaves.

Obviously, administering the Broadcasting Act in the 50’s and 60’s was no job for old men and this inducement-prone posse was replaced by the Canadian Radio-television Commission, commonly referred to as “the commission.”   With advent of cable, satellites etc. Telecommunications was added in the title but Canada isn’t a country where acronyms accurately reflect titles, so it remains the CRTC!

As I recall the debut of this new bureaucracy was impressive.  It ushered itself in with alacrity and strict governance.

Pierre Juneau was not a Chairman to be trifled with and people like Ted Rogers, one of the broadcasting newbies with plans for an empire, quickly came to heed the arrival of the new regime.

Rogers, who in the early 70’s owned two radio stations in Toronto was called on the CRTC carpet for promise-breaking.

As a licensee he was cited for violating commitments made in his Promise of Performance that coincided with the granting of a name change to one of his radio stations-CHFI-AM to CFTR.  The TR standing for Ted Rogers or Toronto Radio take your pick.

It was Roger’s position that his failure to meet the news commitment he made was a numerical mistake and if the CRTC’s numbers were different than his then he would accept the Commission’s and they could all put it down to a mistake!

But Commission Counsel turned aside Ted’s claim, saying  “no Mr. Rogers it is not a mistake, it’s FRAUD.  You could have heard a pin drop in the Hearing room and the usually unshakable Ted Rogers was gob-smacked and that was a couple of decades before “gob-smacked” became part of the lexicon!   I’m sure that at that moment  he didn’t have to look hard  to visualize the plans for his empire meeting the same fate as the late, not so great BBG.  This dramatic moment in the nation’s capital on that cold day in the fall of 1972 clearly demonstrated CRTC plans to bring discipline to an undisciplined Broadcasting Universe.

Given only an  18 month extension of his Broadcasting license instead of the usual five years and thankful the CRTC didn’t cancel his license altogether Ted went to work.  The ensuing year and a half began the most exciting era in Radio broadcasting.  News, clearly a major concern of the Commission took centre stage in Toronto and across the country.  Competition intensified, scores of jobs were created in all aspects of Broadcasting.  Music programming which to that point was a copy of the American model, was forced to become far more creative when the CRTC imposed the 30% Canadian requirement on practically all music played on radio!  Owners chaffed under Juneau’s CRTC but they all made money.  Despite complaints not one radio license was mailed back to the CRTC!  Ted Rogers got his empire, so did Allan Waters along with others and Canadians were well served by the diversification of programming motivated by the highly competitive climate under the watchful eye of the New Sheriff.  But nothing lasts forever!

Fast-forward to 2015.  AJ (after Juneau) we watched a blizzard of Chairs preside over the emasculation of the CRTC and suborn the pillaging of  Radio and Television broadcasting in this country.  Confounded by new technology and its own pathetic leadership the CRTC has been run roughshod by the Media Mogles.

The tragedy is that ownership of those precious airwaves not longer rests with the people but with the shareholders of Bell, Rogers, Shaw.

Today, promises made by the Media beneficiaries of CRTC largesse have no value.  The job prospects in the industry are diminishing and the pay is absolutely pathetic.  My career path was nurtured by the need of broadcasters to employ more than warm bodies and that need was enhanced by competition.  Today there is no competition in the large markets because all the radio stations are owned by two or three conglomorates.  Today the employees of the Radio-Telelvision industry are in worse shape than major league baseball players were before Curt Flood and subsequent free agency.

They are slaves to a system that cannot and will not improve their status.  All of this is the result of CRTC failure to properly referee the public airwaves and temper the greed that has devoured and eroded what once was a good place.

The capitulation of the CRTC to the Media giants will not be reversed.  Bell, Rogers and Shaw run the show and what they want, they get!

This Regulatory agency, like the Competition Bureau reminds me of the Wizard of Oz. After giving away the store, today the CRTC occupies itself with silly questions like–“what does local news mean to you?  Is it important to you?” and preparing to entertain 12 applications for diversified programming and conducting meaningless surveys about whether Broadbands provide the data speed they claim.

Meanwhile, having been given the password to the safe, Bell, Rogers, Shaw et al  continue to empty it..

For instance the CRTC has finally enforced what Ted Rogers (under CRTC insistence) committed to doing thirty years ago, namely giving cable subscribers freedom in choosing the cable channels they want to pay for.  Today’s CRTC gives Media Mogols the right to dictate choice.  In fact(then) what the CRTC managed to get Rogers to agree to was this: that when computers make it possible cable subscribers will be able to choose the channels they want to watch–no exception.

We are not surprised that the CRTC version(2016) gives that right to the cable companies.

Of course Bell(probably) the meanest of all the cable operators has come up with a laughable BASIC grouping.  Rogers isn’t much better.

Shaw just got handed more CRTC largesse so we wouldn’t expect that company to give cable suckers an even break.

Short of a cataclysmic financial reckoning Canadians are never going to regain control of the Public Air waves.

On behalf of their shareholders, Bell, Rogers, Shaw  devoured our birthright, under the sleeping beauty we call, the Canadian, Radio, Television  and Telecommunications Commission!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Failure makes a comeback!!!

2012/02/23 Leave a comment

(WE are the  HOSEES)

Our per gallon price of gas in the City of Toronto today is:  $5.82

The price in Buffalo per Imperial gallon, if you could buy gas that way in Buffalo,

is: $4.41.  The fact is the Americans are paying 25% less for gasoline than we are!

And of course, in the Greater Toronto area, all the pumps owned by the majors(Shell, Esso, Petrocan, Sunoco and

Husky) show the SAME price:  it’s the gasoline sellers’ salute to Toronto’s Winterlicous prix fixe restaurant event that just concluded.

And it comes to us courtesy of the Federal Competition Act, or is that Anti-Competition.

Toronto per litre price: 1.28.  Buffalo per litre price: .97!!!!  Imperial gallon: 4.546 litres; U.S. Gallon: 3.785 litres.

So, if we are being hosed by them–that makes us the hosees!

(Travelling and Contemplating)

Some days it feels like you’re stranded between Penury and Dire Straits with a handful of

“not a winning number” lottery stubs and dog-eared coffee lids saying “please play again” while waiting for a bus

that will come by flashing “Not in Service.”  Ever? EVER!

This situation is not a good situation but it’s the ideal place from which to cogitate about life on THIS planet!

(City Hall)

Somebody call the coroner because I’m sure someone has died there.

So much hand-wringing, so many tears, such anger.  Why?  Because, to hear these mourners tell it,  the greatest,

most wonderful and talented civil servant that ever walked God’s green earth has been cashiered.

“Did he die”, you ask. NO, he was sent home.  Fired.  Driven from his office by that big bully the mayor of Toronto:

Fat, but getting thinner–Robbie Ford.  In fact, Ford didn’t send him home – a majority of members on the

Transit Committee, to whom this poor, humble, fired Civil Servant reported on his day to day accomplishments, did the

deed.  With the ‘goodbye, nice to have known you’ note they tucked in $500,000 plus.

Usually when you tell a person to go home and not come back–that’s it.  But this is a story for another time.

(Maria Augimeri loves Gary Webster)

I don’t know what her normal temperment is but yesterday she was ‘white hot’ decrying what she called “the abuse of power.”

Maria you should know is a member of the Transit Commission.  She loves the work of the guy (Webster) who was fired.

She thinks he was the most hard working, dedicated and talented Chief General Manager that ever lived.

“So,” Ms.  Augimeri demanded to know, “what message are you (other committee members) sending to our employees,

that professionalism gets kicked out the door and toadyism wins?”

Frankly, yes.  It certainly worked when David Miller was mayor.  All the toads got a place at his toadstool and the non-toads

were unceremoniously tossed.  (Write for names.  The list is too long for this time.)

MARIA of course has forgotten about the toadies that attended to Mayor Miller’s every wish because she was one of them.

Did she ever challenge Dapper David when he sent home dedicated, loyal, hard-working civil servants who weren’t

TOADIES, she DID NOT!  She suffers from ‘politicized amnesia’ that has been exacerbated by the fact that she no longer

sits in the INNER circle.

(term limits)

Maria Augimeri has been in politics for 30 years.   She’s long past her’ best before’ designation.

Maria is a poster child for the institution of term limits.  She is one of the reasons politics to many is a dirty word.

Hazel McCallion, Mississauga’s 7% solution, is another prime poster child for TERM LIMITS.  Eight years and out!!

Give others a chance to familiarize themselves with the political process.  Everybody will benefit.

Too long at the political trough blurs the landscape and deadens the senses.

Maria has been a Toronto Councillor since 1997 and judging by her comments yesterday relative to the firing of

Gary Webster she needs to understand that there are others who can do the Councillor thing just as well as she.

They would be the ones with perspective.  The ones that would avoid making goofy statements.

After eight years you really start to believe you cannot be replaced.

Unfortunately all politicians are afraid to consider term limits.  But that doesn’t mean it should remain off the table.

(OXYCONTIN)

Who put that on the table?

This drug is devastating lives from coast to coast and we hear nothing from those people in Ottawa who are supposedly

in charge of our health and welfare.

The braintrust at the Food and Drug Directorate are busy banning vitamin use based on flawed research but have nothing to

say about a drug they approved that is twice as deadly as morphine.  Why did it take a provincial initiative(Ontario’s) before

anybody bothered with what is already a soul destroying drug!

And even this provincial initiative is off centre.  Oxycontin  is not just a threat on the reservation it has invaded

thousands of households in Canada and somebody better pay attention to the thousands who are addicted to what

we frivolously call “hillbilly heroin.”  Talk to the addicted.  See their pain.  Sympathize and then do something.

We need to find out how this destructive pill was allowed into the country?  Whose hand is in whose pocket?

And when will the provincial initiative move Ottawa into doing something meaningful(nationally) besides regulating the

amount  of Vitamin D3 in a single pill?

We should know how many highly  placed people working in the Food and Drug Directorate have conflicting

ties with Big Pharma.

Next:

Is Santorum  the man to dethrone Obama?  Stay tuned.

We might as well camp here because we’ll never make Dire Straits before nightfall.

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There’s the Gravy Train!!!!!!

2011/10/05 Leave a comment

/.The Gravy Train that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been looking for EXISTS!!!

It’s as real as he claims but it exists behind impenetrable walls of self-interest and entitlement.

These walls are as real as if they had been constructed of mortar and steel.

And if they could be breached,  inside, “on Guard”, watching for intruders hard by the GRAVY TRAIN are the Sacred Cows that have

driven this  city’s budget into the red and have every intention of keeping it there.

Independent auditors didn’t find it and because auditors by nature help protect Gravy Trains!

The Gravy Train isn’t about the few million dollars council recently cut from the Budget and Council knows it!

The Gravy Train is the vehicle of the unelected, of the elite.

Self-interest and entitlement bind together the objectives of various city units like:

the fire and police departments, their unions and other city unions  that need to maintain their numbers, because Unions have only one

objective-get numbers, increase numbers, maintain numbers.  Others who fuel the GRAVY TRAIN are the boards–Zoo, Library and some

City departments-like the out-of-control Water department.  When these departments are asked to cut budgets, they ignore the request and

deliver a bigger one.

This year the police department was asked to deliver a 10% decrease, year over year, and delivered a budget showing

a 1.5% increase!

Self Interest and Entitlement also live outside the Units we associate with City departments.

The lobbying for tax dollars to support every conceivable kind of Arts-related endeavour is intense!

The list probably isn’t endless, it just looks like it.   So that brings us to the obvious conclusion.

Mayor Rob knows he has not reached the controls of the Gravy Train and he is probably cognizant of this fact–he will not reach

them even if he spent the next forty years in the Mayor’s Chair.  There is no one in the city with the political jam, let alone Council support,

who can breach the walls.   Furthermore, there is no support among the Media to get to the Gravy Train.

Among the media, the leading excoriator of Mayor Rob’s contention is the Toronto Star.

Almost daily the Star finds some way to ridicule, belittle, denigrate his Worship’s contention that a Gravy Train exists! !

Well we know it exists and now we know where it is–the question is how much money is it carrying—

my guess:  between 500 and 700 million dollars.

/…Here’s a quick example.  Among the recent decisions of Council looking for those elusive, loose tax dollars was to sell, privatize or come

up  with another operating model for the Toronto Zoo.  The Zoo loses 11-million dollars a year.  One Zoo board member is

Councillor Glenn De Baermaeker.  He voted against finding ways to save money and save the Zoo.

He said it was “a desperate and pathetic move.”

The only thing “desperate and pathetic” was De Baermaeker’s solution: keep the Zoo and continue to send the annual 11-million dollar bill

to the TAXPAYER.

He, along with other members of Council, helped build the walls that protect the Gravy Train.

They subscribe to the Neo-Grecian Formula of Collective Penury.

It is real!  It is a contagion!  And it’s catching!

/…Not offered as issues in this provincial election campaign:

Hey Dalton, where are the 600-thousand jobs that the introduction of the HST was going to bring Ontario?

Hey Horvath, what about your poor, bedraggled Union people who have been fighting the savagery of US Steel?

Hey Hudak, what about Caledonia?  This is still a land of Law and Order is it not?

And what about insurance rates and the huge profits churned out by that group of free enterprizers?

And, I almost forgot, what about the Prix Fixe that has been imposed by the even richer oil companies on gas prices

in all the major Ontario cities? Today Toronto residents pay: $5.573396 for a gallon of gas!!

Stateside, the gasoline just dropped again today–next time you’re in Buffalo help yourself to the smaller gallon

for $3.25!!  You don’t think we are being jobbed by the Oil Companies–well the politicians didn’t even remember

to bring it up!! They do care!  But not for us!

The GRAVY TRAIN is real–

/…AJ/KO

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Failure is an orphan

2011/08/21 Leave a comment

/…These days it`s hard to figure out whether anybody knows anything!

Last week, Toronto weather forecasters were wrong five of six days and not just slightly wrong,  huge.

Rain was predicted all five days and the rain did not come, nor did the thunderstorms they predicted.

Those of us who plan weekends based on the predictions of the forecasters were told the weekend would be a drencher, so, many hopeful campers, picnickers, motorcycle enthusiasts, etc., made other plans.

The weekend weather was everything you hope for if you`re a camper etc,  sunny, hot, in a word summerlicious.

Many believe the accuracy of weather forecasters has deteriorated markedly since they started using computer models!!

/…Headline in the Toronto Star, Saturday July 16th, “HOUSING DOWNTURN  AHEAD,”–leading economists were quoted, along with

Canada’s five major banks.

Headline in  the Toronto Star, Wednesday, August 17th, “EAGER BUYERS KEEP HOUSING HOT,” real estate experts gave their reasons.

Most readers would have preferred to hear from the economists and the pooh-bahs from the five major banks-were they misquoted

mis-informed, missing their weegee boards or just plain mistaken about the ‘housing downturn.”  One of our problems as consumers is having to

decide what is fact and what is fiction because media keep passing off speculation as fact.

Sometimes the messenger should be drawn and quartered.

/…This month we were hailing another potential cancer breakthru!  By genetically reprogramming immune systems, three men were said to have

been cured of late stage leukemia.  According to a pair of studies  published at the same time in two prominent journals, the technique transforms

blood-borne T-Cells into “serial killers that hunt down and obliterate cancer cells leaving healthy tissue unharmed.

A day earlier the Wall Street Journal darkly reported that “mistakes in scientific studies surge.”   The WSJ noted that since 2001 the number

of papers published in research journals has risen 44%, while their number retracted has escalated more than 15 fold.

For instance,there were 87 retractions relating to medicine between 2001 and 2005.  Between 2006 and 2010-436.

Even worse the time lag between published studies and retractions is growing.  From slightly more than 5 months in 2000 to almost 32 months

in 2009.  The problem goes even deeper.  As the WSJ put it there was a ‘wow’ reaction to a published paper in 2003 announcing that

two popular high blood pressure drugs were found to be much better in combination than either alone!  Based on that study doctors changed

their prescriptions and patients were put on the touted combination.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t true!

Six and a half years later, the prestigious medical journal LANCET retracted the paper citing “serious concerns,” about the findings.

Too late!!  The damage was more than collateral, it was direct.  By the time the retraction found daylight 100-thousand patients had been

given the combination.  Today, according the Wall Street Journal “tens of thousands” are still on the discredited dual therapy leaving them

more vulnerable to life-threatening side effects.  Why the surge in papers and retractions?  In many cases plain ordinary fraud.

The stakes are high–“a single paper in Lancet and you get your chair and you get your money.  It’s your passport to success………………..So,

the next time you read a story or hear about about a major medical breakthrough, take it with a grain of salt-it could be subject to recall.

It’s worrisome because this dramatic increase in retractions covers many different disciplines, not just medicine.   Biology, chemistry, engineering,

physics etc…  Read all about it in the August 11th WSJ.  It’s shocking!

/…To this point in the CFL season the Green Riders of Saskatchewan have won only one game in eight and so the coach and his offensive

co-ordinator are gone.  In fact both were offensive to the devoted fans of that historic franchise. So are many of the players(offensive) but you can’t

fire the whole team.  Many of that teams ardent fans are farmers and they are the first to recognize incompetence and laziness and they know

that if they ran their farms as sloppily as the Riders have been running many of their plays, the farm as a viable unit would be history.

/…whither the stock markets?  Will the incredibly incompetent managers of our economic systems find a light of deliverance at the end of the tunnel,

or will it be the proverbial freight train??  Should the hoy-puloy(that’s us) hope for the best and plan for the worst.  Probably!

How close are we to sackcloth and ashes?  Will someone restart the engines of commerce?  Will we have to start over again and actually focus

on the difference between what we think we need and what we must have to survive?  So many questions, very few answers?

/…Toronto’s roly-poly mayor must be thinking, the “job is NOT QUITE AS SIMPLE as I figured .”  A year ago,

Fatty Ford focused the electorate on three basic concepts, stop the gravy train, reduce the budget shortfall but not services and build subways.

Almost a year into his mandate, the Gravy train has a new conductor, the budget shortfall continues to hover between half a billion and three-quarters

of a billion with services on the endangered species list and there is no money for ill-advised subway tunnels.

Who will be asked to take the fall?  The outcome remains as confusing as Who’s on first, What’s on second and I don’t know’s on third!

At least Abbott and Costello got us a laugh!  A couple of days after the Mayor told one of the City Unions not to threaten him, he turns around

and threatens us with a 35% tax increase.  Who in their right mind would threaten us, the taxpayers, with a 35% tax hike.

There’s more than a passing resemblance between today’s political landscape and mythology.

/…And so it would seem many of those we have talked about today are drive by the truism–

“success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan.”

TA from AJ

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The Golden West

2011/08/07 1 Comment

/…The vast fruited plain was our home for the past two weeks and it is a site to behold………..

golden fields of Canola waiting in the sunshine before losing that glorious glow and declaring themselves ready for the harvest!!!

/…but there are many pockets of land left barren, and unseeded because of too much moisture, especially in Southern Saskatchewan.

Huge acreages where grain usually grows are covered by water the result of  more rain than many old-timers ever remember.

/…Our travels took us to Nanton, a small but thriving town on highway 2 south of Calgary.  It’s the gateway to what some call the

finest ranch country in the nation.  It is also where you will find the Bomber Command Museum and the FOXeS.  These Foxes(four brothers and

Lady Fox-mama bear to some, comprise one of the areas best known families.  There’s Dan, he’s a museum Board member and one of the charter

members , then Gary who is the area’s mechanic to go to, motorcycle wild-man and antic car aficionado, Mark is the farmer

looking after vast fields of grain and hay–his cattle herds dot the fabulous hills west of Nanton, the ones that fold into the foothills that

work their way into the mountains that seem to look different everyday. Lee is the family golfer and lately has again displayed a major talent for painting

pictures of the land that time forgot.  Lady Foxe, better know as Joan is the family matriarch living on her downsized ranch, from time to time holding court with  the ‘Boys’ and their wives, keeping track of the grand-kids and reminding the great-grand-kids of the traditions of the family into which they have been born.

/…we left Nanton reluctantly because of the beauty of the foothills and the mountains, less than hour away…. And the Elk, and the Buffalo and the

mountain sheep and the bears………………………….and of course the BIG SKY!

/…Saskatoon is one of the most beautiful cities on that fruited plain.  It was there, actually 45 minutes northwest in Borden  that we renewed our

longstanding friendship with Cousins Ron and Julia, Gail and Bob.  The Bezugly’s(Ron and Julia) farm some 6-thousand acres were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

Who would miss that?!!! Gail and Bob Young flew into tranquil Saskatoon from that most troubled world capital, Washington DC!

The 50th was a hoot.  Lots of people, fondued 10 ounce steaks, new and fondued potatoes, salad, Saskatoon berries, wine, beer and coolers and the Satellite Kid–one of the funniest of the many Elvis Impersonators I’ve ever seen.  And he’s from Borden, population  200, maybe 215!!!???

Borden where twilight lasts about an hour and a half, where the Borden Bridge is an icon–that’s the one you see on the blog page.

Borden where people smile and say hello and live a life of simple sophistication,  complicated only by the vagaries of weather that determines what the

land will be allowed to yield–this year.  That’s the great thing about sports and farming–there’s always next year.  But so far this year is shaping up to

be a 60 goal season.  The crops are getting ready to produce megatons and the Bezugly clan is wishin’ and hopin’……………….. and so are we!

/…The return home was accompanied by the abruptness of reality.  That August is here and the CNE is just around the corner and we all know what that

means, the final long weekend of summer.  Time and tide wait for no one.  Funny how time slips away.  Welcome to the Dog Days of summer

The heat wave was over but the markets were in heat and the population was being screwed over again by the genius architects in the financial capitals of the world.

Do we really believe these people in charge are any smarter than we are???  I’ll bet anyone of us could run a deficit of a couple of billion?

You just need to remember three KEY words———-“not my money.”

/…Naturally the Blue Jays were winning one and losing two,  every three games–even tho’ they added Rasmus and Lawrie while were gone!

11 and a half games behind when we left,  12 games when we returned.

/…Toronto’s political landscape remains the same.  Fatso Ford and brother Doug are still running the Fort having just concluded a running-off-at-the

mouth battle with Margaret Atwood, a world-famous Canadian author that Doug Ford had never heard of…….you know that means every library

in the City is in danger.

/…the world financial crisis is still a crisis, undoubtedly the result of that deadly combination–bureaucracy and politics— they are successfully

overwhelming economics in every G-8 country.  Maybe the Return of the Apes is a harbinger??!

/…A review of two articles written about the trial of former Toronto Maple leaf Rick Vaive captain gives emphasis to the importance that communities

have at least two dailies.   The two stories make you wonder whether both reporters were in the same courtroom?

Vaive, charged the impaired driving was in court friday, the 5th(august) and that’s about all the two reports agree on;

Star staff reporter Peter Edwards and Toronto Sun columnist Michele Mandel offer their versions of what happened.  Frankly, my reading of

Mandel’s version in the Sun suggests she is in much less awe of  Vaive then Peter Edwards and that would suggest she takes DUI’s more seriously than

Edwards.  The trial will resume, incredibly on February 16, next year!  Flinty McGuinty has failed miserably to solve the overloaded court dockets

across the province even though his Attorney General keeps promising a more streamlined vehicle.  There never was much of a styling difference

between the model T and the Model A.

/…Conan O’ Brien who used to write jokes for his late night rivals continues to scribe the funniest lines, this time for his own show.

From the Sun’s line-up of the week’s best late-night laughs-O’Brien: “A man  jumped the White House fence, but after a brief chase.

the Secret Service was able to talk President Obama into coming back and finishing his term.”

Until next time, TA from AJ.

 

economics

 

 

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By the Numbers-a sequel

2011/07/20 Leave a comment

/…5 major players have now been added to the casualty list that has enveloped The-News-of-the-World scandal:

Rebekah Brooks, former International News CEO-resigned. detained and questioned;

Chief of Scotland Yard, Paul Stephenson resigned; Paul Yates the Yard’s counterterrorism chief-quits

Sean Hoare, former news-of-the-world reporter and whistle-blower,  one of the first

to accuse the paper of hacking and pinging-dead.  Police call the death unusual but don’t think he was murdered!

Piers Morgan, arrogant TV host , the replacement for Larry King live is linked to, scandal tainted types like Brooks.

And today “Jonnie Marbles” enters the scandal as a foot-note.  His claim to fleeting fame-throwing a shaving cream pie into the face of Rupert Murdoch.

/…17 the number of U-S states suffering under a heat dome that is pushing temperatures in usually cooler cities like Minneapolis into the 100 plus range.

It ‘s same kind of heat we were feeling monday across the Ontario South and the same kind of oppressive tropical heat we will be feeling thursday.  37 celcius-Oh Yeah.

/…The City budget committee is looking at a 774 Million dollar deficit but the Toronto Star and the Mayor’s critics claim–that can’t be right. it’s only

443 million!!!  The Star which is still trying to come to grips with Ford’s victory last year, has become a pathetic critic of the Mayor and his efforts(some of which are silly)

to rein in spending.  Like all deficit situations the problem isn’t a lack of revenue, it’s a lack of discipline.

Despite his lack of finesse in handling the deficit, he is the only Mayor since amalgamation making any effort to find those the economies of scale

that the Harris twits said would materialize for the taxpayers of Toronto, Etobicoke, York, East York, Scarborough and North York, if we would only submit to their ‘common sense’ plan.

Lies, lies and damn lies and we bought them!

And of course there’s fat in the operating budget of this city!  In the late 90’s a Committee of Concerned Citizens in the Town of Caledon, tiny by comparison to Toronto

took just fifteen minutes with the Mayor and his staff to find 100-thousand dollars in savings without affecting services.  Savings that the Mayor swore were not there.

Of course there’s fat in the Toronto budget.  Probably about 200 million dollars.  Those numbers and the re-allocation of resources would give us a balanced budget.

If you want a good look at how badly managed the city’s finances are check out the Sue-Ann Levy column(Sun-June 21st).

/…Does that mean we would need a 3% tax increase in 2012?  maybe!  especially if a tax increases means a budget surplus.  But Mayor Ford’s suggestion that a tax increase next year would be fine

because we didn’t have one this year is the kind of foolish observation he needs to stop making!

/…one of the reasons for budgetary missteps is the failure to change spending plans; for instance Applefield drive in Scarborough is designated for a major refit– they plan to tear up the street, the sidewalks.

the curbs etc and make everything new.  The fact is there is no reason to destroy what is perfectly functional and in need of some repairs!

Why is this being done–a city official told me,” it’s part of the five-year plan and it went into the hopper a long time ago.”  If you’re short of money change it.  “No, we can’t do that, it’s all part

of the plan.”  The fact that the Councillor lives on this street wouldn’t have anything to do with the decision not to change the plan, would it?

/…Is it possible that at least one of the Wards in Scarborough has descended into the kind of blatant influence peddling so familiar in Louisiana, or is that Mississippi?

More on that in later editions of HolidayatLarge.

/…July 19, ten years ago the U-S national debt was 5-trillion, 705 billion, 50 million, 480 thousand, two hundred , 67 dollars and 56 cents: 5, 705, 050, 480, 267.56>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Gold on this day(july 19, ten years ago) was trading for $266 US dollars.  This morning gold hit $1602!

/…Since filling the screens world-wide a week ago Wednesday, Harry Potter-deathly hallows(2) banked an estimated $307 millions dollars U-S.

/…The number ONE deli in  Toronto is Zane Caplansky’s smoked meat emporium on College street and now those smoked meat sandwiches are coming to a place near you.

Caplansky has TWO trucks ready this week for lunch hour service and private events.  Good luck to Zane Caplansky.

/…It’s a rare thing to see a Toronto Sports writer offer an opinion that is critical of fans and teams in this loser’s paradise, but that’s exactly what we got today

from Steve Simmons.  Are Toronto sports fan suckers or just the most loyal dummies in all of Sportsdom?  Read all about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

/…And did the First lady of France, Carla Bruni really tell the French newspaper Nice-matin, the baby she is expecting, the Sarkozy’s first

is “unexpected and unhoped for.”  Tough luck kid, life is problematic enough if they want you…can you imagine…….

/…And finally a 20 foot Animatronic Triceratops is available from Hammacher Schlemmer.   This motion-sensing animatronic giant is just the thing

to give those neighbourhood kids a Halloween fright.  Cost:  $350,000 U-S!

 

/…”

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By the Numbers

2011/07/10 Leave a comment

/…Our world is a parade of numbers!

It’s one way we determine accomplishments in politics, in business, in sports, in our lives….It’s one way we measure success and failure—

#…Derek Jeter of the Yankees…3004 hits, the only Yankee among the great Yankees to reach and surpass that plateau..

#…Oddsmakers placed 1 to 4 odds Jeter’s 3,000th would be a single.  It was a home run!

#…The Blue Jays bullpen, has blown 14 of 32 saves, second last in the American League…

#…Zero the number of goals scored by TFC in the last two games………….

#… At 34, Yoshikazu Tanaka is Japan’s youngest billionaire.  He owns Gree Inc. his country’s second largest networking company.

#…The unemployment rate in Greece is 16%, but the rate for those under 24 is 42.5%.  In  Spain 44.4% of those under 24 are not employed.

#…21-thousand is the number of part time jobs canadians found in May,  7-thousand the number of fulltime jobs!!

#…The people of Greece owe their government almost 60 billion dollars in unpaid taxes!!!

#…The 60 billion dollars is owed by 900,000 individuals and companies.

#…In the United States, for the first time,  married couples make up less than half(45%) of all households.

#…This weekend in Toronto, the forecasters got the weather 50% right, that may be above their average!

#… Comedian Craig Ferguson observed “The Royal couple will be visiting 8 major cities during their 9 days in Canada.

That’s amazing to me, he continued, Canada has eight major cities???”

So now the narrative extruded from all those numbers in summation:

Derek Jeter has reached one of the loftiest plateaus in baseball that will be duplicated by very few because you need both skill and longevity to walk on it.

This time the oddsmakers got it wrong but normally they are right far more often than weather forecasters.

A baseball team can’t be thinking about a post season with a bullpen as bad as the one the Blue Jays management has put together. And we don’t expect

TFC(Toronto’s soccer team) to be in the playoffs either.

We are impressed, with the abilities, talent and good luck of one Yoshikazu Tanaka,  now with a fortune of a billion dollars.

If there’s going to be major trouble in Greece and Spain you can expect it from those under 24.  You cannot continue to expect law and good order in countries where

that large a segment of young people have no work!

I don’t know what we our business reporters are excited about.  Many would not see the creation of that many part-time  jobs as a good thing, when compared to the

pathetic number of fulltime jobs reported in May.

Now if the people of Greece came clean and paid the back taxes they owe the government…..the bankers in Germany and France would be smiling,  but you can’t get blood from a stone.

In the United States what God has ordained, man has put asunder and the number of  married couples continues well into the minority.

And one thing more:

Craig Ferguson is a mean man with mean jokes about our great country, the one NOT saddled with a debt of 14 trillion dollars!!!!

And so it goes:

“Although he may not always recognize his bondage, modern man lives under a tyranny of numbers.”

Nicholas Eberstadt

The Tyranny of Numbers:  mismeasurement and misrule.

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