Even evil politicians can provide some smile lines from time to time.  When the big three auto maker CEOs showed up at congress to plead for a bail out, a congressman asked them if any of them would sell their private jets that they arrived on before taking money from taxpayers.  The CEOs of course baulked at the idea of making concessions for the little people.  What?  Give up luxury and opulence to appease the little people?  Screw em!

I never liked the idea of an auto maker bail out anyway and I think it’s telling that we didn’t see any Japanese executives before Congress or the Japanese House of Representatives.  I don’t think we’ll see them with their hand out in the same manner any time soon either.

Here’s a thought.  When asking for money, maybe you should leave the arrogant snobbery behind…in fact, maybe you should just stop drawing a salary.  There is something that is sometimes referred to as the elite circle of $1 CEOs.  These are people who proudly draw a Salary of $1 while their counterparts in other corporations draw salaries in the tens of millions.  In this business week article, Richard Kinder says the following.

I’m not saying I’ll need to get on the welfare line, but all my pay comes from the performance of the company. I’m opposed to guaranteed salary, stock, options, and the rest of it. The philosophy is that senior management does well when the company does well.

What…a…novel…though.  Huh?  Lee Iacocca used to be the big kahuna at Chrysler and reduced his Salary to $1 before asking congress for loan guarantees (not actual loans, just guarantees on loans) and before asking his workers to take concessions of their own.  He came down to the level of the every man and pulled Chrysler’s butt out of the fire after seeing Ford through a $2 Billion year of profit.  You have to wonder why Ford turfed him…but at least Chrysler was smart enough to scoop him up afterwards.  Apparently Iacocca clashed with Henry Ford II.

Screw a bailout and hell, forget any loan guarantees.  The CEOs of the big three need to yank their heads out of the sky and understand that ignoring the real world “below” them isn’t going to work any more.  A truly successful company chairman or executive understands the need to be integrally connected with their operation somehow to ensure its success over both the short and long term.  Simply drawing a salary may be enough if you’re a store manager…but even then, getting a share of the profits makes more sense than simply getting paid even if your business is losing money.

When you have a giant national operation, it’s easy to become disconnected from it.  It’s a giant beast that almost seems to work on its own set of rules and conditions.  I’m sure that for a CEO, it sometimes seems as if they are simply a component of the beast and they just need to point it in the right direction to make it work.  When you’re at this stage, the only thing you can do is stuff like linking your salary to stocks or percentages of profit.  There’s no other way to ensure that you really have a tangible and relevant connection to your company.

The big three are headed by incompetent and arrogant idiots.  If they don’t plan to reform their ways, they should simply die out as the market demands.  Arriving at a congressional hearing in three separate private jets with your hands out doesn’t inspire sympathy or confidence in your ability to manage money.  It also demonstrates your refusal to have any connection with the common individual…so screw you guys.

If it’s one thing the Canadian Conservatives are known for as a political party, it’s advancing the notion of smaller government, rough justice for rough criminals and fiscal responsibility. While I could talk to no end about how Conservatives suck donkey testicles when it comes to maintaining a small government, I would like instead to address a more relevant topic.

In today’s throne speech, it was revealed that the government may indeed run a deficit and put Canada into the red for the first time in over a decade. Yes, after promising that Canada would certainly not produce a deficit budget under Conservative rule, the conservatives have reneged on that promise.  What was it harper said?

“I think I was asked one question whether I would run a deficit and I said no. That’s my answer.”

So many are talking about this in political circles to some degree. Whether it’s a band of loyal Conservative Party faithful trying to uncomfortably brush it aside in casual conservation or a band of NDPers chomping at the bit as they fling coffee about their favourite star bucks ranting about fiscal responsibility, no one is taking the news too too well from what I have seen. And heck, they shouldn’t be taking it well.

I think that this demonstrates very well why governments just can’t work. Constitutional government doesn’t work because the constitution ends up being more of an inconvenience to law makers than a supreme law that garners respect. Just as governments and courts decide to arbitrarily disregard the importance of a constitution, political organizations end up disregarding the importance of transparency, honesty and integrity in governing the governed.

Though I must honestly say that I didn’t expect the Conservatives to present the possibility of an unbalanced budget in the future, I can’t say it shocks me. We must understand that the government that we can not afford either as taxpayers or individual human beings. While the Conservatives may be spending us into debt today, there’s no reason to think that the Liberals won’t do it tomorrow. Best to just stop paying attention to any of them…and for goodness sakes, stop voting for cheats and liars. PLEASE!!

The government I mean.  Seriously, they’re stupid…and uhh…ok.  That headline is just the first thing that came to mind when I was done reading this story about how a French Court just overturned a ruling by a lower court that decided a woman’s lack of virginity was grounds for a divorce in a Muslim couple’s situation.  Yes, it’s true.  Some chick lied about being a virgin and the the guy got mad.  If only she had a penis, she wouldn’t have had to even be a virgin but she had to go and be a non-dude.

They pranced merrily to court (ok…maybe they didn’t prance and maybe it wasn’t merrily) with the man demanding that the government annul their marriage because she had been dirtied by another guy…or guys.  Who knows/cares.

Now talk about stupid.  The government (wretched vaginas) actually decide that virginity qualifies as an “essential quality” as defined in French law and that since she didn’t have this “essential quality” in her…uhh…well since she didn’t have it, the marriage was off.  The court basically said that virginity was an essential quality in their case because hey, they’re Muslims.  Chick’s gotta have that fresh seal that pops when you…well whatever.  Anyway, I think that was the most rediculous thing ever…and I think it was the most rediculous thing ever for a few reasons.

First, the French do require equal treatment of Men and Women in their country just as we do here in Canada.  The Muslim faith is inherently unfair when it comes to the requirement of virginity.  Since a Muslim man can marry multiple women, there is obviously no requirement for him to be a virgin.  This is inequitable treatment for women and this backwards religious rule shouldn’t be finding its way into a court of law.

Second, wince when is virginity an “essential quality” for anyone?  If you’re a virgin, go out and have sex.  After you’ve had sex, you let me know if anything significant changed in your life aside from that awesome feeling of euphoria you’re gonna have for the rest of the week.  Yes the novelty wears off but isn’t it grand?  Aside from feelin’ great, (assuming you didn’t screw a complete idiot) and having added a new experience to your “Big Book Of Cool Things I’ve Done” that sits on the mantle, (don’t let grandma read it after that) life continues on.  Yes, having had sex is about as significant as having your first glass of orange juice when you look back on it.  I don’t think having refrained from drinking any orange juice would have done anything for me that would have made avoiding orange juice an essential quality.

Finally, the religion thing.  These two got stuck in a relationship neither one of them wants and they have to have their marriage annulled because their religion basically demands it from what I understand.  Even if this isn’t the case, this whole situation is rediculous.  Neither one of them wants to be married to the other but they seem to have to go through all this idiocy to get separated.  This is why governments and religions suck in most every case.  These are two independent human beings that for whatever reason, can not simply take their respective assets and leave each other because either a set of government or religious rules prevent them from doing so.  Can’t two independent sovereign human beings just decide to manage their affairs as they see fit and since neither of them wants to associate with the other…shouldn’t they simply be able to separate and move on?

Apparently not…so sayeth that cloud dwelling dude and a faceless bureaucracy.

The federal Liberal Party should change their party’s name.  I’m thinking something like Liberals Ending Decency…LED for short.  The more I look at the federal Liberals, the more I think of a useless clump of junk weighing itself down while threatening to poison anyone who comes into frequent contact with it.  It seems like the Liberals are starting to go the way of the Saskatchewan arm of the party…there are actually a number of odd parallels but there are just as many differences so that’s just a mental masturbatory note.

The two giants vying for the Liberal Party leadership are bickering already…and their newest leadership campaigns are in their infancy.  Bob Rae is complaining about something to do with Michael Iggnatieff threatening to boycott a town hall meeting if the press shows up and Rae wants it open and Kermit The Frog says Iggy claims to know nothing about it and…on and on and on.  It’s rediculous of course and the public perception is anything but positive.  Surely, even liberal party faithful have to be gawking at this kind of insipid bickering and shaking their heads.  Dominic LeBlanc is actually gaining ground because of this I think and might end up looking like the real alternative to two power brokers that carry a lot of political baggage that could sink them in an election campaign.

I used to think there was hope for Bob Rae and that perhaps he had learned a lot since his government’s destruction of Ontario.  I thought that maybe he would have smartened up but his performance since joining the liberal party has been anything but impressive.  His first leadership campaign was bitter and his second one is turning out to be a lot of the same.  Iggy isn’t much better.  Actually, one terrible thing is enormously apparent now as a result of this bickering between Iggy and Rae.

These two men acted as if they were the best of political friends after their mean leadership campaigns of the past.  As soon as there was a chance to grab power again in the Party, their apprent good will has disappeared and they have become bitter enemies.  Every Liberal should ask themselves a good question before they force Canadians to ask it of themselves after one of them has been elected to the Liberal leadership.  If a person is so willing to abandon what they have said previously is an honest and solid conviction of friendship and good will with another person, do you want that person leading your party or a government.  Do you want to elect some one who is ready to play nice one moment and then pull out a gun the next?

Hardly what I would call the honourable and trustworthy sort.  I hope the Liberals turf them both.

Sometimes I can’t help but feel as though Saskatchewan has some pockets of the population that have been lost in time.  Bundles of people that have become so isolated from common reality just 100 kilometres away that they just can’t let go of their regressive traditions and thoughts.  I don’t think people in rural areas are necessarily backwards…but certainly in many cases it seems to a city clicker like myself that they are a little slower in accepting progress and the advancing nature of society.  Case in point.

This is a picture taken from the newspaper in Wynyard Saskatchewan.  I can’t remember the name of the paper so I’ll pull a Meganesque move and called it “name of paper withheld” despite the fact that I would gladly publish the name if only I could remember it.  This picture was taken about three weeks ago…give or take.  The reason I decided to preserve it is because of the picture’s caption in the published column.  Andrew Scheer is not a PC…he’s a conservative.

It seems as though Rural Saskatchewanites still have no problem calling a Conservative Party Member of Parliament a “Progressive Conservative” despite the fact that the merger between the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party in 2003 to create the new “Conservative Party of Canada” effectively took any progressive element that may have existed and brutally strangled it in a dark back room somewhere.  Let’s be clear here, federal conservatives are in no way shape or form, “progressive” conservatives and applying the label to any of them is simply silly.

More disappointing than simply using an old and no longer applicable label to describe the feature of a news article however was the simple reprinting of propaganda.  I know it’s a small town paper but when the conservative victor said in the article that he was happy his constituents re-elected him so he could continue to help keep conservative promises like wiping out the gun registry…couldn’t some one have asked him why they only made the registry stronger during their previous term of government?  It’s really easy to just ask a question isn’t it?

Ah well.  Not every one in rural Saskatchewan is behind the times but the people in charge definitely are.  Perhaps it’s time for name of paper withheld in this case to turn over management to people of the younger generation.  It must be nice to knit “home sweet paper” quilts while sitting around cups of tea discussing the latest conservative press release to arrive via that newfangled fax machine…but perhaps some new blood would make things even more exciting in the news room.

I have to wonder, how does one best advance the cause of dismantling government and letting the free market reign as it did at one time in medieval Ireland.  How does one help to push that cause further and in the most efficient manner?  Perhaps it’s seeing the system collapse and fall in a shambles all around us.  It sure seems to be happening…so maybe it’s just something people like me should take advantage of.

After the banking industry (which stands to get upwards of $225 Billion from our federal government) got it’s application forms stamped at the welfare office, the auto makers seemed to niggle in right behind them.  GM, Chrysler and Ford are chattering about how the American government needs to give em $25 billion immediately plus another $50 Billion and how the Canadian Government needs to give em $1 Billion on loan guarantees or else…or else what?  Exactly.

The financial sector receiving a bail out was bad enough but this is simply rediculous.  The big three north American auto makers have simply done bad business and they know it.  They haven’t been able to compete against manufacturers of import vehicles for whatever reason and they have made a number of bad business descisions in the past like when they decided to bank on the consumer’s desire for SUVs and large trucks before the price of gas shot into the stratosphere.  Imports remained small and efficient while the North American vehicles kept on a steady track of being lumbering, fuel guzzling, child crushing machines.  Not the best thing to market when gas is sitting at over a buck a litre.

You know the  funniest thing about all this?  Environmentalist whack jobs have been nannering on and on about how the auto makers should be exploring new technology and trying to make it cost effective enough for ordinary consumers to purchase on a massive scale.  Resistance to this kind of change and a “stick in the mud” kind of attitude towards the “old ways” of marketing vehicles has ensured the big three’s demise.  Beyond paying wages that are not necessarily sustainable and producing products that are of sub-par quality, the big three have refused to change as quickly as the world around them has.

Wouldn’t it be grand if instead of seeing gasoline cars competing against gasoline cars we saw the big three get together to develop the best batteries in the planet to introduce a continental network of electrical “fuelling stations” for long range electric cars?  Can you imagine a “quick charge station” in Banff National Park serving motorists rather than the gas station that’s there now that charges like 20 cents a litre higher than anywhere else?

So this turn into a kind of a tirade against old stick in the mud idiots who run car companies but I don’t want to go without making another point quickly.  Bail outs are not what government money is for…well in my opinion, government money is for nothing, it should be returned to me and every one else immediately…but since we do have this system of theft (taxes) to work our society at the moment, we should at least avoid blatant misuse of taxpayer funds.  The auto sector may certainly provide a number of good jobs for the Canadian economy but that doesn’t justify bailing out failing enterprises.  Odds are that they’ll just be bought by foreign interests and as great a pity as it is, I’ll bet they find a way to go without unions.  Schniffle schniffle…da poow widdwe union workers might have to suffer a pay cut in the future.  Awww….

When a market becomes irrelevant or when a market participant makes choices which lead to their becoming uncompetitive, they should either rescue themselves or die.  It might seem kind of harsh but a business environment that continuously rewards failure will end up in the end with nothing but failing enterprises and a collapsing economy.  Let’s not do that please.

Not that it’s surprising in the least but I found this to be worthy of note.  You have probably heard of the acid attack in Afghanistan.  Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that it’s horrible to attack school girls by throwing acid on them simply because they desire an education.  As well, most anyone would expect a bunch of people to condemn that attacks just as they did.  The Afghani government for instance railed against the attacks and called the attackers enemies of the country.  What was perhaps more…odd and out of place though was the following from a Taliban spokesperson.

“We totally deny it. We didn’t do this thing,” said spokesperson Qari Yousaf Asmazi. “I don’t like these incidents to occur with civilians.”

Qaderi called the attackers the enemy of the country and of education.

“They want our youth to be illiterate and not get an education. They did this terrorist act,” he said.

“They want our youth to be illiterate and not get an education”…riiiight…

It’s not that I don’t expect the taliban to display hypocrisy, evil and rank idiocy stemming from religiously reinforced ignorance.  I completely expect that…but this kind of thing just makes me shake my head.

Surely the Taliban has to understand that people know they denied education to women for many years and comitted terrible atrocities against women during that time as well.  It is frankly astounding to see a spokesperson for the Taliban talking about how people who don’t want to see young people educated are enemies of the country.

So if you’re a loyal reader of this blog, (and I know you are…all 637,967 of you!) you’ll remember when I mentioned that the feds decided that instead of the much talked about $25 billion they promised for bailing out Canadian financial institutions, they would in fact be willing to spend up to $225 billion to bail out the financial sector during hard economic times. So it’s an incredible testimony to the ignorance of the unwashed masses that when it was announced that the feds would be putting another $50 Billion to buy up mortgages on top of the $25 billion already committed, people got all in a tizzy. This was already mentioned as indicated in that first link there but no one seems to know anything about it.

I find it unfortunate that some people don’t have any idea that we are only one third of the way into the potential bail out pot that the conservatives have told bankers they may avail themselves of. I find it even more unfortunate that many people don’t grasp just how bad it is for the government to print $75 billion willy nilly to meet the needs of the banking industry. For those of you who don’t know where money comes from, it kinda works like this.

The government exists along side the Bank of Canada in a financial sense. When the government needs $100, the government issues $100 in bonds. The bonds are then sold to the Bank of Canada. The Bank of Canada gives the government $100 in fiat notes (this is usually all done on computer) and expects the government to pay that amount back plus interest. This means that every time we print $100, it does two terrible things.

First, the government becomes indebted for $100 plus interest. We are forever owing more money than we print. Secondly, we inflate the money supply and devalue the currency thereby weakening the purchasing power of the general population. The more money that is printed out of thin air, the less valuable the money in your wallet is, especially over the long term.

When the government finally pumps $225 billion into the banking industry, it should be obvious that government doesn’t actually depend entirely on the money it extracts from you in the form of taxes. After all, when is the last time you actually paid up $6,818.18 in a single tax year? That’s your share of the maximum amount of bail out money that Mr. Harper’s conservative government may use for shoring up our nation’s banks. No…it’s all pretend play money.

Why…do we even have a government again? They just play a weird game that has extraordinary rules in it. Patently ridiculous if you ask me.

Current Mood:

I troddled on over to the bank to get my ATM card replaced when I remembered as I pulled up to the empty parking lot that they would be closed because it is remembrance day.  I forgot to remember because even those who say they remember or “lest we forget” as is so often heard on this day have already forgotten what that means.  If we were to remember what “lest we forget” really means, we wouldn’t have an oppressive government organization laying a wreath at the national ceremony in Ottawa today.

Boy there sure are a lot of things to get pissed off about and it’s only when you’re really down in the dumps or pissed off at something that you gain an appreciation for that fact.  No worries though, I’m not here to complain about my life.  I specialize in complaining about others.

Remembrance day is about remembering how a government sent a bunch of young innocent people to die for what we are supposed to think is freedom and such.  Good for them I suppose.  Frankly I don’t buy that any more but assuming it’s true just for the sake of argument, let’s point out why remembrance day is a savage hypocrisy and why those who participate are either paying lip service to the dead (very disrespectful I think) or have no clue what they’re supposed to be remembering.  In the case of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, they have no clue what they’re supposed to be remembering.

The CHRC specializes in quashing free speech rights and trampling on employers and publishers while operating a system that unfairly favours people who may make frivolous complaints.  If some one complains that a publication offended them, the complainer must make no effort to foot the bill for legal costs while the defendant must pay for lawyers, attend hearings and ultimately be rendered guilty.  We’ll that last part is potentially escapable…if you think a literal 99% plus chance of conviction demonstrates fairness.  Yes, if you’re an employer and an employee says you dismissed them for some reason that contravenes a human right, you’re essentially screwed even if the complaint is untrue.  Heck, even if you’re just a low level worker bee, another worker bee can make a complaint against you that’s completely untrue and you’re screwed too.

In remembering that soldiers fought and died for freedom, some people seem to forget what freedom is.  The CHRC is an organization operated by people just like that and they laid a wreath at the natioal remembrance day ceremony today.

Others pay lip service to the dead by saying they remember and demonstrating their remembrance through the course of a day.  They wear a red poppy pin and proclaim that they honour the fallen by demonstrating solidarity with them and the principles for which they fought and died.  Then they turn around and ask government to search their neighbour’s home if the electricity usage is too high.  They might be growing dope…or heating their pool.  Whatever the case may be, they’re using too much electricity and their private property should be violated.

Ah yes…can you taste the freedom?

Remembrance day is a crock and as much as it saddens me to think of the many who have died over the years fighting in wars that essentially could have been avoided or were needless, it saddens me even more to think that these people could have gone without dyeing at all.  I’ll remember each and every day that the government chooses to meddle in the affairs of others around the globe and that other governments do the same.  I’ll remember that the government here and elsewhere chooses to disregard the rights of the individual so that they can “keep us safe” from ourselves or from whatever boogy man they can come up with to frighten us.  I will remember that each and every hour I work for a pay cheque, I belong to the government for a portion of that hour.  I will remember that when a law is passed, it matters not whether I think it is a law that is unjust, men with guns from the government will compel me to follow it.  Finally, I will remember that people have died all over the globe for various governments which have claimed to have the best interests of the people at heart.  None of these governments however have truly demonstrated such in my eyes and none likely ever will.

Die for that in which you believe but dammit, don’t die for a government made up of crooks, liars and cheats.  This was as true a hundred years ago as it is today.  I can say with conviction that I am not represented by a single soul that I would trust to send me to a war.  There is not one single person in our representative government that I could see honourably asking me to die for something.

NOT…A…ONE!

One of the funny things about jail that struck me during my very short stay was the prevalence of drugs.  For a tightly regulated atmosphere, there sure do seem to be a lot of em.  If you want pills or most anything else, jail is probably the place to get it.  This is why perhaps this story strikes me as somewhat ironic as well as terribly cruel and inhumane.

Sometimes the law seems to create some situations which defy all semblance of logic.  Forget general drug prohibition for a moment and just focus on drug prohibition in jails.  Aside from its spectacular failure mirrored in general society, it’s also illogically unforgiving.  Dean Samborski, is an inmate in a Regina prison and he also happens to be a medical marijuana license holder.  In prison, a diabetic gets their insulin but Dean has been told he’s not allowed to use his cannabis because it’s illegal…despite the fact that it’s legal for him in his case.

Well doesn’t that make a bunch of sense?  many addictive drugs are handed out in prison to inmates that need them for varying medical conditions.  If you’ve ever been to a Canadian prison, you’re probably familiar with the guards ruffling your clothing and looking through your stuff in search of all kinds of pharmaceutical drugs.  Some of them even have a big chart up with pictures of almost every pill imaginable because you can’t bring any of them in.  Despite that, prisoners with a prescription can still get those pills in some circumstances because they need them.  Dean has a license to posses cannabis but for some reason, unlike other inmates with medications that are strictly controlled in the prison, he’s not allowed to have his.

I wonder what would happen if the prison decided one day to deny a diabetic their insulin?  How would that go over?

Oh and I should edit this in…it’s not related to the rest of the post but I figured just jamming this post script note in here would be kind of Zach Bell Showesque.  I realized that a blog inspired by a cat links to me with it’s own domain name and everything.  It has piqued my interest and so has earned a spot on my blogroll.  You should lety it pique your interest as well.  Surf on over to www.evilorange.com and check out the bloggy goodness.