WARNING: Inciting political statements below

The following is a posting I recently made on a message board in response to a fellow poster who asserted that Australia was not only better than the United States, but in his opinion, the best country in the world. It's a little "colourful", but I tend to do that when writing on politics.

Mr. Furple, Australia is indeed a fine country, but you know very well that Canada has been the best country to live for decades. I say so and the United Nations says so. You have either forgotten, dismissed or ignored the posting I made at the NOSY board which clearly shows that Canada has been rated the number one place to live more times than any other country. In fact, Canada is almost always in the top five, currently sitting in the number three spot, one ahead of your lovely country.

In contrast, the U.S. has never cracked better than the number six spot and is currently rated 15th. They just can't seem to get past that "S-word" (Socialism) that their overseers have convinced them spells doom. Ironically (to Americans), the upper echelons of the UN HDI list is always populated by social-minded nations. We seem to have grasped that taking a little more out of workers' pay checks to help those in need makes for a happy and peaceful populace. Americans are stuck in the hell that allows a handful of born-into-money multi-billionaires to stay rich and for millions to be homeless, millions to languish in prisons and much of the rest staging gunfights in the streets fighting tooth and nail for their sliver of the American pie--a pie that is tainted and well past its expiration date.

Another tenet of "the American dream" is freedom and democracy. This dream is really a pipe dream. It is yet another way that the rich fool the huddled masses into buying into this system that forever keeps a small number of people filthy rich and a large number of people...well, just filthy. According to the 2008 Democracy Index (which measures electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation and political culture), the United States ranks 18th in the world. This kind of performance from a country who purports to export democracy far and wide. What they really export is imperialism for the benefit of the elite few Americans.

Words of wisdom

A dog was sitting too close to the railroad tracks. A train came by and cut off half its tail. The dog chased the train to try to bite it. The train ran over the dog's head, severing it.

Moral: Don't lose your head over a piece of tail.

2008 will go down as a long year

That's because an extra second will be added at 23:59:59 on December 31st. According to those who keep an eye on the earth's rotation, tides and other factors have skewed the gap between atomic clocks and the sun's position above the earth.

Such factors and adjustments are not rare. Alterations to time are made from every six months to seven years--whenever the earth's position and atomic clocks are off by one second or more.

Learn More

Q & A's from around the web

I'd like to chat via yahoo messenger with girls who swallowed a live goldfish. I wanna know more about it?

Listen, bud. Don't think that they're going to want to swallow your minnow.

How To Install A Home Security System

1. Go to a second-hand store and buy a pair of men's
Work Boots size 14-16 (used)
2. Place them on front porch, along with a copy of
Gun And Ammo Magazine.
3. Put a few giant dog dishes next to the boots and magazine
4. Leave a note on your door that reads


Hay Bubba,

Big Jim, Duke, Slim, and I gone for more ammunition.

Will be back in one hour. Don't mess with the pit bulls-- they attacked the mailman this morning and messed him up real bad. I don't think Killer took part in it, but it was hard to tell from all the blood. Anyway, I locked all of the dog's in the house. Better Just wait outside until we can get back.

Scooter

I've only hunted for two things in my life. Snails--they have a hard time getting away once you track the lil buggers down. And mushrooms--they move even slower than snails. But both are great eatin'.

Q & A's from around the web

Does anyone know of any politically oriented online games that simulate elections?

Try the Bill and Monica game. Oh. I thought you said "stimulate erections".

Q & A's from around the web

Why do police have locks on their lockers?? I MEAN, POLICEMEN DON'T STEAL!!

THey hve to keep the stuff they steal from citizens out of sight. For example, I had a cop let me go for speeding if I willingly gave him a P-38 German pistol I had on me at the time. I told him a speeding ticket did not warrant me giving him my $1,000 or more P-38 and he told me "What speeding ticket? You were breaking and entering." So, yes, cops do steal.

My husband is a cop and I am sorry to tell you that police do in fact steal. They mostly steal food out of the refrigerator but they have been known to take stuff from lockers as well. From all the b.s. my husband says about his job it sounds like it is pretty much like working anywhere else. People are untrustworthy and annoying no matter where you work. Cops are not above the law, they break it as well.

Q & A's from around the web

What is the best dialogue to make someone happy within 1 minuets ?

Even without dialogue, listening to 1 minuet is usually enough to make me happy. :)

Money!

I've been putting off writing about the stock market, but I can't ignore it any longer. The economic news keeps getting worse and worse and the indexes keep going higher and higher. Something's got to give. I've been out of the market for several months, having exited before the major carnage started, but I've been reluctant to get back in the water, fearing there's sharks just below the surface.

It's possible that the market dropped too low and has corrected itself, but being a pessimist by nature, I am more prone to believe that the recent recovery is a "dead cat bounce". As far as I'm concerned, we have not yet seen the devastating effect all the layoffs are to have on the economy. Everyone is cutting spending. And that includes those lucky enough to have a job right now. They're scared #$!2^@# that they're next on the chopping block...and they probably are.

This sort of situation tends to be a catch-22. The more layoffs there are, the less spending there is. The less spending there is, the worse the economy gets. The worse the economy gets, the more layoffs there are.

I am going out on a not-so-long limb and declare that this thing will get much worse before it gets better. I know I'm not the only one predicting doom and gloom, but I have been posting, chatting, e-mailing and conversing about the emergence of third world countries and the possible economic collapse of the United States for almost 20 years now.

Having said that, I pray it doesn't turn out as bad as I have imagined it, for that would not bode well for the whole world and especially Canada, America's largest trading partner. One bright note is that the emergence of third world nations has provided a much needed diversification of trading partners. If an economic collapse of the U.S. had happened ten years ago, the entire planet might have become "the third world". Today, there's a few others to do business with.

One last thought, and remember, you heard it here first (at least if I am right), I see the American indexes dropping below their previous lows in the coming months. I'll join the market at that point because I expect slow and steady gains going forward for the foreseeable future. However, I'm not giving refunds if I'm wrong.

Ripped from the headlines

KABUL, Afghanistan – On a whirlwind trip shrouded in secrecy and marred by dissent, President George W. Bush on Sunday hailed progress in the wars that define his presidency and got a size-10 reminder of his unpopularity when a man hurled two shoes at him during a news conference in Iraq. Each shoe was thrown with great force and accuracy and the president narrowly avoided being struck in the head...twice.

In unrelated news...

Toronto, Canada – Early Sunday evening, the Toronto Blue Jays announced the signing of a pitcher to replace A.J. Burnett who was recently wooed to the Yankees organization with a five-year, $82.5 million contract. No name and few details regarding the Jays' new hurler are known but the release did say "He has international experience".

They didn't have robots like this when I was a kid

Here's a story right out of my own backyard. Trung Le of Brampton, Ontario, Canada has been building robots, he says, since he was four years old. He has sunk many thousands of dollars into his hobby and his latest invention is quite an amazing thing--a life-size female android. "Aiko" is a very talented girl with some interesting features such as smooth, life-like skin, breasts and even er, um, naughty bits. Trung is looking for funding that would enable him to "teach" Aiko enough skills to be a viable "employee" for home and or office.


You can read the story for yourself here:

You can watch Aiko in action here:

Q & A's from around the web

How can i win a scolorship for master degree ?

First, you'd have to learn how to spell "scholarship".

Q & A's from around the web

Wat do guys look for in grls?

intelegence. i want a gal who can carry on a conversation, who is romantic, and we have to at least ahve a few likeness in some aspects of movies, or music.


Editorial note: I'm not going to start splainin' the irony of the above.

Great Christmas moments

For those of you who have a partner or children who can't keep their mits off their Christmas gifts before jolly St. Nick arrives, Hallmark has just the thing for you--gift bags that come with a built-in alarm system. A motion sensor will alert everyone in the house that someone is trying to sneak a peek at their Christmas presents. These handy bags come in a variety of sizes and range in price from $4.99-$6.99.

Used creatively, such as placed at the foot of the stairs with a romantic little gift, they also double as an early warning system when you're cheating upstairs with the chick next door. Nothing says love louder than a Hallmark siren wailing like a banshee urging you to quickly stuff the biatch through the window.

New Hallmark Products

Historic event...pffft.

I let an important(?) event slip by without mention. This past Sunday, a regular season NFL game was held outside of American soil. The Buffalo Bills played host to the visiting Miami Dolphins in a muchly hyped game here in Toronto this past Sunday. I am not and never have been a football fan, but it was difficult not to hear of this "spectacle".

I use quotes because unlike the excitement inherent in most any NFL game, from all accounts, this one was fairly dull. For one, there were few real fans. Not only because neither combatants brought many of their supporters, but because not enough interested Canadian fans could be found to fill the 54,000 seats. Apparently, I'm not the only non-fan--there were seats available at game time. I wonder how much it had to do with the fact that the Rogers family figured $575 a ticket was a fair price for the best seats.

Did I mention that the action on the field was even worse than the attendance? It turned out to be a field goal fest with the Bills on the losing end of a 16-3 final score.

The high point of the day came before the game even started when the girl singing the Canadian national anthem was singing too slowly and the entire stadium sang out loudly and at the right tempo completely drowning out the singer.

Is this heart-wrenching or what?

A dog is run over by what appears to be two vehicles. Another stray attempts to rescue the already dead dog by dragging him away from highway traffic to the safety of the median.





This pooch is also "dog's best friend" and deserves a medal of valour. It's times like these that the memory of my own deceased pet touches my heart. Sometimes, it's an insult to beasts to describe humans as "acting like animals". Our furry friends are often nicer than our fellow man.

I see cold people

I was very disappointed yesterday when I attended Woodbine, my local horse racing venue, and they cancelled thoroughbred races 3 through 13. According to the announcement, the jockeys felt it was too cold for them to ride. Having already paid $5 for a racing form and this being the final day of live racing until spring made it particularly upsetting.

Now, I've known them to cancel racing cards due to lightning storms and windy conditions, but this is the first time I've heard the excuse that it's just too cold for the jockeys. While I imagine it's happened before, it seems like a pretty flimsy excuse. After all, standardbred horses (trotters) and their drivers race all winter long through the worst that a Canadian winter can throw at them. Racing in blizzard conditions is almost commonplace. Many is the time when neither fans nor announcer can see the horses at all for much of the race!

I'm sorry if I'm going to upset people, but unless there is a safety concern that was never expressed by the announcer, "too cold for the jockeys" just doesn't cut it with me. The temperature was about 5 C degrees below freezing and there was bright sunshine. Granted, there were wind gusts that produced a wind chill factor, but how bad can it be to be outside for the less than two minutes it takes to run a race? As it was, horses and riders were going directly to the starting gate, dispensing with the post parade.

Most of the betting public spent considerably longer than two minutes walking from the parking lot to the grandstand. I wonder--would the jockeys and everyone else who makes a living from the races be understanding if the public informed them that they would not attend on account of it being too cold to walk from the parking lot? We make that trek even at 40 below! I'm guessing that Mr. Leading-jockey-who's-used-to-spending-the-winter-in-the heat-of-Barbados had a lot to do with the cancellation.

I also wonder why they staged two races before cancelling the rest of the card. It's not like the weather got colder during that time. If anything, it got warmer. Of course, if they had cancelled all the racing before it started, many people wouldn't have attended at all. Once they have us there, obviously we're going to wager on the simulcast races from other tracks. And buy forms and programs. And buy food. Am I the only one who smelled rotten fish?

Speaking of rotten fish, it left a very bad taste in my mouth. I and many others were looking forward to the last day of live racing before the long drought that lasts until April. Jockeys: Next time, bring your long johns.


Horsies frolicking on a beautiful winter day:


You always won every time you placed a bet...

Innapropriate image

No commentary required. It's just wrong.

Ripped from the headlines

Man assaults girlfriend with cheeseburger

VERO BEACH, Fla. – A Vero Beach man faces a domestic violence charge after authorities said he assaulted his girlfriend with a cheeseburger. An Indian River County Sheriff's Office arrest report said a 22-year-old man and his girlfriend got into an argument as they sat in a car in front of their home.

The report said the man would not let the woman out of the vehicle, so she threw his drink out of the car. In response, the man allegedly grabbed her arm and smashed the cheeseburger into her face. The pair got out of the car, and authorities say the man again took the McDonald's sandwich and put it on her face.

The man was released on $1,000 bond Wednesday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wonder how much the bail would have been if instead he had thrown chicken McNuggets at her.

Q & A's from around the web

Pads vs Tampons which one kicks butt better?

If they're kicking butt, you're a couple of inches too low.

Fewer cars stopped, but a lot more drinking drivers found

Notice anything strange about this article taken from my home town newspaper?

Peel police have charged 18 motorists with drunk driving in the first five days of the Holiday RIDE campaign. That's triple the number of drivers charged after 2,622 vehicles were stopped compared to the same time period last year when 5,065 vehicles were stopped and only six drivers charged.

Others charged with impaired driving and having an excess blood/alcohol level are: Brampton's Amrik Singh Densa, 41, Khemraj Persaud Rajaram, 36, Sean Anderson, 22, and Jasver Singh, 30, Mississauga's Joao Da-Rocha, 52, Grzegorz Faryna, 48, Oakville's David Vila, 23, and Pickering's Emad Lamie Awad. Charged with having an excess blood/alcohol level are: Brampton's

Edgar Arteaga, 44, Thuan Thi Tran, 25, Mississauga's Samidh Kumar Patel, 28, Sandeep Dhaliwal, 20, Michael Daniels, 19, Darmendrea Nandran, 35, and Oakville's Hannes Carl Svensson, 36. Amarpreet Pahuja, 27, of Mississauga is charged with impaired driving, refusing to give a breath sample and assault.

It just warms my heart to know that many immigrants have adapted so well to the Canadian tradition of getting sloshed during the holiday season and then getting behind the wheel of a car. In fact, it's a disgrace that there's so few "white" names listed above. I challenge every proud Canadian out there named John, Bill, Daryl and his other brother Daryl to get out there, chug some Molson and get some normal sounding names on that police blotter. Show your Canadian spirit!

I beg your pardon?

Dallas Stars forward Sean Avery is in hot water again. The Superpest of the NHL received a suspension for conduct "detrimental to the league or game of hockey."

The offence occurred when the team was in Calgary and Avery made these comments on camera:

"I'm really happy to be back in Calgary. I love Canada. I just want to comment on how it's become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds."

Avery's ex-girlfriend, actress Elisha Cuthbert, is dating Calgary defenceman Dion Phaneuf and had been romantically linked to Mike Komisarek of the Montreal Canadiens. Avery also dated model and actress Rachel Hunter, the girlfriend of Los Angeles Kings centre Jarrett Stoll.

Elisha Cuthbert:



The Stars were so shocked by their own player's conduct that they publicly supported the suspension. In the past, he's occasionally painted his fingernails black to distract an opponent during a fight. On the ice, he is human sandpaper. Newsweek dubbed Avery "the human equivalent of jock itch."

Supermarket outlaws

Yesterday, I was at the supermarket check-out line and I noticed that the woman in front of me had eight 24-can cases of coke in her shopping cart. In fact, that's all she had in it. Moments later, a man whom I presume was her husband, brought an empty cart and they transferred four of the cases from her cart to his. Then, they proceeded to nonchalantly and while chattering, pay separately for the soda. In fact, it turns out he was a little short of cash and she provided the needed funds.

The reason was clear, but to verify it, when I got home, I checked the flyer from the store that gets delivered to my door each week (the flyer gets delivered, not the store) and sure enough, the pop was on sale and there was a limit of four cases per family.

Now, not only did they clearly violate the terms of the sale, they also thought nothing of the husband butting in line. Of course, neither offence was serious enough to end in a lynching, though it might have had a deterrent effect not only on those two culprits but also on other would-be supermarket rule violators.

I don't generally call people out on immoral behaviour, but I have on occasion, and I'm feeling sorry today that I didn't that time. Bothersome also, is the fact that the check-out girl never batted an eye during the proceedings. I think she should have lost her badge or at least forced to clean up aisle five for a week or so.

I wonder if people would be as quick to break with store rules if there were a gallows with two dummies hanging from it in the centre of every supermarket with a sign that reads "THEY VIOLATED THE LIMIT OF FOUR PER FAMILY PURCHASE RULE". Or perhaps a man on a cross--I don't mean as a threat to be crucified, but as a reminder to be decent for Christ's sake. Well, either way.

Q & A's from around the web

Where can i get a PhD online for free?
One of those dodgy ones where you put your name down and get a PhD for nothing..I want to be a doctor.

People are well aware of this buddy, and do a HUGE back-round check.

A back-round check??? You can spot a phony doctor by checking their ass? Most doctors put their degree on a wall.