Swine Flu Vaccinations

Calgary is a city of over a million people. The Calgary Health Region has 4 clinics for swine flu vaccination in this city. You read that right, 4 clinics for 1 million people. You just can't make this stuff up. It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.

Today's Recommended Reading: Wired - Epidemic of Fear

Absolute Stupidity

6 Year Old Expelled for Swiss Army Knife

14 Year Old Model Student Expelled for Butter Knife

Take a read of the above stories. I'm all for fighting violence in schools, but any law or rule applied without judgment and consideration is sheer stupidity. Neither of these cases involved problem students, or any threat to anyone whatsoever.

I know you love your dog... but...

When I'm sitting on a bench eating ice cream with my kids, it is NOT cute for him to come drool on me.

It is NOT smarter than my honour student, and you are a fucking idiot for thinking that.

I do NOT like picking up its crap off my lawn, nor do I like yellow snow all along the front of my house in winter.

When I'm out for a walk, I do NOT like your dog sniffing me, I like my personal space please.

Leaving a pile on the sidewalk is NOT OK! I hate dodging your dog's crap on my morning runs.

It offends me if you compare your dogs to my children, no it's not the same, not even fucking close you idiot.

Shut the fucking thing up, I'm trying to sleep...



That's my rant for today. I don't hate dogs, I feel the same about them as I do any other animal. The biggest problem is that some (not all) dog owners have no respect for others. When some people own dogs, their inconsideration for others just becomes amplified through their pet.

Door Dingers

I have to know, who are these elusive people that leave door dings on
other people's cars? A door ding should never happen. Please, when you get out of your car, have some consideration to not ding the car beside you. And for God's sake, tell you children to be careful! Is it too much to ask to be considerate of someone else's property?

If you are a door dinger, I hate you.

Then there is the shopping cart pusher, but that's another story...

Winnipeg Baby Beating

On Tuesday at around 4 AM, 19 year old Nikita Solange Eaglestick took 14 month old Vanessa Jamie Houle from her mother's home and bashed her head against a concrete sidewalk repeatedly. The baby would have surely died had Tyler Bilsborrow not intervened.

A few points:

- Eaglestick needs to be put away permanently. Use the dangerous offender clause and never let her out of prison. EVER.
- Why did the mother wait until she saw the news to call the police about her baby? This alone indicates she is not fit to be a parent.
- Tyler is a genuine hero, he saved the toddler's life. The word hero gets thrown around a lot, but in this case it is warranted.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/09/03/mb-child-beaten-winni
peg-recovery.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/09/02/mb-woman-child-beatin
g-charged-winnipeg.html

High or Drunk, and Pregnant

I was just asked for "spare change" from a woman who was visibly pregnant. She was also very high or drunk or both. The child that will come into this world will be very fucked up. It is well documented that babies who are exposed to drugs and alcohol in the womb rarely lead productive lives.

At what point should people be sterilized? At what point should someone like the above woman be put into protective custody, not to protect her, but to protect the baby and society from the burden this child will likely place on society.

Personally, I believe alcoholics, drug addicts, and convicted criminals should be sterilized. Having kids may be a god given right, but if you demonstrate that you are incapable of being a parent, that right becomes a privilege that can be taken away. They take kids away after they are born all the time.

District 9 - Fascinating

While Hollywood serves up lackluster movies masked behind massive budgets, spectacular effects and big name stars, producer Peter Jackson and director Neill Blomkamp bring us "District 9" with a relatively modest budget of $30 Million and a list of unknown actors. The execution of the relatively elementary allegoric story, through a unique blend of mockumentary scenes and motion picture cinematics, is brilliant. The CGI is phenomenal, and so well executed that it you cannot tell it is there.

The premise revolves around a large number of insect like aliens, derogatorily referred to as "prawns", who have taken refuge on earth after their ship find its way here. Why they chose earth, why they are here, and who exactly they are is not fully explained, and in my opinion this adds to the impact of the story. They have been segregated from humanity in a fenced off slum near Johannesburg referred to as District 9, and managed by Multi National United corporation. MNU hires aliens as slave labour, and is keenly interested in their technology. They also summarily execute aliens at will, as well as "abort" all eggs they find. The story follows Wikus Van De Merwe, who is the MNU employee charged with relocating the aliens from their current location to another built hundreds of miles outside the city. Things start to get interesting when he is exposed to a mysterious black liquid during the operation. From there the story escalates to a climax that is satisfying, yet a open ended. I suspect a sequel is already in the works.

Interestingly, the following are the comments I heard as I walked out of the theatre:
"The guys getting blown up was awesome!"
"Those guns were so sick!"
"Those aliens were gross!"
Obviously, there is something in the movie for the simpletons amongst us as well.

This is a phenomenal movie, and I could not help compare District 9 to Gaza as I watched a documentary on the Israel/Gaza war later that night.

http://www.d-9.com
http://www.mnuspreadslies.com

5/5

Poker and Friends

As my thousands of regular reader would recall, I was an avid poker player, playing both online and live games pretty regularly. Then a couple of years ago, I quit playing completely. Rumours abound that I had run into some gambling debts or had pulled a Mike McDermott (from the Rounders movie for you non-poker folks) and gone bust. In reality, neither is true. To put it quite simply, I was no longer enjoying the game and lost interest. I tend to be very competitive, and play to win. I still maintain poker is 75% skill and 25% luck and the best card game invented, but sometimes, that 25% luck (or unluck in my case) can be very frustrating, and it is that "gambling" portion that I did not enjoy. I decided it was time to step away from the game. I may return to the tables occasionally for the social aspect, which is really the biggest thing I miss. I have no plans to play online again, but I'm all for a "friendly game of poker" with my buddies and a couple of bucks on the line to make it fun.

So you may be asking why I am writing about this now...

A good friend was killed by a drunk driver a couple of weeks ago. I used to see him for a game of poker about once a month, and once I stopped playing, I quit going to his game too. I hadn't seen him in some time and that has been bothering me immensely since his passing. Men tend not to socialise unless it is around some activity. We are very different than women this way. Male friends are made around fishing, golf, skiing/snowboarding, pool, cars, the gym, work or drinking your face off (I am not a part of this last group obviously). Usually once the activity stops, the friends tend to drift away. We tend not to call each other up for a cup of coffee like women do, because that's got a bit of gay on it (NTTIAWWT).

Alex realized all this. Poker was not about cards or money or winning for him, it was about friends.

Rest in Peace my friend.

How to be Nice - Wave to the Person That Lets You Merge in Traffic

It' s always nice to get that "thank you" wave when I let someone merge or with lanes in traffic. It's jut a simple thanks, but makes the person feel good and likely to do it again.

I know some of you can't wave while talking on your cell phone, but that's a different post.

How to be an Asshole - Leave Your Garbage on the Table in a Fast Food Joint

Not cleaning up after yourself in a fast food restaurant makes you an asshole. Other patrons have to clean up after you if they want to use the table when it is busy, or people making minimum wage at crappy jobs have to do it. Either way, its your mess, toss it in the garbage.

So, if you don't clean up your stuff after stuffing yourself at McDonalds, Burger King or other places, you are a genuine asshole.

Bio-capacity

A post by Zombie-Slayer on foreign aid got me thinking about the short term and long term implications of overpopulation. Overpopulation is a problem, this is not something anyone can deny. There are currently about 13.4 billion hectares of biologically productive land on the planet and 6.75 billion people. This is just under 2 hectares per person. At the current rate of planetary destruction, we have obviously exceeded the bio-capacity of the planet.

politicians are saying all the right buzzwords when it comes to sustainability, but what we are not hearing from politicians is a call for population reduction. I'm not talking extermination or something sinister like that, what I am referring to is the natural reduction of the population by ensuring that for every newborn, at least one person has dies of old age. This will come through a combination of education and contraception. This is something that has to be done, because at the current rate, the population of the planet will exceed 9 billion by 2050.

Interestingly, in the graph, the population of developing countries show a dramatic rise in population, while the developed nations have tapered off. So people with the least amount of food are breeding the fastest. the logic of this escapes me. We are starving, but let's have a baby and have it starve too.

In running through the numbers very quickly, it would appear that earth can probably sustain somewhere between 1.5 and 2 billion people with a reasonable standard of living, and maybe 4 billion with a pretty crappy standard of living. The previous sentence has serious implications, because what I am saying is that the planet cannot support the current 6.75 billion people, let alone any more.

In the longer term, when food begins to run out (and it will) due to drought, decline of oil resources and topsoil erosion, what do we expect will happen? There will be mass famine and starvation and disease and death will be rampant. Will we see cannibalism? Possibly... Probably.... A lot of people will die. No biological species can sustain a population above equilibrium for en extended period of time without a correction.

Pretty grim.

Link

My Political Compass

A little more to the left than I expected, but still not a big surprise.

Corporate Welfare

This "stimulus" is not going to work.

I have to vehemently disagree with this portion of the Obama economic policy. The biggest flaw in the thinking of government stimulus packages, is that the money does not belong to the government. It comes from the taxpayers. As such, a redistribution of that money from large numbers of middle to lower income people to multi-billion dollar corporations is not only ineffective, but is also unethical. Somehow, the government believes, and wants the public to believe, that these corporations who have poorly managed themselves in the past, will some how use the billions of dollars that hardworking taxpayers give them, and stimulate the economy. Meanwhile, many of the taxpayers are facing layoffs, wage rollbacks, foreclosures and general economic hardship.

The executive of these companies seriously believe that they are entitled to a certain lifestyle, and their greed is what got the corporations into trouble in the first place. Their inability to look beyond the next quarter and take the next multi-million dollar bonus resulted in highly questionable decisions and unacceptable risk. The banking industry is not going to fix the economy, and giving them taxpayer dollars is a major error of the Obama administration. Privatizing profits while socializing losses will work to increase the gap between the rich and poor, and to funnel taxpayer money into corporate coffers. Companies that claim to hold themselves to capitalistic ideals should not be taking welfare from the government.

I understand the pressure they are under to do something, but pushing the burden of this generation’s ineptitude onto the shoulders of generations to come is the pinnacle of selfishness. There are other solutions.

• An elimination of tax on small businesses to encourage small businesses to hire people and help them through the economic downturn
• An elimination of the payroll tax to put more tax into businesses and encourage wage increases
• Significant tax break for single income families so that these families can make ends meet if one of the partners loses their employment
• Corporate tax relief based on number of people employed to discourage mass layoffs
• A guaranteed payroll loan facility to ensure that struggling businesses can meet their payroll obligations
• A small business bank initiative to ensure that people wishing to start a small business have access to capital
• Implementation of a luxury tax because the government still needs revenue
• An increased tax on individuals making more than what would be considered a middle class income
• Significant expenditures in government projects that will benefit everyone, such as public transportation.

These are just a few ideas focused on taxpayers, none of which involve giving taxpayer dollars to large corporations so that the executives of those companies can continue their lifestyle.

Food!

I love food... check that, I love good food.

Here are my favourites, in order:

Pakistani - When cooked properly, absolutely the best food around. A good Nihari, Piya or Haleem dish with real tandoori naan cannot be beat. All these dishes are difficult to make, and more often than not, they will turn out barely edible. There is a definite difference between Pakistani and Indian food. Pakistani food has more meat, less vegetables and legumes than the Indian counterpart.

French - Amazing overall food, but not easy on the wallet. You either need to a) Pay ~$100 per person at a good French restaurant or b) fly to Paris. On the Corner of Buci and Siene in Paris there is a cafe that serves an incredible beef tongue stew. I did not have a bad meal in France, no matter where we stopped.

Cajun - Spicy, rustic, delicious, and prone to contain a large amount of seafood. What's not to like?

Surf and Turf - A juicy inch-thick Alberta steak done rare with lobster and shrimp on the side... delicious!

Moroccan - I love the subtle flavoring of Moroccan food. It ranks so high mainly because I have never had a bad Moroccan meal. I find much of the flavor to be very French at times.

Greek - Can't go wrong with a good Greek meal. Filling and flavorful.

Vietnamese - I could probably live off Pho.

Japanese - Sushi to soft shell crab. Simple, light and satisfying. Probably the best at using the natural state of food.

Indian - I love vindaloo and butter chicken, but I can do without all the lentil and vegetable dishes.

Bottom Three...

Italian - Meh, 90% of Italian food I have had has been boring and mediocre, but I'm surprised occasionally with a good plate sometimes.

Arab - Usually bland and tasteless. I just don't like it.

Chinese - Umm... no. I suspect that real Chinese food is probably very different and tastes better.

The New Reality

I'm reading about all these "stimulus" packages, infrastructure projects and bailouts, and I think many are missing the picture. The so called growth of the past decade or so was mostly artificial, largely unsustainable and bound to collapse.

What stands out in my mind is a page in Adbusters, which said simply:

"In 2008, Americans will wake up to the worst economic times that anyone alive has ever seen. And they won't know what hit them. Just as they were in a state of shock on 9/11, they'll be frozen when the economic 9/11 strikes at the heart of Wall Street." -Gerald Celente, 2007 December 17

This is precisely what happened. The problems we are seeing now are being blamed on a credit freeze; in reality the issue is much deeper. The underlying issue has been the decrease of income for the average household in the United State, the increased cost of living, and the accumulation of consumer debt. This has resulted in millions of people over leveraged and unable to maintain their financial obligations to their creditors, all of which operate on a Fractional Reserve system. What this basically means, that for every dollar deposited and held in trust by a financial institution, they only hold a small percentage of that in reserve. Banks have an obligation to ensure that they always be able to pay out 100% of their deposits, even though they may only hold as little as 10% of the deposits in reserve. While many banks still held the 10% in reserve, organizations such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, took extreme liberties with the system. As regulatory oversight faded, the ratio skyrocketed to 80:1. For every dollar these organizations held in reserve, they were lending 80. At this ratio, even the small percentage of the mortgages defaulting led to insolvency for these two organizations.

The effect of this is profound. Consider the following set of events for a moment.

• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac increase the amount of money they provide for mortgages, and in doing so provide mortgages to some that they probably shouldn’t have.
• As a result, the availability of mortgage dollars increases, and to compete, many banks lower their lending standards. In addition, with the increased availability of mortgage credit, housing sales and demand increases, driving up prices. Lending companies feel that they can hedge their risk because mortgaged houses will increase in value.
• House priced balloon as a result of increased demand from:
• Increased availability of mortgage dollars
• Increased number of “qualified buyers”
• The increase in energy costs (see previous post) put financial strain on people, some of whom were unable to make their mortgage obligations.
• Foreclosures increased, increasing the available inventory of homes
• The increased inventory puts downward pressure on house pricing.
• Tens of Thousands of homeowners now own homes that are worth less than they owe on them, in addition to being squeezed by increasing energy costs.
• More people start walking away from their mortgages

This is how I see the housing bubble in a nutshell.

To understand why this has had such a profound impact on the world economy, you do not need to look far. For most people, their largest asset, and their largest loan is their home or mortgage respectively. When this large asset or liability is impacted negatively, such as home values dropping, or mortgage rates rising, it has a drastic impact on the day to day financial well being and psychology of a family. Consider how it feels to owe more on your house than it is worth, or to suddenly be unable to make all your financial obligations due to the rising cost of a tank of gas or heating your home (see previous post). When you have this problem replicating across thousands of households, a significant impact on the economy is inevitable.

This problem was exasperated by the number of individuals taking out second mortgages, or home equity loans to purchase depreciating assets such as boats or cars, and the banks encouraging this behavior. This consumerist euphoria quickly came to an end when people realized that their homes would not appreciate infinitely.

One of the other issues was the trading of mortgage derivatives. This is where banks would package up mortgages, mostly higher risk mortgages, and sell them as an investment with a percentage of return. Say for example, Major Bank A has 1000 high risk mortgages (sub prime) with average rates between 8% and 10% interest per annum. They would combine these 1000 mortgages into a 8.75% annum guaranteed $100M offering and sell it to Bank B as a package. Bank A expected to make the 0.25% while having recovered the entire principle, effectively making 0.25% for only the risk on these mortgages, but having the $100M back on the balance sheet. Their cushion being that real estate always goes up, so should a few foreclose, they could resell the property, and there would be no problem, because they would likely get more for the property than they lent to the customer. The problem is, when these mortgages started going sideways, and banks started getting an inventory of homes they could not resell, they 0.25% profit suddenly went away, and they were paying 0.5%, 1% or more for nothing. Multiply this by hundreds of billions of dollars, and many banks lost their gamble.

This was sheer stupidity by banks and their officers, and these people should be removed from their posts for their irresponsible behavior.

In addition, the trading of derivatives needs to be closely examined and regulated; otherwise this issue will repeat itself in the next boom.

The last thing that should happen in this market is that banks loosen up their lending again. Their obligation is to their customers who have deposits first and foremost. Banks should not be asked to lend the country or world out of a recession. The reality is that people need to spend less. Nor is it the government’s responsibility to bail out banks with idiotic investment and lending practices. The ONLY thing the government should have done was guarantee people’s deposits. By giving the banks billions of dollars in aid, they have effectively transferred the loss that the banks took due to their actions onto the shoulders of every tax payer.

For a real economy, you must produce something, manufacture things, sell them and use them. You simply cannot survive by buying everything from another country, while creating very little of your own. If our way of life is to exist into the next few decades, this is the biggest change that must take place.

Let me leave you with some things to ponder.

Regardless of Traficant being a corrupt bastard, he gave a pretty good speech many years ago..

United States Congressional Record - March 17, 1993 - Vol. #33, page H-1303 - Speaker- Rep. James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House:

Mr Speaker, we are here now in Chapter 11. Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization of any bankrupt entity in world history, the US government. We are setting forth, hopefully, a blueprint for our future. There are some who say it is a coroner's report that will lead to our demise.

It is an established fact that the United States Federal Government has been dissolved by the Emergency banking Act, March 9, 1933, 48 Stat. 1, Public Law 890719; declared by President Roosevelt, being bankrupt and insolvent. H.J.R. 192, 73rd Congress session of June 5, 1933 --- Joint Resolution to Suspend the Gold Standard and Abrogate the Gold Clause dissolved the Sovereign Authority of the United States and the official capacities of all United States governmental offices, officers, and departments and is further evidence that the United States Federal Government exists today in name only.

The receivers of the United States bankruptcy are the International bankers, via the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. All United States offices, officials and departments are now operating within a de facto status in name only under Emergency War powers. With the constitutional Republican form of government now dissolved, the receivers of the bankruptcy had adopted a new form of government for the United States. This new form of government is known as a Democracy, being an established Socialist/Communist order under a new governor for America. This act was instituted and established by transferring and/or placing the Office of the Secretary of Treasury to that of the Governor of the International Monetary Fund. Public Law 94-564, page 8, Section H.R. 13955 reads in part: "The U.S. Secretary of treasury receives no compensation for representing the United States".

Gold and silver were such a powerful money during the founding of the United States of America declared that only gold or silver coins can be "money" in America. Since gold and silver coinage were heavy and inconvenient for a lot of transactions, they were stored in banks and a claim check was issued as a money substitute. People traded their coupons as money, or "currency".

Currency is not money, but a money substitute. Redeemable currency must promise to pay a dollar equivalent in gold or silver money. Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) make no such promises, and are not "money". A Federal Reserve Note is a debt obligation of the federal United States government, not "money".

The federal United States government and the U.S Congress were not and have never had authority by the Constitution for the United States of America to issue currency of any kind, but only lawful money --- gold and silver coin.

It is essential that we comprehend the distinction between real money and paper money substitute. One cannot get rich by accumulating money substitutes; one can only get deeper into debt. We the People no longer have any "money". Most Americans have not been paid any "money" for a very long time, perhaps not in their entire life. Now do you understand why you are "bankrupt" along with the rest of the country?

Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) are unsigned checks written on a closed account. FRNs are an inflatable paper system designed to create debt through inflation (devaluation of currency). Whenever there is an increase of the supply of a money substitute in the economy without a corresponding increase in the gold and silver backing, inflation occurs.

Inflation is an invisible form of taxation that irresponsible governments inflict on their citizens. The Federal Reserve Bankers who control the supply and movement of FRNs have everybody fooled. They have access to an unlimited supply of FRNs, paying only for the printing costs of what they need. FRNs are nothing more than promissory notes for U.S. treasury securities (T-Bills) --- a promise to pay the debt to the Federal Reserve Bank.

There is a fundamental difference between "paying" and "discharging" a debt. To pay a debt, you must pay with value or substance (i.e., gold, silver, barter or a commodity). With FRNs, you can only discharge a debt. You cannot pay a debt with a debt currency system. You cannot service a debt with a currency that has no backing in value or substance.

No contract in Common Law is valid unless it involves an exchange of "good and valuable consideration". Unpayable debt transfers power and control to the sovereign power structure that has no interest in money, law, equity or justice because they so much wealth already.

Their lust is for power and control. Since the inception of central banking, they have controlled the fates of nations.

The Federal Reserve System is based on the Canon Law and the principles of sovereignty protected in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In fact, the international bankers used a "Canon Law trust" as their model, adding stock and naming it a "Joint Stock trust". The U.S. Congress had passed a law making it illegal for any legal "person" to duplicate a "Joint Stock Trust" in 1873. The Federal Reserve Act was legislated post-facto (to 1870) although post-facto laws are strictly forbidden by the Constitution (1:9:3).

The Federal Reserve System is a sovereign power structure separate and distinct from the federal United States government. The Federal Reserve is a maritime lender, and/or maritime insurance underwriter to the federal United States operating exclusively under Admiralty/Maritime law. The lender or underwriter bears the risks, and the Maritime law compelling specific performance in paying the interest, or premiums, are the same.

Assets of the debtor can also be hypothecated (to pledge something as a security without taking possession of it) as security by the lender or underwriter. The Federal Reserve Act stipulated that the interest on the debt was to be paid in gold. There was no stipulation in the Federal Reserve Act for ever paying the principal.

Prior to 1913, most Americans owned clear, alloidal title to property, free and clear of any liens or mortgages until the Federal Reserve Act (1913).

All property was "hypothecated" within the federal United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, in which the Trustees (stockholders) held legal title. The U.S. citizen (tenant, franchisee) was registered as a "beneficiary" of the trust via his/her birth certificate. In 1933, the federal United States hypothecated all of the present and future properties, assets and labor of their "subjects", the 14th Amendment U.S. citizen, to the Federal Reserve System.

In return, the Federal Reserve System agreed to extend the federal United States corporation all the credit "money substitute" it needed.

Like any other debtor, the federal United States government had to assign collateral and security to their creditors as a condition of the loan. Since the federal United States didn't have any assets, they assigned the private property of their "economic slaves", the United States citizens, as collateral against the unpayable federal debt. They also pledged the unincorporated federal territories, national parks and forests, birth certificates, and nonprofit organizations as collateral against the federal debt. All has already been transferred as payment to the international bankers.

Unwittingly, America has returned to its pre-American Revolution, feudal roots whereby all land is held by a sovereign and the common people have no rights to hold alloidal title to property. Once again, We the People are the tenants and sharecroppers renting our own property from a Sovereign in the guise of the Federal Reserve Bank. We the People have exchanged one master for another.

This has been going on for over 80 years without the "informed knowledge" of the American people, without a voice protesting loud enough. Now it's easy to grasp why America is fundamentally bankrupt.

Why don't more people own their properties outright?

Why are 90% of Americans mortgaged to the hilt and have little or no assets after all debts and liabilities have been paid? Why does it feel like you are working harder and harder and getting less and less?

We are reaping what has been sown, and the result of our harvest is a painful bankruptcy, and a foreclosure on American property, precious liberties, and a way of life. Few of our elected representatives in Washington DC have dared to tell the truth. The federal United States is Bankrupt. Our children will inherit this unpayable debt, and the tyranny to enforce paying it.

America has become completely bankrupt in world leadership, financial credit and its reputation for courage, vision and human rights. This is an undeclared economic war, a bankruptcy and economic slavery of the most corrupt order!

Wake up America! Take back your country!