Quality time

No kidding. Today I go deprogramming. The media and press run amuck while I clean out the bowels of my brain.

Deer me

The event got front page news, the lead story in the television news. You would think it was a murder or a political scandal or a sex porn corn tale. No.

A stupid deer, wound up in the middle of the stupid city. Around seven in the morning someone spotted this doe sitting patiently in some brush hedge downtown. The animal obviously must be a threat to the general civil population.

They had squad cars of police, plus the SWAT team. Obviously, deer and human interactions are violent events. The media had helicopters and teams of video people, reporters, and on and on. All the numbers of humans and it still took three hours to catch the dumb thing.

They used a dart gun. When the animal began to run, the cops joyfully tasered it, ... twice.

If this would have been rural Canada, it would have been one cop, one gun, one pickup truck. And the humanitarian place they moved the animal too? A Conservation Park north of the city? Nope. Algonquin Park? Nope? Toronto Zoo? Nope.

They moved the animal to the Leslie Street Spit. Which is attached to the middle of the city. Which will work until breeding season or when the ice forms enough to allow the animal to move. Such dickheads.

Skeptical prescription

Today the skeptical sailor. The eyes have seen a lot. Perhaps too much to remain optomistic.

Today, the government went into catch the evil doer mode. Catching child pornographers, is laudable. However whenever a federal government program is invented to address public concerns, I am reminded of the gun registry, and Ontario's E'health.

Well the federalis have decided to compel all the ISP's to report individuals who get and spread child porno. While a laudable effort, the skepticism begins.

It is the same software that would be used by a government to control the internet, to control the information flow, to filter out political opposition. And when the self righteous get their grimy little paws on these technical controls even for the best intentions like the extinction of child porno, it is always a first step. Control this, they can control political opinion.

Maple Leafs the next level

Tired and lonely the Maple Leafs ponder a fall to 3 wins in 20 games. Ready in the wings lies piles of other Leafs waiting to take their place. Piles and piles of replacement workers. The combination of Burke and Wilson brought a new culture to a hockey team. They succeeded where few could never do worse.

Greed and the phonies

Over the last few weeks, Canadians got exposed to two spurious sides of a debate. The television networks want cable companies to provide funds for local television.

In Canada, Cable TV companies swipe local broadcasts and programs out of the air. It has been going on for years. They do not pay for the signals. But they are totally willing to force their cussytomers to pay for cable, everything on cable.

Now at first glance this is all very simple. Yes the larger television stations broadcasting locally should get funding from cable. However most of their broadcast purchases are from the USA. Not much of their program broadcasts are homegrown.

And the cable companies have a legitimate argument. Why should they pay for free air broadcasts for programming that already exists, and they pay for on competing cable and USA television channels.

It should be noted that the CRTC has turned the broadcasters down twice already. This is the third strike. Broadcasters are threatening to close down the smaller local stations. For the cable companies this is idle threat because their revenue derives from distant sources in the beginning.

The CRTC commission doesn't want to be the bad guy and impose an additional fee. And everyone else is blaming the other participants. The CRTC wishes the two sides to negotiate and play nice. The buck stops at station greed.

Purple pecker pucker pet

Robin Gill of some local Channel. Was yackin on the snow board of authority. I was startled.

Gill remains an intelligent beautiful woman. But this night she was God Damned Purple. Her jacket was purple. Her lipstick was purple. And her eyeliner was purple.

Oh please, don't let this happen. Maybe it was a flu snot side effect?

Goose that gander

The Fan590 has a double standard. In the recent firings of coaches throughout sports, this Roger's Communication Company yikes it up. However, when surreptitiously canning their own staff for questionable corporate reasons, they stand very silent.

Stand up and tell us why Mike Toth, and Stormin Norm Rumack were fired in the dead of night. While they were media people which caused aggravational circumstances. This was no cause to dismiss them so callously.

One guy has a wife and young child and a newly bought home. He moved all the way here from Calgary to appease the corporate wishes. Now a couple years later he was turfed for little reason.

And the latter.... Rumack... All those strippers who dependent on his lungs and voice. I mean really.

NEW NORMAL

Normal?
You want normal?
Slap Neat hair remover
On the top of your head.
Try pulling your hair.
Stick your thumbs into your eyes
Ten times light and fast.
Get twenty pound weights attached to fish hooks.
Skewer them through the meat of your cheeks.
Feel gravitas drag on your facial skins.
Stick pins in your neck and shoulder joints.
Slug back a mickey of whiskey.
Sit on your hands for ten minutes,
On a block of Lake Winnipeg ice.
Stick earplugs in those drooping ears.
Now look in the mirror.
That's your normal,
New in twenty years.

G. Duncan Campbell

Dictated

The single impediment to sanity is being told how to vote. George Smitherman, seen here with husband Christopher, proclaimed his intention to seek the Toronto Mayor's job.

With incumbent David Miller, visualizing reality and not running again after the Toronto Garbage Strike debacle, Smitherman seeks to run against former leader of the provincial Conservatives, John Tory.

What is really annoying is that all the media are painting this as a two face race. The election is still a year away. Other mayorality candidates are sure to toss the vomit of their promises into the political carnage as well. So why let only two names harbor the press as the leading contenders.

On examination, there are people more skilled and qualified than these two rather tepid political animals. I just don't like being dictated that I only have two choices.

ChewBackIt

The fans of murder CSI dramas manifest a wide acceptance for coincidence. As long as the TV program has a hot babe, the malodorous plot templates gets a higher level of tolerance. But I reached a limit.

In all the programs one statistical anomaly is the high percentage of killer DNA that winds up under victim’s fingernails. “Oh yes your DNA wound up under the Vic’s fingernails.” – investigator.

“But I couldn’t have murdered him, I shot him with a M-16 at 100yards.”
Blig secret. According to our scientific survey, one can avoid getting murdered in the USA by chewing your fingernails.

Under the hat. Keep it secret.

Poppy U Lar

Take away the veneer of glory. War hunts in horror. On November the 11th , 2009, Canadian Remembrance Day comes again. In this year, 95 years after the outbreak of the First World War, the Royal Canadian Legion's Poppy campaign continues. The campaign contains important values in a simple symbol. Remember them.

More than a symbol, I first wore the poppy as a Cub Scout at a ceremony on the dirt floor of a town hockey arena. Artificial ice didn't exist. The whole town seemed to be inside that place, at that ceremony. Many of the surviving veterans, militia, cadets, police, and volunteer firemen assembled there. The only exceptions, those who were on shift in the local pulp mill.

Sorrow swam in everyone's eyes. While poppies for me represented all those who gave their lives, in the eyes of the war veterans the poppies also meant individuals, buddies, and friends. It meant that they were physically free from the horrors haunting. It symbolized neither victory nor defeat, political leanings, racial bias or shopping. A poppy represents soul to soul far beyond the clutches of time.

Over the years, I witnessed the Legion Poppy ceremony many times on Remembrance Day and at individual funerals. One individual ceremony given to my father contained that Poppy Ceremony. Of the whole funeral, that is the only scene that sticks in memory. A lot of people liked and respected old Ziggy. I knew this. But the poppies were special for they were from his companions, co-workers, and men of his generation who shared a necessary horror.

The Poppy Ceremony is extremely simple. Friends and colleagues wear a poppy to the funeral. At a certain point they line up and one by one they approach the coffin and places his/her poppy into a special pillow. The last member places their poppy, picks up the pillow and presents the poppy filled pillow to surviving family members.

And through two decades after my father's passing on, each funeral used fewer and fewer poppies. In the early part of this century, there was only about three poppies in the pillow to be presented to the widow. This thought also occurred to surviving Legion Members. One can tell.

As one ages in Canada, that poppy so cheap to buy, so easy to wear, haunts in wealth. Now like those survivors I stand with memories of those people, friends and other souls lost to duty. Of course those souls are not only soldiers involved in the Afghanistan conflict, but police, firemen and volunteer heroes who gave their lives to make Canada and the world just a little better place.

Bananada!

Welcome to the new country of Bananada. Half Canada, half Bananas, now merged. Let's fire off straight ahead.

David Miller and his scurvy piratical gang of councillors, jacked up the TTC Fares, increased the garbage collection fees, skimped on hundreds of maintenance infrastructure repairs, all the while claiming poverty. The province, jacked up the automobile fees, harmonized sales tax which is simply a scam to get a massive increase of taxpayer savings.

The province whistled into massive debt. Its government agencies spend money in personal needs for every privileged board member. Hospital Board Members use their contacts to step way ahead of the cues and shortages to get immunized then pretend that they are actually vital to society.

Now if you didn't have the brand name Canada attached to all these shananigans. Ignore the name Canada just a moment...... Out of the mind?

Okay, now put all that together. You would think this is a tropically deconstructed country government by privilege and elitism. Just a like a banana country.

Kinda figured

In a post a couple of posts ago, I postulated obtusely that the maker of the Canadian H1N1 vaccine decided there was more money in exporting vaccine. Apparently, this was true. Too true.

Of course they had a ready excuse at hand. Every pharmaceutical company usually does. The excuse was that they didn't have enough little bottles or the little bottle fillers was too slow.

This wasn't the same excuse they used a couple of weeks ago when the company implied that there was production problems in producing the actual vaccine. And you knew that was a fishy excuse, like consider the sources. One source was the pharmaceutical company and the other source was politicians. This a fertile ground for fibulations and verdant truths.

So the company cheerily exported the "surplus" vaccine despite the fact that there were grievous shortages and delays in the immunization process. The company's name is Glaxo-Smith Kline, headquartered in the United Kingdom and in the past subject to investigations including, tax fraud, billing fraud, misleading advertising and other deceptive practices. So diverting vaccines from a contractual commitment is not outside its moral compass.

And to further the Canadian H1N1 mess, apparently the Calgary Flames jumped the vaccination cue lines and had a private clinic for its staff, players and families. Now this is not surprising. What is surprising is that they got caught.

The province of Ontario to top off the scandals with their boondooglingaling at the medical record E-Health followed this up with poorly run flu snot clinics. Only the critically vulnerable people first, children, young women and upscale businessmen types. Yes, Medi-Can a privately operated health clinic on York Street in the downtown core of Toronto was supplied with 3000 doses for the well healed and totally unvulnerable.

Kinda figures.

No straight lions please

At John Innes Community something. It is a lion. In Toronto. For no reason. There must have been a reason. A squirrel sits. Its a male lion. Of course, this statue may have nuts. I didn't check. And I won't check.

Hot off the presses

As promised by the webbrain. These are shots of the fire that savaged the interior of the Mirch Masala. Incidently, Mirch Masala apparently is Hindi
for Hot and Spicey.

Now this is just across the street from where I live... sort of.
I will be tracking the progress of the renovations.
It is an evil reason naturally.
I am rather put off by the prolongationatinjg of the Fred Victor Centre.
They had a fire months ago less damaging than this little stove topper.

Anyway back to this fire.
After perusing the interior pictures I have come to the conclusion about how the fire became started. In fact this is a surprise even to me.

You see it had its roots in the sound system buried in the ceiling.
The people who owned it previous to the present owners, embedded a sound and stereo system in the ceiling. The installer was a Russian immigrant who did some electrical work, on the cheap for cash.
Now I couldn't help noticing that the Ruski would join connections with electrical tape only. The present day power connections require turrette connectors and then wrapped in electrical tape.
Of course this is by the code, just the code ma'am.

But then no one asked me.
I spoke directly to the City of Toronto Fire Inspector guy.
That man is useless. He asked me nothing.
As a result. He got nothing.

The fire was an accident sort of. It would not have occurred if the cheapo former owner of the business had employed a proper certified and trade electrician.
Zit,.... Zit..., Kerpoof.

Strange though. The bar did not have a fire sale on the beer or liquour.