The following is a excerpt from an email to a wonderful married couple I know. It attempted to explain one wish. Unbeknown to many, there are people like Brian Dykes, Peter Dyett and Kenn Hyslop who in the little ways and unseen ways that try to keep the poor free of technical poverty. Their names should be mention in a little honor roll somewhere apart from a small online blog.
*******************************************
Good to see you've survive those Eastern journeys except for the Montreal visit in a couple of days.
In reply to number 4. I am already a volunteer at one of those programs. They do go on under the radar. Out of the light of social scrutiny. My little contribution presently is at the Fred Victor Centre Computer Clubs under Brian Dykes. Thats exactly what we do. The club takes older computers, used computers, so that they are reasonably usable even for word processors. And they are quickly gobbled up.
The real problem is that a lot of whole systems in the social service centres are now reaching their maximum technical lifetime all at once. And used systems will not do. A used system costs the same amount to install and license.
Further, social service centres such as social services which did not have computer access to the internet find it difficult to allocate resources to install such now necessary systems. Street Haven last I heard was one of those places. Established systems, heavily used, very necessary computer systems such as found at the Good Neighbours Club are a decade old now.
Microsoft/Bill Gates did develop systems for students and some youth centres about five years ago. This was a great gesture. Those systems are now about 5 years old though which is about 66% effective technical lifetime.
Most of these systems were part of a fury of computerization and renovation in the years leading up to 2yk. Social services could then get a system on demand literally. It was a social effort. But that was 8 years ago. So all these systems are now, due for replacement. And almost all at once.
I quite understand the position of the social service agencies. Government spending on the homeless, under-housed, mental health, disabled, unemployed hasn't matched the increases in income or poverty level despite the oratory to the contrary. The priorities are Food, Shelter, Health, Clothing, Counseling, HARM, Abuse, Employment assistance. All those are extremely important priorities. Fred Victor Centre did maintain an operating budget on the computer services and there is a constant upgrade. Unfortunately for other service agencies they did not have the same foresight and quite understandably, they moved those budgeted funds to the more necessary priorities. But Peter is now knocking on the door "Hey Paul, Waddup?"
What I am concerned is that the multitude people trapped in such financial poverty, social class poverty may also be at the edge of another disadvantage and that is a technical poverty. Such an advent construes social catastrophe. So much of our modern society now totally depends on computers and the internet.
You see I was standing outside Queen's Park's MacDonald Block several years ago when the power failed in Ontario and New York. As a result all work stopped. I mean everything from traffic to the bureaucracy. They had no usable computers.
Ten years, just a decade before that, these same people would have gone back in and continued to work the government's gargantuan work. People were happy of course. It was late summer, and the weather was great. But all business ceased and a crush of quiet descended on an entire city.
People who have an income will now spend some small part of their labour's stipend on computers and the internet. It is necessary to keep their jobs. It is now necessary to get jobs. Its now essential to download music from the internet. Music stores are now closing left right and centre. In an other ten years music will all be downloaded.
So in one moment the poor are disadvantaged by a lack of proper nutrition, proper housing, proper health response. Now add on a lack of vital
As you can see, I am heavily involved in this but I have no contact with Bill Gates or no one important at all. I am not in his social circle or any other recognized social circle. I am very poor. Money means status. Had I such a contact with Bill Gates and government leaders, I would state the need, not only for Toronto but this has to be going on in every major municipality from coast to coast to coast. In Canada and the USA for that matter. I would say. Hey this is "your" idea. {All this} is happening.
But since I am not in that position, socially, financially, healthily, a complete social outcast in other words. I am afraid people like Mr. Dykes effort, and my effort will be lost. And it is going to be another wish unfulfilled.
On the other hand. Maybe the CBC can stereoize Toronto's CBC One. I don't know. Its an achievable thing. And necessary.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Saturday, June 30, 2007
I myth u
Here's a myth. Old bald guys don't get. When hair gets so long the growth rate goes down. Well bald guys. It don't. But you'll never know.
Why are me and Conrad Black the same? We both don't pay Canadian taxes this year. Ah Rich or poor we are equal.
Why are me and Conrad Black the same? We both don't pay Canadian taxes this year. Ah Rich or poor we are equal.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Afoot
I love a phrase from the books featuring Sherlock Holmes. "The games afoot."
Now the games afoot in the Conrad Black trial. Its gone to the jury. My gut instinct is that this could very well wind up to be a hung jury but who the hell am I.
And it will all take place in that jury room with time working against Black and his associates. You see this is the worst possible time to go into a jury phase. It is only days before the 5 day long July 4th celebrations.
Further it will also depend heavily on how entrenched the believer jurists are. If one or jurors is dedicated to a verdict. Then they have the edge. Rare is the time when jurists believe that a person is innocent will they stick it out over the long family oriented weekend.
The defense attorneys are the ones that are scared at this moment because such a time acelerates the likelihood of a guilty verdict. And US Juries are rarely overturned unless malfiesance is proven.
It goes like this in my personal estimation. If the jury cottons onto the fact that a long time associate like Radler plead guilty, regardless of whether or not he lied before, it means the others are just as guilty as he is. Only Radler owned up to his guilt. The others did not take the stand because they would have been forced to perjure their denial testimony.
If Black is found guilty then it was the failure of the defense, the fear of the defense to put him on the stand. This lack of confidence sways like a ghost through his trial. OJ wasn't put on the stand for good reason but none of those reasons exist here. It was important for Black to go on the stand and his own lawyers failed in that they didn't have the confidence that he could pull it off. I think he could've got on the stand and won the hearts of the jury. He possesses the intelligence and the acumen to do it.
At the moment its 30% for guilt, 30%percent for innocent and a full 40% chance that this will be a hung jury. Regardless the game is afoot and the bobsleigh crew has been launched. Allawowa!
The story is below.
****************
Case against Black, associates goes to jury
Bloomberg News
Published June 27, 2007, 2:54 PM CDT
Now the games afoot in the Conrad Black trial. Its gone to the jury. My gut instinct is that this could very well wind up to be a hung jury but who the hell am I.
And it will all take place in that jury room with time working against Black and his associates. You see this is the worst possible time to go into a jury phase. It is only days before the 5 day long July 4th celebrations.
Further it will also depend heavily on how entrenched the believer jurists are. If one or jurors is dedicated to a verdict. Then they have the edge. Rare is the time when jurists believe that a person is innocent will they stick it out over the long family oriented weekend.
The defense attorneys are the ones that are scared at this moment because such a time acelerates the likelihood of a guilty verdict. And US Juries are rarely overturned unless malfiesance is proven.
It goes like this in my personal estimation. If the jury cottons onto the fact that a long time associate like Radler plead guilty, regardless of whether or not he lied before, it means the others are just as guilty as he is. Only Radler owned up to his guilt. The others did not take the stand because they would have been forced to perjure their denial testimony.
If Black is found guilty then it was the failure of the defense, the fear of the defense to put him on the stand. This lack of confidence sways like a ghost through his trial. OJ wasn't put on the stand for good reason but none of those reasons exist here. It was important for Black to go on the stand and his own lawyers failed in that they didn't have the confidence that he could pull it off. I think he could've got on the stand and won the hearts of the jury. He possesses the intelligence and the acumen to do it.
At the moment its 30% for guilt, 30%percent for innocent and a full 40% chance that this will be a hung jury. Regardless the game is afoot and the bobsleigh crew has been launched. Allawowa!
The story is below.
****************
Case against Black, associates goes to jury
Bloomberg News
Published June 27, 2007, 2:54 PM CDT
A federal jury began deliberating the case against former Hollinger International Inc. Chairman Conrad Black after prosecutors told jurors he's "sunk" if they believe witnesses who testified at a 15-week fraud trial.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Sussman told jurors in federal court in Chicago that defense lawyers want them to believe that 13 government witnesses lied in their testimony during the trial.
"Because if that testimony stands, they are sunk," he said.
Black, 62, former Hollinger Vice President Peter Atkinson, 60, and ex-finance chief John Boultbee, 63, are charged with taking millions of dollars in noncompete payments as they sold more than $3 billion in Hollinger assets from 1998 to 2001. Former General Counsel Mark Kipnis, 59, is accused of aiding the scheme. Each faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted.
After his remarks, Sussman agreed to drop one of two tax- fraud charges against Atkinson, telling U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve that there was a lack of direct evidence linking the former executive to the crime. Atkinson still faces six counts of mail and wire fraud related to his receipt of the noncompete payments and one tax fraud charge.
St. Eve instructed jurors on the law in the case and handed it to them for deliberations just before lunchtime.
The jury will work until 3 p.m. local time today, she said.
St. Eve told jurors to use caution in weighing the testimony of Black's former partner F. David Radler.
During the trial, defense lawyers attacked Radler's credibility. The former Hollinger president testified that Black helped direct a scheme to steal $60 million from the company. Radler pleaded guilty as part of a deal with the government and will be sentenced after the trial.
Paul Healy, Hollinger's former chief of investor relations, received immunity from prosecution and testified that he was told to misrepresent Black's purchase of a New York apartment in 2000.
"You may give the testimony of Healy and Radler such weight as you feel it deserves, keeping in mind that it must be considered with caution and great care," St. Eve instructed the jurors before they began deliberating.
Prosecutors claim the defendants, along with Radler, masked the illegal payments as compensation for agreeing not to compete with companies that bought Hollinger newspapers and other assets.
Leaving the downtown Chicago courthouse, Black, accompanied by his wife, Barbara Amiel Black, his daughter and two sons, walked past a throng of reporters and photographers to a waiting white Cadillac Escalade. He declined to comment.
Black remains confident of his acquittal, his lawyer, Edward Greenspan, told reporters outside the courthouse.
Greenspan said the Black family is holding up well through a trial he described as "tense and very nerve-wracking."
He said he's not impressed by the reported 95 percent conviction rate of the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago.
New York Yankees baseball pitcher "Roger Clemens loses the occasional baseball game," Greenspan said. "This is a unique case."
Randall Samborn, spokesman in the U.S. Attorney's office, said he didn't have specific data on the office's conviction rate.
Greenspan wouldn't predict the outcome of the case. "It's impossible to know what a jury will do," he said. He also said it's impossible to predict how long jurors may take.
The charges against Black include obstruction of justice for removing boxes of documents from his Toronto offices two years ago. St. Eve instructed jurors that prosecutors must prove Black intended to obstruct one of three official proceedings: a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, a criminal investigation of Black by a federal grand jury or the pending criminal proceeding before the U.S. District Court.
"You must unanimously agree on which of the official proceedings, if any, Black intended to obstruct," St. Eve said.
The trial started with jury selection on March 14.
The case is U.S. v Black, 05cr727, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).
Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Sussman told jurors in federal court in Chicago that defense lawyers want them to believe that 13 government witnesses lied in their testimony during the trial.
"Because if that testimony stands, they are sunk," he said.
Black, 62, former Hollinger Vice President Peter Atkinson, 60, and ex-finance chief John Boultbee, 63, are charged with taking millions of dollars in noncompete payments as they sold more than $3 billion in Hollinger assets from 1998 to 2001. Former General Counsel Mark Kipnis, 59, is accused of aiding the scheme. Each faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted.
After his remarks, Sussman agreed to drop one of two tax- fraud charges against Atkinson, telling U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve that there was a lack of direct evidence linking the former executive to the crime. Atkinson still faces six counts of mail and wire fraud related to his receipt of the noncompete payments and one tax fraud charge.
St. Eve instructed jurors on the law in the case and handed it to them for deliberations just before lunchtime.
The jury will work until 3 p.m. local time today, she said.
St. Eve told jurors to use caution in weighing the testimony of Black's former partner F. David Radler.
During the trial, defense lawyers attacked Radler's credibility. The former Hollinger president testified that Black helped direct a scheme to steal $60 million from the company. Radler pleaded guilty as part of a deal with the government and will be sentenced after the trial.
Paul Healy, Hollinger's former chief of investor relations, received immunity from prosecution and testified that he was told to misrepresent Black's purchase of a New York apartment in 2000.
"You may give the testimony of Healy and Radler such weight as you feel it deserves, keeping in mind that it must be considered with caution and great care," St. Eve instructed the jurors before they began deliberating.
Prosecutors claim the defendants, along with Radler, masked the illegal payments as compensation for agreeing not to compete with companies that bought Hollinger newspapers and other assets.
Leaving the downtown Chicago courthouse, Black, accompanied by his wife, Barbara Amiel Black, his daughter and two sons, walked past a throng of reporters and photographers to a waiting white Cadillac Escalade. He declined to comment.
Black remains confident of his acquittal, his lawyer, Edward Greenspan, told reporters outside the courthouse.
Greenspan said the Black family is holding up well through a trial he described as "tense and very nerve-wracking."
He said he's not impressed by the reported 95 percent conviction rate of the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago.
New York Yankees baseball pitcher "Roger Clemens loses the occasional baseball game," Greenspan said. "This is a unique case."
Randall Samborn, spokesman in the U.S. Attorney's office, said he didn't have specific data on the office's conviction rate.
Greenspan wouldn't predict the outcome of the case. "It's impossible to know what a jury will do," he said. He also said it's impossible to predict how long jurors may take.
The charges against Black include obstruction of justice for removing boxes of documents from his Toronto offices two years ago. St. Eve instructed jurors that prosecutors must prove Black intended to obstruct one of three official proceedings: a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, a criminal investigation of Black by a federal grand jury or the pending criminal proceeding before the U.S. District Court.
"You must unanimously agree on which of the official proceedings, if any, Black intended to obstruct," St. Eve said.
The trial started with jury selection on March 14.
The case is U.S. v Black, 05cr727, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).
Sunday, June 24, 2007
O'Dontya
This I forgot to enter into the blog. I meant to a couple of weeks ago but I kept putting it off.
Eleanor Wachtel hosts a rather tedious CBC program called Writer's and Company. I mean tedious by CBC standards. It features Wachtel slyly interviewing authors. She attaches herself to the interviewed with phony insightful perceptions which the authors generally agree with her. Constantly.
The only other choice in that time period was to change over to a program on the Fan590 hosted by either the ever arrogant Mike Wilner effusing a new twisted defense about regarding the latest loss of the Blue Jays or the genuine county radio mouth Syracuse alumus who brands himself as somethin' Stormin somethin. The latter insisted last fall that John Ferguson Jr., General Manager of the Maple Leaf Hockey Club should have a contract extension. More on this later. Says it all though.
So one gets the idea. I do not have a TV. Like nothing exists on cable anymore. They have a lot of choice. Would you like this nothing or that nothing then pay Rogers another $70 per month in the faint hopes that intelligent life will emerge on a channel any channel. And if I did use the public airwaves the only thing I could get is the CBC News with some pansy immigrant butt kissing wuss refugee trying to read the news about Canada. Like I said. Its ten o'clock pm hell.
This is really strange. Its like changing channels during a commercial break to find out that every other channel has commercials. One frequency... crap... the next... crap... the next ... crap... What is this some sort of tele-electric fuckassed conspiracy?
Like I knew this already. So saving my waning energy reserves I had to listen to this left coaster ivory tower wench Wachtel interview some loser Canadian writer. Well for a change she had somebody someone actually knew. Although I do not like his writing I am comfortable with the fact that he probably doesn't like mine in return. It was Michael Ondaatjee.
I was contemplating changing the frequency over to the tedious Stormin rant when Wachtel started her tedious insightful questions. Now I have to say I am paraphrasing this totally and going by recall so I will write it like a radio script for fiction but you'll get the idea.
The characters described in the following script have nothing to do with real life and are not related to real life persons.
In your recent book your main character Pierre LaQueer expresses his disappointment with the relationships of the Step Mother with the Earth Mother and his blood Mother to the Father of the Saloon. Is it an allegory to the real life experience in Balil Stanka?
No not really. I just sat down and wrote it out.
The character LaQueer develops his career juxtaposed to the welfare of the ethic immigrant community in the new land. Does this plot effort manifest your experience with the twisted immigration policy expressed in Canada?
No. I sat down. I just wrote it and it came out that way.
[Now most people would give up this line of questioning. You would... I would... But not...]
Ughh. [it was an audible despite editing] LaQueer confronted by the irascible Tom Langton defused the situation by anger and physical threat. In the text he waved the gun. Does this symbolize the relationship between the United States and Canada as a an expression of ultimate futility of international friendship.
No. When I sat down and began writing I felt this idea would work.
Eleanor Wachtel hosts a rather tedious CBC program called Writer's and Company. I mean tedious by CBC standards. It features Wachtel slyly interviewing authors. She attaches herself to the interviewed with phony insightful perceptions which the authors generally agree with her. Constantly.
The only other choice in that time period was to change over to a program on the Fan590 hosted by either the ever arrogant Mike Wilner effusing a new twisted defense about regarding the latest loss of the Blue Jays or the genuine county radio mouth Syracuse alumus who brands himself as somethin' Stormin somethin. The latter insisted last fall that John Ferguson Jr., General Manager of the Maple Leaf Hockey Club should have a contract extension. More on this later. Says it all though.
So one gets the idea. I do not have a TV. Like nothing exists on cable anymore. They have a lot of choice. Would you like this nothing or that nothing then pay Rogers another $70 per month in the faint hopes that intelligent life will emerge on a channel any channel. And if I did use the public airwaves the only thing I could get is the CBC News with some pansy immigrant butt kissing wuss refugee trying to read the news about Canada. Like I said. Its ten o'clock pm hell.
This is really strange. Its like changing channels during a commercial break to find out that every other channel has commercials. One frequency... crap... the next... crap... the next ... crap... What is this some sort of tele-electric fuckassed conspiracy?
Like I knew this already. So saving my waning energy reserves I had to listen to this left coaster ivory tower wench Wachtel interview some loser Canadian writer. Well for a change she had somebody someone actually knew. Although I do not like his writing I am comfortable with the fact that he probably doesn't like mine in return. It was Michael Ondaatjee.
I was contemplating changing the frequency over to the tedious Stormin rant when Wachtel started her tedious insightful questions. Now I have to say I am paraphrasing this totally and going by recall so I will write it like a radio script for fiction but you'll get the idea.
The characters described in the following script have nothing to do with real life and are not related to real life persons.
Whacktel
In your recent book your main character Pierre LaQueer expresses his disappointment with the relationships of the Step Mother with the Earth Mother and his blood Mother to the Father of the Saloon. Is it an allegory to the real life experience in Balil Stanka?
O'Dontya
No not really. I just sat down and wrote it out.
Whacktel
The character LaQueer develops his career juxtaposed to the welfare of the ethic immigrant community in the new land. Does this plot effort manifest your experience with the twisted immigration policy expressed in Canada?
O'Dontya
No. I sat down. I just wrote it and it came out that way.
[Now most people would give up this line of questioning. You would... I would... But not...]
Whacktel
Ughh. [it was an audible despite editing] LaQueer confronted by the irascible Tom Langton defused the situation by anger and physical threat. In the text he waved the gun. Does this symbolize the relationship between the United States and Canada as a an expression of ultimate futility of international friendship.
O'Dontya
No. When I sat down and began writing I felt this idea would work.
[This type of questioning went on for a full forty minutes.]
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Belinda faces mortality
Last night a startling revelation. Belinda Stronach was seriously stricken with cancer. She took a very big step in opting for a double mastectomy, a drastic but hopefully effective step.
On this blog it is well documented that she has been the target for some criticism of her politics and lack of personal ethics surrounding her public persona. This is a rather exceptional circumstance.
It should be pointed out that the scary thing about this class of diseases that it has effected wealthy and poor, famous and lost souls equally. So many friends suffered an agonizing departure over this terrible medical event that no one, not even a political opponent or any opponent suffers without complete and total empathy.
Realistically Ms. Stronach will never read this or even care. Some ancient belief systems held that if one inscribed words or symbols regarding a wish or idea anywhere that it empowered a change in fate or destiny. People call this the heart of magic. And in that regard, to that this blogger wishes Ms. Stronach a path to better health and hopes of a good recovery.
On this blog it is well documented that she has been the target for some criticism of her politics and lack of personal ethics surrounding her public persona. This is a rather exceptional circumstance.
It should be pointed out that the scary thing about this class of diseases that it has effected wealthy and poor, famous and lost souls equally. So many friends suffered an agonizing departure over this terrible medical event that no one, not even a political opponent or any opponent suffers without complete and total empathy.
Realistically Ms. Stronach will never read this or even care. Some ancient belief systems held that if one inscribed words or symbols regarding a wish or idea anywhere that it empowered a change in fate or destiny. People call this the heart of magic. And in that regard, to that this blogger wishes Ms. Stronach a path to better health and hopes of a good recovery.
Little guy messages
News media is awash with everything Black and Hilton. Media feeds on subscribers hungry for everything inconsequential and trivial. Ethics contained within a bottle. The world of the self righteous do-gooders.
What has this got to do with anything. Scandals depend on their size and impact. There is a long list of these outrages. Environment is one. Poverty is another. Literacy is another. From these key elements stray every other outrage.
Today I wanted to deal with a community service program dealing with literacy. People must be able to read to understand simple things like... what is, how to, and where to. Apparently income hinges on ability to read. This last point can be challenged.
Regardless I was down at the centre reading the bulletin boards. See how the topic relates? There posted a sign outlining in great detail about an adult literacy course due to begin next week. Something nags me that this approach to getting this message out to the target group might not work using this particular method.
What has this got to do with anything. Scandals depend on their size and impact. There is a long list of these outrages. Environment is one. Poverty is another. Literacy is another. From these key elements stray every other outrage.
Today I wanted to deal with a community service program dealing with literacy. People must be able to read to understand simple things like... what is, how to, and where to. Apparently income hinges on ability to read. This last point can be challenged.
Regardless I was down at the centre reading the bulletin boards. See how the topic relates? There posted a sign outlining in great detail about an adult literacy course due to begin next week. Something nags me that this approach to getting this message out to the target group might not work using this particular method.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Black pain - what to do about it.
The closing prosecutorial arguments began this morning in Chicago signaling the final stages of a rather overstretched court assizes. Hanging in the balance lies the fate of a thousand lawyers.
Twisted thinking has it that now the legal system needs to find Lord Black innocent of all charges. Black has threatened to literally sue everyone else on the planet if he can swing it. The cascade of legal actions ensuing from this penny-ante criminal proceeding looms in the dreams of every senior law partner around this tiny orb called "Earth."
Even if he is found not guilty Black still will face numerous civil actions now waiting in the wings, waiting for this court action to end. Remind yourself of only this, this is only the criminal court action. Especially in the United States, criminal liability does not equate with civil liability. The only relationship is the degree of punishment inflicted on the final civil court settlements. If Black faces a guilty verdict the years in jail will pale compared with the larger civil liability.
A finding of not guilty will cut in half any civil liability. A not guilty vote is likely if the jury can manage to ignore the prescient fact that none of the accused has taken the stand to deny the allegations. I'm no legal expert compared with the array of legal minds whirling moth like around the flame of this case, yet I get this angst that at least one of the defendents could have taken the stand to deny the charges. That failure to take the stand to deny, may impair Blacks's able defense.
Black isn't likely to face jail time if a guilty verdict comes forth at the end of the week. Boring inside the court room I think this is phase one.
Twisted thinking has it that now the legal system needs to find Lord Black innocent of all charges. Black has threatened to literally sue everyone else on the planet if he can swing it. The cascade of legal actions ensuing from this penny-ante criminal proceeding looms in the dreams of every senior law partner around this tiny orb called "Earth."
Even if he is found not guilty Black still will face numerous civil actions now waiting in the wings, waiting for this court action to end. Remind yourself of only this, this is only the criminal court action. Especially in the United States, criminal liability does not equate with civil liability. The only relationship is the degree of punishment inflicted on the final civil court settlements. If Black faces a guilty verdict the years in jail will pale compared with the larger civil liability.
A finding of not guilty will cut in half any civil liability. A not guilty vote is likely if the jury can manage to ignore the prescient fact that none of the accused has taken the stand to deny the allegations. I'm no legal expert compared with the array of legal minds whirling moth like around the flame of this case, yet I get this angst that at least one of the defendents could have taken the stand to deny the charges. That failure to take the stand to deny, may impair Blacks's able defense.
Black isn't likely to face jail time if a guilty verdict comes forth at the end of the week. Boring inside the court room I think this is phase one.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Wind ups on a Sundin
Forever young, the Leafs signed Mats Sundin for another year and another hefty amount of cash. No doubt all Leafdom appeared ecstatic. The well ventilating Bob McCown spouted his usual contra-baritone disclaimer of really liking Sundin, but...
Sundin should go.
And he's right. But not for the collections of reasons he thinks.
Sundin is a very good player. The argument has always been that he needs good players to play beside him. Now that is a crock.
Every other "great" player usually brings up the level of those on the field of play, not the other way around. Mats does bring up the skill level of any hockey team if he choses. The example of this is the exceptional play of the Swedish National Team. In recent years that is the only time the real talent of Sundin goes on display. In Toronto, everyone assumes that Sundin really wants to win a Stanley Cup. He says he does. Well saying that alone is worth a million dollars. Sundin is an exceptionally smart man for the usual hockey player.
Actually Sundin is very easy to figure out if one takes another view apart from the usual North American hockey analyst and usual hockey macho. No, the Stanley Cup is not the most important trophy to him. He could care less about this trophy. In Sweden, in Europe, the most important trophy is the world cup of Hockey known as the World Championships. Sweden is his home. He is the national hockey hero there. The Swedish fans care less about the Stanley Cup and all about the World Championships. Sundin only cares about the Swedish Hockey Hall of Fame not the Canadian Hockey Hall of Fame. First one must understand that to understand the rest.
Here's why Sundin wants to play for the Leafs. Sundin is a very smart guy. He knows that with this set of management the Maple Leafs probably will never get to the playoffs. They can barely make it out of spring training. And if in the rare chance they did, the chances are enormously good that this team will certainly get knocked out of the first round, especially if he is on the ice.
Sundin knows that if he stays on the Leafs the most games he will play is about ball busting 84 games ...tops. And they finish in April usually before the World Championships. Now if Sundin did want to play on a great team they would go through to the Stanley Cup and have to play at least 100 games or more and finish in June. Even with bonuses Sundin gets maybe $6 million. A Stanley Cup versus another year of $6 Million in the bank. Hmmmm weigh it financially.
So if he plays with the Leafs he is working his body far less which simply adds years to his career. And playoff hockey is harder on the body than regular season games where it is easy to sluff off performances when one gets over tired. If he plays on the Leafs he might get an extra couple of years out of his body. Remember what Sundin said right off... "I am 36 years of age"
His age runs his life not the absence of a Stanley Cup trophy. If he goes to the great contending teams their long pounding play off schedule could take years off of his playing career and that many times less that there will be the opportunity to do the more important thing for Sweden which is to win the World Championships. And while their are 8 other teams in an NHL division the Swedes only have to manage to defeat the Canadians and maybe one of the Russians or Czechs or maybe a hot Finish team to get to the World Cup. Winning a World Cup in a Swede's mind is far easier and far more relevant to his post hockey career life. That's the end game for the Swedish hockey player.
Sundin knows that he will lose $6 million per year if he went to a contender NHL team. In World Hockey though the chances of getting a World Cup are much better on a good Swedish team. And bringing home the World Cup to Sweden is far more important to Sundin. So playing for the Leafs extends his playing career maybe two more years, gives him a longer summer off, and gets him the greater opportunity to get the Swedish team to the World Cup.
As long as Sundin is playing with the laughable Leafs it is great. The reason that Sundin wants a one year clause is not for laughs either. What would happen if the Leafs actually managed to get into the second round of the playoffs? Again he wants to go to another team, not a good one but one bad enough not to ever make it to the post season. He only wants to play on a dog team of a hockey team. As long as the Leafs win, and there is no one in Leafs management smart enough to understand this scam, he keeps playing for the Leafs and gets a $5 million per year salary. He gets almost the same pay as a "front line star" at 80% of the ideal workload. So if he stay on the Leafs, he gets; a longer playing career, a bigger bank account, a full summer off, a lasting hockey fame in Sweden, a lingering worship in hockey stupid Toronto. Only if he stays put.
The telling tale was in the last 20 games of the Leafs schedule. Only one goal. Yes he got an assist per game but he would get that anyway in addition to the goal. In order to get goals in the NHL it requires that a goal scorer be able to pound through "the Trap." Sundin was laying back making sure that the Leafs would not win the playoffs. After all he was playing golf and being a celebrity in Sweden about six weeks early than any other "star". And collectively, the Leafs management from the MLSE Board of Directors to the ever unimaginative John Ferguson would be only twice as stupid as Sundin, if he Sundin, underwent a double labotomy. Sundin's motives are plain.
Sundin should go.
And he's right. But not for the collections of reasons he thinks.
Sundin is a very good player. The argument has always been that he needs good players to play beside him. Now that is a crock.
Every other "great" player usually brings up the level of those on the field of play, not the other way around. Mats does bring up the skill level of any hockey team if he choses. The example of this is the exceptional play of the Swedish National Team. In recent years that is the only time the real talent of Sundin goes on display. In Toronto, everyone assumes that Sundin really wants to win a Stanley Cup. He says he does. Well saying that alone is worth a million dollars. Sundin is an exceptionally smart man for the usual hockey player.
Actually Sundin is very easy to figure out if one takes another view apart from the usual North American hockey analyst and usual hockey macho. No, the Stanley Cup is not the most important trophy to him. He could care less about this trophy. In Sweden, in Europe, the most important trophy is the world cup of Hockey known as the World Championships. Sweden is his home. He is the national hockey hero there. The Swedish fans care less about the Stanley Cup and all about the World Championships. Sundin only cares about the Swedish Hockey Hall of Fame not the Canadian Hockey Hall of Fame. First one must understand that to understand the rest.
Here's why Sundin wants to play for the Leafs. Sundin is a very smart guy. He knows that with this set of management the Maple Leafs probably will never get to the playoffs. They can barely make it out of spring training. And if in the rare chance they did, the chances are enormously good that this team will certainly get knocked out of the first round, especially if he is on the ice.
Sundin knows that if he stays on the Leafs the most games he will play is about ball busting 84 games ...tops. And they finish in April usually before the World Championships. Now if Sundin did want to play on a great team they would go through to the Stanley Cup and have to play at least 100 games or more and finish in June. Even with bonuses Sundin gets maybe $6 million. A Stanley Cup versus another year of $6 Million in the bank. Hmmmm weigh it financially.
So if he plays with the Leafs he is working his body far less which simply adds years to his career. And playoff hockey is harder on the body than regular season games where it is easy to sluff off performances when one gets over tired. If he plays on the Leafs he might get an extra couple of years out of his body. Remember what Sundin said right off... "I am 36 years of age"
His age runs his life not the absence of a Stanley Cup trophy. If he goes to the great contending teams their long pounding play off schedule could take years off of his playing career and that many times less that there will be the opportunity to do the more important thing for Sweden which is to win the World Championships. And while their are 8 other teams in an NHL division the Swedes only have to manage to defeat the Canadians and maybe one of the Russians or Czechs or maybe a hot Finish team to get to the World Cup. Winning a World Cup in a Swede's mind is far easier and far more relevant to his post hockey career life. That's the end game for the Swedish hockey player.
Sundin knows that he will lose $6 million per year if he went to a contender NHL team. In World Hockey though the chances of getting a World Cup are much better on a good Swedish team. And bringing home the World Cup to Sweden is far more important to Sundin. So playing for the Leafs extends his playing career maybe two more years, gives him a longer summer off, and gets him the greater opportunity to get the Swedish team to the World Cup.
As long as Sundin is playing with the laughable Leafs it is great. The reason that Sundin wants a one year clause is not for laughs either. What would happen if the Leafs actually managed to get into the second round of the playoffs? Again he wants to go to another team, not a good one but one bad enough not to ever make it to the post season. He only wants to play on a dog team of a hockey team. As long as the Leafs win, and there is no one in Leafs management smart enough to understand this scam, he keeps playing for the Leafs and gets a $5 million per year salary. He gets almost the same pay as a "front line star" at 80% of the ideal workload. So if he stay on the Leafs, he gets; a longer playing career, a bigger bank account, a full summer off, a lasting hockey fame in Sweden, a lingering worship in hockey stupid Toronto. Only if he stays put.
The telling tale was in the last 20 games of the Leafs schedule. Only one goal. Yes he got an assist per game but he would get that anyway in addition to the goal. In order to get goals in the NHL it requires that a goal scorer be able to pound through "the Trap." Sundin was laying back making sure that the Leafs would not win the playoffs. After all he was playing golf and being a celebrity in Sweden about six weeks early than any other "star". And collectively, the Leafs management from the MLSE Board of Directors to the ever unimaginative John Ferguson would be only twice as stupid as Sundin, if he Sundin, underwent a double labotomy. Sundin's motives are plain.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Another quickie lllalaldf aon
For some strange and extraordinary occurrence the magic of the internet has returned inexplicably. Its a rapid thing to take advantage and this is being typed at at an incredible 75 to 80 wpm corrected. Amazing amazing.
Now I got to think of something to write..... hmmmm.
I did Paris already today... I don't know if she knows she's been done.
I did Conrad today. I don't think he cares whether or not he's been done already.
I didn't do Barbara Amiel. Nobody else wants to either.
I could have dealt with Stephen Harper. But I didn't have my hijacked airline puke pouch within reach today.
I could have dealt with Ontario Works. They announced a two percent increase across the board. Two percent... Oh sure... Very good... Never look a gift horse in the mouth and in this case it aint the front end of the horse I am looking at. Did you know that the MPPs of Ontario voted themselves a fifty percent raise this year because according to them $100,000 per year isn't sufficient income to survive.
I could have dealt with the nice weather we are having down in Toronto at the moment. But then some readers of this blog would find it totally insensitive and callous to mention that its really really very good weather in Toronto most of the time. So I won't mention it in this blog. Gotta be a sensitive guy...
I might not have time to deal with the TTC. Which is good. Nobody wants to deal with them
I probably don't have time to mention that while the world hums outside I am sitting here trying to angle a one sided blog entry simply because the stupid internet works. What a senseless exercise. Din's on.
Without this time... Maybe I should take a Time Management Course?
Now I got to think of something to write..... hmmmm.
I did Paris already today... I don't know if she knows she's been done.
I did Conrad today. I don't think he cares whether or not he's been done already.
I didn't do Barbara Amiel. Nobody else wants to either.
I could have dealt with Stephen Harper. But I didn't have my hijacked airline puke pouch within reach today.
I could have dealt with Ontario Works. They announced a two percent increase across the board. Two percent... Oh sure... Very good... Never look a gift horse in the mouth and in this case it aint the front end of the horse I am looking at. Did you know that the MPPs of Ontario voted themselves a fifty percent raise this year because according to them $100,000 per year isn't sufficient income to survive.
I could have dealt with the nice weather we are having down in Toronto at the moment. But then some readers of this blog would find it totally insensitive and callous to mention that its really really very good weather in Toronto most of the time. So I won't mention it in this blog. Gotta be a sensitive guy...
I might not have time to deal with the TTC. Which is good. Nobody wants to deal with them
I probably don't have time to mention that while the world hums outside I am sitting here trying to angle a one sided blog entry simply because the stupid internet works. What a senseless exercise. Din's on.
Without this time... Maybe I should take a Time Management Course?
June updates one
Gotta be quick this morning. Haven't posted in a while. And the battery power is running down.
We'll always have Paris
To true. Paris Hilton got released and put back into the slammer. She had a mysterious medical condition. I used to have the same problem according to my mother. Back then she called it a temper tantrum.
Black and Blacker
Conrad Black's mounting a good defense. Apparently Donald Trump was a no show. Probably had a problem with something about taking an oath to tell the truth.
Black may not even take the stand. In this case that would be a severe mistake. I think after the OJ Simpson fiasco the idea of having a client not take the stand would be a mistake. For the longest time the defense team called Radler a liar. Black on the stand would extinguish that minor advantage.
Still its pretty even money that he will be getting acquitted on all charges. Of course this could be the spin of the right wing media haunting the walls of this trial.
If print media reports are to be believed and taking into consideration the tremendous bias of the Conservative press corps, Black should walk in about two weeks. Canadian authorities are ratcheting up their legal prosecution in the event this happens.
He also claimed that he was asked to become a Governor General of Canada. Lucky he wasn't on the stand under oath for that comment. Chretien claims that Black offered to become a Senator. Either way the result was very good. Black became neither. Canada can't afford the Afghan war let alone the aircraft bills tolled by these types of political leaders.
.
We'll always have Paris
To true. Paris Hilton got released and put back into the slammer. She had a mysterious medical condition. I used to have the same problem according to my mother. Back then she called it a temper tantrum.
Black and Blacker
Conrad Black's mounting a good defense. Apparently Donald Trump was a no show. Probably had a problem with something about taking an oath to tell the truth.
Black may not even take the stand. In this case that would be a severe mistake. I think after the OJ Simpson fiasco the idea of having a client not take the stand would be a mistake. For the longest time the defense team called Radler a liar. Black on the stand would extinguish that minor advantage.
Still its pretty even money that he will be getting acquitted on all charges. Of course this could be the spin of the right wing media haunting the walls of this trial.
If print media reports are to be believed and taking into consideration the tremendous bias of the Conservative press corps, Black should walk in about two weeks. Canadian authorities are ratcheting up their legal prosecution in the event this happens.
He also claimed that he was asked to become a Governor General of Canada. Lucky he wasn't on the stand under oath for that comment. Chretien claims that Black offered to become a Senator. Either way the result was very good. Black became neither. Canada can't afford the Afghan war let alone the aircraft bills tolled by these types of political leaders.
.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Monday morning skews
It must be some sort of Illuminati conspiracy. Gotta be.
Again this Monday it turns out that I have to return to Scarberia to help out that good friend of mine. He’s a tradesman who never got his driver’s license. His boss who normally drives him to the worksite went on vacation for some three weeks. And my Daytimer isn’t exactly overbooked at the moment.
There was a backlog of work that had to be completed. All I have to do is drive him to the worksites and sit around. No money… But I gets fed. Got a small room to myself(with Cable and internet). Free laundry with the good machines. Get to drive drive around. Get to scout out the neighborhoods while he does his trade work. Sort of like a vacation thing. And its a change of pace.
Its just so far out on the edge of the city. Its a three hour round trip transit ride at least. And I can’t afford a Go Train, and even then its a two hour round trip. It is why I stay out there when I am out there.
The first week went okay but like all the great plans not everything went according to plan and now there is one or two more days that I am still needed out there.
It sounds weird from a distant view, but then he and his wife let me stay there for about eight months about four years ago, no first or last and really cheap. So I still owe.
Again this Monday it turns out that I have to return to Scarberia to help out that good friend of mine. He’s a tradesman who never got his driver’s license. His boss who normally drives him to the worksite went on vacation for some three weeks. And my Daytimer isn’t exactly overbooked at the moment.
There was a backlog of work that had to be completed. All I have to do is drive him to the worksites and sit around. No money… But I gets fed. Got a small room to myself(with Cable and internet). Free laundry with the good machines. Get to drive drive around. Get to scout out the neighborhoods while he does his trade work. Sort of like a vacation thing. And its a change of pace.
Its just so far out on the edge of the city. Its a three hour round trip transit ride at least. And I can’t afford a Go Train, and even then its a two hour round trip. It is why I stay out there when I am out there.
The first week went okay but like all the great plans not everything went according to plan and now there is one or two more days that I am still needed out there.
It sounds weird from a distant view, but then he and his wife let me stay there for about eight months about four years ago, no first or last and really cheap. So I still owe.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Hot stuff and the smell - its burning
I knew it. I just knew it.
I am hot. Really hot. Well in theory.
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I am hot. Really hot. Well in theory.
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The Primal Roots of Red Hair Revealed
By LiveScience Staff
posted: 24 May 2007 06:36 pm ET
Primatologists know humans, apes and monkeys can see red, but have quarreled
over what initially locked the adaptation into place. Did it first help
primates find meals, or was the ability to see a red-headed, red-skinned
mate from a mile away the first benefit of full-color vision?
A new study shows that apes first evolved color vision to help them forage
food, after which nature made red the sexiest color around and spiked apes'
evolutionary tree with red hair and skin. The findings are detailed in this
week's issue of the American Naturalist.
André Fernandez, an evolutionary biologist at Ohio University and co-author
of the paper, explained that neuroscientists have already found animals are
highly attracted to brilliant colors. "So, it is reasonable for primates
with trichromatic color vision to respond more when they see bright colors"
like red, he said.
To discover the true origin of red hair, Fernandez collected data on the
hair and skin color, color vision and sexual habits of 203 different primate
species. He then plugged the data into the primate evolutionary tree
According to the tree, or phylogeny, color vision arose first, followed by
the appearance of red hair, skin and advanced mating systems.
"It looks like red skin and hair became a sexual preference," said
evolutionary biologist Molly Morris, the other study's author. "So while the
benefits in terms of eating may not apply anymore," she said, it's still
socially-and sexually-relevant for an ape to see red.
http://www.livescience.com/health/070525_red_primates.html
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Environemental crisis Part 1V - Phishy business
Yikes
Could it be that it is the tree hugging North American females that caused the collapse of the COD? Its timing would be perfect.
From the Globe and Male today's issue. If you are not a student, do not read this. If you are a student ...you can.
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Could it be that it is the tree hugging North American females that caused the collapse of the COD? Its timing would be perfect.
From the Globe and Male today's issue. If you are not a student, do not read this. If you are a student ...you can.
*************************************
Estrogen threatens minnow manhood
Released into an Ontario lake as an experiment, tiny amounts of the hormone wreak havoc on male fish
Back in the summer of 2001, a team of Canadian and U.S. researchers spiked a lake in Northwestern Ontario with traces of synthetic estrogen used in human birth control pills. They then repeated the unusual treatment for the next two years and sat back and watched what happened to minnows living in the lake.
The results were nothing short of frightening. Exposing fish to tiny doses of the active ingredient in the pill, amounts little more than a whiff of estrogen, started turning male fish into females. Instead of sperm, they started developing eggs. Instead of looking like males, they became indistinguishable from females. Within a year of exposure, the minnow population began to crash. Within a few years, the fish, which at one time teemed in the lake, had practically vanished.
Details of the unusual experiment, conducted by a team of Canadian and U.S. government scientists, are being published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The dramatic results are likely to raise further concerns about the possible impact on wildlife and humans of drug residues in waterways.
In the experiment, the scientists added just enough estrogen to give the lake water the same level of the sex hormone found in water discharged from sewage treatment plants in Canada and in other countries where the birth control pill is widely used.
More than a million women in Canada and more than 100 million worldwide are on the pill, making it one of the most commonly prescribed drugs. Women on the pill pass on some of the estrogen in their urine, from which it gets into surface waters.
Although the doses in the lake's water were thousands of times lower than the amounts women on the pill receive, even this slight exposure was enough to skew development in both male and female fish, with males far more affected.
After treatment, the lake water had estrogen concentrations of about 5 parts per trillion, the scientific equivalent of almost nothing. A part per trillion is the equivalent of a few grains of salt in an Olympic-size swimming pool. The amount of estrogen added was about a fifth of a gram a day, or about one-tenth the weight of a penny.
The lead researcher, Karen Kidd, who conducted the project while with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and is now a biologist at the University of New Brunswick, was astonished that so little of a hormone used by people could harm fish.
"What's sobering for me is that we've shown such a dramatic response in fish population at these low concentrations," Dr. Kidd said in an interview.
It's not known what effect, if any, human exposure to estrogen in drinking water might have, although Dr. Kidd said it is an area that should be a research priority. Reproductive problems in human males, such as declining sperm counts and testicular cancer, have been rising in recent decades, and the causes are not known.
"When we see these kinds of responses in fish, it raises a red flag for what these compounds are doing to humans," she said.
There are currently no regulations in Canada covering estrogen or other drug residues in waterways. Municipalities typically don't check for them and it is not known if there are human health effects for people who draw drinking water from sources receiving sewage, a common practice in Canada.
Researchers with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also worked on the experiment, which was funded primarily by the federal government and the American Chemistry Council. One of the companies that manufactures birth control pills, Schering AG, donated the estrogen.
The researchers monitored fathead minnows, a species that breeds after about two years of life, making its population vulnerable to the reproductive effects of the drug sooner than longer-living fish.
After dosing the lake for three years, researchers monitored populations for the next two. It is expected that with time, estrogen levels in the lake, which was about 35 hectares, or about the size of a large farm field or a medium-sized cottage-country lake, will decline, allowing fish populations to recover.
To ensure that the population decline they were observing wasn't a natural phenomenon, the researchers tracked several other water bodies similar to the lake under investigation. There were no large population fluctuations elsewhere. The lake was located near Kenora.
Over the past decade, there have been a number of studies in North America and Europe showing skewed sexual development in aquatic life living near outfalls from sewage plants. This study is the first to show that exposure to drugs not only changes sexual characteristics, but can also destroy fish populations.
Dr. Kidd doesn't think women should stop taking the pill out of worry for wildlife. She said municipalities need to build more advanced sewage treatment plants, which are able to degrade more of the estrogen into harmless chemicals.
Because of the high expense of the project, estimated at $250,000 a year, the researchers didn't test the effects of lower estrogen levels on fish to determine if there is a safe exposure amount.
Monday, May 21, 2007
First past the post and last at the trough
For Northern Ontario proportional representation becomes an unmitigated political disaster. There is no benefit to any Northerner regardless of political loyalty.
Over the years Queen's Park drained every spare resource revenue from Northern Ontario. Never reinvesting unless the applicant is a major political supporter, the south only will accelerate its economic pillage unfettered by political audit.
All senior levels of government compose legislation satiating the inward desires of the urban voter in southern Ontario. The Gun Registry, the tax on diamonds, passports at the border, the banning of hunting contribute to the declines in northern commerce, in northern industry and northern populations.
There is no serious reinvestment in the North despite electoral campaign promises. Only a trifling percentage of those taxes revisit the North.
Depending on whether one defines Northern Ontario along the French I believe the North is left with eleven seats in the federal and provincial parliaments. Recently the federal government dangled twenty two new seats from Ottawa to Toronto.
No new seats for Northern Ontario though. In the last distribution the gnomes of democracy proposed one riding from Current River to the Western Border of Sudbury. Try being a representative of that.
Do the math. Even if Northern Ontario held onto its few ridings the proportional representation and the 22 new seats would add about 61 seats to the south. The North presently holds a bare ten percent voice which would fall instantly to four percent. A power reduction of more than 50%. Does anyone actually believe that ten percent of those proportional MPPs would come from the North.
Do you believe that any provincial party all of which are headquartered in Southern Ontario will pick northerners over thirty nine good old boys from 905? Numerically the growing Asian community in the Greater Toronto Area is a more important demographic than the few Northerners scattered over the vast land mass of Northern Ontario. Few no likely none of those 39 seats will be posted by northerners and I state none will.
This is a very critical point of time. If Northerners actually got together in a Bloc like party it would get no legislature funding because all of the seats must switch to be a party recognized by the speaker of the Ontario Legislature. In 2011 the party would have to win more than 16 seats for house debates and house funding. Consider that there is only a rump of 11 maybe 14 seats depending on where you define Northern Ontario. No Northern faction will receiver adequate funding.
Even then approximately 140,000 votes would be needed to qualify for any proportional representation. According to the new legislation a new party must get three percent of the popular vote to be recognized as entitled to add a proportional representative. And that would be only one representative.
If Northern Ontario was a separate province then proportional representation works politically. But when there is a vast discrepancy of population densities between the two parts of this province, then proportional representation works against the lesser population.
In 2011 it is very likely that Northern Ontario will possess no voice over its own affairs. Only 4% of the seats doesn't carry much weight in any caucus no matter what the present incumbents say.
Before that happens Northern Ontario must form its own political movement, its own political party for political separation to regain some form of self governance.
Its been proposed before and handled poorly. There was always time. Now that time has run out. Every single voter in Northern Ontario must vote against proportional representation. Let this referendum be the poll that asserts your rights. Deny southern Ontario its habitual oligarchy over your affairs, over your education system, over your power plants, over your resources, over your mines, over your roads, over your houses, and over your existence.
Over the years Queen's Park drained every spare resource revenue from Northern Ontario. Never reinvesting unless the applicant is a major political supporter, the south only will accelerate its economic pillage unfettered by political audit.
All senior levels of government compose legislation satiating the inward desires of the urban voter in southern Ontario. The Gun Registry, the tax on diamonds, passports at the border, the banning of hunting contribute to the declines in northern commerce, in northern industry and northern populations.
There is no serious reinvestment in the North despite electoral campaign promises. Only a trifling percentage of those taxes revisit the North.
Depending on whether one defines Northern Ontario along the French I believe the North is left with eleven seats in the federal and provincial parliaments. Recently the federal government dangled twenty two new seats from Ottawa to Toronto.
No new seats for Northern Ontario though. In the last distribution the gnomes of democracy proposed one riding from Current River to the Western Border of Sudbury. Try being a representative of that.
Do the math. Even if Northern Ontario held onto its few ridings the proportional representation and the 22 new seats would add about 61 seats to the south. The North presently holds a bare ten percent voice which would fall instantly to four percent. A power reduction of more than 50%. Does anyone actually believe that ten percent of those proportional MPPs would come from the North.
Do you believe that any provincial party all of which are headquartered in Southern Ontario will pick northerners over thirty nine good old boys from 905? Numerically the growing Asian community in the Greater Toronto Area is a more important demographic than the few Northerners scattered over the vast land mass of Northern Ontario. Few no likely none of those 39 seats will be posted by northerners and I state none will.
This is a very critical point of time. If Northerners actually got together in a Bloc like party it would get no legislature funding because all of the seats must switch to be a party recognized by the speaker of the Ontario Legislature. In 2011 the party would have to win more than 16 seats for house debates and house funding. Consider that there is only a rump of 11 maybe 14 seats depending on where you define Northern Ontario. No Northern faction will receiver adequate funding.
Even then approximately 140,000 votes would be needed to qualify for any proportional representation. According to the new legislation a new party must get three percent of the popular vote to be recognized as entitled to add a proportional representative. And that would be only one representative.
If Northern Ontario was a separate province then proportional representation works politically. But when there is a vast discrepancy of population densities between the two parts of this province, then proportional representation works against the lesser population.
In 2011 it is very likely that Northern Ontario will possess no voice over its own affairs. Only 4% of the seats doesn't carry much weight in any caucus no matter what the present incumbents say.
Before that happens Northern Ontario must form its own political movement, its own political party for political separation to regain some form of self governance.
Its been proposed before and handled poorly. There was always time. Now that time has run out. Every single voter in Northern Ontario must vote against proportional representation. Let this referendum be the poll that asserts your rights. Deny southern Ontario its habitual oligarchy over your affairs, over your education system, over your power plants, over your resources, over your mines, over your roads, over your houses, and over your existence.
Best pitcher in Baseball
The best player in baseball I've seen. Its haunted me for 44 years. The answer boils down to two proper names.
I better set this up. I was 12 years old and it was a fall afternoon. Oh and darn it all. If I didn't come down with some illness forcing me to stay home that day. Strange that I was coincidently sick on some of those great moments of the early sixties. And just by a stroke of incredible luck this was Wednesday October 2nd the first day of the World Series.
[You know how I did it? I hope the statute of limitations is up. This was the days of the mercury bulb thermometer. Grade six science taught me that rubbing causes friction. Only idiots say that science doesn't apply to real life. If you heat mercury it expands. If you rub the bulb between the thumb and the forefinger without mom seeing it, this is friction. And as a result, you can put that little silver line anywhere. Personally, I always liked 100.5 F.
But be conservative. Another sick day before, I was too aggressive when I wanted to watch the Shepard launch and well I put it to 104 degrees and mother came back into the room before I could knock it back down by flicking it. Phhheww I almost went to the hospital. No ma... I don't want to go to the hospital. After all there was a space flight that afternoon. What luck, my temperature dropped back down before father came home.
And my mother. A nurse always believed the instrument, lucky me. She felt my forehead and was very suspicious. "Well if you are sick you stay in bed resting mister."
"Yes mother hack hack...oh woe is me. Can I watch television from the couch? hack hack."
"Well okay, but no playing around..."
"Oh yes mother...cahha, hack, hack"}
The table was set. I was sick home. Dad was working, mom was having her afternoon nap and my little brother had to go to school. I had the whole TV to myself. Oh yeah.
The past summer was a good year. I played right field in Little League with a .400 plus batting average in my first year playing. We won the Little League title and yes... our team name was the Yankees. I was a always a fervent Yankees fan.
I know you people don't like the Yankees but this was Canada, Northern Ontario and there were only three teams to pick from,,, the Dodgers, the Cards or yes the Yankees. CBS ruled. And it was 1963.
So about one o'clock I settled down and turned on the television clicking to Channel 6. WLUC TV of CBS streaming in across Lake Superior in snowy black and white. Changing with a real knob channel changer to watch game one of the World Series when it was the real championship, no playoffs, no seeds, no steroids it was man y mano. This was the World Series.
The game was announced by the great Dizzy Dean and along with Peewee Reese. I feel Dizzy was the best game caller bar none. The reason why. Well he was a player, a great player. And he made the game fun. Carey ( I like ) Sculley, well they're great but Dean played the game well and didn't take it seriouser than other things. Its a game. Its supposed to be funner. To let you other illiterates know; Dizzy Dean and fun are spelled the same way. So this was it.
And if all that wasn't just the perfect setting for ultimate victory my team, the Yankees, the mighty Yankees. They were absolutely had the best hitting line up ever, ever to take the field. They had Mantle, Maris, Boyer, Kubek, Pepitone, Howard, Berra, Richardson, Lopez, Blanchard. There was no DH. This was punch, pure power.This was purely the best offensive lineup to ever step up to the plate.
Some can argue and will. But I seen it with my own eyes.Nothing could be better. This was it. Another pure moment that every Yankee fan seems entitled to.
Oh yes. The table is set. Now, the hang over. Nemesis in two words.
Sandy Koufax
It didn't hurt the Dodgers to have Drysdale or Podres but Koufax did that game and game four. So not fair. The score sheet did not indicate the skill that Koufax showed. He crushed the Yankees. The Yankees didn't really recover from that series even to this very day and neither did Ralph Houk. Koufax burst the bubble. Tore the paint off the walls. It was all Koufax.
Koufax showed how to pitch the Yankees. It rattled them. They didn't win another WS for another 14 years. A lot of it had to do with the George but George couldn't have bought them because the Koufax diminished their value. And he bought them for a very low price. But that was a key series of games. Sandy Koufax. The best pitcher I've ever seen to ever take the mound, and he was a Dodger. Wasted day. A waste.
(Note, I am no longer a Yankees fan. I am a Maple Leafs fan of the ICB league)
.
I better set this up. I was 12 years old and it was a fall afternoon. Oh and darn it all. If I didn't come down with some illness forcing me to stay home that day. Strange that I was coincidently sick on some of those great moments of the early sixties. And just by a stroke of incredible luck this was Wednesday October 2nd the first day of the World Series.
[You know how I did it? I hope the statute of limitations is up. This was the days of the mercury bulb thermometer. Grade six science taught me that rubbing causes friction. Only idiots say that science doesn't apply to real life. If you heat mercury it expands. If you rub the bulb between the thumb and the forefinger without mom seeing it, this is friction. And as a result, you can put that little silver line anywhere. Personally, I always liked 100.5 F.
But be conservative. Another sick day before, I was too aggressive when I wanted to watch the Shepard launch and well I put it to 104 degrees and mother came back into the room before I could knock it back down by flicking it. Phhheww I almost went to the hospital. No ma... I don't want to go to the hospital. After all there was a space flight that afternoon. What luck, my temperature dropped back down before father came home.
And my mother. A nurse always believed the instrument, lucky me. She felt my forehead and was very suspicious. "Well if you are sick you stay in bed resting mister."
"Yes mother hack hack...oh woe is me. Can I watch television from the couch? hack hack."
"Well okay, but no playing around..."
"Oh yes mother...cahha, hack, hack"}
The table was set. I was sick home. Dad was working, mom was having her afternoon nap and my little brother had to go to school. I had the whole TV to myself. Oh yeah.
The past summer was a good year. I played right field in Little League with a .400 plus batting average in my first year playing. We won the Little League title and yes... our team name was the Yankees. I was a always a fervent Yankees fan.
I know you people don't like the Yankees but this was Canada, Northern Ontario and there were only three teams to pick from,,, the Dodgers, the Cards or yes the Yankees. CBS ruled. And it was 1963.
So about one o'clock I settled down and turned on the television clicking to Channel 6. WLUC TV of CBS streaming in across Lake Superior in snowy black and white. Changing with a real knob channel changer to watch game one of the World Series when it was the real championship, no playoffs, no seeds, no steroids it was man y mano. This was the World Series.
The game was announced by the great Dizzy Dean and along with Peewee Reese. I feel Dizzy was the best game caller bar none. The reason why. Well he was a player, a great player. And he made the game fun. Carey ( I like ) Sculley, well they're great but Dean played the game well and didn't take it seriouser than other things. Its a game. Its supposed to be funner. To let you other illiterates know; Dizzy Dean and fun are spelled the same way. So this was it.
And if all that wasn't just the perfect setting for ultimate victory my team, the Yankees, the mighty Yankees. They were absolutely had the best hitting line up ever, ever to take the field. They had Mantle, Maris, Boyer, Kubek, Pepitone, Howard, Berra, Richardson, Lopez, Blanchard. There was no DH. This was punch, pure power.This was purely the best offensive lineup to ever step up to the plate.
Some can argue and will. But I seen it with my own eyes.Nothing could be better. This was it. Another pure moment that every Yankee fan seems entitled to.
Oh yes. The table is set. Now, the hang over. Nemesis in two words.
Sandy Koufax
It didn't hurt the Dodgers to have Drysdale or Podres but Koufax did that game and game four. So not fair. The score sheet did not indicate the skill that Koufax showed. He crushed the Yankees. The Yankees didn't really recover from that series even to this very day and neither did Ralph Houk. Koufax burst the bubble. Tore the paint off the walls. It was all Koufax.
Koufax showed how to pitch the Yankees. It rattled them. They didn't win another WS for another 14 years. A lot of it had to do with the George but George couldn't have bought them because the Koufax diminished their value. And he bought them for a very low price. But that was a key series of games. Sandy Koufax. The best pitcher I've ever seen to ever take the mound, and he was a Dodger. Wasted day. A waste.
(Note, I am no longer a Yankees fan. I am a Maple Leafs fan of the ICB league)
.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Perplexities
Today I don't feel like blogging. Which is too bad. There is a wealth of material. It makes for a set of perplexities. Some of which I should deal with in the coming days.
1. Susan Eng complains about being spied on by a renegade cop and Fantino the guy who can't seem to hold a job other than his part time work of stroking the fur of any politician and fondling the balls of the media. Spying on Susan Eng. She's pretty good looking. I grasp that. Juli stepped up a level to human in my eyes.
2. Harper's secret manual for screwing everyone... is published. I am paraphrasing his response. No big deal.... this is usual stuff... Oh yeah. Hey... manual part one... index this.
3. Black claims that he will be set free. He may be right. But when Conrad's trial ends I am stringing a fresh clove of garlic around my neck nightly before bed. One can never be too safe.
4. Still working on that Part IV. The Globe will not be heated by this brain.
5. Greyhound is on strike. I can't believe the abysmal ignorance indulging the media in Toronto. For the economy of much of Western Canada suffers far more than normal. There is not only an environmental downside but a cultural hardship. If this was GO or the TTC governments would have stepped in by now. A double standard.
6. The southern Ontario government continues its rapacious economic rape of Northern Ontario's resources and increases the extraction tax. Southern Ontario screwed up its car manufacturing and other manufacturing so bad that now these blood suckers will bite into the back of the poorest and largest region in Ontario.
7. The federal government caught supreme hell for giving Ontario an additional 22 ridings. Not enough says the puffing MacGuinty. By the way, those few new ridings or MPs that Ontario is supposed to be getting to you an FYI. Not a single one would be formed in Northern Ontario. Indeed the federal government may still reduce Northern Ontario another riding.
7. Related to this. The southern Ontario government decides to go to proportional representation. This will be a disaster for Northern Ontario. Do the Math and look at the people in charge of the parties. Has a single provincial political party delivered on any promise, I mean name any election promise given to the noncommercial sector of Northern Ontario. So there is no guarantee that any additional MPs will be mandated to Northern Ontario representation.
So effectively the rump seats of 11 will shink in proportion to the whole. Using present numbers, there are 103 seats in the legislature. That means Northern Ontario has slightly more than 10% political horse power. An additional 39 seats will severely diminish that percentage. Southern Ontario minority governments will no longer have to rely on Northern Ontario reps for it will have less than 6% of the total seats.
And that latter number is important. Lets say an independence movement does finally form in Northern Ontario. It would lose official party status in the provincial parliament because to be recognized as an official party you need 10 percent of the seats. Registered parties in the House qualify for extra funding. To win that status one hundred percent of all the seats in Northern Ontario must be won. And that is not likely.
That separatist party could not benefit from proportional representation. Do the Math. There are about 13million people in the province of Ontario which means about 4.55 million people actually vote at a good rate of 70% voter turnout.
In Northern Ontario with the population near the unlikely level of about 800,000 people ( more likely 700,000 or even less) 400,000 people are registered to vote of which 70% the usual voter turnout or 280,000.
There is a rule of thumb that says that one third of voters are obtusely resistant to change. It doesn't matter what it is this is the percentage of resistors. In theory the independence party can win all of the seats if forty percent of the voters side with any party.
To win the eleven seats the new political party which should be called Northern Ontario Political Empowerment (NOPE) will only need 112,000 votes to achieve 40 percent per riding to get all eleven seats but this is not good enough to qualify it as a political party qualified to get proportional seats. Under the new law Nope would have to get better than 136000... or 50% of the voting electorate.
What also really hurts Northern Ontario is that all of the votes including muncipal elections are always scheduled for the fall. Has anyone scheduled outdoor events in October in Northern Ontario? Any adverse weather will dampen the voting.
So you can see. All the government's ballyhooed electoral reform will only hurt Northern Ontario. There will be a referendum on proportional representation in the next election. I hope everyone in Northern Ontario votes against it. But most of these people obviously do not care. Lesser nations have gone to the political battlements on issues far more trifling than these perplexes.
9. All perplexities mix into a bowl and stirred by a perplexitor.
1. Susan Eng complains about being spied on by a renegade cop and Fantino the guy who can't seem to hold a job other than his part time work of stroking the fur of any politician and fondling the balls of the media. Spying on Susan Eng. She's pretty good looking. I grasp that. Juli stepped up a level to human in my eyes.
2. Harper's secret manual for screwing everyone... is published. I am paraphrasing his response. No big deal.... this is usual stuff... Oh yeah. Hey... manual part one... index this.
3. Black claims that he will be set free. He may be right. But when Conrad's trial ends I am stringing a fresh clove of garlic around my neck nightly before bed. One can never be too safe.
4. Still working on that Part IV. The Globe will not be heated by this brain.
5. Greyhound is on strike. I can't believe the abysmal ignorance indulging the media in Toronto. For the economy of much of Western Canada suffers far more than normal. There is not only an environmental downside but a cultural hardship. If this was GO or the TTC governments would have stepped in by now. A double standard.
6. The southern Ontario government continues its rapacious economic rape of Northern Ontario's resources and increases the extraction tax. Southern Ontario screwed up its car manufacturing and other manufacturing so bad that now these blood suckers will bite into the back of the poorest and largest region in Ontario.
7. The federal government caught supreme hell for giving Ontario an additional 22 ridings. Not enough says the puffing MacGuinty. By the way, those few new ridings or MPs that Ontario is supposed to be getting to you an FYI. Not a single one would be formed in Northern Ontario. Indeed the federal government may still reduce Northern Ontario another riding.
7. Related to this. The southern Ontario government decides to go to proportional representation. This will be a disaster for Northern Ontario. Do the Math and look at the people in charge of the parties. Has a single provincial political party delivered on any promise, I mean name any election promise given to the noncommercial sector of Northern Ontario. So there is no guarantee that any additional MPs will be mandated to Northern Ontario representation.
So effectively the rump seats of 11 will shink in proportion to the whole. Using present numbers, there are 103 seats in the legislature. That means Northern Ontario has slightly more than 10% political horse power. An additional 39 seats will severely diminish that percentage. Southern Ontario minority governments will no longer have to rely on Northern Ontario reps for it will have less than 6% of the total seats.
And that latter number is important. Lets say an independence movement does finally form in Northern Ontario. It would lose official party status in the provincial parliament because to be recognized as an official party you need 10 percent of the seats. Registered parties in the House qualify for extra funding. To win that status one hundred percent of all the seats in Northern Ontario must be won. And that is not likely.
That separatist party could not benefit from proportional representation. Do the Math. There are about 13million people in the province of Ontario which means about 4.55 million people actually vote at a good rate of 70% voter turnout.
In Northern Ontario with the population near the unlikely level of about 800,000 people ( more likely 700,000 or even less) 400,000 people are registered to vote of which 70% the usual voter turnout or 280,000.
There is a rule of thumb that says that one third of voters are obtusely resistant to change. It doesn't matter what it is this is the percentage of resistors. In theory the independence party can win all of the seats if forty percent of the voters side with any party.
To win the eleven seats the new political party which should be called Northern Ontario Political Empowerment (NOPE) will only need 112,000 votes to achieve 40 percent per riding to get all eleven seats but this is not good enough to qualify it as a political party qualified to get proportional seats. Under the new law Nope would have to get better than 136000... or 50% of the voting electorate.
What also really hurts Northern Ontario is that all of the votes including muncipal elections are always scheduled for the fall. Has anyone scheduled outdoor events in October in Northern Ontario? Any adverse weather will dampen the voting.
So you can see. All the government's ballyhooed electoral reform will only hurt Northern Ontario. There will be a referendum on proportional representation in the next election. I hope everyone in Northern Ontario votes against it. But most of these people obviously do not care. Lesser nations have gone to the political battlements on issues far more trifling than these perplexes.
9. All perplexities mix into a bowl and stirred by a perplexitor.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Snowbird Crash
Capt. Shawn McCaughey, 31, of the Snowbirds was flying inverted 300' above and down the runway at Malmstrom AB, Montana yesterday when something in the engine let go and he died in the subsequent crash. He is the sixth pilot of the Snowbirds to pass away in this manner.
The plane apparently was Snowbird number Two. These guys risk their lives in the quest to entertain and promote Canada. They are amongst our best ambassadors internationally. This is a very tragic event.
I just thought that I should express my sadness here over this needless accident by posting this information in this entry. If you have a drink of anything handy, please join me in spirit... to this brave man .... A Toast.
The plane apparently was Snowbird number Two. These guys risk their lives in the quest to entertain and promote Canada. They are amongst our best ambassadors internationally. This is a very tragic event.
I just thought that I should express my sadness here over this needless accident by posting this information in this entry. If you have a drink of anything handy, please join me in spirit... to this brave man .... A Toast.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The Black Quandary
After reading the material about the Conrad Black trial I must say I am ambivalent about the whole affair. One cannot go by the media reports. And I wish not to succumb my brain to the personal agendas of these biased reporters.
If one read only one report from either the Toronto Sun (and Sun Media) or the Toronto Star one gets a rather biased viewpoint. The Black trial fertilized a subtext of political bias or simple bias in every report.
Jennifer Wells (The Star) interpretation of events often varies from the Mary Vallis (Sun Media/Canada.com) interpretation. Yes its the same facts appear the same but did they go to the same trial clearly noticeably when they broach neutrality into the realm of opinion.
One needs to read both to get a sense of how the real trial is moving. At no time does the bias leave the interpretation of events. Understandably Conservative papers such as Sun Media cheer Black's defense. The Liberal papers cheer Black's prosecutors.
In the Star it can be understood that Eddie Greenspan, the primary defense attorney for Conrad Black, simply sucked. While Sun media and the National Post tended make Eddie Greenspan out like the reincarnation of Clarence Darrow. Which is it?
And here is the problem and the irony. It had been Conrad Black's an Radler's efforts to trim costs and extract every dime out of the newspapers operations. They literally led in the layoffs of many good reporters. What was left was a group of reporters very susceptible to political and personal bias. No middle ground appears to exist.
I know for a fact that Conrad Black is not as a hard assed character as he appears in the press. Neither is Barbara Amiel for she suffers from some really biased press. Lets put it this way. Their marriage has stuck together through some very tough times recently. Many a woman would have done the Adios on Black by this time. So to her credit and as corny as it sounds... it is true; she's stuck by her man.
On Victoria Street just north of King Street in Toronto just to the south of the parking lot for 10 Toronto Street, I used to start the day with a breakfast and a coffee. A maintenance person of that building also cleared the snow for 10 Toronto's lot contracted by Lord Black himself. His view of Black private character was quite opposite to that spun out by the media on both sides.
The Conrad Black he knew, the one not doing business, not putting out a public face was a quite friendly down to earth fellow. He is a totally different character out of the lime light of work or politique. This is quite the opposite character portrayal in the media whether friendly or not. It is quite the opposite from the wordy almost arrogant persona he displays in public view.
One must remember that Radler had been his closest friend and confidante outside of the spouse in Black's life. Apart from the morality of the play, in essence Radler appears a traitor not to a nation but to a long friendship. On the trial coverage the Liberal view is that Radler lied, to the Conservative Radler is a liar. This is a subtle but important difference.
The Conservatives brought this on themselves. In the mid 1980s the biggest complaint was that all the media possessed a Liberal bias. Despite that declaration one cannot help but note that conservative governments got elected.
The greatest fear of the Conservative was never the openly Liberal biased reporter. The greatest fear of the Liberal was never the openly Conservative biased reporter. Both sides absolutely detested the neutral reporter who reported only the facts. They are the most dangerous. They can't be co-opted ethically. They report the truth. As a result both sides assailed the 5th estate so that in today's journalism schools bias is okay.
Neutral, politically indifferent reporters have been completely purged from the media. Without that severe neutrality, court reporting emerges as inaccurate. The clash of the courtroom must be reported in a neutral reportage. Bias loses accuracy.
Having reported and written on several trials and commission hearings I can honestly say that what happens in court almost never is successfully reflected in the reportage. Editors almost always want an angle or slant to every article. The only goal of a trial judge is the truth. The goal of the reporter is a good story. A false story is always better a tale than the real factual truth. And any journalists writes in a way to maneuver that story as close as possible to the front page as possible. The story's position headline and prominence is entirely determined by the editor.
In the case of Conrad Black I am trying to understand the course of the trial by reading a variety of sources. I still get no sense of the real Conrad Black, the one that the snow clearing maintenance guy once related. And I tend to trust that guy's evaluations before the evaluations of today's journalist.
Mr. or rather Lord Black did some rather ethically challenging business deals. None of which has been successfully identified as clearly illegal under the law. Under Canadian tax law, the maneuver of non-compete fees is so unique that there is no law yet against that. The prosecutors have lined up the charge sheet with an array of charges clearly the most of which Black is not guilty of. In Canada Black was not even charged with the removal of those storage boxes even though it was either a case of court contempt or adventurous gambit.
Here is the problem with the trial's star witness. Radler fessed up in exchange for a sweetheart sentence. This is acceptable and common practice in today's justice world in the US and in Canada (e.g. Karla Homolka plea bargain). Despite the fact that he plead guilty doesn't mean that the actions the others took was not factually illegal.
The shareholders of the American version of Hollinger accused these executive of seconding the money despite the fact that it was the same shareholders voted for these executive year after year and in every annual meeting before. And this despite the fact that the same shareholders made a lot of money on the sales of the newspapers too. No one lost money or had their pockets picked. The only question is that the shareholders wanted even more money.
Indeed as the information gleaned from the trial indicates that KPMG and the company lawyers in Toronto state that as far as they knew, these non-compete payments were quite okay. According to all the testimonies to date, the payments were legal but all the advisers consistently advised that the payments be kept fairly out of public knowledge.
The audit committee on the Board of Directors passed the reports. If there had been an objection to the payment fees then that should have been the time to bring it forward. While individual members of the Board of Directors may not have individually recalled such disclosures it was incumbent on the directors to also seek out that information if it related to the higher levels of company decisions. In short, they may not have done their jobs.
Over the years I rather think that Black has put himself into a mask that he cannot throw off. One can get the sense that if Black does testify he will suffer the same sort of withering and astute cross examinations by the prosecuting attorneys that Radler endured with the parade of defense attorneys. In every other trial Black was his own worst witness. Unlike the short version of answers demanded of Radler, Black will be encourage to answer in the long form. And it is common knowledge that publicly Black's rhetoric remains rather long and colorful.
Indeed the only question remaining is whether or not Black takes the stand in his own defense. And here is where it is important to actually be in a court room. If you actually sit in the whole proceedings one quickly sees why a trial will course to a conclusion. The question is whether this jury expects to hear from Black. If not. And they want to go home. He then is protected.
If the jury sets its final judgment related to Black's failure to take the stand, then he may lose. If they don't care. Black will likely walk free. If he does testify, to win he must drop his knightly persona and simply be a straight up guy.
If one read only one report from either the Toronto Sun (and Sun Media) or the Toronto Star one gets a rather biased viewpoint. The Black trial fertilized a subtext of political bias or simple bias in every report.
Jennifer Wells (The Star) interpretation of events often varies from the Mary Vallis (Sun Media/Canada.com) interpretation. Yes its the same facts appear the same but did they go to the same trial clearly noticeably when they broach neutrality into the realm of opinion.
One needs to read both to get a sense of how the real trial is moving. At no time does the bias leave the interpretation of events. Understandably Conservative papers such as Sun Media cheer Black's defense. The Liberal papers cheer Black's prosecutors.
In the Star it can be understood that Eddie Greenspan, the primary defense attorney for Conrad Black, simply sucked. While Sun media and the National Post tended make Eddie Greenspan out like the reincarnation of Clarence Darrow. Which is it?
And here is the problem and the irony. It had been Conrad Black's an Radler's efforts to trim costs and extract every dime out of the newspapers operations. They literally led in the layoffs of many good reporters. What was left was a group of reporters very susceptible to political and personal bias. No middle ground appears to exist.
I know for a fact that Conrad Black is not as a hard assed character as he appears in the press. Neither is Barbara Amiel for she suffers from some really biased press. Lets put it this way. Their marriage has stuck together through some very tough times recently. Many a woman would have done the Adios on Black by this time. So to her credit and as corny as it sounds... it is true; she's stuck by her man.
On Victoria Street just north of King Street in Toronto just to the south of the parking lot for 10 Toronto Street, I used to start the day with a breakfast and a coffee. A maintenance person of that building also cleared the snow for 10 Toronto's lot contracted by Lord Black himself. His view of Black private character was quite opposite to that spun out by the media on both sides.
The Conrad Black he knew, the one not doing business, not putting out a public face was a quite friendly down to earth fellow. He is a totally different character out of the lime light of work or politique. This is quite the opposite character portrayal in the media whether friendly or not. It is quite the opposite from the wordy almost arrogant persona he displays in public view.
One must remember that Radler had been his closest friend and confidante outside of the spouse in Black's life. Apart from the morality of the play, in essence Radler appears a traitor not to a nation but to a long friendship. On the trial coverage the Liberal view is that Radler lied, to the Conservative Radler is a liar. This is a subtle but important difference.
The Conservatives brought this on themselves. In the mid 1980s the biggest complaint was that all the media possessed a Liberal bias. Despite that declaration one cannot help but note that conservative governments got elected.
The greatest fear of the Conservative was never the openly Liberal biased reporter. The greatest fear of the Liberal was never the openly Conservative biased reporter. Both sides absolutely detested the neutral reporter who reported only the facts. They are the most dangerous. They can't be co-opted ethically. They report the truth. As a result both sides assailed the 5th estate so that in today's journalism schools bias is okay.
Neutral, politically indifferent reporters have been completely purged from the media. Without that severe neutrality, court reporting emerges as inaccurate. The clash of the courtroom must be reported in a neutral reportage. Bias loses accuracy.
Having reported and written on several trials and commission hearings I can honestly say that what happens in court almost never is successfully reflected in the reportage. Editors almost always want an angle or slant to every article. The only goal of a trial judge is the truth. The goal of the reporter is a good story. A false story is always better a tale than the real factual truth. And any journalists writes in a way to maneuver that story as close as possible to the front page as possible. The story's position headline and prominence is entirely determined by the editor.
In the case of Conrad Black I am trying to understand the course of the trial by reading a variety of sources. I still get no sense of the real Conrad Black, the one that the snow clearing maintenance guy once related. And I tend to trust that guy's evaluations before the evaluations of today's journalist.
Mr. or rather Lord Black did some rather ethically challenging business deals. None of which has been successfully identified as clearly illegal under the law. Under Canadian tax law, the maneuver of non-compete fees is so unique that there is no law yet against that. The prosecutors have lined up the charge sheet with an array of charges clearly the most of which Black is not guilty of. In Canada Black was not even charged with the removal of those storage boxes even though it was either a case of court contempt or adventurous gambit.
Here is the problem with the trial's star witness. Radler fessed up in exchange for a sweetheart sentence. This is acceptable and common practice in today's justice world in the US and in Canada (e.g. Karla Homolka plea bargain). Despite the fact that he plead guilty doesn't mean that the actions the others took was not factually illegal.
The shareholders of the American version of Hollinger accused these executive of seconding the money despite the fact that it was the same shareholders voted for these executive year after year and in every annual meeting before. And this despite the fact that the same shareholders made a lot of money on the sales of the newspapers too. No one lost money or had their pockets picked. The only question is that the shareholders wanted even more money.
Indeed as the information gleaned from the trial indicates that KPMG and the company lawyers in Toronto state that as far as they knew, these non-compete payments were quite okay. According to all the testimonies to date, the payments were legal but all the advisers consistently advised that the payments be kept fairly out of public knowledge.
The audit committee on the Board of Directors passed the reports. If there had been an objection to the payment fees then that should have been the time to bring it forward. While individual members of the Board of Directors may not have individually recalled such disclosures it was incumbent on the directors to also seek out that information if it related to the higher levels of company decisions. In short, they may not have done their jobs.
Over the years I rather think that Black has put himself into a mask that he cannot throw off. One can get the sense that if Black does testify he will suffer the same sort of withering and astute cross examinations by the prosecuting attorneys that Radler endured with the parade of defense attorneys. In every other trial Black was his own worst witness. Unlike the short version of answers demanded of Radler, Black will be encourage to answer in the long form. And it is common knowledge that publicly Black's rhetoric remains rather long and colorful.
Indeed the only question remaining is whether or not Black takes the stand in his own defense. And here is where it is important to actually be in a court room. If you actually sit in the whole proceedings one quickly sees why a trial will course to a conclusion. The question is whether this jury expects to hear from Black. If not. And they want to go home. He then is protected.
If the jury sets its final judgment related to Black's failure to take the stand, then he may lose. If they don't care. Black will likely walk free. If he does testify, to win he must drop his knightly persona and simply be a straight up guy.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Democracy hypocrisy
What doesn't add up here? A poor woman in the Caribou-Chilicotin of British Columbia suffered a fatal blow from the strike of a tiger's paw recently. Authorities felt that it was necessary to euthanize the tiger despite the fact that the tiger was only doing what tigers do.
The entire media went into a frenzy. Politicians at every level promised swift and decisive action to regulate exotic animals. Too the ramparts for everyone in Canada is at threat from a rampage of Tigers.
Now lets stand back a minute. Lets stand way back. And take a look at the sheer quantity of hypocrisy swirling around this little pool.
When younger I hiked and hunted alone in very hazardous wilderness. Rest assured, with little thinking about this extremely likely event; had I seen any moving creature with orange and black stripes prowling in vegetation yonder; and despite the ever longing for anything pussy; and without regard to the pertinent legalities of discharging a weapon, I will shoot the sucker. Tigers are dangerous people.
Not only do I know this. But apparently everyone else on this planet but this poor woman knew it too. Even the legal owner of the Tiger knew that these animals were dangerous. Unlike dogs Tigers are not group animals.
The media must be cited for demonstrating again just how low they have descended too since the ultra conservatives have gained controlling interest in these businesses. Such ownership spreads its attitudes to management because they pick people to manage newspapers who best mimic them. Yes most news editors are arrogant buffoons.
Why is this? First if the victim was a male. Nobody would make a fuss. The idiot victim moved too close to the Tiger with children witnessing the event which was first described as a mauling. Well yes a lot of life lessons are best taught with real life experiences swathed in trauma. You'll bet none of those kids will get too close to any animal from now on.
Then as the articles were revised all this further information emerged. First there was no mauling, it was a single paw strike which even the household cat does when something gets annoying. Initially the media got it wrong.
Now the political weirdness begins. All this fuss. All these new laws to protect Canadian society from Tigers. They claim to hold life precious. This is only one person. Just how many people on average get killed by Tigers in Canada. I didn't know it was such an epidemic.
These are the same governments that license and tax cigarettes and participating in the annual deaths of thousands. These are the same governments that sell or license the sale of alcohol to its citizens which directly causes the early deaths of thousands. Tens of thousands of people die either directly or indirectly due to the avarice greed of government. Now these hypocrites get in a righteous moral snit over a single unfortunate death.
****30*****
The entire media went into a frenzy. Politicians at every level promised swift and decisive action to regulate exotic animals. Too the ramparts for everyone in Canada is at threat from a rampage of Tigers.
Now lets stand back a minute. Lets stand way back. And take a look at the sheer quantity of hypocrisy swirling around this little pool.
When younger I hiked and hunted alone in very hazardous wilderness. Rest assured, with little thinking about this extremely likely event; had I seen any moving creature with orange and black stripes prowling in vegetation yonder; and despite the ever longing for anything pussy; and without regard to the pertinent legalities of discharging a weapon, I will shoot the sucker. Tigers are dangerous people.
Not only do I know this. But apparently everyone else on this planet but this poor woman knew it too. Even the legal owner of the Tiger knew that these animals were dangerous. Unlike dogs Tigers are not group animals.
The media must be cited for demonstrating again just how low they have descended too since the ultra conservatives have gained controlling interest in these businesses. Such ownership spreads its attitudes to management because they pick people to manage newspapers who best mimic them. Yes most news editors are arrogant buffoons.
Why is this? First if the victim was a male. Nobody would make a fuss. The idiot victim moved too close to the Tiger with children witnessing the event which was first described as a mauling. Well yes a lot of life lessons are best taught with real life experiences swathed in trauma. You'll bet none of those kids will get too close to any animal from now on.
Then as the articles were revised all this further information emerged. First there was no mauling, it was a single paw strike which even the household cat does when something gets annoying. Initially the media got it wrong.
Now the political weirdness begins. All this fuss. All these new laws to protect Canadian society from Tigers. They claim to hold life precious. This is only one person. Just how many people on average get killed by Tigers in Canada. I didn't know it was such an epidemic.
These are the same governments that license and tax cigarettes and participating in the annual deaths of thousands. These are the same governments that sell or license the sale of alcohol to its citizens which directly causes the early deaths of thousands. Tens of thousands of people die either directly or indirectly due to the avarice greed of government. Now these hypocrites get in a righteous moral snit over a single unfortunate death.
****30*****
Monday, May 14, 2007
Comments on comments... number two
Oh the ongoing discussion. One suggestion from a commenter has been that there be more graphics. Well nothing more I would like than to provide graphics.
Now you see I got to deal with this so that everyone must understand and put behind this. Its also the same people who also take me on about copyright. Its also the same people who have unlimited access to the internet. Also one must understand that the other blog, the one that got destroyed by the evil empire possessed a lot of graphics.
Here's why.
1. Connection. I do not have a permanent connection to the internet. I must rely on free or low cost internet.
2. Time. Looking for graphics takes time. When I had the 360 Yahoo site it had graphics but creating, browsing, searching, finding, selecting and uploading those graphics takes time. For every word I write it takes three hundred words per hour on average, edited. However every graphic at 360 took on average about another hour. So in my case its definitely a time consideration.
3. Cost. I survive on eighty dollars per month. Thats for everything from tea to bumwad and food. Every blog costs me a dollar guaranteed if I go to the cheapest internet cafe. Thats not charging for time in writing. People forget that I was once paid for my writing. Blogs get no income. When I had 360 there was more money available.... Yes I do get free access to internet but thats for only 16 times a month.
4. Copyrights. The laws governing graphic copyright regulation is far more legally tenuous than the written word. You can plagiarize a plot line as long as you change the words. Every writer from Shakespeare on knows that. In written copy there there is a legal right exemption in Canada and other Commonwealth but not the greedy USA copyright regulation, to educate students especially on news based common knowledge based news items.
However in graphics that exemption really doesn't exist. And it is so hard to morph an image away from copyright law interpretation that one might as well create an original image. Copyright regulation covering photo, art or logo regulation is far more onerous than printed or written copyright regulation.
Creating an image requires money, equipment and time. None of which I have at the moment. Writing a blog is more recreation.
So I am sorry. I don't have the resources to create or upload the fancy stuff. This can be called - Blog Raw.
Now you see I got to deal with this so that everyone must understand and put behind this. Its also the same people who also take me on about copyright. Its also the same people who have unlimited access to the internet. Also one must understand that the other blog, the one that got destroyed by the evil empire possessed a lot of graphics.
Here's why.
1. Connection. I do not have a permanent connection to the internet. I must rely on free or low cost internet.
2. Time. Looking for graphics takes time. When I had the 360 Yahoo site it had graphics but creating, browsing, searching, finding, selecting and uploading those graphics takes time. For every word I write it takes three hundred words per hour on average, edited. However every graphic at 360 took on average about another hour. So in my case its definitely a time consideration.
3. Cost. I survive on eighty dollars per month. Thats for everything from tea to bumwad and food. Every blog costs me a dollar guaranteed if I go to the cheapest internet cafe. Thats not charging for time in writing. People forget that I was once paid for my writing. Blogs get no income. When I had 360 there was more money available.... Yes I do get free access to internet but thats for only 16 times a month.
4. Copyrights. The laws governing graphic copyright regulation is far more legally tenuous than the written word. You can plagiarize a plot line as long as you change the words. Every writer from Shakespeare on knows that. In written copy there there is a legal right exemption in Canada and other Commonwealth but not the greedy USA copyright regulation, to educate students especially on news based common knowledge based news items.
However in graphics that exemption really doesn't exist. And it is so hard to morph an image away from copyright law interpretation that one might as well create an original image. Copyright regulation covering photo, art or logo regulation is far more onerous than printed or written copyright regulation.
Creating an image requires money, equipment and time. None of which I have at the moment. Writing a blog is more recreation.
So I am sorry. I don't have the resources to create or upload the fancy stuff. This can be called - Blog Raw.
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