Sunday, February 26, 2017

Bad Bank Records

Article = None , personal experience


Feb 27, 2017
PRLOBLAWS ELMVALE$5.24
$30.56
Feb 27, 2017PRLOBLAWS ELMVALE$4.09
$26.47
Feb 27, 2017PRLOBLAWS ELMVALE$0.38
$26.09


Exerpt from my bank records
Notice the Date / Feb 27th ?
Notice todays date, or the date of this post is Feb 26th ?
Yeah ...it doesn't like sundays, it pushed it back to tomorrow.
Does that on holidays as well.
Not very accurate ?

And they use this stuff in court cases ? Sheesh !

EDIT : Yes, I really did make a 38 cent purchase. Gotta love unlimited transactions no extra charges. 


Saturday, February 25, 2017

It's About Time : New York Times, CNN, BBC among media outlets barred

New York Times, CNN, BBC among media outlets barred from White House briefing

 

Journalists from the New York Times, CNN, the BBC and other media outlets say they were denied entry to a White House press briefing Friday.
Other outlets affected included the Los Angeles Times, Politico and BuzzFeed News.
The reporters were barred from the briefing in the office of White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

 ---- --- ----

It's about time. 

Once upon a time a long time ago there were these news papers , small organizations, that reported a little news, caught a few politicians and movers and shakers doing nasty things, and it was decided, half by them , and half by the other politico's , that they would become part of the "democratic process". A foundation of democracy. 

But things changed, and the news papers grew into massive chains of news papers that controlled the news in half the nation. They became the very movers and shakers they were supposed to be watching. They bought and sold politicians, they openly supported one particular political party over another, they made no beef as to which corperations (albeit , newspaper corperations) were their friends, and which were their enemies. They "decided" when news stories would run  , and when it was time to stop (the princess diannia assassination story, the newsies mutually agreed they'd had enough of the public blaming them ) . 

They no longer are a "pillar of democracy" as they like to call themselves. And it's about time this was recognized. 


Someone needs to send them back to where they started. They need to be broken up into smaller papers again , and a size limitation imposed on them. Say , a million subscribers and no more, kind of thing. 


They have lost their way, and their job is too important to go undone. 


and that's my two cents.

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Alternate Hell Dimension

I swear , we must have slipped into some kind of alternate hell dimension somewhere ... and we need to get back home. But I can't tell which home is which ?




Saturday, February 18, 2017

Google adds voice-activated shopping, taking on Amazon

Article

Google announced Thursday it was launching voice-activated shopping from its artificial intelligence-powered Home speaker, in a direct challenge to Amazon's Alexa devices.
Users can simply tell the speaker to order items -- diapers, paper towels, or trash bags, for example, and get delivery from any of dozens of participating retailers.
"If picking up paper towels or stocking up on coffee is on your list, consider it done," said Google Assistant product manager David Wang in a statement.

Allow me to educate you as to the five scariest words your child could learn if you have Google voice activated shopping. 

"Google, buy me an iPhone"
 

RCMP bracing for more border crossers amid community concerns

 Emerson resident Tim Hoffman says he does not pay much attention to "the commotion" of asylum seekers crossing the border into his town.  

But he wants it to stop.
Looking at refugee claimants making the dangerous journey, through snow drifts and frigid temperatures, Hoffman says he would actually like to see stricter vetting of the potential refugees — perhaps in the same vein of U.S. President Donald Trump's measures on refugees and immigration south of the border.

 --- --- ---

 

 America is a land of easy access to guns.

First immigrant to cross the border and shoot someone , that border is going to slam shut, guarenteed. 

First immigrant to be caught smuggling guns or drugs, same thing. 

Temporary phenomenon at best. 


 

Sunday, February 05, 2017

How to make NAFTA Horrible

How to Make NAFTA Great Again


Mexico enjoys a trade surplus through NAFTA and exports significantly more goods and services to the U.S. than it receives. That must change says Trump.
But the opposite is true for Canada.
In 2015, with two-way trade between Canada and the U.S. valued at $662 billion, the U.S. had a healthy trade surplus of more than $6 billion.
Almost two million American jobs are supported by exports to Canada.


 ==== ==== ====

So , if some other nation has a surplus , that's bad for us. But if we have a surplus it's good ? 
And USA has a surplus from trading with us ? (I admit 6 billion out of 662 billion is like 1% , but still a surplus is a surplus)

And two million american jobs are "supported" by exports to canada, whatever the heck "supported" means. 

I know this article doesn't mean to say it , but it is stating that we'd be better off if NAFTA died. Since we're losing 6 billion a year to the united states, we'd be 6 billion dollars richer if it died, by his own figures. And 2 million "supported" jobs come to canada, which I have no idea translates into how many real actual jobs, but it sounds like a lot. 

It wasn't his intention to say "We'd be better off if NAFTA died" , but it is what his reasoning adds up to. 

I wonder if he realizes that. 

But Canada should not start the discussion with talk of greenhouse gas emissions, carbon taxes or climate change. This would not be helpful to our long-term relationship with the U.S., given the current administration.


And the only thing that matters, the land we live on still being here in the future, we shouldn't talk about that at all , oh noes !!!!!

Typical accountant logic. 

Run the numbers through a spread sheet, these are the results. Never mind that the results say we should let everyone on welfare starve to death and cancel national healthcare, because that just costs too much , and cancel old age pensions and let them all starve to death , these are the numbers ! 

This kind of nonsense just highlights the difference between intelligence (the ability to run numbers) and wisdom . And that difference is huge. 


Saturday, February 04, 2017

Trump wishes to renegotiate NAFTA

So Trump wants to renegotiate NAFTA ?

Well, what is NAFTA anyways ?

NAFTA is a trade agreement. Basically , you can sell your products in another country. Ok , right ?
Wrong.  Business men look at the numbers. They will produce where the costs are lowest (like wages) and go there. They will play one nation off against another to drive down costs, like wages, and outlaw minimum wages , under threat of going elsewhere if you don't comply.

And if you do comply, usually it's a disaster for the hosting nation. Suddenly everyone's living in rooming houses, or there's four people in a two bedroom apartment because that's the only way you can afford the rent.

Add to this the up and coming 3D printers, where by manufacturing is going to come back to the western nations, in the form of robots making stuff, instead of human hands. In other words, no jobs for the common people, just a small handful of jobs for the technicians maintaining the machines.

NAFTA is a bunch of business men bribing the government (excuse me, making legitimate, perfectly legal political donations) to give them a good deal and crud over the rest of the population , and of course, any businesses too stupid to make similar bribes to the government. And our standard of living drops through the floor and into the sewer.

Add to this Mexico was added to NAFTA  , and that's a dollar a day country , and all the jobs that could be relocated to Mexico have been. Which means jobs for canadians suddenly became scarce, and only the low paying ones remained.

So . Trump wants to renegotiate NAFTA ?

I think we should take a hard line with Trump and get him to break NAFTA. This way we get out of it without paying any penalties.

I think NAFTA , and similar trade agreements, are an evil thing, and in the coming age of 3D printers , no one is going to be shipping any product across any borders. We're all going to wind up with a big work shelf full of several 3D printers in a closet somewhere , one for making stuff out of plastic one for metal  , one for electrical stuff (fans, clocks, etc ) one for computer stuff (cell phones, computer devices) . And we'll only buy the big stuff that lasts forever (a full blown computer that lasts for many years, furnature that lasts for 20 years, fridge stove etc) .

Manufacturing is already on life support, and soon it will vanish. Trade agreements are todays chimney sweeps. They are no longer needed.

The age of Uncle Owen's Farm (warning : Star wars reference) is soon to be upon us. We will maintain the machines , and the machines will do all the work.