Retailers may face restrictions on buying lottery tickets

Article


Ontario lottery retailers may soon be prevented from buying and cashing personal tickets in their own stores.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation tried to impose such rule in August, but retailers fought it and the OLG backed off.

Chris Wilcox of the Ontario Convenience Stores Association warns retailers will fight any move to prohibit them from buying or redeeming personal tickets in their stores.


Now why would you care about such a resstriction ? You can just go down the street and buy a ticket from your neibours store ?
I'll tell you why.
Because only in your own store can you take the lottery tickets into the back room and work on them for hours at a time , with no one watching , with any x ray machine or other gizmo your engineer son from university just whipped up.
And that's a very special thing not to be given up on lightly.

CORRUPTION CORRUPTION !

How does it feel , as a customer , to know that the owner of the store you're buying tickets from has already rifled through them with an x-ray machine to give himself first shot at any of those winning scratch and win tickets ?


Proposals for such a rule followed reports that retailers were cashing in winning lottery tickets at a rate far higher than the general public.

Canadian War Protesters

Protesters march against Canada's mission in Afghanistan


In Ottawa, about 100 determined protesters met at the National Gallery of Canada in the early afternoon -part of a collective group of protests - which Canadian Peace Alliance organizers were calling the Pan-Canadian Day of Action Against War in Afghanistan.


Metro Ottawa has a million people , and you could only raise 100 to protest the war? Hang your head in shame !


"War is not the answer," Batsch said. "You don't fight to create peace."


And what is the answer ? Let them grow poppy and sell it to our children ? Let them conquer the world ? These are the people that believe it's their god given right to kidnap people off the street , torture them into converting to Islam , and if they don't believe you're sincere, it's ok to murder you.

Or shall we fall back on the the tired old "The government should do something. I don't know what , but not this. Something ! " Something magical...wave a magic wand or something , yeah , thats the ticket !


His daughter Jamie said the war had gone on far too long and the federal government was not paying attention to the voice of its people.

"They shouldn't be making decisions that not everyone agrees with," she said.


Yeah. We need 100% agreement to do anything ! every last person in canada must agree to the latest tax increase or it shouldn't happen !

Don't think that will work.


"When I think about the lives lost, the devastation and the millions of dollars wasted, I get really angry," said Collette Lemieux, co-chair of the Canadian Peace Alliance, to more than 50 people gathered in downtown Calgary.


Wow. I sent my son off to war .. and he got hurt ! I don't think we should do that anymore. Let the muslims conquer the world , I don't want my son hurt anymore ! Whats that you say ? They conquered the world and now they want my son to be a suicide bomber because one muslim faction hates another ?

lol !

Sympatico : Reloaded

Received the most interesting letter in the mail today (Canada Post, not email)

INSTANT REGISTRATION NOTICE FROM DELL

This notice is to confirm that Dell has signed you up for Bell's Total Internet Service
"The Service" BECAUSE YOU PURCHASED A DELL SYSTEM YOU WILL RECEIVE THREE MONTHS OF THE SERVICE AT NO COST! As you agreed to over the phone ...


I agreed to nothing. I told the dell rep I didn't want it , already had a provider and was very happy with it.


... in order for Dell to register you for the service , you consented to ...



I consented to jack squat. I said I didn't want it. The operater said "Then when they call just decline" and they never called, they just fired a modem off at me and told me congradulations your service is active !


Dell transfering your name , phone number, address , and pre-authorized payment or credit card number to Bell. As was explained to you , your credit card or pre-authorized payment information is required because you will be automatically charged following your first three months.

You should receive a package by bell ...


Yadda yadda yadda.

You handed them all my personal information despite me saying "No , I don't want it" , including my credit card number ? Is that even legal ?

These people are scoundrals. Absolute scoundrals. I despise them , Dell and Bell. I will never buy another product from either of them ever again.


d

Despite improvements, nurse shortage still predicted, numbers show

Article

Why are we short on nurses ? Why have I been living in this country for my whole life, more than thirty years (a lot more , I don't want to give away my age) and I've been hearing about the nursing shortage the whole time ?

Because Nurses Cost Money !

It's a simple equation. Nurses do not bring money into a hospitle. They cost it money. There were these nurses aides that used to help nurses with their chores, but they got cut too. Why ? They cost money.

What brings money into a hospital ?
Not much. The government doles out a flat some and tells them "don't spend it all in one place !" and thats pretty much it.

Doctors are worse.
You wanna know why there are only 250 new doctors per year permitted to join the medical ranks in ontario , and why thats not gonna change ? I'll give you a hint. It's not because of their 100 000 $/year salary.

It's because doctors put people in hospitals. And that costs money. Lots of money. When you have to wait six hours to see a doctor , you give up and go home , or don't go at all , a lot of the time. If the wait time were to be cut to three hours say ... guess what ? Twice as many people would wind up in the hospital ! And we don't have that much bed space ! Heck , we don't have the bed space for the doctors we do have !

And of course Doctors write perscriptions.
And if you just got sick , you're probably suddenly out of work , and that means the government's paying for your perscription.

And you thought doctors were costing you money before the perscription game ?

The doctor shortage / nurse shortage , etc , isn't really a staff shortage. It's a money shortage. Big time money, not just the salary of a few extra workers, we're talking building new hospitals and paying vast amounts in perscription drugs. The actual salary of these people is microscopic compared to that.

Free medical has it's drawbacks , it seems.
It's much better than what we had before (that would be the "no money , no doctor" system) but it isn't problem free.

Best you can do is set up a team to look for cost savings I guess. Maybe manufacture your own generic drugs that are commonly used that the copyrights have run out on, things like that.

Store owner sweeps up big lotto winnings off ticket from his own business

Article


WINNIPEG - Many store owners dream of making a lot of money with their business.

Blair Knutson did it the unconventional way - he bought a Lotto 6-49 ticket from the grocery store he owns in Gimli, Man.


CORRUPTION !!!

Oh honest we checked his story and double checked it and made sure he wasn't looting the customers tickets looking for a winner and swapping it for his own losing ticket ... honest I don't have an x-ray machine in the back and I'm scanning every ticket that passes through the store waiting for the big strike and foisting the losing tickets off on those suckers ..I mean customers ...


CORRUPTION !!!

Millions of dollars at stake here.

You can't honestly be the owner of a Casino , say , and then sit down at the table for a couple of hands of black jack. It's not illegal , but it rings every alarm bell of corruption there is. It should be illegal.

This is just bogus, and why I don't play the lottery ,and why no one should.

War Unto Bankruptcy

Article = none , personal opinion

What happenned to "lets make a good product at a good price " ? When did we lose sight of that , and the emphasis of business shifted to "kill the competition , then when we're a monopoly triple our prices"

I ask because of a recent event at my work. I take calls for a cell phone company , and we have an ... interesting policy. If a person is a bad credit risk , or they're obnoxious and call a lot and are always asking for insane things , we are to gently edge them out the door and foist them off on our compitition. Other customers we bend over backwards to keep.

The idea is that you stick the competition with the bad customers while you keep the good ones, thus poisoning the well and , well , sinking them.

The more interesting point is that I've seen this policy twice now. Once for internet , where I used to work , now for cell phones. It seems to be an industry wide tactic.

Personally , I think these guys are idiots, and there really arn't very many bad customers. There are instead "deceived" customers that you tricked into your business but really didn't want it , never used it , couldn't afford it ,e tc etc.

This is a text message I received on my phone. Keep in mind I never sent a message to these people and have no idea who they are.

"Got your iPhone ! Bought and paid for ...$700 in your hands...should be here by end of week or early next week at the latest !"

Obviously the idea is I reply to the text message and ask what the heck are you babbling about , and then I get stuck with a fast talking salesman trying to sell me a 700$ iPhone.

When did deciete and trickery become standard sales tactics ? No wonder you have "bad customers" if this is how they became your customer in the first place.

I had a job long long a go , phoneing people up and trying to sell them carpet cleaning. I only had it for four hours and then I quit, but it was very interesting. There was a script they put in front of you, on it it had all the usual responses a customer might give when turning you down , and how you would answer them.As far as the script went , the customer would have to be an unreasonable and stupid idiot to turn down your offer, that part came across pretty clearly even if it wasn't explicitly stated. And if you fell for it , even if you didn't need it , it was considered your fault for being stupid enough to fall for our sales tricks.

Sympatico still takes the cake if you ask me , for just firing off a cable modem at you and then when you ask "what the heck is this ?" you get a salesman on the line and a big long fight.

These people are prepared for you , they have all their tricks lined up, all their lies ready to go, and lots of practice dealing with "difficult sales".

It seems the day of producing an honest product at an honest price are over. Now it's how much can I rip you for.

Bin Laden calls for jihad in Arabia and Sudan: Web

Article




It is the duty of Muslims in Sudan and ... the Arabian Peninsula to wage jihad (holy war) against the crusader invaders," said the speaker, who sounded like the al Qaeda leader.


First , I give this article Kudo's for brevity. Two paragraphs, staight to the point, no political distortion. This guy did this thing , thank you and good nite.

Second , I give Osama himself Kudo's for helping in the war on terrorism.

Have you ever played any kind of military simulations on the computer ? Don't you know that you attack your enemies one by one , with overwhelming force. You don't start a war on five fronts and demand your troops go wild and kill everyone ! This would be how you lose wars.

Oops..you're the enemey commander. We want you to lose this war. Please, keep right on going the way you're going. :)

Status of the war on Terrorism: Lots of attacks inside the middle east. Maybe one attack ,more often useless than not , ever six months, IN ALL OF THE WESTERN NATIONS. Someone on our side of the fence is definately doing his job properly. I have no idea who it is, but I defniately give him kudo's too.

As for the Liberals who want to pull our troops out of afghanistan and thus let the druggies, I mean terrorists , continue to finance their terrorism with the poppy seed unhindered, you I give the Golden Rassberry award. BLLLTTTT ! I hope you rot in hell cause if you ahve your way those terrorists will be hitting right here at home instead of the other side of the world.

Add the Sidewinder Gaming Mouse to your gaming arsenal

Article



In designing its new Sidewinder Gaming Mouse, we imagine Microsoft's product designers going over the features of the Logitech G5 and the Razer DeathAdder and asking "what else can we cram in there?" For a suggested price of $80, the Sidewinder delivers all of the complexity hardcore gamers demand in their mice, plus it goes a few steps farther.


Wow. Microsoft is putting out a mouse for windows.
You know what that means don't you ?
It means soon there will be an update, and the drivers for this mouse will be part of the operating system. You'll just plug it in and this 80$ 10 button gamers delight of a mouse will simply work !

It means other people's mice that they sell that worked fine before the update, now will suddenly stop working , or start being really really glitchy.

It means when you phone microsoft to ask how come your mouse that worked fine for literally years suddenly doesn't work anymore after that last patch , you'll get told "It's not microsoft certified. Contact the manufacturer , and that will be 75$ on your credit card , thanks for giving the credit card number in advance before we let you talk to a live human being. "

It means other mice manufacturers will be run out of business fairly shortly, and microsoft mice will rule the world !

Either that or the trend to switch to Linux will grow slightly stronger and stronger.

How to kill a free version of Linux

Article


On October 4, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told a group attending a presentation in London that Red Hat customers are using Microsoft's intellectually property without permission and suggested they should be required to compensate Microsoft accordingly. O


Step 1 : Buy Red Hat Linux

Step 2 : Now that you control the programmers, "accidently" include some proprietory microsoft code

step 3 : decide you're not going to sue red hat , you're going to sue the red hat user base.

Step 4: Watch as everyone abandon's red hat real quick.

Step 5: Find another annoying version of Linux that you don't like , repeat as required.

Sympatico : The Continuing Saga

A year ago I bought a Dell computer. I've been a pretty good customer, always had money in the bank when they took their 30$ / month , stuff like that.

They phoned me up the other day , informed me Bell Sympatico was going to call and try and be my internet provider , since an icon for it had been on my desktop on the computer.

I said ok and the call ended.

Then I wondered, why is bell calling me ? Did Dell sell my info to them despite promising only to share it with their own internal agents (And affilliates , and ..a few other things ...which probably amounts to any bum walking down the street with a few coins in his pocket and an interest in my affairs).

I had this big speach about privacy ready to go , and was waiting for Sympatico to call.

Today , they didn't call. Instead the postal delivery man buzzed me from down below to inform me I had a package from Sympatico. Went down , and what do we find ? A Sympatico cable modem , for getting you online. No , they hadn't warned me it was coming or anything.

But yes, my wife had a bell telephone in her name , and they'd pulled this stunt once before. It seems they're firing these modems off without warning to people at random.

I informed the postie I didn't want it , wasn't touching it, and refused to sign for anything. Last I saw of it he was examining the box , probably looking for a return address.

I'm now preparing another speach about underhanded marketting tactics and why I hate dealing with such companies, in case they decide to stick the thing on my cell bill or make some kind of combined bill or something.

Still waiting ... still wondering what's next.

(edit)

Waiting for people to call is a very stressful thing , and I have enough stress in my life. I phoned bell / sympatico and informed them I'd never asked for the service and had refused delivery of the modem. They "say" they cancelled the account (they'd tacked it onto my wife's phone line , ha ha , man she would have been pissed despite her being the one telling me not to phone them) and apologized, and hey , no modem in hand , not much they can do.

I'm still dissapointed I didn't get to use either of my speaches on them.

:(

Taliban: 'We will not negotiate'

The Taliban will never negotiate with the Afghan government in the presence of foreign forces," Ahmadi told The Associated Press. "Even if Karzai gives up his presidency, it's not possible that Mullah Omar would agree to negotiations."


You have to understand. We , the Sacrifical Priests of Islam (call us Iman's, please) enjoy wealth and power beyond anything you westerner's can possibly immagine. We literally have the power of life and death over our followers , and if any of them give us any lip at all , we draft them into the war in afghanistan which is doing an excellent job of getting them all killed off.

And if we can't get at them , we point a gun at their little boy or girl , and tell him to put on an explosive vest and go talk to that american soldier over there.

You do understand , We've been doing this for ages. Ill trained militia with only one gun and a few bullets for every three soldiers, sending them in mass attacks against hardenned positions of our enemies ? The milita of course are loaded with people who we think will cause us trouble , and this is a good way to get them all killed off.

It's the same deal here.
We're getting what we want.
You're killing off our own internal undesirables and dissidents.
Why in the name of Allah the Merciless would we want to stop murdering our own people now ? It's been a great thrill ride so far.

We have the largest drug producing place in the world. It's only a province, but it produces more poppy seed, which gets turned into Heroine ,than any nation in the world. Do you have any concept how filthy stinking rich we are while those stupid Martyr's and True Believers do all the dying for us ?

Fight on. And never surrender ! And throw another basket full of hundred dollar bills on the fire to keep us warm it's getting a little chilly out there.

:)

ory says MPPs will get free vote on faith-based funding

Article


Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory tried to assuage embittered party faithful and win back Ontario voters Monday as he promised caucus members a free vote on his controversial proposal to extend public funding to the province's private religious schools.



So what was it the conservitive leader said that started this "The thing I like about public school is that they're public"

Well, I went to public school for all my youth. My major memories were of bullies beating me up , because I was a smart ass, because I sometimes actually bothered to study , because I made them feel bad because I passed my courses, and they didn't so they were going to beat me up.

Actually , they did me a favor. Because I was so unpopular , the drug dealers who hung around on that one block walk from school to the bus stop never bothered me. I knew they were there , and I knew what they were about, but we had little to do with each other. They were "networking" and they wanted the popular students recruited so they could turn them around into sales men, and some little runt of a brainiac that everyone hated just wasn't any use to them.

so despite living through the 70's and 80's in a public school system rife with druggies, I never smoked a joint or popped a pill the whole time.

I keep hearing from friends and family. The public school system hasn't changed much. The school kids still punish you severely for actually bothering to study, and the druggies still consider it their personal hunting grounds.

It's time to face facts.
Point Blank : The public school system has failed. And it failed a long time ago. No one who has a choice in the matter wants to send their kids to school, because of the drug problem. A problem that has been around since my day , which makes it 30+ years , and hasn't gotten a witt better.

It's time to try out a more diversified system.
In the states they give a certain amount of money per child for education , and that money follows the kid to whatever school he goes to. Such a system would provide too many targets , each too small , for the drug dealers, and would get rid of the problem of bullies who punish you for actually studying while in school, since with a high teacher to student ratio those bullies can't make a move without every teacher knowing whats going on and giving him the boot.

Television is an evil thing you know.
Through out my child hood I lived in ottawa , and I spent more time watching TV than doing home work. Two years though , I lived in the country. No TV out there. Just a radio and not much to do but be bored. My marks went from 60ish % to 90% , just because there wasn't any TV to watch.

TV is an evil thing.
So are public schools , at least in the cities ( the one in the country I was at best luke warm on at the time , but from a parental perspective It would be considered a joy to send your kid there)

Go for the private stuff. The city public schools should be considered nothing but a plague ridden drug fest best avoided.

I know, most politicians would deny it if they read this article, probably point out to various mediocre and meaningless successes the public schools have had. But no one would beleive them. Why ? Because the vast majority of the public who grew up in Canada actually went to the public schools, And so the schools are a victem of their own lack of success. Every canadian graduate knows the true situation , and the politico's arn't doing much but making themselves look like idiots for denying it.

Stupid Linux Hype

Why the Unbundling Windows Sceptics are Wrong


n doing so, the Globalisation Institute draws a distinction between open, free markets, which exist for computer hardware and demonstrate phenomenal innovation and price performance, and laissez-faire markets, dominated by the corporate equivalent of Somali warlords – specifically, operating system platforms.

In response, others have replied with reasons they believe would prevent such an approach from succeeding.

The following are the key arguments they introduce against the unbundling of Microsoft Windows from consumer PCs, along with an explanation as to why these arguments from the 'unbundling sceptics' are invalid:


.
.
.

The usability and technology world doesn't revolve around Walt Mossberg. Mossberg may have indicated that desktop Linux isn't for the average user, but it's also possible to find many pundits who will say that desktop Windows isn't for the average user either; that doesn't stop most PC makers from bundling Windows with their PCs.

In the end, it's all about what you're used to. Mossberg is used to Windows, so it seems more 'normal' to him. In time, people will, due to the increased uptake of Linux bought about by a liberated market, also find that it too is 'normal'.



I have linux. 7 full reformats to get it installed properly. The world may not revolve around Mossberg, but Linux still needs work.


It would also add complexity for end users, counter to The Institute's claims. People buy operating systems pre-installed with bunch of different applications beyond what comes with the operating system. Office productivity apps, security apps, you name it. An uninstalled OS would force users to find and download or buy those apps. That's an added and inconvenient step that would cost hours.


More than hours. Most of the linux apps are crap. And the Linux office suite isn't ready for the big time yet , not as of Ubuntu 6.10 , though it's been a while since I tested it.

Long and short of it :

Windows is a pirate, and they're ripping you off good.
Most of the alternatives (Apple OS2 , etc) are in fact just as bad. Either they lack the vast selection of windows software, or they make you pay through the nose now that you're stuck with their os.

Linux offers the promise of getting out of this trap. But it is just a promise so far, it has not yet bloomed into the full flower of how great it could be.

And articles like this that make promises that Linux cannot keep , do nothing but stunt the growth of that flower. Linux is getting there, but it isn't ready for main stream yet. And thats the state of the Linux situation at this moment.

U.N. condemns deadly Darfur attack

Article


United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed outrage after rebels killed at least 10 African Union soldiers in an unprecented attack on a peacekeeping base in the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur.


Someone should do something about this !

Someone else, not us, police troops are way to expensive and we don't feel like getting into a gurilla war with some rebels right now. Maybe the USA could do someting ? Nope, they're busy right now.

Ok, we'll just pull out all our troops and forget about the place. Just like Canada did. Because, lets face it, if we're not prepared to go to war, if we're not prepared to defend our own troops, then we have no business putting them there in the first place. We're out of here !

I've said it before , and I'll say it again.
The UN is a joke.
It wants the USA to pay for everything (voted themselves a pay raise they did , at US expense) and it want's the USA to do everything, provide all troops for every issue in the world.

No wonder the rebels are happy to kill off a few UN peace keepers, they know they'll get away with it. They know the result will not be a war, it will be the peace keepers leaving them to do their racial cleansing in peace.

The UN is a toothless tiger , used by the USA to cloak it's own political agenda as "world opinion" -- see ? Half the nations in the world are with us on this one ! -- and simply abandoning any other issue that doesn't make their political horizon to a bunch of time wasting thumb twiddlers that refuse to make a move on their own without "the big man of the neibourhood" helping them out.

If the member nations of the UN don't actually get off their collective butt's and do something.... well...I guess we get to continue laughing at them.

And the rebels get to continue killing their troops in perfect saftey , knowing there will never be any repercussions for their actions, except of course, for the UN Troops running away in terror.

Terrorism charges reinstated against Khadr

Article


Khadr was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 and imprisoned in Guantanamo. He was accused of throwing a grenade that killed American medic Sgt. First Class Christopher J. Speer.

Human rights groups argue that the Guantanamo military courts are illegal because they do not offer the same protections as U.S. courts.


Goodness !

Apparently "Human Rights Groups" = Terrorist Puppets.

their opinion seems to be "Let the terrorists shoot you , dont' shoot back. Let the Terrorists kill you , then let them go free and pat them on the back in a friendly manner"

They don't discuss such concepts as Self Defence , or I have rights too , don't I ?
Nope. The Terrorist is always right. The Beligerent Evil Satanic Inspired USA is always wrong.

Can we put these groups on the list of terrorist organizations for providing material support for terrorism ? Come on ! The guy was caught red handed lobbing a grenade at a medic , not even a soldier , and you want him off scott free ?

You're on my list of terrorist organizations , even if no one else put's you on theirs, thats for sure.

And I hate your phone too !

Article = none , personal experience

My relatives came down for the week to visit. And they showed me their cell phone. It had a camera ! Hurray !

You can't email the pictures, or side load them (hook up a wire and load them on the computer) or anything. How do you get at those pictures ?

You PAY a fee for a special company , chosen by their phone company so there's no possibility of there being any competition, to print out the picture and mail it to you. You only get YOUR pics by shelling out money.

Yeah , I hate that phone too. Definately a rip off if you ask me.

CENSORED

article = none , personal experiance

So , my aunt and uncle and other relatives came over this week. And
we drank a tonne of coffee and talked and talked and talked.
And my aunt told me all about CENSORED and CENSORED , and how she
and her CENSORED , in their younger days ? They CENSORED CENSORED
CENSORED CENSORED CENSORED CENSORED CENSORED . It was really sad.
Then she told me "If this makes into your blog , we're through ! "
She reads my blog , I'm so gratified to have an audience.

But it got me to thinking. I started this blog because I wanted a
place to put down my thoughts without worry of interference. It's
anonymous, and I stay away from saying anything about my work because
even without names it isn't hard to guess who said what if you know
those people personally. I figured it was safe, and I could get away
with it.
Apparently not. No one is safe from the CENSORED .

This applies to newspapers too. I've seen a few articles where they
deny it totally. They accept money in the form of advertising from
businesses , but they claim not to be influenced by this money.
When Cubic Zincronium stones, immitation diamonds first came out, I
got a thing in the mail trying to tell me a fifty dollar Zincronium
ring. I checked with the jewelry store downstairs and they told me
their price on a zincronium stone that size was like three bucks.
So I called the newspapers and reported this.
"This kind of thing happens all the time. We'd be swamped in
complaints if we bothered to publish this. " was the response I got.
"Besides, it's standard business practices. No laws are broken."
Except perhaps the laws of shame for charging fifty bucks for a
three dollar stone.
But the newspapers have decided no one wants to hear about it.

And there's the problem of the french. No one actually speaks
french in this country. They speak Quebecois, which is only spoken in
quebec, or Fringlish in vanier ottawa, or Acadia in or near
newfoundland , or a dozen other dialects. None of which are french.
None of which have text books to teach you how to speak them.
This becomes important in my younger days when I get a text book
for french (parisian french , the kind spoken in paris and the only
kind of french on the book shelves) and guess what ? I can't
understand a word these people are saying I must be so stupid ! Until
a friend of mine invites me out to dinner with his new girlfriend.
From France. And I can understand her great !
You must speak french to get into the government.
But if you come from quebec , they don't bother to test you , they
only test us stupid englishmen. On Parisian french by the way , which
is not spoken in this country. And they have inspectors that ocme
around, and ifyou don't speak quebecois ! You get booted out.
In effect , work in the federal government has become a pure make
work project for quebecer's only. No one else is permitted in.
And if you go to the news paper ,or the local radio shows ? This is
a "hot button" issue. Everyone gets all emotional about it, so any
discussion on the matter is shut down real quick , and any attempt to
get anything about it published in the paper is also refused. Anyone
who tries to start anything on the matter is quickly painted as a
racist bugger and you should ignore this guy.

I look at old newspapers sometimes, the library used to have
microfilms that went back before 1900 and sometimes I would read back
from the very beginning forward.
I wonder how much of what I read is true, how much is simply
skipped for being a hot button issue, and how much is just plain
CENSORED .

I now understand the place bloggers have cut for themselves in the
world, and why they won't go away.
My personal prejudices for not annoying members of my family, and
reluctantly passing on saying anything about the place where I work
(but I'll happily babble on about any other place) are small potatoes
against the "proffessional" reporters who have to face editers ,
editers trying not to have their advertising revenues sink into the
floor because they might annoy the businesses that actually purchase
ad's in their paper. Editers that decide they're going to try and
influence elections to favour big business because , lets face it ,
they ARE a big business and it would be idocy to let that opportunity
pass by , so every time an anti-business government gets into power
they start ragging on them mercilessly from the very beginning !
Bloggers don't do that.
Bloggers are free from such influences.
The thing about my aunt , and my sister worrying about those two
articles on CENSORED CENSORED CENSORED that I erased so I wouldn't
annoy her ? Small potatoes, an overhead people will happily pay,
because they frankly don't care about the comings and going of a small
group of people.
But they sure wanna know that that 50$ Zincronium ring is actually
only worth 3$ , even if the papers feel it isn't worthy news.

U.S. suspends diplomatic convoys throughout Iraq

Article

And here we go with the accusations of Blackwater security corruption.


Between eight and 10 people opened fire on the convoy "from multiple nearby locations, with some aggressors dressed in civilian apparel and others in Iraqi police uniforms," according to a State Department report.


so guys dressed as civilians , and cops , tried to erase the convoy , and in typical al-queda stupidity fired a thousand rounds and maybe hit one or two actual people.

Civilian observers (how do you know they're civilians , the terrorists half of them were dressed as civilians) claim the security force killed a wack of innocent people, and so the company is banned from doing business in Iraq.

First problem is who's story do you believe. The security company or the "civilians" that might or might not be terrorists. Heck the bloody cops are shooting at these guys and it's not the first time so it's well known the police force is infiltrated.

Second problem is the law of the land. The Shari or islamic law. If a muslim accuses a non-muslim of something, the non-muslim is automatically found guilty as charged. Not because anyone believes he's guilty , but because it is believed you must put pressure on non-muslims and make them convert by making their life miserable until they give up their infidel ways.

So one terrorist can happily accuse any guards of anything and win in the local courts if you subject these people to local law.

Third problem is if you give them a blank slate to do as they please, there are corrupt individuals who WILL run around shooting people at random on the american side.

Fourth problem is that this is a war zone. People have guns to their head, and families taken hostage. You cannot hold any kind of fair trial when the opposition is hhappy to take a few hostages and generate a few witnesses to accuse you of any terrible crime they care to imagine. Some kind of independant legal system dependant on local witnesses is also a no-go.

The solution ?

Civilians have no place in a war zone , and never did. They have too many legal difficulties. They should be replaced by army troops. Period. End of story.

Skype users warned against new IM worm

Fans of peer-to-peer Internet telephone system Skype have this been seen the unwanted appearance of a new computer worm attack that rears its ugly head in the form of a seemingly innocuous instant-messaging chat invitation.


It's the new way of doing business.
You run a phone company ? some upstart giving away free telephone service to pull your customers from you ?
Hire someone to write a virus.

Oh don't tell the staff of course, they'll blab to the nearest newspaper. But pull a half million out of the company in "bonus's" , no one asks what you do with your personal dough, hire a few people from the dark side of the internet under a fake name , and voila ! Your competition takes a publicity hit from being hit with a virus and hey , our equipment isn't subject to that !

It's the new business model. The new form of industrial sabatage. And it's so easy to do. Only one , maybe two people in the whole company have to know, there's no paper trail because it's his "personal" funds, and he is more than repaid when the stock goes up after the competition takes a hit.

It's like ... you're a CEO , and you know if you step down your stock price will go way up , so you quietly buy as much stock as you can , and then step down , and then sell it all the next day when the price shoots up ...

Business is a dirty dirty thing , and the internet isjust the latest opportunity for them.

I hate my phone.

Article = none , personal experiance.

It's a Samsung m610.

I had a doctors appointment on monday, and I was happily listening to the tunes I had side loaded on it (side load = download from my computer , not the internet, phone holds over a hundred mp3 music files:: edit :: phone only holds about 10 songs, I paid $45 bucks for a 1 gigabyte expansion card and with that it holds a whole wack more :: :: )

But ...the hospital has no cell phone coverage. So when I stopped the tunes, I couldn't start them again. All I got was this annoying "connecting to network" message , and it hung there. And it hung , and hung ...and I couldn't do anything with it. Not play my tunes , not play the chess game I downloaded, not even have it tell me what time it was !

If it's not connected to the network, it's totally useless !

I have to wonder how much use I'm going to get when the three years is up on my contract with it. Is it going to still play my mp3's ? Or is it simply going to hang trying to connect, and of course bell canada will say "you're not a paying customer ? Get out of here !!!!"

(edit)
there seems to be a philosophy out there by big business. We will give you all the features you could ask for ! But we will do so in the most inconvenient and annoying manner possible so as to continue to extract as much money as possible from you.

My phone is the incarnation of that philosophy , I think. It looks so good on paper, it has so many cool features on paper ... but actual use ? So many holes ...

China cigarette packs to get skull health warnings

Article


BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese cigarette packs will have skulls, blackened teeth or diseased lungs printed on them ...
...

And the new measures could make the problem worse, it said, quoting youth expert Zhao Cuiping as saying. "In analysis over the past decade on what young people like, they far prefer skulls and other scary images to cats or dogs," she said.



I propose a new cigarette legislation.

All cigarette packs must be pink and have cute fluffy animals on them.

lol !

I'm joking ...but really , I'm not.

Whatever works !

Nearly 200 soldiers kept home from Afghanistan over drug use: report

Article


Nearly 200 Canadian soldiers slated for deployment to Afghanistan have been kept home because they tested positive for drug use, documents show.


So only healthy people go to war, the dopers get to say hope and dope up ?


Of those who failed, the majority tested positive for marijuana, while other tests showed harder drugs, such as cocaine, methamphetamine and amphetamines.


Quick ! Gimme a joint ! I've just been scheduled for deployment to afghanistan and need an excuse to get out of it !

lol !

This is ridiculous. Send the dope smokers to the front, don't reward them ! Send them first ! sheesh !

Can Microsoft’s open source problem be solved?

In his recent piece about how Microsoft should be afraid of open source, our own Matt Asay stumbles on a solution to the problem.

He offers this nifty Forrester chart (right) showing how software revenues have changed in the last few years, from licenses to maintenance, with services declining as well.

insert chart showing licenses and services going down fast, but maintenance revenue going up fast



All of which leads to my cunning plan.

Stop selling Microsoft software. Rent it


Rent my operating system ?


Instead of selling Windows for, say, $150, through an OEM, sell one year of it for $99. Require registration for updates, and then charge $75/year for maintenance, just like the anti-virals do.


Update what ???? What exactly do you update on an operating system that I care to spend $75 a year on ?

This fails the "would I do it ?" test (ie: I personally wouldn't even consider it). What makes you think anyone else would either ?


Now you’ve got recurring revenue, you’re actually getting more than retail (because people keep PCs for three years, not two), and you’ve got constant access to the customer’s PC in order to provide the service that customer is paying for.


Thanks for pointing out the huge security risk that some profit oriented company is poking around in my computer deciding what I can and cannot do.


Plus there’s constant customer contact and the ability to upsell. Companies like-y the upsell.


There's no upsell. Either you're dealing with 10 000 employe's who'll direct you to their manager , or you're dealing with a private individual who'll yell at you for spamming them.

So, tell me I’m crazy here.

You're crazy.

The only reason I'm still on Windows at all on even one of my machines is because of the online games. Drive too many people off of windows and onto linux, and that machine doesn't get replaced when it's three year warrenty runs out.


Oh yes, why I started this article in the first place.

Can Microsofts Open source problem be solved ?
The only problem MS has with Open Source is that it exists, and it would like to kill it quick. Unfortunately if you look back over time you see the open source movement , in particular Linux and the software that runs on linux , has only been getting larger and larger, not the reverse. People working for free, and giving away their labours for free, that's kind of inevitable. Throw in a few Microsoft Made Messes to tick people off....

No, the Open Source problem cannot be solved. Open Source in the end will likely rule the Operating System World.
Now putting proffessional games on Linux (pay to play games) , thats another matter. I think that would work just dandy. Dump windows , move to Ubuntu , keep my World of Warcraft ? Works for me.

movie wars : report from the front

Went to block busters today to buy a new movie.

All the new movies are in one of those two new formats , the blue ray format and what not. Even worse, Block Buster had promised it was backing only one of the two formats , but today I walked in and there was a shelf dedicated to each format, right side by side.

All the new , good movies were in the new formats.
all the crap movies were in the old DVD format.

Time to buckle your belt and kick the movie habit for a year or two, because your only alternative is to buy both players, at at least three hundred bucks a pop. And then any movies you buy ? The ones for the losing format you will be tossing in the trash. So thats going to be several more hundred dollars there.

Lots of risk for the consumer , not much benefit.

Someone must think movies are like drugs and they can do anything they want and the general public will put up with it.

Hello, my name is John Q. Public, and I'm not happy you're ripping me off. I think I'll get deeper into online gaming for a while. Good luck with that movie thing you're doing. Let me know how it turns out.

Hackers claim to untie Apple's iPhone from AT&T


A group called iPhoneSIMfree.com said it had developed a piece of software that, when installed on an iPhone, allows the use of rival mobile services such as T-Mobile, according to widely followed technology blog Engadget.com.


You can't do that ! Thats OUR phone ! We own ... oh oh ... did we really make you pay full price for that phone , in advance ?

LOL !!!

Sorry , I now work in the cell phone industry instead of the cable modem industry , and I happen to know they're not giving you any discounts at all for those phones and demanding full price up front for them.

oopsie !


AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel declined to comment on the Engadget report and an Apple spokesman could not be immediately reached. An e-mail sent to iPhoneSIMfree.com was not immediately answered.


They're probably wondering "what do we do now ????". Can't sue people for messing with their own equipment , now can you ?

I predict the next great fad in phones they'll only sell for 95% of the price, and use their 5% ownership to sue people who try this. Too late for the iphones though.

Plugging the depths of the Pacific into the Internet

Article

Let me get this straight.

You want to lay some sensors on the ocean floor to track fish , and put the results on the internet ? So a bunch of scientists can track fish migrations ?

A noble cause but ...



Come on Charlie ! A huge school of fish just passed the northern sensors we gotta get there first and lay down some nets before everyone else beats us too it and they're all gone !


lol !

You put the location of fish on any kind of real time or near real time map and every fisherman in the world will be sitting there poaching them. Your harmless "sensors" will kill off what few fish stocks canada has left.

Why War ?

Article

Why are we at war in Afghanistan.

Oh I hear reasons all the time. The Americans want oil and it's a money (oil) grab, or the Taliban want to conquer the world and make everyone a muslim.


Afghanistan produced record levels of opium in 2007 for the second straight year, led by a staggering 45 percent increase in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand Province, according to a new United Nations survey to be released Monday


But my instincts tell me these are just extremist views , that the truth lies elsewhere somewhere.

I mean lets face it , what kind of idots face the elite american troops, and then lose battle after battle after battle and keep on fighting. Is their religion really that precious to them ?


While the report found that opium production dropped in northern Afghanistan, Western officials briefed on the assessment said, cultivation rose in the south, where Taliban insurgents urge farmers to grow poppies.


I mean , these people must be the most dedicated fanatics around , and likely the most dangerous. They routinely violate their own religious rules , for example. Islam is supposed to be a religion of peace , but they're running around kidnapping and killing people like crazy. What could possibly motivate people to such an extent ?


In Taliban-controlled areas, traffickers have opened more labs that process raw opium into heroin, vastly increasing its value. The number of drug labs in Helmand rose to roughly 50 from 30 the year before, and about 16 metric tons of chemicals used in heroin production have been confiscated this year.


I suppose we'll just have to soldier on against these fanatics and their self corrupted religion. It's obvious they will never give up their holy war, and this is going to be a long , long battle.


Here in Helmand, the breadth of the poppy trade is staggering. A sparsely populated desert province twice the size of Maryland, Helmand produces more narcotics than any country on earth, including Myanmar, Morocco and Colombia. Rampant poverty, corruption among local officials, a Taliban resurgence and spreading lawlessness have turned the province into a narcotics juggernaut.

Duceppe to Harper: Withdraw by 2009

Duceppe to Harper: Withdraw by 2009

I have a wonderful idea !
I'm a member of a minority party , like the bloc quebecois or the NDP.
I'm never going to get in power.

And there's some political issue , like Afghanistan , that the government is
really forced to do for our own good, even though it might be unpopular (like
keeping troops in the middle east)

Heck taxes are unpopular and everyone wants them cut , but it never happens, ha ha ha.

We will fight and scream to get our troops out of the middle east, and pointing out how horrible the government is for even thinking about going there, and thus get to bring them down over and over and over, or at least threaten it and get a few things we want done.

It's not like we'll ever be in power, it's not like we'll ever be the ones having to send in the troops , or explain why we didn't send them in earlier before the terrorist blew something up on canadian soil.

Gotta love it. Bring the troops home , the terrorists will blow something up and we'll scream at them, or don't bring them home and we'll scream anyways.

Gotta love these foriegn wars.

Is stealing wireless wrong?

Is stealing wireless wrong?

Yes. Getting on the internet on the nextdoor neibours wireless router without him knowing is wrong.

The argument that the wireless signil is a "lightbulb" and any light it radiates that the neibour doesn't use is wasted , is wrong.

The signil is actually metered out. Like oil or gas. So much data up or down per minute or per hour, you jack into his signil, he slows down , he's not too happy about it.

The argument that you were just checking email he'll barely notice, is in fact the argument of "I'm only going to steal just a little. They'll never notice. " and I'm sure that everyone agree's that "stealing just a little" is wrong. Maybe not as wrong as "steal anything I can" , but still , it's wrong.

I'm not sure who the author of the above article is, but with a mix of ignorance and self interest, he has managed to talk himself in to thinking theft is an ok thing. And that we shouldn't be so materially possessive, thats a bad thing.

I totally disagree with him.

Why people don't switch operating systems

Why people don't switch operating systems

Let me give you my reasons why I think people are hesitent to switch to Linux.

Seven reformats of the computer, completely reinstalling from scratch.

Installation screens that constantly hide the bottom part of what they show below the bottom of the screen so you have to guess what is there.

One upgrade from ubuntu 6 to ubuntu 7

two more reformats after that.

*sigh* !!!!

And finally , it works.

Wow , I can't imagine why people hesitate. Boggles my mind that they don't just jump right in !

lol !



Would I do it again ? Yes , I'm a techie I love solving problems.

Would I recommend Ubuntu for Grandma ?
...only if someone else was setting it up !!!!

Big Companies Always Self Destruct

Once there was a company called Wiget Incorported. And it made the finest wigits in the land. And then , a manager came along.
And the manager said "how can we improve our company's bottom line ? "
And so he decided to charge just a tiny little bit more for the Wigets they made, and make the Wigets just a little bit cheaper.
And then , another manager came along a year later , and wanted to show he was better than the first manager , and so he made the wigets , again , a little bit higher in price , and ever so slightly more cheaper in materials and construction.
And then another manager ... and another manager , and another ...
Until the Wigets were the cheapest, most minimally useable but very pricy wigets there could be.

And when asked about this, the managers said "You see, you have to understand the way the business work..."

And then , across down , a new engineer had a new idea, and made something called Double Wigets, which were vastly superior to regular wigets. And so the Wiget company promptly decided to make their wigets as good as the double wigets. But it was too late, and so the Wiget company went bankrupt.

And Double Wigets became a very powerful company.
And it needed managers.
And then a manager decided to raise the price , just a little bit , and lower the quality ... just a little bit ....

A look at Iraqi Fatalities

Article


Of the U.S. deaths, 3,047 came in hostile circumstances and 655 in non-combat situations. Forty-four troops have died this month. Britain, which has command of coalition troops in southern Iraq, has suffered 168 deaths, 132 of them in hostile circumstances.

The United States has about 162,000 troops in Iraq; 11,500 are from other countries, the State Department says.


3000 fatalities out of 162 000 troops. Over 6 years.
Tour of service is 6 months.
That works out to 250 deaths per tour.
or ... %0.154 fatality rate

I've seen traffic fatality numbers that were higher than this.

What are you nuts ? Ow ! I cut my finger ! Lets go home and let the bag guys conquer the world and then chase us home and conquer us too ! %0.154 is just too high a casualty rate for me to stand ! dang it hurts !

Why can't these people find something real to complain about , like the "reconstruction" money that keeps going astray and accomplishing nothing, or the fact you're hiring any joe off the street to be an iraqi cop and so they're all just as corrupt as get out and making your problem worse, not better ?

The terrorists want to conquer the world , people, and set up shop right in your living room and recruit your children as suicide bombers. This is not something open to debate, this is something they openly boast about to anyone who will listen.

Grow up people, there's no such thing as a war with no friendly casualties.

Internet Phone, like it or not !

I have a phone from Samsung. An Sph m610 , plays nice tunes. Surfs the internet , even have some kind of online radio station thingy.

Surfing the internet costs me 7$ per month. And guess what ? Surfing on a phone with a 9 key keypad is a painful process. And the online radio is pay per use.

So I called up Bell , my phone provider here in Ottawa , and have them remove my 7$ / month internet fee and block the internet from my phone.

Can't do it. The browser opens with a single wrong click and then you're on the hook for the charges. And without the 7$ / month plan , they can rack up really high. Bell totally refuses to remove internet access. They'll remove the plan and put me on pay per use , which will kill me , but they won't block the internet.

Phoning the manufacturer of the phone itself was no help. The provider (in this case bell) must block the internet , the handset itself cannot do so without locking the keyboard or simply turning the phone off.

I have an internet phone ! Like it or not .
It's a scam. I don't dare remove the 7$ a month charge or next month I'll probably find a couple of hundred dollars on my bill just from accidently hitting the browser button.

The radio station is also a scam , because no where does it say it's pay per use. Though it take several selections to start listening to the radio so that's not so bad. It's not a one-key-now-you're-toast situation like the browser is.

And cancelling the service is a couple of hundred bucks. (It's a 349$ phone , I only paid $99 for it because I signed a 3 year contract, I gotta pay the rest of the price of the phone if I cancel early).

It's a scam. And I'm trapped. I'm gonna make dang sure I tell EVERYONE I meet about this rip off.

As for my useless phone internet ?

Pointed the phone at http://m.gmail.com , a mobile version of gmail , and I can now check my gmail online with the phone. Not exactly a priority , I'm a private individual I don't run a biziness .. but I'm getting at least some use out of it.

(edit)
Oh , and there's no chess game for this phone.
I bought it thinking I'd download a chess game , be happy to pay the 5$ or whatever it is ... no such thing for this model of phone. Lots of chess games for other models ... but not this one.

It' plays music. (bought a 1 gig expanded memory card, about 400 megs of songs in it)
It now checks my gmail.
It makes calls. (free evenings and weekends is the plan I signed up for).

Don't play chess.
Can't safely cancel the internet.

yeah , I feel robbed just a little bit. I'll put up with it because I like my tunes, but I still feel ripped just a little.

Human chips

this article is about implanting radio chips inside a human to easily identify them.

Microchips in humans: High-tech helpers or Big Brother surveillance?

The rational is that the "chipped" humans are permitted into various high security places like a police lock up , nuclear plant , etc ,etc.


Darks, the CityWatcher.com executive, said his employees volunteered to be chipped. "You would think that we were going around putting chips in people by force," he told a reporter, "and that's not the case at all."


Ah yes, we have a position open for employment that suits you perfectly. But you have to submit to having a radio chip placed in your arm. No ? I'm afraid you must seek employment elsewhere then.

Currently the chips have their own problems. They just transmit an unchanging 16 bit number for example. Some theif points a detector at you , gets the number and then tapes a transmitter on his arm transmitting the same number, thats all she wrote, he's now in like flynn to your nuclear reactor.

But even assuming this problem is fixed somehow, you still have the problem displayed first in the movie "The Demolitions Man" , where the criminal simply ripped the eye ball out of the prison warden and used it to get past those retina scanners and get out. You got a chip in your hand ? Someone's going to cut that arm off and use it to pass the security , guarenteed. Been in at least three movies that I can recall , so it's going to be the first thing every criminal thinks of when confronted with it.

Then there's the cigarette problem. Restaurants cater to crowds. In every crowd of three or more there's almost certain to be a smoker. And so that crowd will only go to a smoking permitted restaurant. The restaurants can be smoking or non smoking as they like , but if they're non smoking they usually go bankrupt ... ergo... every restaurant and bar in Ottawa was a smoking place , 100% of them. So if you were a non-smoker , you couldn't actually go anywhere. No one wanted your business. You were the minority that it wasn't profitable to cater to. So the only place in all of Ottawa you could go to to escape the cigarette smoke was your own home. Unless your wife smoked too. Until Ottawa introduced a no smoking ban on all public places.

If the chip (unjustly) gets a reputation of heightenned security, everyone will demand you use it , and you won't be able to opt out because that means you won't be able to work in this country ...

And if everyone is using it , every criminal will quickly figure out how to circumvent it (scanner or knife), and so you've actually put your employee's in danger without actually increasing security any.

The chip is medically intrusive and provides only the most questionable of security enhancements. This particular version with it's static unchanging number is too easily defeated to be worth anything , and any version with it's "just cut the guys hand off and stick it on the scanner" solution remains both questionable, and a hazard to the health of the bearer.

Blow torches and ice

Canadian weather station heads to Mars





There's going to be a parachute to slow it down and retro-rockets will be firing off," Duck told CBC Newsworld on Saturday.


Oh oh oh! I saw this one before !

The USA did it. They put a lander on mars , it came down on a nice rocket flame , then stuck an arm in the soil looking for life. You know what it found ?

Rocket fuel. From it's own rocket.
Dang thing had blow torched the area it was landing on , of course, killing anything within a several yard radius. Then it stuck the arm in the blow torched mess and found nothing , of course !

So ...the lander is going to go looking for ice after blow torching it's landing area eh ? Good luck with that one.

(edit)
Found a pic of the phoenix lander ... hmmm.. no wheels on that baby , so much for the theory that it will simply roll off the landing spot a hundred yards or so.

Microsoft up to it's old tricks

Microsoft delays Office release for Mac


...as did Microsoft's move to a new file format with the release of Office 2007 for Windows-based computers.


I remember this. Every new operating system gets a new upgrade to office whatever , that only runs on that operating system and nothing less. And the files it produces cannot be read by earlier versions of the office product.

I was working as a programmer at the time, we had just made the jump from windows 3.1 to win95 , which was brand new at the time. Our client had upgraded to the latest microsoft office , and sent us emails , from word , in word format ! on what they wanted next with our product.

Of course we couldn't read the emails and it took a while for us to figure out what had happened. When we did , well , our client was a federal government department , and they'd all upgraded and thrown away their old microsoft offices , and they had no intention of going back. So we were forced, against our better judgement , to upgrade too. Which cost a couple of hundred dollars for one copy. Which left my boss ranting and ticked off for a couple of days. (it was a small 3 man office at the time)

It's a scam.

There was nothing the new version of office did that the old couldn't do. Just a straight matter of the new version was incompatable with the old.

It's an old scam , still going on , I see.

Big Men with guns and little girls

Militants seize shrine in Pakistan


Pro-Taliban fighters seized an Islamic shrine in restive northwestern Pakistan and renamed it after the Red Mosque ...
.
.
.
In Mohmand, the militants vowed to set up a girls' seminary at the site...




I don't know about you , but I wouldn't send my daughter / sister whatever to a school full of gunmen !

Of course, the gunmen will solve this problem as they always do , by essentially kidnapping anyone they like and forcing the little girls into the school at gun point. And then doing what they like to them there.

Hey , you need four male witnesses to prosecute rape ,right ? So some soldier just drags a little girl off to the side at gun point , does what he wants , maybe gets a friend to help out and also enjoy her, even their own religious law finds them innocent. And if the girl complains ? She just admitted to adultry , which is a death penalty. (or sex outside a marriage , same deal).

I predict the place will be little more than a brothel.

Success for the /ignore

So I met that bible thumper at the bus top as per usual, and kept my head phones on. And kept the music cranked up.

He waited for a moment , and then pulled out his own portible radio , it looked like ,and put on some head phones.

And we did a good job of ignoring each other.

success ! No more bible thumping !!!

Real Life /ignore

Article = None, personal experiance.

Ever play any kind of online game, and there's that annoying prick that just won't leave you alone ? Most online games have a command to help with that. /ignore (slash ignore). Use it on him , and you can't here him anymore. Ah , the joy of peace and quiet.

Don't you wish you had such a command in real life ? Out here in the real world ?

Like when I talked to a guy I knew for years at work, and we now take the same bus home. And it turns out he's a religious fanatic and won't shut up trying to "save my soul". I ask him questions , like "If god is all knowing , all powerful , and he made us, and he made the devil, how can I have free will ? Isn't it all just a game where HE already knows the outcome even before the game began ? "

The reply was "Yes but ..." and then continue with his recruitment speach and totally ignore what I just said.

"Do you actually think about the words coming out of your mouth or are you just repeating what you heard someone else say , without thought ? "

"I'm just reveiling to you the truths that are written ..." etc etc , thanks for telling me you're just a tape recorder not capable of thinking.

Oh yes, the /ignore command ?

An mp3 player and some head phones. Crank the music up loud. I'm sure he'll get the picture soon enough. Gonna do it today. :)

(edit)
This technique is not recommended for a friend you want to keep, but this guy is proving incapable of any other topic of conversation , so for me , I think it's time he goes away and never comes back. Yes it's somewhat insulting , but then blathering away for two solid days like a tape recorder is too. What goes around comes around.

Microsoft Twiddles Fingers on Privacy, but looks good doing it

Microsoft curtails how long it stores Web searches


Microsoft Corp. said on Sunday the software maker was taking new steps to protect consumer privacy in the areas of Web search and online advertising and called on the Internet industry to support it.

... several paragraphs of meaningless blather ...

Specifically, Microsoft said it would make all Web search query data anonymous after 18 months on its "Live Search" service, unless it receives user consent to store it longer. The policy changes are retroactive and worldwide, it said.



So the cops can supena the records for a year and a half and retroactively watch every site you visit with your msn browser. Cool.


Microsoft plans to store customer search data separately from data tied to people, e-mail addresses or phone numbers and take steps to assure no unauthorized correlation of these types of data can be made. It also will permanently remove "cookie" user identification data, Web address? or other identifiers.



"unauthorized correlation" ha ha ...it's the cops people are worried about. And they are "authorized" to correlate that data. So that promise means diddly squat.


"Microsoft is going to do a more thorough scrub of customer data once it is too old," said Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University who served as U.S. privacy czar in the 1990s. "Previously, the practice was to do a partial scrub."


What is this , a sales meeting ? whats the difference between " a more thorough scrub" and a "partial scrub" ? You delete one little field and get to say you did something ? Certainly you're not promising to actually erase the data , I can see that.

So. if you use the MSN browser, your email addy , your phone number , and your searches all wind up in one big basket for any cop (an authorized user) with a supenea and a superviser breathing down his neck to "solve the case .. do anything you have to! You're on permanent overtime until the case is solved, you don't get to go home ..." and bingo... bozo the clown here made too many searches on some particular gun he was thinking of buying , that gun was used in a recent murder, lets go pick up bozo and lean on him for a while until he confesses. Oops , Bozo doesn't actually have such a gun ? Well we have the murder weapon here we'll just make him say that he left it at the scene ...

Citizens Arrest

How to Make a Citizen's Arrest

You know , I used to be a security guard. And we discussed the whole citizens arrest issue up here in canada , and the canadian legal climate and so on and so forth. And you know what we were told ?

1. Don't do it.

2. Really , I'm serious here. Don't do it. Don't even think about it.

3. If you have trouble reading , and you think you're some kind of super cop , and you actually really do inflict a citizen's arrest on someone ? Call the real cops. Immediately. And turn whoever it is you just arrested over to them right away. If it's a nice sunny day , and everything is going you're way , and nothing too awful happens, you may actually avoid spending any time in jail for kidnapping.

4. Don't do it. I know. I'm being repetative here. But ... really. Seriously. I'm not fooling around here. don't do it. Let them run away . Let them "get away with it" and stand there like an idiot and say "Well , what did you want me to do ? Mug him or something ? Of course I let him run away ! " really. You stay out of jail. The security company you work for avoids huge massive law suits ... dont' do it . Let him run. I'm serious. This is sounds funny , that because it is funny , it's actually one of the most humorous punch lines of the Canadian Legal System. But it's true. Let him go. Let him run. You'll be a better man for it. You'll be a free'er man for it. You may be unemployed ( at worst , but I seriously doubt they'll fire you for this) but you wont' be in jail. And you wont' have a criminal record. And thats always a nice bonus.
Let him go. Just don't worry your head over it. Laugh with the rest of us about the silliness of the legal system , and let him go.

Citizens Arrest

What Iraq Needs

Article = None , personal opinion.

So. What the heck does Iraq need to stop all this nonsense. What the heck is with all the sectarian fighting and the insurgents and all of that ? And how do we stop it ?

Police Officers.

Let me explain.

The population has lived under a religious dictatorship since the beginning of time, or a few centuries, or whatever. You apease the powers that be , then its ok to go home and beat your wife, sneak out at midnight and murder your next door neibour, rape his daughter and then slit her throat , anything you like.

Who's gonna stop you ? Nobody.

What about the police under Sadam Hussain ? Nope. They just collect bribes from people. Don't pay up , they arrest you and drag you off and maybe your family learns you've been murdered by them, maybe they don't , either way you wind up in a mass grave.

There is no "Law of the Land" , no respect for the police , and most importantly , no police actually worth respecting. Even the current american backed police are still the bribe taking corrupt evil doer's that would be thrown in jail in any western country rather than wear a uniform.

In the western nations, terrorists do not draw the ire of the army. They are handled by the police , and half the time it turns out the cops have been watching them for the last year in secret , gathering evidence , and only move now because it looks like the terrorist are going to so something.

There's what , one successful terrorist incident , in all of the western nations , every six months. Why ? Because the terrorist can't even fart without the police knowing what they had for lunch, thats why.

You need cops on the ground. Honest cops. Not the corrupt retrained Iraqi's who fill out the final exam's in their police courses correctly but still are just as corrupt as always.

It's not gonna happen without the cops , Bush my man. Just not happening.

Stupid Political Dance # 78

Support for Afghan mission dropping: poll


The poll, conducted exclusively for CanWest News Service and Global National by Ipsos Reid, showed that half of Canadians — exactly 50 per cent — said they either “strongly” or “somewhat support” the use of Canada’s troops for security and combat efforts in Afghanistan.

Almost equally planted on the other side of the debate are 45 per cent of Canadians who said they either “strongly” or “somewhat oppose” the mission in Afghanistan. The remaining five per cent said they do not have an opinion one way or the other.


Yup Yup. This is how the dance goes. Public support for the war drops. We go home.

Unfortunately , this war, they follow us home , blow up a few things in the name of imposing Shia law... we go back.

It's a stupid dance.
It's not helped by american corruption either (trying to get the oil flowing lickity quick , to america of course, right at the beginning, corruption on who wins what rebuilding contract, hospitals being built that the afghans don't know how to use even the basic plumbing so they're destroyed ... etc etc)

And it's not helped by every big business trying to get a slice of the pie by selling the government something , anything to do with it.


The truth is victory is inevitable. They can only blow up one or two buildings and damage one or two air ports in failed suicide attacks , the pool of people in the west willing to harm the west is very small, otherwise we'd be seeing a lot more than one terrorist attack every six months or so across all of the west, never mind any one particular nation.

But the truth is we have to do stupid political dance number 78.
The truth is we gotta go back home, dump all those corrupt companies and failed contracts that do nothing but move money from the government to friends of the government, and then wait for the next attack.
And then we go back. Fresh start.

Don't forget to bring anyone who ever helped us over to the west , so we at least get a reputation of not abandoning our friends. Very useful when we go back.

Money for Criminals , Diddly for the poor

Canadian aid having impact in Afghanistan: group


Widespread corruption in Afghanistan is slowing efforts to improve the quality of life for average citizens, but Canadian aid is still making a difference, according to a group monitoring the country's human rights situation.
...
Afghans have alleged that some Afghan civil servants are pocketing aid money, and are blatantly living beyond what their $200-per-month salaries would otherwise suggest.

According to the BBC, there are further allegations police officers are taking bribes from drug smugglers, to help offset their monthly pay of $70 -- a third less than what an army recruit makes.
...
But Nahzat said more aid -- not less -- should be funded directly through the Afghanistan government. Otherwise, NGOs would give much of the money to foreign consultants.
...
"Specifically, it comes about because a lot of the aid money is going towards funding private companies, and giving big pay cheques to consultants who are coming there for an odd basis, on a two-week time frame."



So...when you give money to help the afghani's , it either goes to corrupt government figures, who just pocket it, or it goes to consultants who charge outragous sums because , lets face it , they're in a war zone and they could get killed so they want to be compensated.

Only a the smallest fraction actually goes to help the people in question , however.


He added that Canadians must keep faith that their tax dollars are going towards effective humanitarian projects to help average Afghans


But we should keep giving anyways, or so the article goes.

I submit that aid money is not actually going to help the poor. It's really winding up in the hands of corrupt government ministers and Muslim fanatics. We are , in fact , funding the very terrorists that are doing their darndest to thwart our mission in Afghanistan, because you have to be a good muslim to be in any kind of power there, and being a good muslim means giving money to the local mosque so it can teach people to impose muslim law everywhere and kill anyone who disagree's.

Send food. Send clothing even. Don't send money. Money makes the problem worse, not better. Money is simply taken by those with guns (the terrorists) and used to fund their operations.

How to stop Islamic attacks

60 die in weekend Pakistan attacks


Suicide bombers killed almost 60 people in three weekend attacks in Pakistan, police said yesterday, after Islamic militants called for holy war over a deadly army raid on a pro-Taliban mosque.


Ok. So , here's the deal.

We're the Islamics. And we think it's ok to kidnap anyone off the street that we consider to be immoral , and try to re-educate them on how to be a proper muslim (read that torture) , and if it doesn't work , we kill them !

The government is kind of against us kidnapping random people, and police officers, off the street , torturing and killing them, so they raided the mosque where this was happening and convinced those people to stop it. By shooting them dead. :)

The Islamics are very upset that they're not being permitted to torture and murder people any more, so , they've decided to hold a protest about this. The protest is in the form of , you got it , murdering people (the suicide bombings). They want to enforce their religious law by force if required, and it seems to be required.

And , after they're done , if they succeed, the kidnappings and tortures and murders will continue, because when Iraq , a good upstanding muslim nation , was invaded by the USA , they got lots of good video footage of mass graves all over the place. So actually agreeing to the demands of the muslim terrorists doesn't get you anything.

And how do you stop it all ?

Well.. ummm....er ... that part hasn't been mentioned yet.

You know , the roman empire declared the celts druidic religion a banned religion (due to human sacrifice) and ruthlessly surpressed it. It's a thought that keeps re-occuring everytime I think about the muslims and their convert by the sword and we'll kill you anyways attitude. I just can't make that thought go away , for some reason.

Pakistan buries Red Mosque dead

Article


In the village of Basti Abdullah in Punjab province, hundreds of people turned out for the funeral of Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the deputy leader of the mosque who the military says was killed in cross-fire.

His elder brother, Abdul Aziz, led prayers as mourners chanted God is Great and called for holy war.


Thanks for telling the pakistani authorities who to go chasing after next if problems arise in your village.


Mr Aziz, the mosque's former leader, was arrested trying to flee the mosque during the siege and attended the funeral under heavy police guard.

"I lost my brother, my students, for the enforcement of Islamic Sharia," he told mourners.


My brother and students tried to convert all these people by the sword, you see , and they resisted and so we killed them , and now my brother and students are dead. They died for the cause of killing the infidels. Apparently Infidels take exception to being murdered by us, it's really quite unacceptable of them to do that. We think they should lie down and just die quietly.

Medicine Hat girl guilty of first-degree murder

Article


A 13-year-old Alberta girl has been found guilty of murdering her parents and younger brother in a bloody attack in their Medicine Hat home.
....
Judge Scott Brooker reminded jurors that even if Steinke physically stabbed the girl's mother, her father and brother, under Canadian law, an accused can be found guilty if they intentionally help, encourage or persuade another person to commit a crime.



So ... a 12 year old girl (now 13 by the time the court trial rolls around) stabs her little brother a few times and convinces her 23 year old boyfriend (yes, she was having sex with him) to murder off the parents.

What do you do ?

On one hand , the girl cannot possibly understand the magnitude of her crimes, so guild in the traditional sense isn't happening.

On the other hand , you can't exactly put her in a foster home or a group home , not with her having a history of violence (she only encouraged the death of her parents, but she did stab her own little brother). And she's far too young to live on her own. Really , jail is her only choice. No one can care for a child that kills the care givers. She's likely to grow up to become an evil witch , and one has to wonder how many more will die now that she has "learned" that killing someone is only 6 years or so in jail.

As for the 23 year old man , they need to throw the book at him. Triple murder, statutory rape , the works. What the heck was he doing with a 12 year old in the first place ?

Sony PlayStation to sell user data to advertisers

Article


The company has agreed to let Nielsen track the behavior of PlayStation gamers to let advertisers better understand gamers’ demographics, how much time they spend on a given game, and how closely they pay attention to the product placement. Sony and Nielsen aren’t being totally clear yet on how they’re going to acquire the information, but it could be a combination of self-reported data and stats gleaned directly from the consoles themselves somehow.


First came one line ads.

Then whole pictures stuck on the sides.

Now we have flash movies. Have you ever gone to CNN.COM and tried to read an article ? Two paragraphs of text squeezed between pictures on the left, flash movies on the top and right. If it goes to three you have to scroll down past a picture at the bottom to see that third paragraph.

This is how it progressed on the internet.

Now I will bet you will see the same thing on games. Ever play matrix online ? toothpaste and bubble gum ads all over the place, and they are SLOW to load, and they slow down your connection which is a pain while you're trying to fight or explore. And of course, there's no way to turn them off. :)

Cable TV is the same. You pay for your television. And you pay a monthly fee for the television as well , 100$ isn't too far out of line for a full spread of channels. But it's the old 22-minute hour thing again , with only 22 minutes of show and 48 minutes of commercials. On a service you pay for. But everyone does this , they complain, thats the way the business works ?

I Hate your business. I don't watch TV anymore. And any game that gets overloaded with advertising I'm not playing either. I'm not PAYING for you to try and sell me toothpaste, you do that on your own hook.

Willing to die for the cause

Red Mosque standoff continues in Pakistan's capital


"We will not surrender. We will be martyred, but we will not surrender," Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the mosque's senior cleric, told local GEO TV.


Really, you're willing to die for your cause ? Impressive.

Umm...what cause was that again ?

Oh yes, everyone should convert to your religion or you will kill them. This is the cause you are willing to die for.

Hmmmm.....I can help you with that.

Someone wanna hand me a gun ? I'm gonna shoot this bugger ! Want's to kill me if I don't join his religion indeed ! Where's the gun ? I'll help him die for his cause !

Who took that pic ?

Dust storm affecting Mars rovers


This is such a wonderful picture of the mars rover, on mars , in all the sand in everything , it's really a beautiful thing.

Ummm... who took this pic ?

Yes, I know there are two mars rovers, but they're on opposite sides of the planet. So , really , I gotta ask. Who's holding the camera ?

The Face of Islam

I've been looking for something to sum up Islam and all the problems that we face because of it. I think I've found it.

(this guy is one of the failed suicide bombers in Britain..really failed, he's still alive and now called simply Dr. Death)


Blasts at radical Pakistan mosque


There have been two large explosions in the buildings of a rebellious mosque in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, which is being besieged by security forces.
....
Students have kidnapped police officers and people they accuse of involvement in "immoral" acts such as prostitution.
...
The clerics have been campaigning for Islamic Sharia law in Islamabad.


And that pretty much sums it all up. some Iman Cleric teaching students to hate. And they go off and start kidnapping people and demanding everyone follow their religion or they will kill them.

This is the face if Islam , the source buildings being blown up and air planes being crashed, wars being waged to counter it , entire nation states up in arms. A bunch of Imans stating "Join our religion , or die. "

It's not a pretty face.
Don't much care for It I think.

You could try calling me ... I suppose ...

Do not call list won't thwart pesky pollsters
Polling companies among the exemptions for new national registry

Did you know canada is trying to make a national do not call list, but it has a ton of exceptions as to who IS allowed to call you anyways ? And more exceptions being added by the day as businesses line up to bribe the government on this. (No proof of that, but if you're not allowed to do telephone sales most businesses are sunk so ... )

My wife and I , we don't worry about such things. We have this bizarre modern invention , it's called an answering machine. The beauty is that we don't answer the phone , we sit there near the answering machine , wait for the person on the other line to start talking after our pre-recorded message. If it's a sales man , we pick up the phone and hit the power button twice. This picks up and then immediately hangs up. :)

It's a strangely satisfying sensation really. We generally look at each other after thats' happened and laugh our heads off.

Really , I don't understand what all the fuss is about.

Fleece More Sheep !

Quebec to legalize Texas hold 'em


Casinos in Quebec hope the province's plan to legalize Texas hold 'em poker will bring in a full house.
...
Schellenberg said Quebec's ban on Texas hold 'em in casinos is one of the reasons why the Lac Leamy Casino saw its profits plunge $8 million last year.


We're not fleecing enough sheep ! These people are getting bored of the slot machines and just handing their cash over to us and want to actually be entertained while we fleece them !


"The Texas hold 'em poker is usually popular among young adults," said Loto-Quebec spokesman Jean-Pierre Roy, "so we expect it to bring customers that may not otherwise go to casinos."


Hook 'em when they're young ! Thats the ticket ! Bring the little ones in too ! Maybe we can offer free babysitting while the parents are blowing a wad at the tables ?


Gagnon, who works at the Jellinek Centre, said he is concerned that attracting more people to casinos will increase the risk that those people will develop gambling problems.


Not our problem ! We just sheer these sheep , we don't pay for the coats they now need to buy afterwards because they have no wool left on them ! Go annoy someone else about that.

And so Open Air Transport draws to a close

2 Canadian boys with same name land on no-fly list


Two boys named Alistair Butt, one from Saskatchewan and one from Ontario, were stopped while trying to board flights last week because their name matches a name that appears on a no-fly list.
...

Transport Canada won't confirm if the boys are on a United States no-fly list, an airline no-fly list or Canada's new no-fly list, which went into effect on June 18.

...
The list is not available to the public, which means those on it will only find out when they try to travel.


We had a good run. What was it, 80 years from the first plane being invented to now ? But it's over. Airplanes now cover the entire world. And that , unfortunately means , that if anyone in the entire world decides to take a wack at their enemey , putting somone on a plane and sending them over to hijack the plane (with a carpet knife or some other sharp object that would normally pass security ) is just a cheap and efficient means if you don't care about the hijacker surviving.

I just did a search on sax.flightcentre.ca , and they charge 1900$Cnd and report it takes 12 hours to go from Ottawa to Beirut.

No fly lists by other countries deciding who they're going to let in is just the beginning. Soon it will be white lists of only specific people allowed to fly , only couriers for example. The days of getting the family together and getting on the plane are probably over , as this one family found out the hard way.

From the terrorist point of view it's just a wonderful thing. The airplane is a hundred million dollar investment by your enemy, and it probably has upwards of 200 victems on it , even if you miss your primary target you're still guarenteed a good fall out of dead bodies.

The Airlines , of course, are up the creek without a paddle. They're now saddled with a hundred million dollar plane that if they're too free in selling tickets , they lose the plane. Oh they try to shift it all onto others, the government , insurence , etc , and then sell tickets like crazy , but a hundred mil a pop is too heavy a load for anyone , any goverment , to float. Especially over and over again. And thats just the financial aspect , never mind the bodies falling out of the sky.

International flights are now toast, aside from a few privately chartered planes run by companies for internal use only. I suspect a new industry of smaller planes that only fly inside one country and don't cross any borders will rise out of this, but the days of hopping on a plane to the other side of the world are pretty much drawing to a close. One or two more hijackings and that's pretty much going to put the final nail in that coffin.

Memo to Gordon Brown Part II

British police arrest two more in foiled attacks


On Saturday, two men tried to ram their burning Jeep Cherokee into the main terminal building of Scotland's Glasgow Airport.
...
Another witness Richard Grey said police "wrestled him (the man on fire) to the ground -- the fire was burning through his clothes -- and finally put him out with a fire extinguisher."


Dear Gordon,
To continue , we at Al Queda are super incompetant in the matter of british car bombings. Notice I skipped the word Suicide ? That would be because neither of the two dunces , excuse me , I mean martyrs , actually died in the attack. Oh , one tried to kill himself by playing with those molitof cocktails , but his heart just wasn't in the right place and you were able to save him.
Plus the fact that we forgot that the door we were driving the truck through had big metal posts dug into the floor to prevent that very thing, so the truck never got more than a nose inside and didn't actually hurt anyone but our not yet martyred Martyrs .
Do us a favor and kill them will you ? That way we can claim they went to Islamic heaven just for trying it and thus convince more and more idiotic morons to join our side and try again.

Sincerely ,
Al-Queda wanna be's