Seller of gun used in massacre speaks at Va. Tech

Article


"Guns kill, they certainly do, but so do cars and all sorts of other things," Thompson said. "What we need to do is focus on the person that's doing the killing."


We need to stop focusing on the product I'm selling to make a living and start focussing on something else ! How about the poor smuck who used them ? He's a criminal right ? Why punish me for the actions of a criminal ?
- umm... he has no criminal record ?
He murdered wack of people right here at virginia Tech where I'm speaking right now ! Thats downright criminal !
- so is selling him the guns.
He's a criminal it's not my fault !
He's a boy. He has hormones raging. You don't hand such people guns. And what are you doing here trying to peddle more guns to the very same crowd in the first place ?



The murder rate in canada is a quarter that of the USA. And the gun lobby does everything in their power to blame it on anything and everything except easy access to guns and people with short tempers. They need to run around wearing signs painted in blood saying "money first ! shoot anyone you like its good for my business ! (except me !)"

People get pissed, That's human nature. You don't tell people to change human nature, you take dangerous objects away from them.

But every gun freak in america will come up with a dozen reasons why they can't do that, and most of those reasons will be simply changing the subject or a simple out right "not my fault, blame someone else".

Canadian debut may be set for Apple's iPhone

Article


There have been no official confirmations, but industry sources say that Rogers Communications Inc., the only Canadian carrier with a compatible GSM network, was hoping to include the iPhone as part of a campaign that focuses on "touch screen" phones, to be rolled out between May and July.


May Be , Might , Possibly, but nothing is certain yet. Stay Tuned. What is the point of this article ? The iPhone might come to canada, but then again it might not ? And if it takes too long the competition will make phones better than it and leave it in the dirt ? A real threat by the way since the iPhone is now about a year old in the USA.

And it isn't the be all to end all. It can't send picture messages (it expects you to surf to your email provider and use that...no it doesn't provide email it expects you to go to google or hotmail or some other webmail page). It doesn't play video, except apple quicktime format (can you say Vender Lock ?) you need to download iTunes to activate the phone (thats a nightmare in itself if you've been avoiding bill gates patches, since it will force you to upgraded IE and take every single one of those patches you've been avoiding for years).


"We're not fans of unlimited plans," Rob Bruce, president of Rogers' wireless division, told analysts during a February conference call.

Apple, by contrast, emphasizes the consumer experience of its products and is said to be adamant that the iPhone be offered with unlimited data plans. That way, subscribers don't have to worry their mobile Web browsing habits will put a crater in their wallets.


We're not fans of unlimited plans...yeah ... the iPhone is going to either be a nightmare financially or it's going to be a waste of time if you block the internet on it. (Assuming Rogers lets you block the internet , bell outright refuses, by the way, but iPhones won't run on Bell's ancient network)

Don't get an iPhone.
Get a cheap cell phone. And then get a PDA if a pocket computer is what turns your crank, or an MP3 player , or whatever. Trust me, the all in one device ? It's a rip off. It's called bundling and they make you pay , and pay , and pay.

This I have discovered all ready. 120$ for head phones for my music phone ? or 60$ for an mp3 player that does a better job. The all in one device was supposed to save me money , not triple the price of everything !

Israel downplays Hamas truce offer

Article


Hamas called for a six-month truce in Gaza, stressing that the move must be "reciprocal, simultaneous and comprehensive" and that Israel must end its crippling blockade of the impoverished territory.

Israel responded by saying it would only stop military raids on Gaza after Hamas gives up "terrorism" and after militants in the territory stop attacking the Jewish state and smuggling in weapons from Egypt.


Translation : We'd be happy to form a Truce with you, Mr Jew hating Hamas, but you kind of have to STOP SHOOTING AT US FIRST !!!!!

Umm..no ? Not acceptable ? Oh well. No truce then.

Ubuntu's 'Hardy' Gets Cozy With Windows

Article


The Ubuntu 8.04 release also aims to make it easier in the first place of users to try out Linux.
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"This greatly reduces the perceived risks of adding Ubuntu to an existing Windows computer," Shuttleworth said. "It allows you to remove Ubuntu using Windows add/remove feature."


Bill Gates : Hey , guys. Someone get a copy of Ubuntu so we can mess that up and make sure it doesn't operate with windows ? We don't want people trying it out and deciding they like it better than windows now , do we ?

Yeah right. You're not building anything that operates well with windows any longer than it takes them to issue an "emergancy patch" to break it. And then they'll just sit back laughing and claim "It wasn't windows compatable software. Not our problem !"

Indictment: Strip club trip among bribes to sell faulty grenades

Article


ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A Georgia military contractor tricked law enforcement agencies into buying faulty stun grenades, ultimately leaving three FBI agents injured, federal prosecutors announced Monday.
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The company also mixed defective grenades with others that had been fixed "to camouflage the defective devices from receiving personnel" at the FBI, the indictment says.

Last week's indictment alleges that company officials bribed a federal official and paid for a visit to a strip club. The officials are accused of conspiracy, money laundering, mail fraud and defrauding the government.

The company, known as PSI, did not immediately respond to calls for comment.



That is so american. Money first ,the heck with everything else. If you're rich, you're a hero. If you're poor, you're a lazy oaf worthis white (or black) trash welfare bum.

An opinion that has worked it's way into canada , thanks to having no native film or tv industry and getting "dumped" american shows at below cost. Something that would be illegal in any other industry.

Looking at articles like this, dangerous wares, but there's money on the table ? Lets just bribe a few people and keep going !

I am reminded of the american airline industry, terribly upset about having their planes grounded for failing safty inspections, inspections they weasled their way out of having to do for years, and then when the weasling failed and it all came due at once we find out most every single plane they have has problems. And they blame the inspectors. YOU DID IT TO YOURSELF FOOLS !!!! No , thats not an acceptable response for them.

I am reminded of Taser corp and their non lethal stun gun that keeps killing people. So far they tested it on some cows or pigs or something and found it causes heart murmurs even after even only one shot. Heart murmurs. So much for "leaves no bad after effect" Mr Taser Corp president. But you're still weasling your way out of that one and we have to wait for your fall a bit longer it seems.

I am reminded of the current morgage scandel in america, where there were complaints that they kept swapping documents and making them sign and sign and sign until they just stopped reading , and then they got the shaft. And now that they're stuck with a huge morgage on a tiny house thats worth less than themorgae, they're all declaring bankruptcy , so these companies are running to the government for help. And getting it. And the little guy just gets the shaft and not much else.

I am reminded of record industries that don't actually sell records. They just wait for a new medium to come along , because hey , lets face it , once you already have all the songs you want on LP (and later tape cassettes , and then CD's) you're not buying them twice , right? So they just wait , and a new medium comes out. And they wait for people to cheat. And they wait until there's a good supply of cheaters. Then they sue everyone in sight for damages, because hey , you can't sell them the same songs over and over. They dn't make money on sales. Only on law suits.
And then they complain that other countries don't follow american rules. Hah !

I am definately reminded of Microsofts preditory tactics and deliberate campaigns to wipe out the competition and impose a monopoly, but lets not get into another microsoft rant. Suffice to say their operating system has vender locked itself to the point where it is no longer useful to me , it doesn't do the job anymore, and so I'm just waiting for the warrenty to run out on this piece of junk before throwing Linux on it. I only kept it to run my online games, and now those games will run on Linux under wine, and you can't sue me because this box has a windows license *grins and sticks tongue out at bill gates*

I am reminded of how insulted I was on 9/11 when all those planes were crashing out of the sky. And beside every such news article was an ad to fly, there are deep discounts now there's no better time to fly than now ! There are terrorists blowing up your planes and crashing them and you're running these ads the very same day ? My god you have no scruples at all do you ? You are completely amoral arn't you ?

Well...I should have expected that. I read so many linux articles, mostly bashing microsoft I admit , and right beside or above them is some ad trying to sell microsoft junk. I'm still laughing at that. This article is bashing microsoft and you're running microsoft ads on it ? Completely amoral.

How many american companies taking the consumer for a ride ? I've lost count over the years. That false gold company that bought gold ore off another to act as proof. Those phone solicitation guys that got told to cease and desist by a court , but ignored it and phoned up the very same people all over again to "help them" get their money back from those criminals, but you had to pay up front for that , in effect robbing them a second time. I lost count of how many completely fraudulent business deals come from america.

It's pointless to be a scientist or computer manufacturer in canada , because we buy all our science from america , cheap , and computers. Why produce locally ?

Money first. Swamp and destroy the locals. Defraud john doe. Mail order and phone scams. False businesses. "Made in America" is a warning lable, not a boast, if you ask me.

Facebook fines for Oxford students

Article



Oxford University has used Facebook to gather information on graduating students behaviour, and then fined them £10,000.


What a wonderful idea ! I think I'll get stinking drunk , trash the place, take pictures of it all ,and put it all up on my facebook page ! Wow...you don't think the campus authorities will actually read those entries and charge me for clean up, will you ?

*laughing*

Why don't you just rob a bank and take pictures of it all and put it up while you're at it ? Some people just have no brains. I can't believe it.

Psychics see big trouble over new laws

Article


Organizers say that replacing the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951 with new consumer protection rules will remove key legal protection for "genuine" mediums.

They think skeptics might bring malicious prosecutions to force spiritualists to prove in court that they can heal people, see into the future or talk to the dead.


Wow...you mean like you'll have to operate under the same rules the doctors and manufacturers of medical drugs do ? You'll actually have to prove your stuff does something ?

That is so shocking ! That is a total violation of your religious right to just make crud up and take peoples money after doing nothing but tell a few lies ! They can't do that to you !

Can they ?

Why , next thing you know, you'll have to hire advertising agencies and peddle your fraudulent goods just the way those pseudo science drug companies peddle their products that keep getting recalled because it turns out they're killing people, which they knew all along !

This does nothing but make work for more and more advertisers !
We need to protest this !

Comments send wrong message: Rae

Article

It's the third section of this news article.


Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said Friday that Anders's remarks send the wrong message and will damage already-strained relations with China.

"This government's gaffes keep growing by the hour," said Rae.

"The Conservatives seem determined to not only diminish Canada's reputation in the eyes of the world but also to do serious damage to some of our key international relationships."


Yep. There is good old Bob Rae, friend of the peolpe and a common man. Defending China and acting more interested in getting along with this human rights nightmare body snatching and black market organ selling thing known as China than listening to the regular Canadian folk.

You think anyone in canada (other than a few misguided politicitians) gives a rats behind about a few bucks we're making selling stuff to China ? Or are they panicking because soon we won't be able to buy junk fm radios for a dollar anymore , the kind that come pre-broken right out of the box and never do actually work ?

Apparently , Bob Rae's gaff's keep growing by the hour.
*MONEY FIRST ! HUMAN RIGHTS SOME TIME LATER ON AFTER ALL THE PROTESTERS ARE DEAD AND SOLD FOR BODY PARTS !!!!*

That seems to be The Honorable MP for Toronto Center Bob Rae...


please contact our riding office

365 Bloor Street East, Suite 1805
Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4
Phone: 416 954-2222
Fax: 416 954-9640
RaeB1@parl.gc.ca


...'s new battle cry.

I think someone should send him a nasty email protesting this.

In fact. I think I'll do that myself !

Give us more Canuck TV, Trailer Park Boy tells CRTC

Article


"We need more Canada on TV," Trailer Park Boys star Robb Wells told the federal broadcast regulator on Friday as hearings continued into Canada's broadcasting environment.


Yes. We need some canadian content. Some being more than what we have right now , which is basically nothing but american reruns and a couple of newscasters commenting on some video they bought of an american company and trying to rack up a minute or two of canadian content by babbling about the obvious for a moment or two.

Sheesh , I know more about the american election than I do about my own countries political parties. Whats up with that ?


Monique Lafontaine, director of regulatory affairs at the Directors Guild, said the guild believes the cable and satellite distributors will drop Canadian services under a deregulated regime, resulting in fewer channels to buy Canadian programming.


Yes, when you make a show for a set price , and then sell it to 300 million people , you can charge less for a show made for only 30 million people. And now that you got your money already from those 300 million , you can export it for below what it would cost even americans to produce and pick up a few more pennies at the price of swamping and exterminating any film industry in your target country (canada , in this case, but they do it to other countries as well)

This is called "dumping" , and if it were for any other product , it would be illegal. But some how for TV it is not.


Hours devoted Canadian drama has fallen sharply since 1999, when the CRTC relaxed rules that forced broadcasters to create new drama.


Yes, buying shows from america at below the cost to produce is cheaper than making your own. Thats a no brainer.


That deregulation led to the cancellation of Cold Squad, a Canadian crime drama, because broadcaster CTV was able to buy a copycat U.S. show, Cold Case, much cheaper, said actress Julie Stewart.


Steal our own idea and sell it back to us , cheap. After they made their money from the american market. Brilliant.


A big problem for us is shorter episode orders," he said, pointing out that stations are ordering shorter seasons, which makes it more expensive for producers and harder to market their program.

Then when episodes run out, channels will bend the rules on Canadian content, as when History Channel ran CSI New York as its Canadian content, he said.


*Laughing* You ran a show called CSI New York as Canadian content and they let you get away with it? Are there actually any canadian content rules ? Or is it all volintary and you get to break the rules any time you like ?


The CRTC sees content rules as difficult to enforce, but that is no reason to get rid of the rules, he said.

"If the CRTC had the ability to fine broadcasters or punish them when they break the rules, then it might be easier."


So what you're saying is that the CRTC is a toothless tiger. Break their rules ... and don't sweat it. Nothing they can do about it.


The cable and satellite industries have opposed both fee-for-carriage and increases to the CTF, saying what they need is less and more simple regulation.


What regulation ? You do as you please and there is nothing anyone can do to stop you. What regulation are you panicking over ?

Phones and MP3 players

Article = none , personal experiance.

How to take a ticked off customer and tick him off even more...

I had today off , so I went down to St. Laurent Shopping Center , to ....

St. Laurent Centre
Ottawa
K1K 3B8
Phone: 613-748-9283
Fax: 613-748-3784

... with my old clunker of a phone , a nokia bar phone (shaped like a bar of soap , no flip hinge or anything) that simply will not die despite the peanut butter in the jack for the head set that I never did buy, or the slight crack in the screen where my wife stomped on it once.
Can you put this phone on my account ? My regular phone is in the shop and I bought the regular with you and it has insurance that covers a loaner phone and everything.
No. It's a Virgin Mobile phone. Bell only puts bell phones on it's system , no one elses.
Probably I shouldn't mention that I (later on) called 611 on this virgin mobile phone and got a recorded message telling me to call Bell Mobility at such and such a number.
Well, can I have that loaner phone then ,the one that my insurance pays for ?
No you didn't send you phone back with us (because you refused ! You want me to wait while you special order some headphones and thats already been almost two weeks !) but if you give us a work order from Bell , then we'll do it anyways.
What a nice way to tell you to plick off, seeing as they know bell didn't give me a work order, just a courier receipt to say the courier had picked up my phone on such and such a day.
Well..you know my phone number and my account number, can't you just call Bell and get confirmation I"m not funning you ?
No. (No explanation why they can't call.)
All right , catch you later. Walk out of store.

Later on, I type in www.virginmobile.com , and it redirects me to some vigin mobile website with a rediculously long url and I type in my phone number. Doesn't exist. (I didn't remember the number by the way , I actually entered it into the phones contact list under my name so I'd never lose it unless I lost the phone, clever me).
No luck.
This is the part where I phone 611 on the phone, the universal number for technical support on all phones everywhere. (keep that in mind, 611 ...that comes in later on in this article). And instead of Virgin Mobile answering it's Bell Mobility. I start swearing at Bell and my hatred for them grows stronger.
Find a contact number on the virgin mobile page, and phone them up. Get their automatic system trying to get me to start up a new phone I just bought. Press 0 to get a live operater (yeah , keep in mind I pressed 0 ....there's a lot of not so secret codes in our society , arn't there ?) and I found out if you don't use your phone for 4 months they deactivate it. But thats ok , they'll reactivate it free of charge (you get a different number, and yes ! I did update my contact list with MY entery to reflect the new number the moment I stopped talking with them ! Arn't I so clever ? ) and even gave me 10$ credit for being such a good customer.
No one likes a deadbeat , and my difficulties with bell mobility were definately not virgin mobiles fault, so I whipped out my credit card and put 15$ on the account anyways , even though I know that at 30 cents a minute thats 75 min that only lasts 45 days , and I'm just not a talkative guy , most of that time is gonna expire before I use it. Call it a sign of support for virgin.
Side note. Did virgin deactivate the internet for me like bell refused ? No. Did virgin deactivate text messaging like bell refused ? No. Did virgin deactivate the xms radio like bell refused ? Irrelevatn , this phone doesn't have that. Does all this matter ? No ! It's a pay as you go phone. It's not gonna rack up my bill to some outragous amount. It's just gonna spend the 15$ (plus 10$ credit they gave me) and then stop. No weird bills !
Point one: I now have my own temporary phone , and at 10$ cheaper than the 25$ bell wanted to charge me for a loaner.
Point two: the losers trying to rip me off (bell and wirelesswave) didn't get a dime out of me. I hate when people rip me off. And I certainly hate giving them more money, that just encourages them to keep on ripping !

I had earlier checked out the price of a set of blue tooth headphones for playing music. If I could find a set at a reasonable price, it would completely bypass the non functioning jack that was only playing my songs in mono. Found one, 120$ plus tax. Yech.
Went into The Source, an electronics store. 60$ for an mp3 player, Zen Stone , and 20$ for some decent head phones.
Interestingly... they first suggested an iPod for 50$. But you have to download iTunes to use it. And iTunes is just a shell around your internet explorer. So the first thing it's gonna do is demand you get the latest and greatest internet explorer. And the internet explorer is going to insist on you getting all the security patches. The ones that usually break your system and cause any program that bill gates has decided he hates to mysteriously stop working.
Even worse, when xp first came out , a patch came out for win98. A patch that basically slowed down win98 and made it suck and stopped it from doing many of the things it usually did. And if you phoned Microsoft, you just got told to upgrade to winxp , they no longer suppoert win98. Deliberate , but perfectly legal , sabatage.
What do you want to bet that now that Microsoft is Vista happy , the lastest Xp patches sabatage it , and all they do is demand you upgrade to vista ?
Plus iPods had a bad reputation for giving you problems with copy right , and only buying from the itune store, and other insane vender lock "Only buy from us , not allowed to buy from anyone else" nonsense.
"No , I don't like iTunes." I told the clerk.
So he shifted from the iPod to the Zen Stone , for ten extra dollars. Ten dollars to avoid that nightmare was cheap, if you ask me.
Take my Zen Stone home, plug it into my linux machine (Ubunto 7.10) and it shows up like an extra hard drive on the desk top. Open it up and start putting music files into it.

'Droid Speak

In the first movie starwars, Luke Skywalker could speak directly to R2D2 without any translation. He apparently read the lights on the droid / robot and listened to the chirping noises it made, and he knew what it all meant. Totally cool ! What a neat science fiction concept. Give the robots a special langauge.

Umm.... maybe not so science fiction.

My Zen Stone has one (count it , ONE ) light on it. If it flashes red once , and then a pause, it means it's at 25% or less charge. Two red flashes its 50% , three it's 75%, and solid red it's fully charged. I know this because I read the instrution manual. Is there a display to tell you this ? Nope. Just that one little light. Oh yes, and it also flashes green to indicate something or other else, I didn't bother with that because I wasn't interested. Something about data transfer , but hey , I can see on my computer screen the progress of the data transfer so thats redundant.

Rember those first cell phones that flip open , and how every techie declared them to be star trek communicators come true ?

I think we're working on Droid Speak now.

Interperting that light is part of droid speak , isn't it ? You know the codes , but non technical people don't. They're not a secret , really , you just have to dig for them. And you know , getting caught in a computer system trying to solve your problem without letting you talking to a live human , and knowing that you can just press 0 and you 'll get one anyways ? Thats a little secret code that isn't obvious to everyone too , isn't it ? Isn't that also kind of like droid speak ?

And what about Emily ? Bell Canada's Artificial Not-So-Intelligent program that answers the phone and can actually understand the spoken word. Knowing that if you say "Agent" , or just start swearing into the phone, you'll get a live operator, that's another secret code too isn't it ? Along with 611 (technical assistance any phone) , and 411 ( directory assistance any phone ) and 0 for the operator.. these codes may be well known , but they're not written down on the handset , are they ? Unless you crack open a manual (telephone book) and look around, (or somone tells you ) they're not at all obvious.

Droid Speak. It's not that far away. Some might say we actualy have a simple version of it right now , it simply hasn't been formally recognized as such.

My New FM Radio

Article = None , Personal Experience

I lost my mp3 player. I havn't seen it in days.
So I go to the dollar store and pick up a radio, that will get me by.

What kind of radio was it , you ask ? "FM Radio"
Oh , brand name ...brand name ..brand name...nope ! Don't see a brand name on the box. Just Says FM Radio. With auto scan. Takes 2 AAA batteries.

Whats the brand name of the batteries ?

Sunbeam. The Power Generator. MightyCell. Mercury free. Super Heavy Duty.
And on the back it gives a warrenty , not completely satisfied return to some place in quebec for complete refund.

On the back of the radio it says ....never immerse in water. And some operating instructions. Way way down at the bottom of this radio with no manufacturer and no guarentee is a little tiny thing that says "Made in China".

The batteries work fine.
The radio barely functioned for about three minutes, and then lost it's lock on the channel I was listening to. After much fiddling , I got it back. Three minutes later , it lost lock again. Lousy sound quality , and it couldn't hold channel lock. The thing functioned just long enough to pass a quality inspection if you were in a hurry , but was not actually useful.

And this is what china is selling us ? This is what our trade with China consists of ? Junky electronics that can't actually be used ? For this we endure their lies and human rights violations ?

I regret that I forgot to salvage the two batteries when I tossed the thing in the trash thirty minutes after first purchasing it. And that is my only real regret.

How to Abuse a Monopolistic Position

Vista SP1 won't install on dual-boot systems: Microsoft


If you’re dualbooting Windows Vista Enterprise or Ultimate alongside a Linux distro, and have installed the Linux bootloader into the MBR, then you’re guaranteed to run into problems when installing Vista Service Pack 1, Microsoft has admitted.


Step one : Who is the competition ? (Linux)

Step Two : Make Darn Sure the customer must make a choice, they cannot have both. You don't want them to slowly easy onto Linux , you want that to be as hard a road as possible.


Microsoft Technology Advisor Michael Kleef explained to APC that “…BitLocker isn’t just about encryption and system validation, but rather data integrity. When you enter your PIN, BitLocker checks it every step of the way from the TPM chip through the bootloader, and if it finds something that doesn’t match what it’s expecting, access is denied. Installing LILO or GRUB effectively breaks the chain of trust as these bootloaders take over the MBR, so on an encrypted boot partition, this means that the system won’t boot.


Step three : Make up some excuse why you *HAVE* to backstab the competition. In this case , they decided all by themselves that Linux was insecure, and even though the tech's on the ground doing the job may have got it up and running and are very happy with that , you don't care about their opinion. You don't even know what job they're trying to do. "Data Security" and "Chain of Trust" are good catch phrases.


Easy Bypass :

This whole issue affects a lot of duel booters , people who boot from Windows or Linux on the same machine, but it really has no effect on me at all. Why ? I put Linux on my old clunker (which now runs better than my new windows machine) and my new machine still has the factory installed Windows Xp on it. When it gets to the end of that silly four year contract I signed (Note to self : never do that again ! No long contracts ! Pay cash up front or do without !) It will become my linux clunker and I'll get whatever discount machine I can afford at the time for a brand new machine.

Don't give away your old machine. Put Linux on it. And that cuts microsoft all the way out of the loop. Besides, since the machine technically has a Windows License, even though you're not using windows on it anymore , you can Legally run Wine on it , and run your old windows programs anyways.

Summary :

I simply love how the Least secure operating system in the world (windows) has decided it will not allow you to use the Most secure operating system in the world (Linux) because it doesn't trust it. I chuckle every time I think about it.

:)

Free and Unfettered by Simple Honesty

China steps up campaign against Dalai Lama


The Chinese government news agency denounced the Dalai Lama and his supporters as "anti-human rights" Sunday, stepping up a campaign against the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the day after Beijing announced the arrest of nine monks for allegedly bombing a government building in Tibet last month.


It's amazing the stories that come out of places where Honesty is considered a foriegn concept.


Xinhua, the state-run news agency, reported late Saturday that the monks, from the Tongxia monastery in eastern Tibet, had fled after a homemade bomb exploded at the building in Gyanbe township on March 23. The report said the monks later confessed to planting the bomb. A local official confirmed the monks had been detained.


Aha. Some peace loving monks set a bomb somewhere. In a place where there's already hundrds, if not thousands , of chinese troops already sent in to arrest them.

"The monks later confessed ..." After you put them in jail and beat them unmercifully and told them what you wanted them to confess to. Or did you even bother with that ? Did you just print whatever propaganda you felt like and not even bother with the details of getting names and a fake investigation ?


"It is indeed the anti-human rights nature of the Dalai clique that impels the 'pro-Tibet independence' separatists to undermine China's stability and unity, disgrace China worldwide, and even sabotage the Olympic torch relay by all sorts of violent means," an English-language Xinhua commentary said Sunday.


Anti-human rights. This from a nation that denies Tiamin square ever existed , despite murdering hundreds of it's own people , and who routinely sells organs of "doners" (Fal long Gong gang and now no doubt these monks) on the international black market.


"No responsible government will sit idle for such crimes, which gravely encroach human rights, gravely disrupt social order and gravely jeopardize the life and property security of the masses," Hu was quoted as saying.


No responsible government exists in Bejing. All that exists is a bunch of terrorizing old men who tell any lie and commit any atrocity against their own "people" who really arn't people at all. They're just fire wood for the old men to torture and amuse themselves with. They're not actually obligated to protect them or in any way care for them or anything. They're not "responsible" for them.

Boycott China. Period. This is now insane.

Alright, who's the clown ?

Article


"We express our strong condemnation to the deliberate disruption of the Olympic torch relay by Tibetan separatist forces regardless of the Olympic spirit and the law of Britain and France," China spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.

"Their despicable activities tarnish the lofty Olympic spirit and challenge all the people loving the Olympic Games around the world."


Alright, who's the clown ?
Not the Chinese spokeswoman speaking lies out of both sides of her face, thats obvious. No, I want to know who's the clown crushing these protests and actually letting the olympics continue.

Ya gotta know lots of people aint gonna watch it. I certainly want nothing to do with it. And what is any business doing buying advertising in this public relations nightmare anyways ? Do they want to tarnish their name with the blood of the innocent ?

Yes I know we now sell junk to china and some trade minister is afraid to upset that apple cart. But I'm not ! I don't think we should have anything to do with "their despicable activites" and we should be moving towards a total boycott of all things china.

And I know people out there are already advocating this , but somehow , it's suddenly just not making the news.

Who's the clown running this show ? Certainly not the will of the people, that much is obvious.

Trafficking in Death

Kidney transplant policy needs to change


If you are saying to yourself that a person would have to be Bugs Bunny's knuckleheaded maroon not to buy the longer-lasting car, you are beginning to appreciate the sub-text of purchasing a kidney from a live donor in places like China and India and Pakistan. They are not just any kidney, they are much, much better kidneys than what is otherwise often available to people who require a transplant.


Get your kidneys here ! Red hot ! Fresh from Tibetian Donars ! Yes sir ! Everyone a genuine volinteer, just ask the Chinese Government , they'll be happy to confirm this !


In all ways, the living donor is not just better but what one might call betterissimo. More than half the living donor recipients are out of the hospital in five days, compared to 30 per cent of the standard criteria donors and 22 per cent of those who got kidneys from older, sicker donors.


Yes sir ! Get your live donar transplants ! Trust us ! No tibetian monks were harmed in the making of this donation ! Except for the ones who volinteered ! Yes sir ! Genuine volinteers each and everyone !

So the best thing you can do, the smartest thing to do, Zaltzman suggested to me, is accept the inevitable disconnect between willing givers and needy recipients and legalize payment for kidneys in this country.


yes ! Let ohip pay for my chinese tibetian volinteer kidney ! That sounds like a great plan ! We should start immediately !

Wall apologizes for ‘intolerant’ comments

Article


Mr. Lukiwski said: “There's A's and there's B's. The A's are guys like me. The B's are homosexual faggots with dirt on their fingernails that transmit diseases.”


Now thats just nasty !

The Regina MP stood in the House of Commons on Friday to apologize formally for the comments, saying he will spend the rest of his political career and life trying to live down the shame.

Oh that won't be too long at all ! Hardly more than another week or two !

Yes , interesting. Well...these are the people that get themselves elected to the public trough, and the average tax payer does have a right to know who they're voting for.

The sad thing is , there's a lot of people who believe just as he does, so they'll forgive him on this count, and he may even stay elected. More of a commentary of the beliefs of the canadian public than this nitwit's personal prejudices, I'm afraid.

This is the land that we live in.

Oh Canada , Eh ?

Al Qaeda No. 2: We don't kill innocents

Article

The second-in-command of al Qaeda has said the terrorist group does not kill innocents... ...while standing in a pool of blood, and busy strapping on an explosive vest to a 10 year old child he's about to send off to blow someone up.

"We're also totally honest and you should listen to us and ignore the western media !" he added. "There now , child. Now run over to the soldiers over there and press this button when you get there. But not before , understand ? Don't worry , nothing bad will happen."

some things just speak for themselves.

This Phone Really Sucks !

Article = None , Personal Experiance

Finally , after about a month I got my phone back from the repair shop (it wouldn't charge). Charges now, made a test call, ready to go. So I put my head phones in , crank up the tunes , walk away.

I get maybe twenty steps before I realize the music isn't playing properly. I'm not hearing the lead singer I'm only hearing the back up.

They fixed the charging problem (calling it "Major Repairs") and broke the head phone jack in the process !

Walk back to the store. Demonstrate this problem to the clerk.

Well , it's probably the headset. We don't have any in stock , we'll let you know when you get some , and then we'll try it out. If it doesn't work , we'll send it back in for repairs.

So how long am I waiting for this shipment of head sets ? Don't know. They'll phone me.

Phone bell Canada. I want to terminate my service.
They talk me into letting them fix it again. They'll send me a box and I'll mail it back to them. And I'm without a phone for 2 - 6 weeks while it's being fixed. If you want a loaner phone it's 25$. (I decide no loaner).

Go over my contract. It says they're going to bilk me for 20$ a month for every month I don't do on the contract to a maxium of 400$. Hmmm...where is that clause for just paying for the rest of the phone ? (250$) Not there. But there is a small blurb that reads "Other Termination Fee's may apply ..." They're gonna bilk me for 650$.

Just read a news article of some couple being scammed by the phone company and having to pay 1700+$ in termination fee's. (Presumably for two lines.) Divide by two ... and thats about right.

In other words, once you sign that three year contract, you pay for it. You pay full price for the phone, and you pay close to full price for the three years of service. Whether you actually use that , or you pay it off in termination fee's, you pay.

I've decided to get the full entertainment value out of my 650$. I'm gonna send it back to warrenty anytime I find anything wrong with it. I'm going to make maximum use of the insurance. The works.

If you're gonna sell crap , then you're gonna pay the repair bills. And I'm gonna be posting it here for all to read.

All right then. Lets see where this goes.

Wow...do people really think that way ?

Canadians come under fire near Gaza Strip
Article.

Not the article itself , one of the comments left by a visitor..5th one down when I was there.


cbc is under the influence of neo-con traitors ...

Um...whats a neo-con ? Neo Conservative ? New Conservative ?

And traiter. What are they betraying again ? Certainly not Canada.

...and is the mouth piece for the global agenda.

Global Agenda ? What Global Agenda ?

this is a promotional video to help us understand the 'difficulties' in this region. where's the united nations to step in and quit the slaughter of innocent civilians and bring justice and peace to this war torn region.

I believe they're having trouble right now with a bunch of arab states blocking any move to stop the violence , and constantly generating "Lets Kill All The Jews" motions for everyone to vote down.

elitism at its best. i believe nothing the cbc prints anymore because they are lapdogs to yankee imperialism.

Umm...I lifted this from a cbc site...they printed your blathering ,didn't they ?

your all traitors and this promo feed newstory should be left on pay per view for those brainwashed seniors that allowed this type of society to exist in the first place.

Brainwashed seniors...ahh...you blame your elders for the current situation ? Actually that kind of makes sense, much as the current crop of adults is making a mess in the name of just trying to hold down a job. Yeah , we should know better than to make the mess we are to the environment , but we gotta pay the bills right ?

canada had honor once. dion! i don't wanna die in a low income housing for seniors in parksville! save us dion from this conservative nightmare! bring on the vote before its too late!


Umm...I'm guessing you are a senior, and you disagree with your contemporaries. You old coot ! Lol ! I'm gonna guess the old coot is a die hard liberal.

Still wondering about that global agenda. The only one I see is the "lets not let them convert us all to Islam" agenda. Which is hard to disagree with.

Bell Canada takes heat from clients for limiting online speed

Article


"Most people are doing online banking, watching YouTube videos, the basic services. We want to offer them the best service possible," spokesperson Jacques Bouchard said.


Yeah , what he said !


Pat Hurley, an analyst at research firm TeleChoice, said five to 10 per cent of Internet users take up most of the bandwidth as they download high definition movies and play games online.


Yeah ..you see .... what was that he said ? Play games online ?

yer toast.

If I can't play my online games. Your service is *USELESS* to me.

Remind me never to go to bell.

Well... maybe that doesn't count. TeleChoice isn't bell is it ? But still...I aint switching until I hear from bell about online gaming.

Oh, got a nice letter from Rogers Cable Internet.
Apparently I have a 60GByte limit, and if I go over it it's like two bucks a gig there after. They also sent me a nice graph showing my usage for the last three months. The first two months my usage was barely a sliver on the left edge, just enough to say I turned the machine on every now and then. The third month it was 8 gigabytes.

Makes me a tad curious about what my wife has been doing when I'm not around since I set up that guest computer in the living room, but 8 gigs is so far below the limit I'm not gonna panic. I did let her know we have a 60 gig limit and she used 8 though ...just to keep her up to date and make sure this doesn't spin out of control.

But lets face it.8 gigs is quite a party. You'd have to go hog wild to do 60.

Now ...start blocking online gaming ... now I'm ticked.

Activate Mind Control Technology ! You *WILL* Buy Our Product !

Is the Ad a Success? The Brain Waves Tell All

The ardor of the ad business to adopt the technical tools of biometrics — measuring brain waves, galvanic skin response, eye movements, pulse rates and the like — is increasing...

And who hires these ad agencies ? I'll tell you who. Anyone with some piece of absolute junk that is worth pretty much nothing who wants to sell it anyways, thats who hires them. The more junkie and worthless the product ...the bigger the advertisement budget.


“Instead of hypotheses about what people think and feel, you actually see what they think and feel,” said Joel Kades, vice president for strategic planning and consumer insight at Virgin Mobile USA in Warren, N.J.

“I’m not such a huge fan of ad testing,” he added, but measuring biological responses is “absolutely useful.”


Yah know...that whole science thingy about try it out and measure the results, see what works and doesn't work ? I think we should apply that to fast talking people into buying our junk ! yeah ... I think thats a great idea.


“We measure attention, second by second; how emotionally engaged you are with what you’re watching, whether it’s a commercial, a movie or a TV show; and memory retention,” said A. K. Pradeep, chief executive at NeuroFocus in Berkeley, Calif.


Ah yes, memory retention. Let me just stuff the name of our product in your head so you can't possibly forget it ! Whether that product has any value or not is totally irrelevant. All that matters is ...the manufacturers advertising checks don't bounce. :)


“The role of neuromarketing is to understand how people feel and react,” Ms. Moses said. “It in no way sets out to meddle with normal, natural response mechanisms.”


Nope. You're not trying to alter those responses, that would be a mess ! You're just trying to make a map of them so you can navigate through them and accomplish your goals.


“We’re not trying to predict an individual’s thoughts and actions and we’re not trying to input messages,” Dr. Knight said.


Um...you just said you were. Memory retention , right ? Already mentioned as one of the goals earlier in the article. If you're gonna lie, at least try not to be blindingly stupid about it.

Oh my goodness, this product is completely worthless ! Activate Mind Control Technology on Maximum ! This is gonna be a tough one ! But the client is paying well so lets buckle down and get too it people !

There's No Fish Left !

New Bell Canada scandal looms


New Bell Canada scandal looms

p2pnet news | P2P:- Canada’s largest ISP, Bell Canada, is powering ahead with its traffic shaping ‘traffic management’ plan.

I remember long ago on TV, newfoundland residents were protesting restrictions on fishing, and one old coot went up to the member of parliment and demanded he be allowed to fish any time he liked, his family had been there for generations etc etc. The MP responded "There's No Fish Left ! I can't put the fish back ! What do you want me to do ? There's no fish !" Which got him attacked by the old coot who was uncerimoniously dragged off by security.

30 gigabytes , or more, a month, is a *HUGE* amount of data. You can play online games and watch youtube.com and leave it playing all day and all night and you still won't touch 30 gigs. (30 gigs is the current cap bell is imposing in this news article by the way).

The only people affected by this limit are the people moving DVD's over the internet. A dvd is like 6 gigs of space, you can therefore do 5 of them in a month. If you're illicitly trading DVD's , this is a major restriction on your activities, and I can see how you'd be upset. But I cannot sympathize with you , I think you got caught and it looks good on you ! :) And 40% of all internet traffic currently is DVD's being traded ? You guys are ratcheting up my bill ! I just went from being indifferent to your cause , to now being hostile to it.

You're costing me money !

There's only so much bandwidth to go around people.

There's No Fish Left ! I can't put the fish back ! What do you want me to do ? There's no fish !

Foreclosures Fairs

Desperate turn to foreclosures fairs


The fair kicked off a series of events planned in March, or what local politicians have dubbed "Foreclosure Prevention Month," around the northern San Joaquin Valley as well as cities from Florida to Chicago and places west. The world's most fertile farm region, the San Joaquin Valley includes three metro areas -- Stockton, Modesto and Merced -- with some of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation.


Isn't that nice, these people are gonna get help with their morgages.


More and more family friendly foreclosure fairs, where mortgage lenders and counselors offer advice to desperate homeowners, ...


I've been to a bank workshop with my girlfriend who was facing bankruptcy, which is just like a forclosure fair. Do you know what they told her ? They told her cut back on her expenses, borrow from her friends and boyfriends (me ! ) work a few extra shifts and pay back her loans. Pay THEM back first , and all the other people she owes money to some time later. The whole thing was little more than a "pay US and TO HECK WITH EVERYONE ELSE mind job."


In San Francisco recently, fairgoers and officials complained that lenders have, for the most part, rejected pleas to help negotiate loans or forestall foreclosure with a payment agreement.

Yep. Come to our fair so we can tell you to PONY UP THE CASH YOU DEAD BEAT BUMS !!!!


One couple said the same broker who had written their loan in 2005 promising he would help them refinance it to a 30-year fixed rate when the teaser rate of two percent expired refused to take their calls. Their mortgage on a $300,000 house mushroomed from about $900 to over $2,000.

DO YOU HEAR US CARING ? HEAR THAT SILENCE ? THATS US CARING ..PAY UP !!!

Lemme give you home owners a piece of advice.
Declare bankruptcy, don't give these dogs a dime, and walk away.
They robbed you. they made this mess, now they're trying to make you clean it up. They're trying to brutally squeeze you for money you don't have. 2000$ a month ? Kiss it goodbye.

Random Iraqi Road Traffic Fatalities

FBI: Bodies of kidnapped U.S. contractors found


Of the 4,000 U.S. military personnel killed in the war, 3,263 have died in attacks and fighting and 737 in nonhostile incidents, such as traffic accidents and suicides. Eight of those killed were civilians working for the Pentagon. The numbers are based on Pentagon data counted by CNN.


32 hundred in combat, 7 hundred in traffic accidents. Hmmm... so the enemey battle toll is only 3 and a half times as large as the toll from random traffic accidents in Bagdad ?

4000 casualties in 7 years = 571 , divide by 150 000 troops at any one time ... casualty rate of one third of one percent per year. Oops, they're only there for 6 months , so half that. One sixth.

If you are an american soldier in Iraq on a 6 month tour, you have 1 chance in 600 of dying. And 18% of those casualties are traffic accidents not enemey activity.

Hang your head in shame , Al Queda !!! You're just not trying !

lol ... This isn't a war , its a quiet walk to the zoo and having to cross a couple of busy streets along the way. No more dangerous than that.

This is the boogie man of our times.

Boo !

Frightenned yet ?

Bin Laden: Pope Helps Anti-Islam Crusade

article


CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Osama bin Laden accused Pope Benedict XVI of helping in a "new Crusade" against Islam and warned of a "severe" reaction to European publications of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that insulted many Muslims.


Not seeing too many dead muslims here, except those killed by other muslims of course. and the two conquered muslim nations (Iraq, Afghanistan) remain firmly muslim , no attempt to convert them to christianity is occuring.

IE: you lied. Oh , and it's your own people murdering your muslim civilians. Chalk up murder to the list of your crimes too. Murderer of the Muslim People.


"You went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings," he said. "This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe."


There is no "etiquette" of dispute. You think everyone in the world is subject to muslim law and you're going to try and kill those who break it. There is no "discussion" or "dispute" in your eyes. There is only murder and assassination.

Good luck finding a doctor , old man. I know from personal experiance how old folks like us tend to get sick easy and must live their life around how close you are to the hospital. Even if the americans never find you , you're not going to make it.

China's premier blames Dalai Lama 'clique' for violence in Tibet

Article


BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday blamed supporters of the Dalai Lama for recent violence in Tibet, and said Chinese forces exercised restraint in confronting unrest there.

Translation: The Leader of a Communistic Dictatorship reports that the people he's crushing are responsible for the violence in that state. And that they have exercised restraint, as demonstrated by the fact that there's still a few Tibetians left alive.


"There are 13 common people who died in the beating, burning and smashing in the riots," said Champa Phuntsok, the head of Tibet's regional government.


The only tibetians who died died at the hands of their own people. We are totally innocent of any Tiamen style massacures. PS. Tiamen never happened, that's a western lie.


In a news conference in Beijing on Monday, Champa Phuntsok blamed the violence on "a small group of separatists and criminals" who take their lead from exiled followers of Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

On Sunday, the exiled Dalai Lama condemned China's action in his homeland, accusing Beijing of "cultural genocide."


...reports the occupying chinese govener of a conquered and ruthlessly surpressed nation.


Spence Palermo, a American who was filming a documentary at the monastery, said Chinese officials banned his crew from returning to the monastery Friday. They were suddenly rushed from their hotel Saturday as a "seemingly endless convoy" of Chinese troops headed toward the monastery, he said.


"We'll let you know whatever we think you need to know." said the chinese official , kicking out all westerners. "And stop talking about that fictional Tiamenn square event ... it never happened !"

I'll have a bit of Wine with my Linux , please.

The living room computer is a Linux machine. It works well , it doesn't catch virii or trojens, it's very low maintenance. Doesn't run windows programs at all , which I don't miss. Except for games. Which I do miss.

How can you miss microsofts 600$ office suite when Linux gives you a free one that does all the basic tasks. True , it's not too hot onthe advanced stuff, but for just basic pounding out memo's and working on your novel and a simple address book it's great. And the spreadsheet is far more capable than most people suspect. Well..most spread sheets are, most people only know the command to add up a column of figures and don't really know it can do more than that.

My sister has some kind of custom program that needs windows xp , and I know Wine will run xp programs, I've read about it , so I installed Wine on my computer today.

Wine is a Linux "Emulator", that is to say , it lies to the program thats running and says "You're on a windows machine ! Trust me ! Would I lie to you ?"

Locate an old game cd...hmmm... Warcraft II , BNE (battle net edition). Throw the cd in. Use the Winebrowser to find the setup program on the disk (called, creatively enough, setup.exe) double click on it.

The screen flickers. The speakers blast game music. The standard windows install screen apears before me. Wow. Press install. And it goes through it , thinking it's on a windows machine and it's happy as a clam.

Acid test time. Do you want to start Warcraft ? You bet your Bill Gates Stocks I do ! Click yes, and teh screen goes dark. The intro movie plays. Ok, the movie player doesn't know its under Linux thats nice. The screen goes dark. The game music plays. The screen stays dark.

I begin to swear.

Then the screen lights up. The beginning screen of the game. There it is ... it was just a little slow. Emulators are notorious for that , I should have more patience. Start a game. Pick human side. Play the game all the way through , and save it , and close the program gracefully.

Wow , did I used to be addicted to this ? How many years ago ?

It ran without problems.

I was unable to make a short cut on the linux desk top to just click and start, but you can use the winebrowser to find the start program and play it that way, tried it and it started up again.

Conclusions :

I can run windows programs under linux. The average user cannot. There is no ease of use. Not until I figure out how to get linux short cuts going. If I can do that and render it to the point where a user can just click and the program goes, then it's for the average user. Otherwise, some technical ability (the ability to browse to the directory and find the start program for that application ) is required.

Phone Woes II

There's a dollar store where I work. they sell tonnes of junk, and some of it , is real *JUNK* . But there were these wooden boxes, perfect for stashing papers in , and they were only a buck for one of them. Bought it a while back , stuck all my phone papers and rent receipts in it.

My phone wont' charge, and I have fridays off of work (but I have to work saturday). Located the box, got the recipte for the phone , took it out and stuffed it in my pocket. Wasn't just the receipt, was teh whole contract and the girls business card who sold me the phone and everything. Got the damaged phone that won't charge , and hopped on a bus and went to St. Laurent where I bought the phone, not too far from home.

It's probably the charger, I told her. The head phones were working fine, I played tunes until teh battery died, and there's a sort of universal jack that the head phones and the power charger plug into. Figured if the head phoens worked it was likely the charger , probably nothing wrong with the jack.

They get another charger off the wall , apparently they have tonnes in stock. Try it out. No dice. Phone doesn't lite up. Oopsie...guess it is the handset after all.

They play on the computer , takes two of them one to tell the other what to do (he's just learning) and one to teach. Sounds like a labor of herculese just to put in a simple repair request and hook up a loaner phone.

Loaner phone is in the bedroom charging as we speak. 4 - 6 weeks before I get my real phone back.

Eh. I have an mp3 player that does a better job than the phone ever did. And 37$ + tax a month isn't that bad. When my real phone eventually bites the dust and insurance decides it doesn't like me anymore , I'll probably just go out and get the cheapest scuzziest phone I can find and put it on the line to replace it.

My advice ?

This adventure in expensive phones has done little but waste my time and money. You want an mp3 player ? go get one. Don't get a music phone. You want a PDA ? Get a stand alone pda , don't get a phone PDA. Blow the money bribing some high school student or craftsman to craft you a custom leather case to carry them both (or all) at once, rather than seek an all in one device. The all in one device only barely functions , just enough to say IT'S A MUSIC PHONE ! BUY ME BUY ME BUY ME YOU'LL LOVE IT !" No you wont.

like dealing with a shady business man , they technically fulfill the contract , but only in the most irritating and minimal manner possible.

It's Just Business as Usual , in the USA

White House Offers Plan to Ward Off Credit Crises


The plan, which relies primarily on state regulators and private industry to tighten their oversight of financial markets, calls on states to issue nationwide licensing standards for mortgage brokers.


Yeah , we took those suckers for a ride, didn't we , and let me tell you how we did it too , it was so easy it was criminal !

We're morgage brokers ! What does that mean ? Broker = salesman. But we aint selling our product. We're selling someone elses, we're the broker not the producer.

In this case we're lending SOMEONE ELSES money to you, and the more we lend , the bigger the cut we get. And you know , those paper pushing managers only get to keep their jobs for a year or two, one bad downturn and they're out , and they know it. So when we tell them "if you loosen the rules just a bit we could sell more morgages, and bigger ones and no one will ever catch us until two years later ..." they jump at the opportunity ! 'Cause in two years they won't be there anymore , they'll have moved on and someone else will take the heat for the fall.

And so , we lend SOMEONE ELSES MONEY to you , with outrages terms, but terms that don't kick in for two years, your protected for the first two years , and we make a killing on commisions. And the managers who went along with the gag , got to look good for their quarterly reports , which are issued every three months, so they got several good quarterly reports out of us , got a raise and a promotion and everything !

And then it fell apart, because the moment the "protection" clauses fell away and the consumer (that would be YOU ! by the way) had to pay the going rates, it was far too expensive, and so you defaulted on your homes.

But we morgage brokers kept our commisions.
And those managers that went along with the gag kept their promotions and their new jobs.
And those brand new wet behind the ears managers got the shaft nicely left for them by the previous crop of managers.


At the news conference, Mr. Paulson said growing market problems were caused by a series of factors, including mortgage brokers who pushed risky loans on homeowners, conflicts of interest at credit-rating agencies, bond underwriters that loosened standards, and financial institutions that failed to adequately grasp the riskiness of the instruments they were buying and selling.


Conflict of interests ..heh heh heh ..guess who was collecting from both sides ...


On Thursday, Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the two Democratic lawmakers who head Congressional committees that oversee markets, announced plans to provide billions of dollars to states to buy homes in foreclosure and encourage mortgage lenders to write down the value of mortgages in troubled areas.


And the government steps in to keep those loans from defaulting anyways. So we milk the govenrment instead of the the consumer. But since the government gets most of it's money from the consumer anyways ... we're just milking the consumer through a different path.

I love it ! Lets wait five years and do it again !

Phone Woes

Article = none, personal experiance

My phone is toast.
Won't charge. Dead battery. It's got some kind of propriatory universal jack that the headphone OR the charger OR the usb to my computer plugs into. And the headphones were working just fine before the battery died. And when I plugged it into the computer it rang it's little bell for the 10 or so seconds when the phone cranked up and shut down again , so it's being detected.

I think the charger is just toast, not the phone itself.

That kind of propriatory nonsense, and leaving me wondering just how much am I going to be paying for a crappy pair of headphones when these old ones die, is one of my complaints against the phone. The other being their refusal to shut off the internet or the XMS radio. Sometimes I feel like the phone is a pocket salesman , their salesman , in my pocket, to bleed money from me to them.

Oh , and they say if it's the phone they ship it away for 3-5 weeks , fix it ,and it comes back ,and by the way you're still on the hook for the monthly fees. I'm still on the hook, that is. For a phone I bought off them failing, I gotta pay for a month of service that I aint gonna get. "But it's your phone..." the guy told me. "I bought it off of you." yeah yeah .

But it's not my phone if I want to end the contract early. They want the difference between what I paid up front and the box price, they want 250$ if I end the contract early.

It's not my phone when I want to turn the internet off. "Our system can't handle that ! And it's 50$ a megabyte if you accidently activate the browser on your phone or somone gets a hold it ! You better buy our internet plan or you'll get in deep trouble !"

Ditto it's not my phone when I want this XMS radio thingy turned off. Don't know what thats gonna cost but I suspect it will be bad too.

It only seems to be my phone when it comes time to pay the bills. Not when it comes time to decide it shouldn't be *YOUR* salesman sitting in *MY* pocket.

Paying the $250 and getting out is looking real tempting. Maybe I should go back to a go phone.

(edit)
Attempts to look up the price of this xms radio , called Sirius radio, run into the simple problem that the FAQ's are not designed to answer your questions, they're designed to sell you junk. They're worthless for anything else.

It's 'buyer beware' going to Mexico

Article

Ms. Martin, 51, is a victim of a medieval judicial system, bureaucratic indifference and political lethargy. She has been in jail awaiting trial for two years and two months in Guadalajara -- for the first 18 months without any official contact from anyone at Canada's consulate in the city.

Her "crime" was that she worked as a chef for a convicted fraudster, Alyn Waage, who bilked investors worldwide out of about $60-million. He bribed his way out of Mexico


Hey ! I get calls like him all the time. Isn't he the guy that sends you an unsigned check that says "You have won 7,500$ call this number to collect" and then the fine print reads "$5.45US per minute", and when you call the guy doesn't speak english and keeps putting you on hold and drags it out forever until you hang up ?

How can you not know you're working for a fraudster ?


and is currently serving a 10-year sentence in an American prison. While in Waage's employ, Ms. Martin argued with her former boss and was given a one-year severance
package of $28,000. After re-investing this sum, she was charged by the Mexican authorities with money-laundering


Yep. That would be money laundering. In a country where 200$ is a months salary , how did you earn 28 thousand dollar without being in on it ?



and being part of a criminal conspiracy -- even though Waage has provided a sworn affidavit saying she is innocent.


"I swear ! She's totally innocent ! I gave my secratary the equivilant of 10 years pay ......hmmm... because I was BOFFING her ! Yes ..that was why ... now let her go !"

Umm... she's 51 , not 21. Not a credible story.
Severence pay is two weeks salary , even in the USA. Are you saying she was earning
728 000 a year ? In mexico ? You can find some mexican chick and boff her for a lot cheaper than that.

Your story holds no water. Too much money floating around and no good reason.
Yah both need to rot in jail for a good long time, if yah want my opinion.

Analysis: seminary attack highlights Jerusalem's vulnerability

Article


After weeks of empty rhetoric and very little active diplomacy, America’s peace efforts in the Middle East have now come to a crossroads.


There is no crossroads. This started in 1948 , and hasn't stopped. And isn't going to stop. After 60 years of "...come to a crossroads" , and "... this could be a new beginning..." and "... could this be the end of all the killing ?" , I'm just tired of the empty rhetoric.

Are these reporters reporting the news in a neutril fashion ? Or are they trying to shape the news ? The truth is the fighting has dragged on for 60 years and theres no sign of it stopping. Thats the truth.

And thats not what the news article says.
It's not what any of them have said for the last sixty years, as a matter of fact. But here we are , sixty years later.

Canada stuck in slow lane on ISP traffic shaping debate

Article


Last fall, The Associated Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation reported that Comcast, the largest cable provider in the United States, was interfering with network traffic by engaging in traffic shaping. The practice -- largely undisclosed by the company -- resulted in reduced bandwidth for peer-to-peer file-sharing applications and delayed the delivery of some Internet content.


So. What is Traffic Shaping ?

Thats where Rogers Cable Internet , which rents space on the Yahoo mail servers rather than provide it's own mail servers, gives you really good speed to Yahoo , but really sucky speed to MSN.

Thats where Sympatico , a division of Bell Canada, whic rents space on the MSN network for it's mail servers rather than provide it's own , gives you really good speed to the MSN servers but really sucky speeds to Yahoo.

And so you decide , I'm gonna use Yahoo , because MSN is always so slow , it's rediculous ! Or I'm gonna use MSN , because Yahoo is so slow all the time , what a crappy search engine !

Oh , and they don't tell you they're doing this. They just let the competiter take the hit in public opinion for something they did. In other words, we get to back stab the competition , and blame it on the competition at the same time ! Wahoo ! Bonus !

And you the consumer, wind up in a little world of Rogers permitted only web sites, or Sympatico Permitted only web sites, and are denied access to everything else. And they don't tell you. You think you have access to all the world, but really. You don't.

Thats what Internet Traffic Shaping Is.

The Dungeon Master has Died.

Gary Gygax, Dungeons & Dragons creator, dies


MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) -- Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69.

He had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, said his wife, Gail Gygax.


Rest in piece , Gary. You will be missed.

Iranian Leader, Visiting Iraq, Assails Bush

Article



BAGHDAD — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, arriving Sunday in Baghdad to begin what he declared a “new chapter” in relations between his country and Iraq, warned President Bush that America’s problems in the Middle East would worsen as long as he continued to accuse Iran of interfering in Iraq.


As opposed to the old chapter , where the Iranians and the American backed Saddam Hussain (heh heh heh ...I love how the old dicator was an american pawn) were openly at war trying to kill each other.


“I think that the level of trust is very high,” Mr. Maliki said. “And I say frankly that the position Iran has taken recently was very helpful in bringing back security and stability.”


Yes, and we won't discuss the part where the Iranians are sending in road side bombs that kill hundreds of Iraqi civilians ... or the part where the Iraqi President has survived numerous assassination attempts by fanatics whipped up by Iran , and equipped by them.


Mr. Ahmadinejad responded: “You can tell Mr. Bush that making accusations about others will increase the Americans’ problems in the region. They will have to accept the facts in the area. The Iraqi people do not like the Americans.”


Said the unelected dictator of a country where elections are an alien concept , who doesn't know , or care, about the opinions of his own people , let alone those of another nation , because he just shoots anyone who disagree's with him.

Palestinians Suspend Peace Talks With Israel Over Gaza Bloodshed

Article



The Palestinians have suspended peace negotiations with Israel in response to a deadly incursion into the Gaza Strip. More than 100 Palestinians, including many civilians, have been killed during the past two days.


Yeah , we don't want to talk about peace with those jews no more because they got ticked at us for constantly throwing rockets at them and killing their civilians ? So they came here and killed more than of our soldiers (some of them might have been civilians) , so we're not gonna talk peace with them no more.


We believe that the international community must help us in acquiring and getting a cessation of hostilities immediately," said Saeb Erekat.


We believe you gotta help convince the jews to stop attacking us. But we're going to keep on attacking them by the way , don't even think about trying to convince us to stop the rocket attacks on our hated enemey, thats just not a happening thing.


Palestinians called for revenge...


How dare those EVIL JEWS attempt to defend themselves ! How dare they !!! Thats despicable !!!!


U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives here later this week and will try to get the peace process back on track.


There is no peace process. There's a bunch of gangsters dressed up like Imans (priests) trying to use it to hide their crimes. And all the honest Imans got run out of town long , long ago.

Thousands of Jordanians hold anti-Israel march

Article

Ok. My sister read my articles on City of Heros, and reports she hates them and doesn't care about "Stupid Games".

All right...back to commentary on regular news articles.


AMMAN, March 2 (Reuters) - Crying for revenge with suicide attacks, thousands of Jordanians marched in the capital of the pro-U.S. kingdom on Sunday to protest against Israel's Gaza offensive that had killed more than 100 Palestinians.


We're really upset that these jews don't like us killing them off. So ... we think we should continue killing them off.

Ummm...yeah ... makes a lot of sense.


Defying government curbs on street marches, thousands have taken to the streets inside many of Jordan's squalid camps and poor districts of the capital under the watchful eyes of the authorities to show solidarity with their brethren.


Defying government curbs on street marches , in a country where they pick you up and execute you just for the fun of it, or you didn't pay enough bribes to the police or what not... can you say "government backed demonstration" ?


"Shame on you, Shame on you rulers. You have betrayed your people ... Open the borders and let us fight the Jews," youths chanted.


Umm...yes. Let us ten thousand unarmed youths go charge an army of machine gun weilding Israeli's ...yeah , what a wonderful idea ! Great population control method , I must admit. Not too effective militarily, but then most middle eastern governments consider their own population little more than chattle to be rounded up and executed any time they can gain advantage from it.

City of Hero's : Report On Stealth

Ok, I broke my rule about not taking non combat powers until 14th...I took stealth at 6th , just to try it out.

What does stealth do ?

You can get MUCH closer to a mob before it sees you.

but , once they spot you , you stay spotted. Shooting one , running around a corner, and stealthing ? No dice. They chase you until the elevator or the entrance.

It says it offers a slight increase in defence.

Yeah , very slight. five percent when you're not in combat, and the moment you throw an attack it's cut in half to two point five percent. Waste of time.

What *CAN* you do with stealth.

Walk around the corner and almost bump into a mob, and not get spotted.

Survey the area and see where the mobs are and plan out how you're gonna do this.

Decide you don't like this side of the room, the mobs are all piled at the door you're gonna enter. Run past them (while stealthed) to the other side of the room , and now you have some room to work with. And they problaby didn't see you go by , so you still get to decide who to shoot first.

Stealth isn't the be all to end all , but the ability to survey the situation and plan it out , rather than suddenly there's a mob pounding on you , is a worthwhile thing to have.

Though maybe 6th level is a little too early for it.

City of Hero's : General Tactics

Ok , I bought the game City of Heros / City of Villians for my computer. It's an online game with like thousands of players all in the same game world, running into each other , yelling and screaming at each other ...great fun.

This is my general guide , for those that are thinking of picking it up.

Defence 1 : Attack

When you get your charactar , you get like one attack. You attack. You wait. You wait. You wait. You think..jeesh , how long does it take for this to recharge ? And then you attack again. If you had a second attack ... you could probably attack a second time while the first one was recharging...

Exactly. You want to get to three or four attacks reasonably quickly. You also want some defence , so I hesitate to say take four attacks right away ... but you want them right quick. How many ? Three or four ? Well... if after three attacks you still feel you have time to sneak in a fourth while the other three are recharging, then get a fourth. If there's little or no down time between attacks..leave it at three.

Defence 2 : Temporary Defences.

Temporary defences , you turn them on , you forget about them, they stay on forever. Why are they called temporary ?

Because if you get stunned or put to sleep , even for a few seconds, all your temporary powers turn off. And if you forget to turn them back on ...you're dog meat. Hot key those temporary defences so you can turn them on quick, and keep an eye on them , especially when you get stunned / slept.

The Level 8 Dilema :

Somewhere around 7 or 8 , the baddies start using fire and ice and lightning and what not on you. You'll notice most of your defences say they're good against "Lethal" or "Smashing" (bullets and clubs) , and say nothing about fire. And that guy throwing fire at you seems to be handing you your butt quite efficiently.

Need to pick up some elemental defence.

Why is this obvious statement a problem ? Because around level 6 , certain secondary powers, like hovering , or stealth , or what not , apear for you to choose from. And so you can "waste" a power on something non combat , or even two powers (the one at 6th , and the one at 8th ..you get a power every even level). At which point.. .you didn't buy up your elemental defences ! And your charactar dead ends and you discover you can't fight your way out of a paper bag.

yeah , don't do that. No "travel" powers or other stuff until 14ish ..or even later.

The Elevator Trick.

Hostages you rescue will follow you through an elevator. Thugs and villians will not. And this includes the entrance to the "mission" in the first place. Feel free to run for the door and step outside for some fresh air ! The tactic of running in , offing one of them (you can't say Kill , you're a super hero , you're jsut arresting them) and then fleeing to rest up and do it again, actually works very well.

Clear the bottom area first.

How many times did I run up to the main boss of the mish , and he knockes me over the railing and down to the lower floor. Right into the middle of a second mob of thugs. And then he jumps down and follows me , and now I'm injured and fighting two mobs instead of just one ? I'm toast !

Yeah ... if an area has several levels, clear the bottom ones out first ,just in case you get knocked down there. That way you only face the one mob , that will chase you donw there, and you don't wind up doubling your problems.

Read the Paper.

If you type /e newspaper in the chat window, your charactar will pull out a newspaper and start reading it. It looks cool. And if you're down to half health and less endurance , you dont want to go picking a fight with the next mob. You want to wait a few moments while you recover. Not charge into the next battle ! So if you're low on health ... read the paper. Relax. Take it easy a few minutes.

Don't build a stupid Charactar !

It seems obvious, but I've seen people do it. They build some cool looking charactar (the system for making costumes is awsome in this game by the way, you should try it out) and then at level one they assign him web grenade (to hold an apponent still) and some kind of life drain , which heals you while doing no damage to the enemey.

Thats right. They build a charactar with *NO* attack powers. How did you plan on fighting crime again ? Politely asking them to surrender ? Pretty please ?

The system will let you build a stupid charactar that can't fight his way out of a paper bag. Amusing as a joke, but you only get experiance for defeating your foes. That charactars going no where.

I need one more attack / def but there's none in my pool at my level !

The combat pool . You can take a kick or a punch as soon as you hit 6th.
And the defence ? An extra attack means your enemey goes down a little quicker, means he has a little less time to throw damage at you. So an extra attack *IS* an extra defence.

Minions and Lieutenants
When you go on a mission , all the enemies are about your level. No matter what level you are. But they are broken into two kinds. Minions (very weak) and Lieutenants.

Minions and Lieutenants put out about the same amount of damage. Even worse, the Lieutenant usually has some kind of power that helps the minions do more damage to you. Minions can be beaten in one or two rounds of combat. Lieutenants take much longer. 5-8 is pretty common.

Always kill the minions first. The lieutenant does about as much as the minion and takes a lot longer to get rid of. Take the minion down first , and thats less damage being thrown at you very quickly. The overall damage you take in the life time of a fight drops like a rock if you take out the minions first, rather than let them live a long , long time while you do the lieutenant first and then go chasing them.

Insurance Fears Lead Many to Shun DNA Tests

Ah , the american health care system. One of my favorite subjects.

Article


Victoria Grove wanted to find out if she was destined to develop the form of emphysema that ran in her family, but she did not want to ask her doctor for the DNA test that would tell her.

She worried that she might not be able to get health insurance, or even a job, if a genetic predisposition showed up in her medical records, especially since treatment for the condition, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, could cost over $100,000 a year. Instead, Ms. Grove sought out a service that sent a test kit to her home and returned the results directly to her.


So what is the problem here ?

The problem is that Health Insurance in the USA only seems to want to sell their product to people who don't need it , to people who won't ever get sick. If you have some kind of genetic disposition , they're going to raise the premiums because it's more likely you'll cost them money.

And since most health insurance in the states is through the employer, that costs the employer more money ... maybe they don't want to hire you.

In the states, this is called "Type One Uninsurable" , where upon the people who need health insurance the most are simply left to die.

I wonder if they understand ... no one needs that kind of health insurance. Maybe it would be better to do without it entirely , since it's only going to treat tennis elbow and the common cold and nothing else. Maybe we'll treat our own tennis elbow and let these guys go out of business from lack of customers ?

Legal torture

Ex-cop facing jail time rejects last chance to testify at Ont. public inquiry


Even the threat of death wouldn't be enough to compel a former Ontario police officer to testify before a public inquiry into an alleged pedophile ring, he told a Toronto court on Wednesday.


Now why would someone say that ? Probably because they're being tortured.


"I will never go to that public inquiry in Cornwall even if you put a gun to my head," said Dunlop. "It's been excruciating."

Aha.


The former officer blew the whistle in the 1990s on allegations that prominent community members, including Roman Catholic clergy, were sexually abusing dozens of children in incidents dating back to the 1950s.


I remember living through this. Half the churches in ontario wound up paying hundreds of millions of dollars to keep their preachers out of jail for child molesting. Everyone thought it was so corrupt of the catholic church because these people were getting off scott free and other people were paying the money for them to continue their molesting ways.

And now ... the cop that started it all is still being tortured, I mean questioned, on the matter 17 years later. They want to investigate how the police handled the matter (ie: drag him through the public eye and make him look bad) in a "Public" Inquirey.

And of course he doesn't want any of that.

It seems the Catholic Church is trying to set itself up as untouchable. Say or do anything against them , and they will come for you , even decades later. And that is just not acceptable. This guy isn't even a cop any more, and I have no doubt the church is responsible for that he isn't even charged with any crimes , he's just tired of answering questions after 17 years of this nonsense.

And the value of a witnesses statement after 17 years is pretty much zilch anyways. Check his police notes, but dragging him out 17 years later is pretty much a waste of everyones time.

That church is scum , if you ask me.

And the Winner Is : Blue Ray !

Article


TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Toshiba said Tuesday it will no longer manufacture HD DVDs, effectively ending the long-running battle with the rival Blu-ray for a dominant high-definition format.


So , am I happy or Sad that Blue Ray beat HD ?

Don't give a rats behind. As long as someone one and there's only one format to deal with. I aint buying two players and two sets of DVD's.

What does this mean for the average user ?

Everyone is going to produce blue ray disks instead of the old DVD because it's too
easy to copy the old DVD's and trade them over the internet. Blue Ray may have some new fancy wigits to add ... but really , it's mostly about copy protection.

So we should rush out and get a Blue Ray Player ?

It's entertainment, not a neccesity. Don't rack up your credit card if you don't have to ! But yes... all the new movies will be blue ray only now. The death blow has been dealt not only to HD DVD's , but regular DVD's as well. But the blue ray player will play your old DVD's so you don't have to go out and buy them all over again. Which I hate , because I lost so many movies from my collection when VHS died and I had to switch to DVD.

Is Blue Ray High Definition ?

Yes.

What does that mean to you ?

Not much. I watch movies on my computer screen , which qualifies as a high definition TV all by itself.

What about High Definition TV ?

It's nice that they raise the quality of the picture on TV , but TV is still CRUD !!! and not worth my time. I'll probably wait for a player to come out that goes in my computer. 22 min of show and 38 min of HIGH DEFINITION commercials is a waste of my time.

Hurt Feelings

Dozens of Afghan civilians killed in attack on Canadian convoy: official


At least 38 civilians have been killed in a suicide car bombing on Monday that targeted a Canadian convoy in southern Afghanistan, a governor said.

While four Canadian soldiers were slightly wounded in the attack at a busy market in the town of Spin Boldak, 30 civilians were also injured, many of them critically, Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid said.



The Taliban claimed responsibility through its spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi.


Yes yes we claim responsibility for blowing up one of our own people , killing a bunch of civilians we dont' really care about even though they're our civilians , and possibly hurting the feelings of a few canadians.

We are determined to continue to blow ourselves up and kill our own people until you leave. Hopefully you will feel bad about all the people who are dying (even though they're not your people) and will leave on yoru own , because it's obvious we don't have the military strength to guard the local outhouse.

viva la resistance !

Bell recovers stolen data on 3.4 million customers

Article


Bell said Tuesday it has recovered data on 3.4 million of its customers in Quebec and Ontario that was stolen more than four weeks ago.



But it did include information on about 170,000 unlisted and unpublished phone numbers.


Why is this important ?
Telemarketers do much better on the sales if they have your name. If you wife pickes and the person on the other end asks for you specifically , it will likely get through. If he asks 'for the lady of the house' or ' the gentleman of the house' , you're gonna know it's a salesman and say NO ! and hang up , even if you are the lady or gentleman of the house.


The stolen data was shopped around to a number of people, Langton said. One of those people notified authorities.


Tried to sell it.
But it's data , you can make a copy easy , or many copies, how do you know he didn't sell it once or twice already ?


There's no indication that this data has been used improperly," Langton said, adding that Bell will give a new unlisted number to anyone who asks for one.


And that means nothing. Well, the new phone number is nice, though you have to inform all your friends and family of it now, which is annoying. But the value of your unlisted phone number is now toast. Why ? Because it can happen again. And again. And again.

And hey , Bell itself calls us up once a month to try and sell us a DSL modem. Regular as clock work. Just as Rogers hs someone knock on our door (have a rogers modem) trying to sign us up for their phone service. They're both dang annoying.

PM open to compromise with Liberals on Afghan mission

Article



The Conservative government will consider tabling a new motion to extend Canada's mission in Afghanistan until the end of 2011 that could include elements from the Opposition Liberals' proposed amendment, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday.


That would be the amendment where our soldiers don't fight , they just concentrate on building stuff and then watching Al Qada tear it all down without lifting a finger.

Anyone following the news knows that you can't build diddly in Afghanistan. They dump medical waste down the toilet , entire buildings set up by the americans are dismantaled and moved (stolen ! ) Al Qada loves to blow up power lines and kidnap foriegn workers.

The Amendmant is a simple do nothing , see how fruitless this is, lets all go home and forget about it amendmant. Only problem is Al queda is out to conquer the world, and that includes us by the way, so that is a dangerous thing to do.

No one wants a five or ten or twenty year war.
But no one wants Al Queda showing up in canada blowing things up either.
I think we have to stay.

Canada a top copyright violator, U.S. group says

Article


Canada has joined Russia and China as the biggest violators of U.S. copyright law, according to the U.S.-based International Intellectual Property Alliance.

Maybe we don't want your cherry flavored tylonal. Maybe we're pretty happy with the old stuff that fell out of copyright in this country 17 years ago , but in the states the laws got changed and gave them more time. (basically forever)


The group also recommended that 10 other countries be placed on the Priority Watch List, including Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Egypt, India, Mexico, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Ukraine.

It also recommended that 29 other countries, including Spain, Sweden and Israel, be placed or maintained on the less critical Watch List. A total of 51 countries were named as significant violators.


No specific cases. Just a general everyone is a scum bag they don't follow our laws.
Well , you're laws are a crime to most people, even your own people. When we agree to a 17 year copy right and you decided at the last minute NO , WE CHANGED OUR MIND , WE WANT IT FOREVER , that just doesn't fly.


The group's report is the latest to urge the U.S. government into pressuring Ottawa to reform copyright laws.
Thanks for admitting we were following the copy right laws, and you altered them from underneath us , thus demanding we 'reform' our ways to the new version.

If you don't like it , don't sell stuff here. What can I say ? Keep your cherry flavored tylonal, and new experimental drugs that do more harm than good and keep getting recalled. Canadian Business would love a chance to make their own TV shows and music instead of being drowned in cheap run offs from the states. We make our own beer here too you know, and our own cars.

I vote we stop buying american.
I vote we cut them off. We don't want most of their junk anyways.