RULES of the ROAD and other stuff

Because I work from home, I don't drive every day, which leaves me immensely frustrated when I do drive by how many people don't know the basic rules of the road.

Also because I work at home, I am concerned daily with my own manners and grammar; on the occasions I am out and dealing with the public, I am appalled by how many people can't manage "Please," and "Thank You" and by the public's general lack of social skills...

So, although not everyone reads my excellent blog, will those of you who do PLEASE pass on these simple tips? If you will, you will have done north American humans a great service.

Driving:
If you're going to drive, you need to know how to do three things: how to use your car's signal; how to turn right and left; how to read road signs.

Your car's signal stick is right there beside your pinkie finger. You barely need to stretch your hand to reach it. It is highly useful for letting drivers behind you know what the heck it is you're planning to do next. You are not above the law. I don't care who you are, you are not above the law. Use your signal.

If you're going to turn, you must signal 50 feet from your turn. On a residential road, that's about the distance from the alleyway to the road. If you really have no clue how far 50 feet is, get your butt out onto the sidewalk and take about 16 or so decent sized steps, turn around and see how far you've come. That's about 50 feet because most people's strides are about 3 feet give or take.

Signalling 50 feet prior to your turn allows the other (bad) drivers behind you time to get their shit together so they don't hit you. If you don't signal or you signal at the last minute, despite it being the other driver's fault, you deserve to be hit and have whiplash as a reminder of why 50 feet is a good signalling distance.

If you figure the rules don't apply to you and you don't use your signal and people honk at you, you do NOT get to give them the finger. You are the idiot in that scenario so don't bother proving it by flipping the bird, ok?

Turning:
In north America, where we drive on the right, when you turn right, you turn into the right-most lane. There are NO exceptions. You do NOT get to hold up traffic behind you whilst you wait for a hole that lets you cross three lanes at a time.

You may NOT turn into the left lane (the median or centre lane) when you're turning right. when there are two lanes - as in, you're on a four lane street (two lanes for each direction), the left side lane is RESERVED for those who are turning left. You'll know who they are because they will be across from you scowling at you so you don't turn into their lane, make them wait and probably miss their green light.

When you're turning left, you MUST turn into the left-most lane - the one closest to the centre line or the median, as the right lane (the curb-side lane) is reserved for drivers turning right... GET IT?

This is not rocket science but it is the law, despite that not many cops will bother pulling you up for this transgression...

In many Canadian provinces (I have no clue about the US), one can turn right on a red light. HOWEVER, one must STOP at said red light, make sure the turn is safe and then proceed. You may not glance to your left, spy a hole in traffic and run the red. That's illegal and dangerous and guess what? If you're hit (which, again, you would deserve) you're going to take it right on your driver's side door.

Ok. traffic signs;
YIELD means you must stop and wait to merge into traffic.

MERGE means get your ass up to speed and merge. Do NOT stop and do NOT slow down. You are supposed to MERGE to the speed of traffic and join in. If you stop in a merge lane, you suck. IF you impede other drivers from merging correctly, you also suck. In a merge situation, both drivers have equal rights. It's as if they are already sharing a lane.

ADDED LANE means that you're turning right into the right-most lane and that you do not have to stop or slow down or change lanes. This isn't a merge or a yield. You have you own lane so get with it!

Basic walking skills:
Ok. Seriously.

WALK TO THE RIGHT. Always. In malls, on the sidewalk, when you're shopping. Stay to the right. YOUR right.

Do NOT walk in front of people when you can easily walk behind them. IF you MUST - and you hardly ever have to - walk in front of someone, SAY EXCUSE ME! For shit's sake don't treat people like they're invisible.

DO NOT squeeze yourself between the racks or shelves and someone who is looking at whatever is on those racks or shelves! Seriously. Walk behind the person.

Today, as I was carrying three bags of groceries, this lady with an empty cart tried to squeeze herself between me and the racks of planters. She had no clue that she should be to my left so waited for me to get out of her way - right into a huge empty space that she could have - and should have, had she had any manners - stepped into.

This goes for escalators too. STAY to the right! If you're not moving, stay on the right so people who walk up escalators can do that!

Finally, when you speak, NEVER say "I seen." You did not, you never have and you never will "seen" anything. You either say "I saw," or "I've seen." There is no such thing as "I seen" unless you are the hickest of all hicks. Stop it.

Apostrophes.
If it has an apostrophe, it's either a possessive (meaning something belongs to it) or a contraction - i.e. It's - contraction for "it is," or "it's" meaning something belongs to "it." It's feet or it's hands for instance.

If it has an S but no apostrophe, that means plural - more than one. I.e. "I have two pairs of shoes." "Those are my shoe's laces" means one of your shoes (a single shoe) has laces. If you mean that both of your shoes have laces you say "Those are my shoes' laces," which is the correct placement for a possessive when you're already talking about a plural.

You cannot say anything like "There were 50 mother's in the room," because that begs the question "Mother's what???" If you put an apostrophe in there, it means all those mothers (see? Plural) own something. If you really mean there were 50 mothers in the room, there'll be no apostrophe thanks!

Lastly:
Their - belongs to them
There - over there
They're - They are

Your - something that belongs to you, as in "It's your shirt)
You're - you are (if you read all of this you are going to be a much better behaved person)

There "IS" one of them
There "ARE" four (or any multiple) of then

There IS a bunch; there IS a ton. ( a bunch and a ton are both one thing - singular, therefore 'is').
There are thousands
My family "IS" large; My family "IS" coming over. A family is also an entity made up of family members.
My family MEMBERS ARE coming over. My sisters are coming over.

The Band IS; the company IS (both a band and a company are entities - one item)
The Government IS.
The band MEMBERS ARE
The company WORKERS are
Members of Parliament are but THE (which also denotes one thing) Government (one entity) IS.

And if you're going to say something like "What we're talking about are dogs," please don't because that is horrific misplacement. WHAT we're talking about IS dogs" because you're referring to the 'what,' not the 'dogs.'

Speak well and prosper.

Yes, I am Ranty McRanterson. These are the rules. Follow them.

I don't care how small it is, you're an ass if you steal it.

Yesterday, my nephew (newly arrived here from the UK to work for a year) and I hit the local grocery giant to stock up lunches. Whilst there, we happened on my niece.

Forgive me while I deviate for a second to some background: my nephew from the UK and my niece from here are not related at all. When my nephew came over at the winter holiday, he and she took quite a shine to each other. He was back for almost six weeks in late January and all of February and they spent nearly every day together.

That was all fine. What was NOT fine was that she eats constantly. She's super fit and she runs 10 - 15K a day, so she has an appetite. She spent nearly 30 days at my house and ate constantly. She not once offered to purchase her own goodies or replace anything she took. Yes, we asked, and yes, my nephew, who was essentially on vacation but also looking for work, footed her bill.

What is also NOT fine is that she takes whatever she wants, when she wants it from whomever has it and she never replaces anything she takes nor does she even offer replace and she doesn't ante up even when asked several times.

This came to a huge head when we went on a week-long trip including a seven-hour drive there and back (gas): she offered $20 for the entire week for food, gas and lodgings. So yeah, she is spoiled as all hell. And for the record, no she does not have bulimia. She trains hard and is legitimately hungry and needs to eat. But she has the means to pay her own way....

So spoiled is she that she gave my lovely nephew much reason to believe that she was quite in love with him and that she'd would not only wait for him but that they'd be a couple when he came back - only 8 weeks passed; he had to go back to the UK to get his work permits in order.

Six weeks later, she was already dating another guy - a wealthy guy with a house and a fancy car and money... she does not like to pay her way and sees no reason to do so, nor does she like to be without a boyfriend so this guy fills both bills. She also has a really bad habit of looking down on people who don't have THINGS.

So speed forward to yesterday in the shop, when we come upon said niece quite unexpectedly. My nephew has been trying to reach her since he arrived last weekend but she has not troubled herself to reply to phone calls, texts or an email.... suffice to say she was quite off-kilter running into us out of the blue like that... Karma...

After saying hello, I moved off to grab the rest of our shopping and to give them talking room. Five minutes later, I turn the corner into the cereal aisle to find my niece eating the food out of my cart.... the food I had not yet even paid for.

I know many - too many - people don't consider consuming a few un-paid-for grapes here, a banana there or a handful of nuts to be theft, but consider this: in a busy store like the one we were shopping at yesterday, it's reasonable to assume that of the 3000 or so bodies that come there every day, a good portion don't believe themselves to be thieving when they're munching away on un-purchased items.

So those 5 or 10 grapes per person becomes 40lbs a day; and that one banana becomes 40 bananas; and that handful of nuts becomes 12lbs of nuts. Figure that over 10 stores in the city and now you're talking quite a bit of merchandise being stolen.

Stores have a accounting item called shrinkage. Department stores figure 17 - 20% for shrinkage and I believe grocery stores figure something higher than that. It is remarkable too that most of this theft is occurring at the hands of ADULTS.

Guess who's paying for that shrinkage! ME. Me and every one else who knows theft is theft, even if it's only 5 grapes.

What really pisses me off about all this is the reality that my niece - who is my sibling's daughter and who is, by extension, my flesh and blood, has no honour. It seems she has that little self respect -and respect for others - that she would steal from me and from the store I was purchasing groceries at.

Suffice to say I have lost respect but worse, I am appalled to know that my sibling's child feels she is above the law and more special than the 'rabble.' It's sad and I makes me question my sibling too....

My niece comes from a well enough off family. She has never wanted and she will never want. She doesn't usually pay for her clothing or her food or her education but she works - four months at a time if she must - so she must occasionally have money of her own - and she certainly has access to other people's money. Why she would steal is beyond me.

I took the opportunity to email my niece about the incident (and also make my opinion on subject of theft known to my own children).I'm sure she'll take huge offence at being caught and called out and I'm pretty sure I'm going to hear from my sibling - and yes, I will ask said sibling why it's ok to steal small things....

As it relates to you dear reader, the problem isn't the item stolen, necessarily; it is the respect one has for one's self. Theft is theft is theft, no matter how large or small the item stolen is. If a person takes what is not rightfully theirs, the acquisition comes at the absolute sacrifice of one's personal honour.

WHY do these people even speak???? ARrRRGGGHHHH

Oh man. I am still soooo annoyed. I can't hardly get this all into perspective....

Yesterday I took my mum to the funeral of a friend, Shirley Quigley, who I have literally known all my life, like from the day I got home from being born. My mom's known her for I dunno, 50 years?

Shirley was a VERY religious person. She was always on the conversion path. It made her happy and she was very genuine, so despite disagreeing with it all, I respect her dedication to her faith.

Expect ably, the funeral had a very Baptist flavour, so that part didn't surprise me at all. Actually none of it surprised me; some of it just totally pissed me off.

The overriding emotion at a funeral is sadness - and for the family and close friends of the deceased, it is a profound sadness of the "How ever shall I go on past today?" type. Sadness like that is a living being that not only stinks, but sits on your chest and picks at your eyes. In short, one does not have to be reminded at all that it's there or where it came from.

Why the pastor running the service yesterday would take half an hour to remind everyone how sad they were and do it in such a K-Tel sales pitch style is beyond me.

And when did this guy decide to do this? At the end of the service, after all the appointed friends and family members had delivered their heart-felt eulogies to Shirley. They were all wonderful and they all said everything that needed saying.

The Pastor did note that usually, by the time he got the podium back, everything he wanted to say had been said.

Well, yes, that would be the point!

But then he had to utterly bore and anger the entire gathering with an inane, unnecessary and really bad, unprepared soliloquy, complete with the requisite used-car-salesman hand and facial gestures. It was frankly appalling.

So I glared at him for the entire 1/2 hour he presumed on the saddened crowd. My hair, being platinum blond (ok rankly grey) sticks out so I'm sure he saw me and I'm pretty certain he noticed me glaring at him. I hope he knows how much I had to work at not pointing at the imaginary watch on my wrist with the "Time" signal.

I get it that ministers have a product to sell - and yes, I mean sell because selling the product gets them paid - but a funeral is NOT the place. People go there to pay their respects to the person who has left a Yucatan-sized crater in their lives, not to hear a sales pitch for another dead and probably never existent person.

So to all the pastors out there and to those of you who have the ear of those pastors, a funeral is not your day to self-promote, nor is it a day to inflict guilt (the decease was religious, why aren't you?) on the attendant guests. It is a day for a pastor to provide a framework but that is all. End. Stop and get out of the way.

Otherwise, your desperate-for-attention, damaged little soul neediness is on display. Stop it.

Bill O'Reilly. First Class jerk and high-ranking psychopath? Maybe so....

Update:

One of my American FaceBook friends let me know today that this is an old story. she says four years ago but I still think it's intersting....

Ok, so to follow up on the Fox News is owned by the Republican Party post, here's this lovely but really not surprising tidbit.

Your favourite on-air psychopath, Bill O, as he's colloquially called, has a lawsuit pending against him for harassment.

O'Reilly Hit With Sex Harass Suit

It seems the uber moralistic, opinionated firebrand of The O'Reilly Factor lacks a working moral compass. If you haven't seen his epic meltdowns, of which there are reported to be many but of which only one is on YouTube, check it...

Even better, said suit has been brought against Bill O, The Bill O'Reilly News Corp, Fox News Channel, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. and Westwood One Inc. for Quid Pro Quo sexual harassment, and sexually hostile work environment.

It should be noted that the woman who brought the suit, Andrea Makris, is a well respected journalist whose work includes GW Bush's campaign (and no, that in itself should not prejudice the case despite that she helped a monkey win an election...).

The core of the suit is that Fox and Westwood are rife with sexually regressive idiots, the key person being Bill O.

According to excerpts from Ring Surf," Andrea Makris says O’Reilly forced her to have telephone sex against her wishes. He accuses her of making two lewd telephone calls. Mackris’ lawsuit asserts that during a phone conversation this August, O’Reilly suggested she buy a vibrator and was clearly excited. Before hanging up, she said, O’Reilly told her, I appreciate the fun phone call. She contended he made a similar call Sept. 21, ending that one by saying, Next time you’ll come up to my hotel room and we’ll make this happen."

I hear the Republican party is trying to remake its image in the wake of the catastrophe that was the McCain campaign and the train wreck that is Sarah Palin (and her now x son-in-law-to-be and his mother, who was charged with drug prodcution and posession about six months ago... so much for vetting the candidates).

I'm pretty sure their representative, Robert G. Kaufman, author of In Defense of the Bush Doctrine, admitting that the party owns FOX news (yes, perhaps metaphorically) and that their "host" being the poster boy for full on 18/20 on the analysis scale for psychopathology isn't helping.

All that is interesting and hilarious in a sadly ironic way but the question still remains: why is Bill O still on air???

FOX News is owned by the Republican Party. Big surprise

This will not come as a surprise to anyone - neither humans nor Bush/GOP supporters alike:

The GOP (Grand Old Party for those of us who don't care enough about them to find out what the acronym used to mean) owns FOX Media.

Big surprise hey?

"Robert G. Kaufman, author of In Defense of the Bush Doctrine: Moral Democratic Realism and American Grand Strategy, published in 2007. In a ten-minute presentation, Mr. Kaufman posited five "core principles" that Republicans must embrace if they are to succeed "when Obama fails."

Kaufman stated:

"The fifth thing that Republicans have to do is understand the problem of communicating in a world where much of the television media, particularly, is hostile...If I had to recommend one single thing that the Republicans should be doing to help articulate the message, it is to acquire another television network so that there is not just FOX, but multiple sources of alternative information that will do a much better job than we did in 2008 to keep things honest."

I love the "keep things honest" part of that quote... hilarious.

If you watch FOX for anything other than entertainment - and it's a pretty poor source of that - you need serious debrief and, after that, therapy.

And to my much loved J-school Theory prof.... I told you it's owned.... The only way to keep the rocks from being upturned is to make sure anyone who intends to investigate can't.

What a Modern Media Muzzle Looks Like

In September 2008 I returned to university to complete my degree in Journalism, which I began in 1997. After such a long absence from school, and from my field of study, much has changed. I certainly notice that I am very unlike my student compatriots in age and stage of life. It's much fun though.

Those of you who've been reading me since the beginning will have noticed a distinct shift in what I've been writing about, a shift that happened somewhere in 2006.

Two things have converged to bring me to writing this post; one of my classes was Journalism Theory and Practice, which was interesting if not depressing, considering the state of the media. The other thing was that I had promised my prof that I'd give him my blog's web address, but at the end of classes so as not to put any more fuel on the fire that is my opinionated self.....

Classes ended this week past so he is now in possession of the website, caution be damned. The rest of this post is what began as a paragraph or two to him by email about my blog, what it is, where it started and why it morphed... I'm not good a short pieces... So, here’s a bit of background on what happened to my blog and why it morphed from general observation to politics. The last bit of this post has links to most of the stuff I’m going to refer to, so if you print this to read, hang on to the digital format so you’ll have the live links.

Most of my readers know I'm a single parent with three kids (20, 22 and 25). I come from a culturally religious family with a long tradition (about 180 years and counting) in the ministry. I married a ‘christian,’ whose family was part of the Aberhart/Manning religio-political machine. We, he and I and his family and I, were instantly at odds because I am bilingual, speak French whenever possible and am sympathetic to the separatist point of view. I am not aligned with any party but I was a Liberal way before I knew it myself. I knew things were not going to go well when I found a copy of “Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s Plan to Ruin Canada,” in their bookshelf….

My dad, a preacher’s kid from Nova Scotia, was a cultural, religious and political conservative. He was a teacher most of his life, was an RCAF cadet and did a stint at General Motors to pay for university. He taught for 35 years, the last 15 of which he was a principal at two schools in this city. He retired in 1989 and went immediately into rural politics, where he spent 12 years as an uncontested counsellor his area.

He was a brilliant man with a questioning mind, but the extent to which he was comfortable questioning was very much informed by the values of the family he grew up in, his innate conservatism and his astounding willingness to ignore the obvious when it conflicted with his world view. I can put that down to a very human wish to preserve those views because the alternative is an abyss. I am sure the human fear of that abyss is why most people are so resistant to questioning in general. But, as he was armed with an agile and questioning mind and spent his life learning and teaching, it is telling to note which subjects he absolutely would not question. If such a brilliant man would not consider possibilities, how much more so the general, ‘average,’ putting-food-on-the-table, loyal, working, voting public?

My dad died from lung cancer in September 2004. He was a lifelong athlete and never smoked. My step-mom is a rabid – and I mean rabid - health-obsessed person who oversaw every morsel of food and every chemical that my dad ingested or came into contact with. That such a man, who wouldn’t eat in a restaurant where there were smokers and would exit a room where anyone lit up and who, among the many committees he was on, chaired The Seniors Anti-Smoking Committee, should die from lung cancer – of the smoker’s brand – well, suffice to say, I have many, many lingering questions about the cancer industry. I wrote a column on this for my blog.

My dad and I had, at best, an adversarial relationship, despite that we loved each other with a deep passion. I am as far left as he was right so it was war from the time I could question. I know he was always in full support of me and my writing, which, every time anything was published, he would copy and post to all our relatives, even when we weren’t speaking to each other, silent truce being less mortifying than war….

At any rate, all that set the stage for me being very comfortable questioning everything and being resigned to the reality that even very smart, educated, interested people sometimes lack the wisdom - and the courage - to question.

In 2006, I was introduced to a benign, unassuming and unremarkable (looking) man, a dentist. You would pass him on the street and not notice him at all beyond thinking he looks like Billy Crystal. He is, however, the most well-read person I have ever met. If you consider that my step-dad read six novels a week and that my dentist friend bests that in two days, whilst running a full-time practice, you can begin to understand the un-fillable well that is his mind.

My friend is a ‘conspiracist,’ which in our culture is a pejorative, one applied so that anything that issues from such a person’s mouth, mind or pen is dismissible. We are taught to discount anything that comes from the ‘conspiracist’ point of view and further to know that we are suspect if we put even the smallest stock in anything a ‘conspiracist’ says. It will not surprise you to know I ate up everything he said and devoured two books he gave me.

At first, my interest was only for-fun but thanks to my friend’s two-minute long soliloquy on the Kennedy assassination (which, at first is just funny but leaves one’s eye’s buggin’ out at the end), my interest rapidly passed into research. Meeting my friend was the point on which my blog posts began a shift away from curmudgeonly satire to “Hey, what the hell is going on here?”

When judged against the research of others who make it their full time work, mine is decidedly minor; however, I am every day dumfounded by what people don’t know about things, places, people, politics and the workings of the world and even more astounded by what they do not want to know. As examples, two issues in which people are completely invested but know absolutely nothing about are the “Climate Change” and “Cancer” industries…. Worse, I am saddened, and I would call it a desperate sadness, by how angry people become when their paradigms are confronted. Try questioning the gospel of “Global Warming,” or ask where all that cancer research money is going (given the unimaginable increases in cancer rates in the last 20 years). Instant outrage.

As this relates to the media, I am convinced that the state of it as researched by Pew Institute and others is absolutely the tip of what’s going on. I am convinced (and yes, I know many think I presume) that what is happening to the media is by design, not by happenstance. It would take much more space than I’m sure you have time for to explain my point of view but just this; what has happened to investigative journalism – its disappearance – has more to do with the speed at which information can be transmitted, the numbers of people that can receive that information and, specifically, to who wants what known, than it has to do with money or lack thereof. It has to do with the reality that what we think we know is a house of cards – used, trick cards – that we must carefully tend lest it blow down and show itself for what it is; a pile of stultifying nothingness.

The demographic that consumes the bulk of what passes for news is old enough to remember WWII Germany and the USSR and how their media was controlled. We are mostly all aware of how the media is overtly controlled now in a variety of other countries, North Korea, for example. We can agree that North Americans would not knowingly allow their media to be controlled by the government – or its agents, yes?

So how then can those interests control the media? (this is a video link to a GREAT interview by the first two recipients of the I.F Stone Award). By cutting it off at the knees: no money, therefore, no means of investigation; keep reporters busy 16 hours a day, seven days a week, on call, reacting to breaking ‘news’ so they have absolutely no time to step back and ask “What is really going on?” And make sure they’re Barbie-doll gorgeous so that people barely listen because they’re taken by how much that anchor’s face doesn’t move….

Those who investigate absolutely threaten the status quo. The rocks under which resides reality are not cemented down; they are easily turned, so access to the rocks must be prevented. Enter in “The-media-is-in-crisis,” and “There’s no money for investigation.” It amazes me, though, how there is endless money for pursuit of celebridiots. Why is there $40,000 for a photo of the Jolie-Pitt twins and unlimited funds for hundreds of ‘journalists’ to follow Madonna to Malawi – twice.

But there is no money at all to talk to people who observed bombs going off in the basement of WTCI and WTCII a full half an hour before the planes hit either building; none to find out what happened to the man whose legs were severed by the blasts … in the basement… half an hour before the planes hit; none to discover how a ‘terrorist’s” passport survived a plane crash, a huge explosion, an inferno and a completely pulverised building but fluttered to the ground with nary a scratch; none to understand how a 757 and its two titanium-steel engines entirely incinerated - to dust - but enough biological (human) material is left to identify, by fingerprints, the passengers on that aircraft….

Yes, I can ask those questions and write about it all – I and loads of others have. Will the media publish any of that information? No. Our own CBC Calgary’s Donna McElligott has, on many occasions, terminated callers to her show when those callers veer off into 9/11 ‘conspiracy’ talk. I clearly remember, last year, her saying to one caller, “We’re not going to go there,” as he was cut off mid sentence, thanks to Carolyn Smith’s quick finger on the “kill” button.

Unless one is willing to even consider there is an abyss, it makes no sense at all that people like Bill O’Riley should have the most-watched program on television or that Rush Limbaugh should have any access at all to the public eye or ear. Those ‘men’, two of hundreds like them, make me stand back in awe at the illogic of it all. But it is logical if one steps towards the abyss and asks “WHY?” and “HOW?” and “By who’s design?” How does Bill O’Riley speak for the US public when honest questions about 9/11, for instance, are immediately drowned, much like the debris from WTC site (which now lives at the bottom of an ocean somewhere). The media is under siege. From whence that siege originates is the question all of us should be asking.

You’ve probably heard me mention Jim Marrs. He is a prolific researcher and writer. He is a ‘last man standing’ kind of investigative journalist. He goes where angels fear to tread because their absence gives him more room. He has been cast as the weirdest of the weird, the conspiracist’s conspiracist, so no, the mainstream probably has never heard of him. He’s the conservative’s equivalent of Hustler…. His site is www.jimmarrs.com.

All his books absolutely deserve reading and two, which, if I had my way, would be required parts of journalism coursework - are Rule by Secrecy and The Terror Conspiracy. Both are doors into the abyss. Unless one is already, or, after reading, chooses to be, intellectually numb, those books withdraw the means of retreat from the abyss. I say go, but go with care.

Also have a look at the archives on the main page of www.jimmarrs.com. There are articles there contributed by all sorts of people who are, but who have yet to suffer the label, conspiracists. In particular, the third article speaks to how the current financial crisis was planned, when that planning began and why and what other previous ‘practice sessions’ this one is based on. (Catherine Austin Fitts - 2009-02-02). Our own government was involved as far back as during the brilliant sleight of hand called “The Sponsorship Scandal.”

Google Video has many short and long videos of Jim speaking at various events. I am sure most people won’t even venture in due to which organisation supports and hosts Mr. Marrs: The UFO Congress. I can feel your eyes rolling…. Anyway, here’s the link to one of his talks.

You could skip the first 14 minutes, although if you’re not familiar with the organisation, that segment provides some background. I chose this particular video because it links three “completely unrelated” subject areas and shows not only how but why and for whose purpose they are related. I am absolutely sure it will all fall well outside of comfortable and believable for you but I hope you’ll dive in anyway.

There are three films, also on line, that have been widely viewed by ‘youngsters’ (meaning those who have little political understanding or clout) and which are widely ‘discounted.’ By who? Who knows. Articles discounting the films are signed but, given my own nom de plume…. Carolyn Dunn says CBC’s comment boards are rife with political people skewing the argument so why would the internet or the rest of the media be any different?

These films are; (these links are all live)

Loose Change

Zeitgeist

The Great Global Warming Swindle. I have interviewed one of the experts in this film. His reply to me is on my blog: click here

As this relates to many of my readers I am aware that this stuff is potentially insulting on all counts and that many find it all offensive. I know you’re busy with life but I hope you’ll consider having a look into the abyss if for no other reason than you dared.

I just tried out this "Dr. Wicked" thing - an electronic slave master that pretty much stands over your shoulder and makes you write... yeah. Imaginary whips and all.

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lab.drwicked.com

Part of the problem with writing is the "what shall I write about thing. There are days where we writers feel it's all been said or that we've said everything we have to say or that northing's really interesting enough to comment on or that nobody gives a damn anyway, so why bother getting at it?

The reality is though that there's always something to say or some thing to comment on.

yesterday, for instance, a guy who I'm 'friends" with on FaceBook posted a link to a song... something about impeaching Obama, which at first glance (without having listened to the song), really annoyed me.. I'm Canadian but all things Bush considered, I was annoyed that already there is some movement afoot to impeach this new President.

However, as I'm such a conspiracist and because I KNOW - and yes, I mean KNOW - that the current financial "crash" is totally, utterly manipulated, I continued reading further posts from my buddy....

Seems there are some other people who've become "conspiracists" which is, apparently a dirty word and not something you want to be (but then, the thought of wearing a nasty labels causes some people to retreat - most people - and when they retreat, they also don't go lifting any rocks, so to speak).

The thing is, it's all to pat. HOW did all this happen? How is it that someone so hated - Bush - was never subjected to assassination attempts? Hm? How is it that two Kennedys died and Regan was shot at but Bush? Nada. The closest gun to him was that in the hands of Cheney - who shot his own lawyer in the face... ya, that's not suspect at all.

And then, on the heals of the worst presidency in history, comes this man, who has been, for many months, cast as the messiah. Don't believe it? Go do a search on Google Images for Obama.... See what I mean?

And then this financial crisis... World wide in under six months??? With little warning? Are you seriously telling me all the great financial minds in the world couldn't see it coming?? C'mon.

There's sooo much manipulation in this 'crisis' that really, one has to choose utter blindness to believe it.

I will say that the last 8 years of Bush policies where it comes to educating people in the US have certainly left the people there without the ability to understand basic finance or to read anything more than their poorly written, owned-by-huge-corporations-with-agendas newspapers. A country full of uneducated, essentially illiterate voters does not a problem pose if you're going to manipulate some markets... If smart people can be utterly screwed over by Bernie Madoff (isn't it hilarious that his name sounds like "made off" - as in Made off with your money ahahahah!)... then there's no hope for the rest of us!

The bottom line - and I'm going to continue looking into this - is that many people believe, some who have profile in the media, that Barack Obama was chosen long before 'the people' even heard of him, to do a job. A very specific job.

There's a film out, for which there is currently only a six-minute trailer - that I'm going to watch and post, if I can.

Despite that Obama is a brilliant man and obvously well loved by "the people," there is every reason to believe that he has been bought and paid for. Without going further for now, just the fact that he was at the Bilderberger conference over the weekend of June 6th 2008 - and that he attended with Hilary Clinton - should be enough to make most people wonder... Then again, most people hear the word "conspiracy" and they immediately dismiss any further thought about what the conspiracy is or might be related to... which is exactly what our friends at the Bilderberger organsaiont and the Trilateral Commision and the CFR want. I we dismiss it all for conspiracy, they have free reign.

More on all this once I see the film.

Thanks to Steve Henry Robinson for posting it in the first place.

Steve's on Facebook...

The End of Racisim?

What will change for Americans now that their President has more melanin in his skin?

Melanine.

For how many years have we humans allowed political, social and church policy to be dictated by the amount of melanine in skin?

When put that way, is it not outrageous?? What if those policies had been based on eye colour? Eyes, like skin, are an organ of the body; how bizarre it would be were policies - the idea of equality - based on eye colour. It is no different where it comes to skin.

In 1968, the day after Dr. ML King was killed, teacher Jane Elliott demonstrated the utterly fatal flaw of “race” based thinking. See this PBS documentary:

A Class Divided.

It should be noted that Jane Elliot, the teacher who developed this 'experiment' exposed a bunch of 10 year olds to the fundamental stupidity of racism and by that garnered the hate and anger of the entire adult community around her..... The kids got it. The adults? Not so much...

The term “race” is first of all utterly baseless. The genetic markers that make us human - and the mitochondrial DNA markers that link us - are not specific to skin colour. By that reality, ‘race’ is a polictical construct designed to divide, conquor and subjugate us, people of the human race.

If reliance on the colour of skin as a means of judgement and separation has finally passed out of fashion, we can only say how sad is it that such a stupid division ever existed and question ourselves as to why we allowed those who purport to lead us to take advantage of such a false premise for so long.

Comment

Global Warming. More on how it is propagandist garbage.

So, as I'm on a roll with this issue and as I've apparently pissed off a friend by proposing that global warming is a scam, I thought that I'd write one of the interviewees in The Great Global Warming Swindle.

Dr. Ian Clark is a respected researcher and lecturer at University of Ottawa and was interviewed for the film (click here for his bio). I asked him two questions:

• Are you convinced that humans have little to do with global warming?
• What does it hurt for the world to be monitoring their CO2 input?

Here's his reply:

Thanks for this feedback from your friends. I am more convinced than ever that human-caused climate warming is a fiction. I have been following the science for years now, and the evidence discussed in the GGWS [Great Global Warming Swindle] is solid. Moreover, the climate has been on a net cooling trend for the past 10 years.

Further, the AGW proponents have lost all scientific credibility with the fiasco over the hockey stick (featured in Gore’s film) and NASA’s Y2K error in reporting North American temperature data. Greater scrutiny of past periods where CO2 has climbed at times of great warming show clearly that other drivers are responsible and CO2 plays no role in the warming or subsequent cooling.

The reasons for speaking out against the global warming rhetoric are many. Many neutral or even skeptical people remain supportive of Kyoto-type measures to reduce CO2 thinking that reduction of emissions is good for us all and reduces pollution. This is not so, and this approach is not only flawed, but environmentally damaging. First, it distracts valuable dollars and environmental good-will away from real environmental problems of pollution, urbanization, ecosystem loss, dead zones in the oceans and many many other serious environmental problems.

Second, the measures we are adopting have huge negative impacts on the environment. Look at ethanol, the so-called green fuel, as it allegedly recycles rather than emits CO2.

Wrong.

The energetic cost in fossil fuel to produce corn and grain-based ethanol is close to or greater than the energy yielded. Therefore, it is at best a wash for energy production.

For this, we have converted food production to fuel production, raising the price of corn to unheard of levels – and corn is the principal source of carbohydrate for the global population. Corn ethanol requires intensive fertilization, as it is a C4 type plant and grows very quickly, depleting the soil of nutrients. The fertilizers are produced from natural gas, and the nitrate and ammonia released to surface waters kill fish.

The trend to green biodiesel requires tropical oils – which has accelerated tropical rainforest destruction for its production. Other CO2-reduction schemes – deep geological burial, or boutique energy sources such as solar and wind, are great ideas with the sole net effect of making money for someone. None will have any effect on atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

CO2 has had a bad rap, undeservedly for such an important, non-polluting compound. We have much to do on the environmental front. However, don’t believe for a second that we can tweek the CO2 dial like a thermostat and adjust global temperature. Global temperature is indeed affected by a greenhouse gas – water vapour.

The water cycle dominates and CO2 is a very minor greenhouse gas. It has never in the past affected climate, and it certainly has not gained such a role in the past century. Global climate change is driven by solar effects. This is the science of global climate change, but you won’t hear about it from Al Gore or the CBC.

Finally, we will never reduce the climb in CO2 by the token measures that might be adopted by our mislead governments. Nor should we. It is a nutrient, and it seems that the only real, measurable effect of increased CO2 is a little greening of our planet. Considering the modifications we have done over the past centuries, a little greening is not a bad thing to have.

I originally asked for this information on the understanding that I wouldn't publish, but after reading Dr. Clark's reply to me, I asked whether I could pass it on and this is his response to that, for the record:

Indeed, please pass on my comments. If there is any certainty in the climate debate, it is that environmentalists and regular taxpayers are being swindled.

Dr. Clark wrote an excellent letter to The Hill Times, which also outlines how we are being hoodwinked by appalling science, corporate interests and misused political power. It sickens me almost as much as when I hear people say, "We can't change anything," or "I don't want to talk about it." I'm sure these are the same people who bitch and moan when their politicians do stupid shit and mostly all they do is stupid shit.

Anyway, have a look and a listen. The educated dissenting voices are growing louder and will certainly be at full howl after the inauguration of the new US president who actually believes in real science.

Al Gore. Liar for Profit or Just Uninformed?

The times, they are a changin' and it's time that some of the ridiculous mythology that has permeated the last 8 years is laid to rest.

Re: Global Warming. The myth that humans have anything to do with global warming and that CO2 contributes to global warming are both demonstrably wrong, as is the myth that Gore has any clue what he's talking about. Then again, he's part of the machine and certainly made a ton of payola with his little road show.

Check out The Great Global Warming Swindle

9/11 (and Oklahoma City and the Bay of Tonkin and Pearl Harbour) were terrorist attacks; that there was ever anyone called Jesus Christ; that religion makes any sense. Bollocks.

Check out Zeitgeist

The year is 2009. Information is readily available and easily accessible. It's time that we - the great unwashed - take back our countries, our political systems and our lives from those who seek to control us via lies and fear.