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Showing posts from July, 2015

Big Internet providers must open fibre networks to competitors; CRTC

The Canadian Press, via The Star Phoenix Well, it's about time. What else is there to say? Hopefully, this drives prices down, if even only a little. Now, the CRTC needs to find a way to force these big companies to actually invest in developing, and maintaining their networks. These big ass companies have been sitting on what they've already got for too long, without actually improving on it very much. Fifteen, twenty years ago, under Chrétien's leadership, it seemed as though Canada were poised to take a lead on internet technology, but today, Canada's fallen behind Europe and Asia. At least we're still ahead of the USA, but that's not much to be proud of.

This lake is about to fall off a cliff in the Northwest Territories as permafrost melts

Vancouver Sun The Earth changes in ways we can fathom. It's not quantum physics. Us lay people should be able to understand this much. The Earth changes. So too should we change. Even speaking out can help. Raise your voice, even if only a little, in favour of the change which must come. Otherwise, we place ourselves into a position untenable. Do not let pessimism erode your heart, as misfortune has brought to the edge this lonely lake. In your heart beats the blood of your antecedents. Their wisdom and strength, along with your own, can empower you to do what you are able.

Climate change

The climate is changing. We, too, should be changing. Our hearts, our minds. It should all change. The world tomorrow will not be the same as the world today. Today's world has little similarity with yesterday's. We can look to the past, and see what has all happened, but to see the future, we need to turn ourselves around. All we do is watch the past. We know nothing but the past. Since we know the past so intimately, shouldn't we then know the future? We do know it, though. Its form, its voice. We know it. We should know it. We know the world is going to be a difficult place to survive as today's events continually pile upon one another to give the future world its shape. We know. What the hell do we do, then? We are faced with dire prospects. We are in danger. Extinction is probably not merely a prospect any longer, but something more definite. For nearly a century, the human world faced annihilation from nuclear war. We are in the same danger, again, from

Burning Cars and Fleeing Drivers on Interstate 15

New York Times Sobering pictures of cars, burned on a freeway. Climate change exists, in a myriad of small ways, affecting us all in ways we can only comprehend if we pay attention. When we avert our gaze, of course we won't see it, but sometimes we will have no choice. This should be a wake-up call, just like the past dozen or so events in the past few years that should alert us we're participating in world-wide climate change. Will we act? Probably not. It's not as though there haven't been brush fires, before. It's not as though cars and freeways are actually important in the grand scheme of things. Only money is. Money making money is important. Not the people, without whose hands earn that money, probably not even for themselves, but for some rich bastard trust fund baby. They're not important. The earth is not important. Selfishness is. Self gratification is. This is the sort of shit that burns me out, really.

GORILLA - Supaman

Nexen pipeline leak in Alberta spills 5 million litres

CBC News Wow, Nexen really bent itself over backwards trying to lower the impact of the headline, pipeline spill. Emulsion? That's new. It was, er, emulsion that spilled, which is an entirely different thing than diluted tar. No siree Bob, we don't have a single thing to worry about if it was emulsion that spilled. And what is emulsion? Had to look that word up. It's a mixture of two liquids that are normally unmixable. In this case, tar, sand, and water. And probably something in it that makes it all mixable, too, but no one's reported what that is, yet. What's worse are these news organizations giving cover for Nexen, running with a headline probably thought up in Nexen's PR department. Whatever. Hopefully, the new Alberta NDP government dings this company, good and hard. Incidentally, isn't this the same company bought by one of China's state owned companies?

A Tribe Called Red - Electric Pow Wow Drum

The problem of Greece is not only a tragedy. It is a lie.

johnpilger.com An historic betrayal has consumed Greece. Having set aside the mandate of the Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored last week's landslide "No" vote and secretly agreed a raft of repressive, impoverishing measures in return for a "bailout" that means sinister foreign control and a warning to the world. Greece. Either its people do what needs doing, or they suffer longer than they need to. They can exit the EU, suffer for a few years, and rebuild their economy through currency controls. Or they can stay in the EU, and suffer, indefinitely. It should be a stark, simple choice, but human nature, eh?

Supaman "Too Far" HD feat. emcee one aka Marcus Anthony Guinn

“Greece Brought a Latte to a Gunfight”

naked capitalism Germany has folded Greece up like a lawn chair, and is now ready to shunt it aside, preferably under some stairway, far out of sight, where it won't have to take it out until the weather's clear, again. Greece's exit from the EU seems to be inching closer, inevitably. And Greece has not prepared. There were no contingency plans for this (more than likely) possibility, which almost seems criminally negligent . What will happen in Greece in the coming days?

RedCloud - When Kenpo Strikes

Some more RedCloud.

Euro zone demands more from Greece, delays decision on aid

Cyprus Mail I'm not sure what the demands were, but I think some of the EU demands might've included the rights to works of Homer, the title of the birthplace of democracy, and all profits from the value of π. Syriza is considering it, I believe. But seriously, Greek has absolutely no money, right now. This is simply the EU twisting a knife in Syriza's gut, and telling Syriza to straighten out their body so it's not so uncomfortable for the EU to continue holding the knife. Can Syriza continue like this? There's gotta be a whole lot of anger in the Greek nation. Can they hold out?

RedCloud - "Krylon Teardrops"

How an enviro minister spent her day not attending a climate summit

National Observer Canada's federal environment minister’s decision not to represent the country at The Climate Summit of the Americas this week in Toronto raised the question: how did she spend her time instead? ... (H)er Facebook page shows, just as the 300 international dignitaries were arriving Tuesday at the summit to map out urgent solutions for a global low-carbon economy, Minister Aglukkaq went boating, among other pleasurable activities, 2,500 km away. Self-serving. Completely indifferent. Are these traits valued in Harpers' Conservative Party, or does it attract these sorts of assholes, naturally? The Liberals, NDP, and Green parties really need to bust their humps and win this riding away from Aglukkaq. The district's voting numbers are so small, that there's always going to be wild swings in the results. The only parties, though, that ever seem to go for this riding are the Liberals and Conservatives. Had the NDP not shit the bed in the previo

Eric Holder, Wall Street Double Agent, Comes in From the Cold

Matt Tabbi, Rolling Stone Absolutely scathing. The office thing might have been improper, but at this point, who cares? More at issue is the extraordinary run Holder just completed as one of history's great double agents. For six years, while brilliantly disguised as the attorney general of the United States, he was actually working deep undercover, DiCaprio in The Departed -style , as the best defense lawyer Wall Street ever had.

Supaman - 'Prayer Loop Song'

Enjoy the rest of the day, people.

Design History of Super Mario Maker, E3 2015

Shigeru Miyamoto is simply put, a genius. His influence on video games, on popular culture is indisputable. Thus, a short video like this is absolutely interesting in the extreme. A video game is first and foremost a toy. But it needs to be engineered. And then crafted. Miyamoto is a master of this craft.

Canada sheds 6,400 jobs in June

CBC News Isn't this a bit soon in the fiscal year for net losses in employment numbers? I can see this happening in January or February of next year, but now, in July? In the middle of tourist season? Canada's troubling job numbers are still trending downwards. At this point, the government should be pumping money into employment, trying to get people to work, doing even useless, meaningless things. I suppose they needed to balance their budget to try and look good for the election, but that's all moot if people are going into the polls, broke. Especially when people are drawing a connection to the balanced budget, and cutbacks in services such as EI.

Paul Martin accuses Harper government of underfunding aboriginal schools

CTV News I am still left feeling betrayed by Canada, even after all this time since the deep sixing of the Kelowna Accord. My anger hasn't abated, since then. It's grown, within. How can we ever trust the Canadian government, again? How can we trust the opposition parties, after year upon year of lily livered mere disapproval of Harper's policies? The Conservative government's native education policy is immoral, Martin said in a speech during the Assembly of First Nations' annual meeting. Damn right, it is! Harper's set back Canadian-First Nations relations by generations. He represents old Canada to us First Nations. The Canada of yesteryear.  The Canada that thought nothing more of us than that we were little more than animals, and at best savages. We have no place in Harper's Canada. And if Canada returns Harper to power in this coming election, we will know Canada has no place for us, either, except where we already are. In purgatory.

Greece crisis: PM Tsipras pitches €53.5B bailout deal to party

CBC News Oh, wow. Complete capitulation by Syriza to German demands. I can't say this wasn't unforeseen, however. This might spell the end of Syriza in governance, though. Who knows if they keep their tenuous hold on power, after this: "The choices we have are tough ... but the worst, the most humiliating and unbearable choice is an agreement that will surrender, loot and subjugate our people and this country," he (Panagiotis Lafazanis) told a business conference.

Election debates take on different lustre, as NDP gain momentum in polls

The Squamish Chief Er, yay. I think. The federal NDP's betrayed core principles to get to this point in the polls. At this point, today's NDP would be unrecognizable to the parties of yesteryear. Mulcair. He'd make a good Liberal Party member, but he's really nothing more than an environmentally concerned neo-liberal. Let's be honest, here. The Dippers are no longer Dippers if they've elected such man to be their party leader. The NDP as a party of principle is dead. And long buried. And even if he's concerned with the environment, his solution is to transform Canada in to a hybrid economy. At this point, that's probably simply too much of a half measure. A worthless intention. To protect Canada, and to lead and inspire other first world nations toward a greener future, now, probably requires far more radical measures than anything Mulcair's ever even considered. I honestly don't even know who I'll vote for in my riding this coming elec

Easier bailout terms for Greece could open a can of worms

CTV News Er, no. I fail to see what worms have to do with economics, myself. I suppose it has to do with this line of thought: Ceding too much ground to Athens could ignite a broader political crisis by infuriating people in other bailed-out countries in the currency bloc which, unlike Greece, have obediently complied with the demands of creditors and largely restored their financial health through painful -- and politically costly -- austerity measures. Although I'm gonna have to take issue with the claim 'largely restored their financial health' in 'Spain, Portugal, and Ireland'. All the EU did for these countries was kick this solvency crisis further down the road for those three countries. Greece's solvency crisis is right before us, however. It's staring us all right in the face. Honestly, Greece defaulting probably won't affect us Canadians too much, as we're not too exposed to the EU, but what with globalization all the rage nowa

B.C. fires: Christy Clark pledges to spend beyond budget on wildfires

CBC News "We will spend what we need," said Clark. "If more resources are required we will get them." Wonderful! But just a quick question. Where's she going to get the manpower from? Most of the fire fighting crews I know have disbanded with the members finding employment elsewhere. Actually, that's a lie. All the crews I know of are disbanded. Fires in the prairies are already employing almost all the big union crews. Will BC need to call in the military, too? Listen, Premier Clark! It takes time to train people to fight fires. You need experienced, grizzled veterans who know and understand how fires act and react, especially in uncontrollable conditions. You can't have all-rookie crews running around in the damn woods fighting these fires. They're too uncontrollable, both the fires and the rookies! Accidents and injuries will happen, and even deaths. You need the right people in the right places. Most of the small crews are gone, and

Greece crisis: Greeks dismiss report on preparing IOUs to pay state wages, pensions

Independent.ie Well, this will be interesting if the original report about Greece prepping to issue these I.O.U.s is true. All money is ultimately worthless, really. It's just a dream that it has actual value. Money is merely an extension of the social contract. When one starts trying to attach actual to money, such as the price of gold, then society ends up in odd places, where what should be valued is dismissed, and what should be dismissed is venerated.

Trying to find a job

Been looking for work. Not super hard, though. Just meandering, really, in my efforts. It's my pessimistic, attitude, I suppose. Lost my last two jobs, one due to the economy, and the other due to my bad back. What's the point in looking for work now, I wonder? Ah well, I suppose I could try harder. But who'd wanna hire a thrice time loser like me, who has a bad attitude to boot? Not me, that's for sure. Can't stand people like me, always making excuses not to work. I've been using WorkBC's services. But it's all a big joke to me. Seems like a poor second cousin to the agency it'd replaced, some few years back. But that's how it is, right now. Social conditions have utterly gutted the employment market. And what's worse, the job market is so terrible right now, I'm reduced to having to use meaningless buzz terms such as employment market and job market. And almost as bad as all that, is the depressed job market has gutted employment

I love me some Windows Update

And by love, I mean hate, of course. That should be obvious, right? When I say I love something, of course I could actually mean the opposite, in a counter-intuitive sort of way. Spent yesterday, and the previous day, working on a computer that had failed, spectacularly. Lemme say something. I hate Windows Update. It's slow, and it's painful. But gods be damning, it's necessary. You gotta run it, once a week, at least. But using the program after you've just installed Windows onto a PC. It's a drawn out, frustrating process. It's hateful. It's wrong. It leaves you questioning yourself, wondering if this is a sort of BDSM sort of play, but only with you and the computer in front of you: "Is this wrong? Am I wrong? But why does this feel so right?" And the time you've got to spend on this could be used for so much else in life. You could write a resume, submit it to employers, interview, start the job, and then quit it, all the while screami

A Tribe Called Red Ft. Northern Voice - Suplex

Some more A Tribe Called Red

Now let's speak of something important

The Vancouver Canucks. Grr! I'm a sports geek. Spent some time, recently, learning about these new fangled stats economists are gleaming from hockey games. They're amazing, these numbers. Simply fascinating. It's really opened up the game for me, allowed me to watch the games in a whole new way. And my joy at these new stats are tempered by the Canucks. The Can'tnucks. The Goddamn Fucking Canucks. This has really been a summer of discontent for me, watching the off-season roster moves the Canucks have made. I suppose one could count last season's extensions of Dorsett and Sbisa as off-season moves. But when I do that, it makes this summer seem a great deal worse. My goodness. This Canucks team is going to be filled with question marks throughout the line up. So many rookies will have to take roster spots throughout the year. And the questions arise from the fact these rooks have never actually outplayed the outgoing veterans for these positions. And the vete

The state of the world, this morning

Two major world events are now happening. China's stock market is crashing, and Greece is heading toward exit from the EU. Both have a been long time coming, and both were clearly inevitable from an observer's viewpoint a long way back. Both contrast each other rather nicely. China's crashing down from an unsustainable high, whereas Greece has been bottomed out for so long, it's a wonder the peninsula hasn't yet sunk into the Mediterranean. China's a superpower, and Greece is the black-sheep relative the EU doesn't want to acknowledge but loves to kick (and then blames for dirtying the EU's shoes with blood). And yet, both these events each separately have the potential to send the world into another major recession. That they're both happening right now is some crazy mixed up coincidence that only Murphy could have predicted with his usual non-specific understating self. It'll be bumpy road ahead for the next little while. Make sure to buck

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Tsipras Never Wanted to Win Referendum, is “Trapped” and “Depressed,” Syriza in “Turmoil”

naked capitalism This is a bombshell. Syriza had better plan for Greece's exit, and fast. They'll need to hit the ground running, like jumping off a freight train. Events can happen whether you want them to or not. That they never planned for this is shocking, though. Isn't planning for the worst that could happen fundamental in governance?

Aboriginal leaders want to turn anger into votes in fall election

thestar.com Despite historically low rates of election participation, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde says there are 51 ridings across the country where aboriginal voters could play a key role. Nearly half of them are held by the ruling Conservatives, according to a list produced by the national aboriginal group. “Fifty-one ridings can make a difference between a majority and a minority government. People are starting to see that,” Bellegarde told a general assembly of the AFN in Montreal. I hope people heed these words. We First Nations are criminally marginalized, and we need to use whatever means are available to us to better our lives. Otherwise, we will continually face difficulties in this society. We have nothing to lose by voting.

Greece

What is happening in Greece? For now, it's the centre of the world, with all attention on every move it makes. It is volatile, there. Will Greece exit the EU? Probably not on its own. But the hardliners in the EU will probably force Greece out if its demands are not met. And every hour since the No vote has passed has illustrated how unlikely it is Greece has any intention of meeting those demands. A Greek exit would be disastrous, although not for Greece, itself. It's already waded through the aftermath of a disaster forced upon it by the EU. Things can't much worse for Greece, at all. All that would happen to it would be prolonged suffering. The disaster will happen to the EU, and the USA. Neither of those two powers seem to be aligned, here. The USA does not want a Greek exit. The EU seems willing to force Greece out if Greece doesn't comply. Greece doesn't seem to want to exit the EU, but its only sane options now to save itself would enrage the EU if  Greec

A Tribe Called Red Ft. Buffy Sainte-Marie - Working For The Government 2015 mix

Please, enjoy your day, everybody. Edit: what did the share button on YouTube do to this post? I'm never using that function again.

Updating the blog

I've been away from writing for perhaps too long. I've been burned out. Events in my own life, combined with my pessimistic attitude regarding events ongoing in the real world have dampened my inner fire. Alas, I've had no idea what to do with this blog, so I've been letting it sit, inactive. However, such is wasteful. I want to write on everything, but I've been hesitant to do so with this blog. Therefore, I haven't been writing about anything. I suppose I'm terrible like that. So, I'll change my mind, and do something new. I'll write on anything that passes fancy, whatever that colloquialism means. Which is what the former byline of this blog used to say, but I never heeded my own theme for this blog. Whatever. This time I mean it. I'll write about anything, now.