Comment + thought = Stand-alone article

Posted by my bro in the comments of the post below, thought it worthy of an entry all on it's own:

My favourite take on the auto industry is how it's all the Union's fault that everything is going off the rails. It has nothing to do with GM's greed in needing a competitive vehicle in every single niche market, no matter how insignificant. Also, Chrysler needs to make vans and nothing else. Well maybe the Challenger, but not for $60k. It's not like it's a new design or even a new engine. 

GM released the Chevy HHR after playing catch-up to the PT Cruiser, but about 5 years too late to cash in on the trend. The HHR, much like the PT Cruiser is now D.O.A. and no one would be caught dead in one. This is an example of wasting huge development costs for a trend that's already dead by the time you get your crapwagon to market.

Labour costs are about 10% of the price of a vehicle. Take 10% off every vehicle and you still aren't selling vehicles because people are :
a) afraid they will lose their jobs
b) cannot get a loan from the bank
c) really don't need to replace their three year old car in the first place
d) waiting for the prices to drop.........waiting .......still waiting..........

Toyota had to lease an ocean liner to store unsold vehicles because they have run out of fields and warehouses to store new vehicles. As supply and demand tells us, this glut of unsold vehicles should mean lower prices, but instead government is stealing from us to prop up the Companies for another few days.

.....still waiting........

What's really inferior about north American cars is their design and engineering. But everyone targets the union people who put them together. There's something about a car assembled for minimum wage that would not make me comfortable at 130 kph on the 401, but that's just me.


At GM there are 5 retirees for every line worker. This is simply not the reality at the Japanese branch plants since they only began producing here in the 1980s.

What is inexcusable has been the quality lapse which is narrowing, but honestly should have been met or exceeded in the mid nineties. Japanese vehicles are clearly more reliable if one looks through the well regarded Consumer Report auto edition. If more people did this, GM and Chrysler would have been out of business long ago.

As you bid farewell to iconic manufacturers here in Ontario you need to realize a basic economic rule. Manufacturing creates wealth, and these Companies are the last gasp of big manufacturing here. Countless Ontario part makers will also fail along with the companies they supply. That will mean more unemployment and a lower standard of living for you and I eventually. And Dalton McGuinty, Premier for life, will respond as he always does, by raising taxes. Which further hampers any recovery and punishes anyone still trying to make a living honestly.

Also these parts suppliers are supplying Honda and Toyota here in Canada. If/when they fail, your Canadian made imports will be even more expensive since parts will be made everywhere else in the world but here.

I was on to the greedy business owning bastards as our manufacturing jobs were slowly sent offshore in the nineties, but no one else noticed. Now we cheer with glee as the last of the industrial revolution dies off, leaving service sector jobs and little else. You won't even be able to ask anyone if they want fries with that because there won't be any paying customers.

Professional analysts are saying that a depression will follow the collapse of the big two. This will be a nasty summer for Americans, who will protest violently as jobs evaporate faster than stimulus dollars, and people start to go hungry. I hope they are wrong.

At least my eight year old Ford is still running as I approach summer layoff. I might need to keep it a few more years, peeling paint and rusty bare spots not withstanding.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 by K.R. Raven

GM Needs To Die

In apparent contradiction to my supposedly Conservative viewpoint (truthfully, pretty malleable on a day-to-day basis) I am responding in knee-jerk fashion to a headlining story I've just read about GM cutting another 1600 jobs cuts in order to qualify for yet another round of government aid.  Gimme, gimme, gimme...  

To me, that's like cutting off your foot to collect your accidental death & dismemberment uinsurance.  Sure, it's a great payoff, but you can't f&*$ing walk anymore.  And to carry the metaphor a little further, unlike private citizens, GM hasn't been paying it's premiums the last little while. 

If GM was a car, it'd be an uninsurable wreck.  To even 

write a news story about them, it's now mandatory to preface the phrase "automaker" with the word"struggling".

Would you  consider buying a GM(or Chrysler) vehicle at this point, knowing that Chapter 11 protection is probably weeks away?  Even if either company had a desirable vehicle, it'd be a no-brainer.  

Governments on both sides of the 49th parallel need to stop pouring buckets of cash down the stinking, clogged drain that is the North American auto industry, let them die their much-deserved death and let everyone get on with their lives.  Out of the ashes, phoenix-like, something better will arise.

This "stimulus package" money that has been bandied about by Obama and Stephen Harper like some sort of saviour has done the sum total of nothing to stimulate the economy.  No one in the auto industry has learned anything.  They've had 33 years since the Honda Civic was introduced to catch up, and the best they can come up with is the Dodge Caliber, Ford Focus (2008 version) or Chevrolet Cobalt.  Put the cane away, guys, the horse is dead.  

It's time to stop this horrible waste of money.  How about incentives for ordinary folks to actually buy vehicles?  How about incentives for Toyota, Honda, Mazda, VW, Hyundai, Kia, etc (you know, SUCCESSFUL auto manufacturers) to build more of their products in North America to keep at least some of the people who comprise the world's largest market employed at more reasonable rates of pay and without some of the more ridiculous union protection?  Contracts need to be renegotiated to keep this kind of protectionism out of the language of all labour contracts.  

There's a reason this nation is failing, and throwing non-existent money around like some sort of drunken moron who just won the lottery is not going to save it.

Arrivederci, GM and Chrysler.  

(I considered saying "It's been a hell of a ride", but the K-car, the Chevy Vega, the Dodge Durango, the Pontiac Aztek, the Pontiac Sunfire, the Pontiac Acadian, the Pontiac Sunbird, the Pontiac Grand Am -  hell, the Pontiac AnyF$%&ingthing pretty much put a nail in that coffin.)

Miley Cyrus defends her older boyfriend

So will a lawyer one day. The only question is what type? Divorce? Criminal? Personal injury?

Shout-out of the week

Bill Maher's Real Time. Great HBO show that cuts through the bolshevik that pervades our media. He tempers his political vitriol with just enough humour to avoid depression and panic.

Very right for the times and of more use than Stephen Colbert and that other guy, whasisname, Jon Stewart. Those guys are so pre-meltdown. Only complaint: Once a week isn't enough!

Good Things Happen To Reasonably Good People

Sometimes, without warning, the obstacles actually recede for a short time, the Red Sea parts and the downtrodden finally make their way to safety. I'm one of the lucky ones. As the economy crumbles like last week's cheesecake, I have once again bucked worldwide trends and been made permanent at my job after 7 months. I can't believe it, it still hasn't sunk in.

I'm cautiously optimistic and a little dazed about the whole thing. I've had a rough three years since moving to Ottawa (truthfully it started long before that, I was never cut out for sales, yet somehow lasted twenty years in that most dishonourable of professions). It was a gamble to move here and it looks like it has finally paid off in a career I can live with. I suppose I should give thanks to some higher power or at least count my lucky stars, whatever that means. I think I have exactly one lucky star and it has come through for me bigtime. This isn't exactly news or even all that interesting, but now I know what it feels like to finally win one.

Now, what to do with the rest of my life...

Dream A Little Materialistic Dream

First of all, let's just get this out of the way:

1. I realize the worldwide economy is in the tank and I should be thinking about hoarding gold and Campbell's soup in my basement, as well as the common good of my fellow man.
2. There are horrible injustices going on every day in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, China, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Toronto and many other third-world countries.
3. I should be out there, somewhere, in dreads and a bloody, sweat-stained Che Guevera t-shirt shouting leftist slogans and brandishing an AK-47, ferociously trying to make a difference in the world while disavowing all things material.
4. They say that Little Mosque on the Prairie is a really good show. I should be watching it.
   

Guess what? It ain't gonna happen. None of it. Beside being too old for ­­!Vive La Revolution¡, I like stuff. It makes me forget about all the horrible crap that's going on in the world, if only until the bills come in. Kind of like Xanax for the soul. Not surprising for a guy who came of age in the 70s and 80s, with the golden promises of a life better than that of our parents. The members of Douglas Coupland's Generation X (birth years approximately 1961-81), myself included, are the first generation to succumb to lowered expectations. It's also not surprising that I often daydream about the open road, cheap gasoline and unencumbered travel in a safe world that doesn't exist anymore (and may never have). Box cutters, anyone?

There, it's out of the way and I can just show off a few pics of the car I'd like to own, which Ford will never import here in its current form. They're far too stupidly cautious, don't trust their customers and a few vehicles like this might actually create some genuine enthusiasm for their products, thereby increasing their profits to slightly above zero. Wouldn't want that in a worldwide recession / depression...

See below for more ranting on this same subject.

Is it wrong to be thinking about something like this when we all seem to be in batten-down-the-hatchbacks mode? Or is this form of escapism harmless? Not sure, but damn, that is one sweet-looking ride that is right for this stressed-out century. 35 mpg and enough room for guitars, amps, beer and the family, if the mood should strike.

I need only ask one question:




Why not, Ford?

Does Your TV Suffer from Constant, Irritating "Judder"?

Well,doesn't it? Of course it does, you idiot!!! You just don't know it yet.

Apparently any flat panel LCD TV that isn't a 120 Hz Sharp does. What about the new, 240 Hz Sonys? According to the lowest-common-denominator-higher-numbers-equals-better crowd at Suture Shop, it must be four times better than regular HDTVs. Absolute horse shite, I say.

Unfortunately for me, that atrocity isn't a typo. I can picture the 24 year old unshaven, hoodie-wearing Justin Long lookalike copywriter creating this gibberish and being congratulated with high-fives from his geeky stoner colleagues as he comes up with the winning adjective five minutes before they're all set to hit the peeler bar, bongs in tow.

Or maybe I'm just a cranky old bastard. Yeah, that's probably it.

According to those in the tech-know, this sort of motion-smoothing technology for home television has nearly no basis in reality, and needs to be turned off when watching anything but the NFL or Venus and Serena battling each other on the clay. Crikey - sign me up!
"Where can I dumps my wheelbarrow full of moneys so's I can walk off wit one a' these babies?"

It's an old caveat, but ferchrissakes, people, don't believe everything you read in a Future Shop or Best Buy flyer. Even if it sounds all Web 3.0-ish. After being in sales for twenty years and seeing some pretty underhanded, shady crap being pulled on a daily basis, never trust a salesman, saleswoman, or any other gendered thing trying to sell you goods and/or services.

In other words, trust your eyes, not some slimy greaseball with the morals of John Wayne Gacy. Now, excuse me while I go check the Leafs game for a surplus of "judder". I'm sure that's what's causing my unhappiness.

Things Continue To Get Extremely Worse.

Original Post From July; quite prescient given the current predictions of depression-esque tendencies in the economy.

How true. Very poorly worded, but true. The title quote was taken from a union representative in Oshawa commenting on the recent GM truck plant closure there after the government threw as much spare cash as they could at GM, but it applies to a lot of things recently. Car companies don't really deserve government bailouts, do they? How about the local Mom & Pop type stores that are constantly going under due to the overkill of retail in this country? Blame Wal-Mart if you will, but there's a simple reason we're getting "extremely worse" in this country and in the US of (DO)A...

We're lazy and greedy, and getting "worser" by the minute. I should know, I work for the Federal Government. You want entitlement issues? Try unionized government workers with strong socialist tendencies who want to do as little as possible and get paid handsomely for their inactivity. Most criticisms levelled at the way Government is conducted are spot-on.

So, greed got us into this mess - how do we propose to get out of it? Why, naturally, by spending our way back into prosperity. If that's true, can I actually justify my recent insane flat panel HDTV purchase merely by it's incremental contribution to the GNP, thereby allowing me to sleep at night? Yes, I Can™! Thanks, Obama!

Unlike Kent Brockman, I'm not pointing the finger squarely at you in particular, as I can be firmly lumped in with the gooey masses. We still have a false sense of entitlement in this country that is to be found nowhere else in the world save the USA, and possibly Sweden.

In many third-world developing nations, the mere act of getting out of bed and walking to the local market can be a matter of life and death. In North America, we still take so much for granted, that when we do fall it'll be ten times harder than what anyone can forecast.

Your stock market performance or new BMW M3 isn't the topic of conversation when you can't scrape together enough to pay the mortgage, and roving bands of starving Liberals are your biggest late-night worry. It's a fine line between comfort and being hungry, but you always know when you've crossed it, and we're not there yet. As a result, I don't hold out much hope for things to improve. Like an addict, we have to hit rock bottom and sleep in a few dumpsters before our friends call an intervention. I wonder what the state of the Union (and Canada) will be like six months from now when all the post-coronation Obama hype has died down and we can all get back to cold hard reality.

Despite my pessimistic tone, I actually think (or is it hope) that we can get through this crisis. Nothing is more inventive than an addict looking for his next fix. After all, you can always find the money somewhere.

SNL - Newly Relevant or a Shadow of the Past?

The wide cast of web-pinion seems divided on whether the current SNL cast is poised on the verge of renewed greatness, or at the edge of the abyss (Check the comments here). Having not been a regular watcher since the mid-90's, I can't vouch for anything other than this 2008 season-opening clip. It's as if Tina Fey was born to play Sarah Palin. Not so much Amy Poehler's Hillary likeness, her mannerisms actually aren't quite shrill or shrewish enough (Does she also play Martha Stewart?) It works because of Fey's fearlessness.
I can see the value of that trait in comedy as well as in life.




I find life a lot less funny since giving up beer and taking on full-time parenting, financial and social anxiety as a replacement. The early 90s were SNL's golden age to me and represent a time in my life when everything wasn't life and death:

Dennis Miller, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler before he became obnoxious, David Spade, Julia Sweeney, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman - a veritable laundry list of hilarity, memorable sketches and characters. One of the criticisms of this period is Lorne Michaels' overuse of recurring characters, and I agree. Maybe Rob Schneider wouldn't have been reduced to doing horrendously unfunny movies (see The Animal) if he'd been allowed to stretch his legs a bit instead of being "Copier Guy" for three years straight. Still, say what you will about the cast's post-SNL careers, they were all at the top of their game on the show, and the recent retrospective "SNL In The 90's" only reaffirms my view. Instant (mostly undeserved) nostalgia is all the rage these days but in this case it's warranted.

With all the doom and gloom coming out of the media since the summer, I still believe it's important to be able to laugh at something before you deconstruct and analyze it into the ground. Tina Fey is doing a great job of it.

(Oct. 9th Update: See YouTube for some amazing clips of CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer relaying a similar message, this Palin thing has become quite the phenomenon. Perhaps Palin would do better in interviews and the polls if she paid Fey to impersonate her at press conferences, and quietly drop the folksy Fargo schtick when asked a serious question, about, say, the US government's $700 billion financial bailout. Katie Couric was obviously baiting her. It doesn't excuse Palin's atrocious ignorance or inability to properly deflect the question, but what was the point - unless you or your employer is distincly partisan. I suppose Couric would say the "truth had to be exposed".)

The Steely Dan Show - 2008-07-10 Bethel Woods NY

Here's the link (sorry, now a dead link as MusicWebtown is becoming a paid service) to this well recorded show, not sure if you can download the mp3's and save 'em to your hard drive. All that comes up for me is Apple's much-despised Quicktime web player. Utterly useless.

This is an audience recording but is very clear, decent stereo separation. For all you drummers or wannabees (like myself) out there check Keith Carlock's small break towards the end of track one, an instrumental medley of "Everyone's Gone To the Movies" and "The Fez". The man is a monster, both of the groove and has stellar chops to boot when required. The great thing is he always manages to keep it interesting, probably more for himself than anyone else. The side benefit is if you're a musician or just a really avid music fan, you'll quite often break out in to a smile at some of his references.

Donald Fagens' voice is as good as I've heard it in 15 years of touring and Walter Becker's guitar sounds like he actually rehearsed as opposed to the noodling I was used to from previous tours.

The rearrangements of classic tunes include a funked-up version of "Show Biz Kids" that improves and expands upon the droning one-dimensionality of the original; it's almost a complete rewrite and if you've never heard it, it a real groovin' treat. "Everything You Did" gets the reggae-lite treatment that characterized both the "Gaucho"-era outtake "The Second Arrangement" and Becker's recent solo album Circus Money. See if you can spot the "new" chord in the verses...

Special props to Jon Herington's amazingly lithe adaptation of all the session players in the 'Dan's "magnificent" history while retaining his own style. He really puts a unique personal stamp on every song. The horns are tasty and more up-front than in most of their recorded output.

The Economics Of Stupidity

I live in the suburbs. I like living in the suburbs. I choose to live here, for reasons that will become obvious, and have always aspired to own my own house; not "semi-detached" to someone else's, not a "townhome" which is nothing but a glorified apartment. I grew up in a neighbourhood similar in feel to the one I now reside in, and despite the squalling left's insistence to the contrary, there is still nothing quite like having your own little space, your own trees, your own yard, your own garage. I don't like sharing a common wall with my neighbour. I don't like sharing anything other than idle conversation with them. I realize that my dream is based on an outmoded ideal from the 1950's and am unapologetic about it. On the other hand, I also believe that everyone is entitled to live somewhere decent and most people buy what they can afford. It's unfortunate that our new ideal is cramming as many units per square kilometre as humanly possible. Density breeds discontent, at least in my mind. I've lived in apartments and semi-detached houses, and always feel like I can't quite breathe properly. A quarter of a million dollars doesn't get you much in 2008. So I do apologize if I come across as a gun-toting redneck, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Without getting in to the economics of such a prospect, the tale of which could fill a large book of it's own, suffice to say that I realize that living in Greater Suburbia comes at a cost. It's a lot of work and expense to maintain a small single-family home these days, some would say too much work. It's also a requirement to have at least one, and most often two cars, which contribute to global warming and unnecessarily clog our roads with traffic. I say bosh, flimshaw... Go big or go, uh, to a townhome / birdhouse. Maintenance is part of the deal. Many people I know privately agree with me on this, while publicly applauding the new high-density ideal that is scheduled for this neck of the woods. Yay! More low-income ne'er-do-wells stacked on top of one another!!! I'm literally bursting with anticipation for the density of this area - let's call it "Farrhaven" - to increase to inner-city levels in the faint hopes that the transit system will have more stops here, or that the city might deem it fit to include us in their light-rail plans (currently on indefinite hold). Our fine city counsellor (let's call him or her Jen Hasder) has publicly said so, and is drawing support from a disturbingly large chunk of the brainwashed public. I don't see her, (or him) building a third storey on his (or her) house and letting renters move in. All right, for the sake of clarity, the counsellor in question is a woman.

Sigh. Are people idiots, or is it merely my outsider perspective that sheds some seriously obvious light on the error of this plan? I can hear you saying "both", and you are correct, sir or madam.

Will the roads be appropriately widened to make room for the influx of new citizens driving to work and to shop? Will the newfound tax money be used for anything other than padding City employees' retirement funds and replacing the sodium lights in their private golf courses so they can play at night? Will we get better snowplowing in the winter and road maintenance in the summer? Will anyone explain why there are no f-ing sidewalks in this bloody town? Of course not. Will lip service and studies be paid to determine that none of these things are "within the budget"? Of course they will. In short, I firmly believe that there will be no increase in our services or in the quality of life here. Quite the contrary, in five years this nice little suburb may well already be victim to declining property values, higher crime rates and disintegrating infrastructure. By then, I'll be on my way out of here before the crystal-meth lab next door blows up in the middle of the night.

Here's the real reason Ford is in trouble...

Wow. That's all I can say when I go to the Ford UK site and take a long look around, carefully wiping the drool from the keyboard in hopes it doesn't short out. It is precisely cars like this that are needed in North America, and have been for some time. It has taken $1.40 / litre gasoline and the resulting backlash against large gas guzzling behemoths to make the automotive sector wake the hell up from their self-induced 15 year SUV coma.

Reading the Globe (and also the Mail) today, I realized that Ford in the USA and Canada still don't have a clue as to what the North American market wants or is willing to spend on a small car. They have finally announced a change in direction, but it's probably too little too late for Ford Canada.
There are plans to finally bring the European Focus to our shores, along with the snazzy new Fiesta and some other interesting-sounding vehicles by 2010, but - no wagon, and only a maybe on the 5 door hatchback. I've owned two Focus wagons, a 2001 and a 2004, both were superlative in terms of style, gas mileage, versatility, cargo storage and overall driving satisfaction. The redesign in 2005 made the Focus into just another ordinary car. They sucked all the distinctiveness out of it with the lame chrome grille and Crown Vic-inspired dashboard, as well as the overly cheap interior materials. Ford are completely missing the boat on the small crossover / wagon sector dominated by the likes of the newly-revamped Toyota Matrix / Pontiac Vibe twins, and the utterly horrible Dodge Caliber. Another opportunity lost.

A telling quote from Ford advisor Joseph Phillipi says "the key (to Ford's success) will be making those vehicles less European in terms of the touchy-feely aspects." What a profoundly stupid comment. Less European? Ford has made blunder after blunder in terms of North American model releases, and they hold up the Contour and the Merkur as examples of flops that demonstrate why European cars don't sell well in North America. Unfortunately, those vehicles didn't sell because they were really freaking crappy, not because they were European-designed. The UK model lineup is much better than what we are spoon-fed on this side of the pond.

Here's what Ford and people like Mr. Phillipi think we want:

Yeah, an underpowered engine, chrome bars on the grille, an automatic transmission, a trunk and fake side gills is exactly what I want. Riiiight.

I also love being told what I want instead of being listened to. Last year, Ford discontinued the hatchback and wagon versions of the Focus, against the protestations of the public. Those models were the only reason to buy one in the first place.



Ford Canada, so we're clear, here's what I want: This exact model, with no changes except the steering wheel on the left side.
I, and thousands like me would gladly pay a little more for the Euro Focus as is, not "Americanized". I'm sure Mr. Phillippi has considered a Woody Wagon version of this car for us dumb-ass North Americans.

In short, make this car available here and I'll buy it. Keep telling me what you think I want and be prepared for bankruptcy. It's that simple.

Is it me or is it difficult to concentrate on anything these days?

 It occurs to me as I sit at the computer with 6 different windows open and the television on in the background that I'm having a hard time concentrating on anything for any length of time. Go figure.

Take a drive and you are bombarded by information from signs and cars and the radio plus the incoming text messages and phone calls from the Crackberry device; turn on the television to any of the all-news channels and there is a ton of information on the screen at any given time. I can see the talking head, well, talk while I get weather information, stock tips, health tips, asparagus tips and what have you while my brain keeps up a running game of "Keep Away" with my eyes. The eye sees something that the brain interprets as bizarre and the information is gone as fast as it showed up leaving the brain to wonder what the hell just happened.

Does anybody read books anymore or do you just listen to audio books in the car to and from work? And is it a crime to sit and do nothing? I'd like nothing better than to sit in an easy chair and stare forward a la David Puddy for about a half hour. 

"No, I'm good."

The world is a lot smaller now. Wayyy smaller. I like it when I was a kid growing up and Toronto was a mystical place far, far away filled with wonders. Not like now. I live and work in the GTA and it's not that wonderful anymore. Maybe it's just me.

We Owe It To Ourselves

...to do something about the appalling lack of Canadian-made goods available at the vast majority of retailers in this country. Check your shoes - where are they made? Even if they say Rockport or Clarks on the sole, the little tongue tag gives away the country of origin as China. Same with just about any garment that used to be made, if not in this country, then at least on this continent.

It's a situation that has knocked the manufacturing sector on it's ass over the last few years, and despite popular consensus, free trade is not to blame. Three years ago, the protective tariffs that helped Canadian goods compete in the international marketplace were lifted and it's been going downhill at breakneck speed ever since, according to a feature story on CBC's The National tonight. Jobs have been lost in the thousands to third world cheap labour countries, the usual gang of suspect countries being the beneficiaries of our unwillingness to pay $5 more for a shirt or pair of pants made in this country.



To remedy this, I've placed a request in to contact some of these garment manufacturers to see if there would be any interest in assembling a national web registry of Canadian Manufacturers for goods of all types, under the banner of www.madeincanada.ca. There, you would be able to search out, say, t-shirts, or winter coats and how to buy them, with links to the manufacturers' sites. It's just an idea in the earliest stages of planning, but I know that I'm not the only one out there who's mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

I wonder where the masks our Olympic athletes are forced to wear due to the dangerous air quality wearing in Beijing are made? Hoboken? Something tells me not so much...

...and now back to our regularly scheduled lampooning of society.

Jessica Alba gives birth to full grown lady and names her Satania Rae

Congratulations are in order, we suppose, for Jessica Alba and her husband Monington J. Baggs on the birth of their first and only child, a rather large adult. The apparently 46-year old, one hundred twenty pound woman was delivered relatively intact to a shell-shocked Alba, who was expecting twins. (So much for expectations. I've been expecting a lottery win for several years now.)

The name came after the petulant newborn set fire to her hospital bed after borrowing a lighter from a nearby nurse's station. "She jist a-walked on ov'y and grabbed herself, it", said Dottie Holtber, a cleaning woman whom we stopped talking to the minute after this quote was taken. "Twas the strangest ol' thang I ever did see." She snuck that one by us. Damn her.

Just remember, the truth will never make the news, they'll show you some beautiful baby borrowed from a modeling agency with some sickeningly cute name like, oh, I don't know, Honor Marie or some such horseshit. The government will in all likelihood, succeed in covering this one up. If Jessica Alba really wants a baby, she'll buy one. Anyhow, who wants a white baby anymore - they're so last century.

The Winter That Just Won't Quit (But Had Better, And Soon)

Looks like Wiarton Willie and Punxsatawney Phil were right this year. It's been six weeks since the famed rodent prognosticators forecast an extended winter, and damned if the mangy vermin weren't spot-on. Like everyone else in Canada, I'm ready for spring anytime it feels like gracing us with its presence. Now would be good, with the exception of the mountains of snow here in Ottawa just waiting to melt and simultaneously destroy both my basement and my roof.

Not only does one have way too much time on their hands when unemployed, add Seasonal Affective Disorder and you've got a recipe for depression that can only be salved by the sweet sounds of music and the imminent arrival of a season that is currently MIA.

So far we're pushing record amounts of snowfall here, and everyone's mood seems to be highly irritable with a supersized side of testy. Residential and secondary roads are essentially down to a single lane, yet no one seems to care enough to realize that you actually have to slow down to pass and avoid sideswiping the other guy on your way to wait in line to get your Roll Up The Rim cup from a listless, apathetic, incoherent, pimply-faced, tattooed and multiply-pierced Tim Hortons teen. (Side note: It's a sure sign of spring when the glaze in their sullen eyes is replaced by jumpy antipathy. You couldn't pay me enough to manage a ragtag group, sorry, "team" of these kids.)

One person here in Ottawa has decided to make the best of winter and build a record-breaking snow fence in his front yard that made it to the front pages of Digg, the smarmy geek-infested social news site. Kudos to this guy's creativity.

My energy level sinks like a stone when I even think about the amount of work involved in the upkeep of this thing. It's quite enough for me to blow, say, 52 cm of il neige out of the driveway like last Saturday; let alone pile and shape it on a daily basis into an imposing monolith that's like the photo negative version of the ones from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

No, better to think of the coming spring and the accompanying burst of energy (and mad cleaning) that will follow.

It'll get here on its own schedule and with any luck, my mind will still be in working order (albeit corroded and in need of a tuneup) when the first warm breeze blows through the narrow, sidewalk-impaired streets of Ottawa. Maybe it's true that you can't rush a good thing. One can only hope. Now off to Hortons for that coffee - oh, right, those saturnine kids... Never mind, I'll brew my own.

The Canadian Dream

so·cial·ism /ˈsoʊʃəˌlɪzəm/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[soh-shuh-liz-uhm] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1.
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2.
procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3.
(in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
Compare utopian socialism.

There's the definition, look at number three, and it fits Canada's current transition period perfectly. Instead of utopian socialism, I much prefer Trudeaupian Socialism, but I won't split hairs. It began with our much-cherished "free" healthcare system, but along the way we have been given the EI and welfare systems, the gun registry, and the coming state-run child care system the Liberals have proposed. With each step we surrender our choices to big brother or the nanny state. It's a slow and creeping process.

It is now mandatory to wear a helmet when you ride a bike. Last year Canadian politicians pushed for helmets on children who toboggan. Dalton Mc Guinty just banned trans fats in Ontario schools, and out east it is now illegal to smoke in the car if you have a child aboard. Smoking has been demonized, and alcohol too. The thought of having a drink at a friends house at Christmas is out of the question. This is creeping socialism, in small increments.

Some of these things may be good, but look at the choices you are not being allowed to make any more. You cannot be trusted; your judgment is suspect, and now "we" will make the right choices for you. Now give us half your income so we can regulate you, and provide for you. Do you see the trend? And why am I the only Canadian ticked off about half my income being gobbled up in taxes? It isn't just your income tax, it's sales tax and GST, property taxes and gasoline taxes, etc...

For every problem real or imagined, the Liberals are there to propose another costly social program sure to exceed cost projections, not fulfill its' mandate, and generally be ineffective.

Life is unfair. If my fellow citizen has not prepared himself for life after high school, has not educated himself, has not expressed any interest in becoming a productive member of society, why should my tax dollars make up the difference? Conversely if another dude has a better job and more skills than I have, then I don't believe I should share his success, nor live off of his taxes.

I feel strongly that Socialism has been an abysmal failure everywhere it has been tried in the world. Our Canadian natural resources are helping to pay the huge cost of this system, but I feel that a harsher reality is just around the corner. The rise of the loonie is more the fall of the US dollar, along with the recent mortgage and credit crunches in the US. These events should serve as a stern warning about a vulnerable financial sytem, teetering under the weight of massive credit. Something tells me if it really does go bad, we will lose a lot more choices than we can imagine.

Kyoto and "the Goracle"

Okay so it's the first of December, and I had to chase the penguins out of my driveway this morning. Keep in mind that -20C is a little bit cold for this time of year, even in northern Ontario. With all the hype surrounding Kyoto and the imminent heating of our planet to the point of extinction of all known life...Let's all pause and get a grip.

In Canada I have been led to believe that I must stop heating my home, stop using energy-guzzling incandescent bulbs, stop going to work, stop cooking my food, and instead curl up in my unheated, unlit home in a polar sleeping bag, freezing in the dark, in order to save the planet. Al Gore has brainwashed the Board of the Nobel Prize and most of mankind with his misleading and dishonest "Inconvenient Truth", which has been bought, lock stock and barrel by the political left in Canada.

Thankfully not much of the hype seems to sticking, given the news release from Environment Canada which predicts the coldest winter in fifteen years. Jack Layton, never afraid to shy away from feigned moral indignance or empty political grandstanding, declared that "the planet is dying" last week, and that means of course we should be bicycling to work, and taking turns warming our hands over the single, curly fluorescent bulb we will be allowed to share. Jack is against coal power and nuclear power, so I guess we'll all need to move to Mexico. The thought of me drowning a polar bear every time I fire up my massive four cylinder engine brings an imaginary tear to my eye.

Canada's contribution to greenhouse gases is less than 2% of the worldwide total. Until China and India get onboard with emissions caps, don't even ask me to start giving up my necessities. Our contribution to the "problem", if there really is one, is in the "drop in a bucket" range. But do feel free to buy your carbon offsets from Al Gore's company, if that makes you feel better.

Git 'Er Done!

"So I'm out there, right, and a'cause my truck was broke, I hadda walk acrost number 17 highw'y to my buddy's place ta fix his dilapitated chimbly until I got flustrated by the bad weather, tripped over a long chair and went to Canada Tire to get a warsher for the damn thing. Those frickin' places are so humungy I got disorientated in the store and couldn't focust. I axed fer some help, but the Musler lady in the Hee-jab couldn't speak English too good, I could bearly understand 'er. It was horror-bill. Cripes! What the hell's wrong with this country anyways?"

There's no one in the world quite as convinced of his intellect and superiority in the world as the Canadian Redneck. Just let it go. Don't correct these people when they take liberties with language that would make a schoolteacher snap and attack you with a broken bottle. Live and let live is the lesson of today's ultra-permissive society. After all, you wouldn't want to point out to a moron that they are one as it could cause severe menter traum'y.

We Thank You For Your Patients (sp)

This week the Obstacle returns, bigger and better and updated more frequently. Check here for irreverence as well as irrelevance, obstreperousness, veracity and snideness.

In the meantime, the moderator has decided to post his own photo (see aside) for publicity reasons. I suggest not making comments that will set him off into a full-on rant about dairy products and their declining quality over the past few years.