Category Archives: News and politics

U.S. President Barack Obama is coming to Canada for his first official Presidential visit to a foreign country.  On Thursday, he’s coming to Ottawa, our national capitol, on a six-hour drive-by.  He’s coming up on Air Force One, jumping into a limo, spending some time with our PM Steve-O Harper, then flying back to DC.

Dubya, the last time he was up, commented that in America he was used to people waving with all five fingers, unlike Canada, where we only used one to greet him.  Dubya didn’t bother to stay the night either.  It seems that U.S. Presidents prefer to sleep in their own beds.  This is perhaps for their own good, or more correctly, for the good of the Presidential entourage. 

You see, Ottawa is right across the river from Hull, Quebec.  Hull is, shall we say, notorious.  Up until a few years ago, the Federal Ceremonial Route for foreign dignitaries, went by what was called the Ceremonial Route Sex Shop.  The window displays were what you might well think they would be for a shop selling adult lotions, potions, devices, clothing and attachments, all in a lurid shade of passionate purple and whorehouse red.  For some reason, The Accommodator was always in the window. 

Also in Hull, there are numerous licensed premises where the Arts of Terpsichore are on display.  Very much on display, as there are no g-string or pastie laws in Canada, so one can obtain a very educational and informative demonstration from the stage, table-side or in private rooms. 

NHL players who come to Ottawa for games against the local team always seem to wind up across the river in Hull and Pointe Gatineau, depositing large denomination bills in the garters of the artistes.  Apparently, the home games for the Ottawa Senators are regarded as extra paydays for the staff at some establishments.  As for drinking hours, the laws in Quebec are lax.  Technically, last call is 0300, more or less.  They just never said 0300 of which month or year.

Upon reflection it might actually be better for international relations that Prez O and the entourage go home Thursday.  “Secret Service Agents Found Drunk, Broke and Missing Pants in Hull Strip Club after Obama Visit” would not be a good headline to see.  That’s right up there with “WaPo Pool Reporter Wakes Up in Transvestite Rub and Tug in Pointe Gatineau”

Be this as it may, despite the shortness of the Prez O Visit, there are several dozen bus loads of out of towners coming to Ottawa to catch a glimpse of the car that he may or may not be riding in.  The local cops and the RCMP have all held press conferences inviting people to stay the hell away from downtown, Parliament Hill, most of the streets and the Airport Parkway.  There will be no spontaneous walkabouts and the presence of various snipers on rooftops will preclude anyone trying to get near President Obama alive.

As a public service then, here’s what President Barack Obama should see in Ottawa.  After meeting with Prime Minster Stephen “Steve” Harper at Parliament Hill, a quick walk down Bank Street to the Sparks Street Mall.  Stop at Morrow’s Nut House for a bag of cashews.  It also makes a nice statement about the meeting with Harper. 

Get in the motorcade and buzz down Sussex Drive to the Byward Market.  Don’t worry about traffic, the RCMP will clear the way.  Stop at the Continental Deli and get some of their pepperoni, the hot pepperoni, which is blindingly spicy and good.  While there, walk a block or two to Hooker’s and grab a Beavertail.  The Killaloe Sunrise (cinnamon, sugar and lemon) is the way to go Beavertail. 

Continue down Sussex Drive to the Rideau Hall and take a moment to have your picture taken with our Governor General, who is Queen Elizabeth’s representative in Canada.  You don’t have to bow, as you’re also a head of state.  Grab a snap with one of the full-scarlet and bearskin busby-clad Governor General’s Footguards in the guard house.

For lunch, double back by the American Embassy to the Chateau Laurier, specifically Zoe’s Lounge.  You can have high tea if you want.  Back into the motorcade and zoom over the bridge to Hull.  Whizz by the Museum of Civilization and a bunch of soulless government buildings next to a pulp and paper mill, then get back to Ottawa.  Get the motorcade to stop somewhere in the DMZ on Somerset Street.  Hang at a bubble-tea joint for a bit, or just go walking around.  You name the ethnic group and the Somerset strip has at least a few representatives. 

Swing down Preston Street to Dow’s Lake and see what a freakin’ big fourteen kilometre long skating rink looks like with people actually skating on it.  Through the Experimental Farm, then out to the airport via Riverside and you’re gone.

You’re welcome.  And thanks for dropping by.  

Computers do so much for us at such a tiny price that we almost take them for granted.  Less than $2,000 and you’ve got a high-powered laptop that can all but organize the white blood cells in your liver into a Busby Berkeley dance number.

There is a downside to those low prices.  It is how those several hundred parts are assembled into a computer and who does the assembly.  In an article online here, the U.S. National Labor Committee has identified the working conditions of a few of the companies in China that assemble keyboards for the major manufacturers.  It is an eye opener. 

Now we both know that China is a fiscal tiger, using their population as one massive economic lever on the rest of the world.  When it comes to competing with China, you give up, as they will do anything at any price to get the business.  This is why North America doesn’t have an electronics industry any more.  For that matter, we don’t have a toy industry, or much of a furniture industry left either.

China can always beat us on price, as they have so many people, working at excruciatingly small wages, in a police state.  This certainly does simplify labour negotiations and allows a manufacturer to offshore things at very advantageous price points, but at what cost?

Some examples:  At the Dongguan Meitai Plastics and Electronics Factory in Guangdong, overtime is mandatory.  You work 12 hours a day at least.  Your dorm has eleven other people in a room not bigger than a North American bathroom.  There is no running water. 

You get docked 2.5 days’ wages for taking Sunday off, so nobody takes Sunday off, even though it is a mandatory day off in China.  Bathroom breaks?  Learn to hold it.  Not permitted.  Employees are not registered in the mandatory workplace insurance, maternity leave and Social Security programs in China. Putting your hands in your pockets?  A two-hour’s wages fine.  You can get the same fine for "Not lining up correctly while punching time cards, or in the cafeteria." or wearing work shoes in areas outside of the factory.   

The workers sit on wooden stools for twelve hours a day pounding keys into keyboard frames.  If you lift you head, you get fined.  If you walk on the grass, you get fined.  You get unpaid mandatory overtime to clean the factory and the dorm.  Plus you get to insert 3,250 keys per hour on a line that pounds out 500 keyboards an hour for Lenovo, Dell, HP and Microsoft. 

For this you are paid 41 cents an hour by the time your room and board is deducted.

In short, the keyboard I’m typing this on and the keyboard in front of your computer was most likely made in a sweatshop-cum-manufacturing prison.

The problem is that there is no alternative.  Products from China are given Most-Favoured Nation status in the US, which means no duty is charged.  The same deal holds true in Canada. 

Even if the Dongguan Meitai Plastics and Electronics Factory doubled the wages paid and cut the production rate in half, this would only add a dollar or two to the price of the keyboard.  Even if six different brokers passed this increased cost along with a hefty markup, the net change in the price of a keyboard would increase by, at most, five dollars. 

We both know this will never happen of course.  One of the middle brokers will ensure that the extra profit never makes it to China and to the factory workers.  Why?  Because we’re greedy.

Is there an alternative, fair-trade sort of keyboard?  None that I’ve found and I’ve looked.  Why?  Because we’re greedy.        

Marylou was in Washington DC last week for work and as a token of her visit, obtained a President Barack Obama commemorative for me at the airport. 

A President Barack Obama 56th Inauguration January 20th, 2009, 44th President of the United States of America commemorative combination nail clippers and bottle opener, in deluxe chrome, with a full colour cloisonné seal on the handle attesting to the the fact that it is a President Barack Obama 56th Inauguration January 20th, 2009, 44th President of the United States of America pair of nail clippers and bottle opener. 

Not only that, if you aren’t already impressed beyond redemption, but it also has a photo of President Obama in the centre, his historic likeness in front of a stylized American flag.  Plus, if that weren’t enough, it also has a small length of chain, presumably so that I can fasten the chain though a belt loop on my pants and declare to the world that I, David Smith, personally, own a President Barack Obama 56th Inauguration January 20th, 2009, 44th President of the United States of America combination nail clipper and bottle opener in deluxe chrome. 

Not only can I commemorate the Inauguration of the 44th President, as well as stay on top of my grooming requisites, but there is more.  The combination bottle opener and nail clippers includes, at no extra charge, a discreet emery board – nail filing area underneath the full colour cloisonné seal, commemorating President Barack Obama 56th Inauguration January 20th, 2009, 44th President of the United States of America.  Are you impressed now? 

Wait.  There is more.  Not only does this commemorative include the full colour cloisonné, but when you are using the nail clippers, the cloisonné is rotated out of sight, to preserve the fine lustre of the portrait of the 44th President of the United States for years, nay, generations to come. 

Some day in the distant future my niece or nephews’ children will be going through the Late Uncle David’s possessions and will marvel at the wisdom of the designers of this President Barack Obama 56th Inauguration January 20th, 2009, 44th President of the United States of America commemorative nail clipper and bottle opener and wonder at the lack of scratches or marring on the seal, commemorating that historic day back in the mists of 2009 when President Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America on January 20th, 2009. 

Yes, they will wonder and be struck with awe at the foresight, not only of the designers, but of the Late Uncle David, for having such a historical and valuable possession that commemorated President Barack Obama 56th Inauguration January 20th, 2009, 44th President of the United States of America.

Amongst the detritus that my grand nieces and nephews might also be going through, along with the President Barack Obama 56th Inauguration January 20th, 2009, 44th President of the United States of America combination nail clippers and bottle opener, with the discreet nail file and belt loop chain in deluxe chrome, with full colour portrait of President Obama, but they might also find another hidden gem:  A true rarity.

In September 1984, His Holiness Pope John Paul II visited Ottawa.  Uncle David obtained, with no expense spared, a 250 gram, full colour, metal tin of Papal Visit Travel Sweets.  A full colour portrait of His Holiness adorns the easily detachable lid, his hands clasped in prayer, mindful of His Mission, while beckoning you to partake of the Travel Sweets inside. 

Not only a commemorative of His Holiness and His Papal Visit, but it is an Official, Vatican Licensed Commemorative of the Papal Visit.  One can only wonder at the future value of such commemoratives, as His Holiness, John Paul II, is now in the arms of The Lord and no more commemoratives are being produced, let alone Official Vatican Licensed Commemoratives of the 1984 Papal Visit.

Uncle David’s Papal Visit Travel Sweets have been stored in controlled conditions since 1984 and are in impeccable, near-archival condition. 

Surely, this historical find, along with the President Barack Obama 56th Inauguration January 20th, 2009, 44th President of the United States of America combination nail clippers and bottle opener with discreet nail file and belt loop chain, will provide hours of wonder and inspiration to all of you and your families in these difficult times.

Now you can be impressed.  I know my grand nieces and nephews will be.   

With ex-President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy back in Crawford and Shotgun Dick Cheney being wheeled off to the Undisclosed Location/Republican Theme Park, we can now exhale. 

Eight years of quite possibly The Worst President in recorded American history has come to an end with the feeble whimper that only cowardly bullies can issue when you beat their miserable asses with righteous anger.  Americans stood up to the right-wing mouth-breathers and knuckle-draggers to put their mark in the proper place, getting a President with much potential to change things in a way that doesn’t benefit merely the rich, white, Republican, Base.

There are still a few things that have to be squared away now that Barack Obama has the keys to the joint.  Herewith, the Punch List for Prez O:

Financial Meltdown:  Christopher Cox and most of the SEC should be taken to the Rose Garden and given a sound thrashing.  They knew Bernie Madoff was running a ponzi scheme as early as 1999.  That Madoff was given a skate for eight years of the Bush administration was symptomatic of the attitude of the SEC under Bush, Cheney, Rove et al. 

The Bush White House was the one that let investment banks out of the debt to equity rules in 2004 that led directly to the housing bubble.  It wasn’t Clinton.  It wasn’t a left-leaning pinko media elite, or a Democrat hobbled Congress.  It was greed head Republicans doing their banker buddies a favour. 

Troops on the Ground:  It will take longer to unscrew this one.  Dubya got his Mission Accomplished photo op and more than 4,000 American troops have been killed.  Nobody knows how many Iraqis or Afghanis have been killed, but it’s more than 4,000.  Add at least one zero, maybe two zeros to that 4,000 and we might be near the real number. 

Under the War President, with all the fearsome technological and intelligence powers of the United States of America, they couldn’t find a six-foot-six bearded Saudi with failing kidneys somewhere in the upper corner of Pakistan.  Why?  Because they didn’t want to find him.  Osama Bin Laden was the excuse to crank up a multi-Trillion dollar war budget that made money for The Base. 

Saddam Hussein with his oddly-missing weapons of mass destruction was a cherry on the top of the money-tit sundae.  Remember that the Iraq war and reconstruction was supposed to be self-funding from oil revenue?  Oh yeah.  Sorry about that. 

Can we get that Congressional Medal of Freedom back from George Tennet and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Paul Bremer please?     

Katrina and Ike:  Parts of New Orleans are still in the third-world.  Parts of the Gulf Coast around Houston are still in the third-world.  Nobody has told the insurance companies and FEMA to get on with the job and get it fixed.  You can’t blame this one on the left-leaning media bias or gridlock in Congress.  This pile of flaming dog poop should be sent to Crawford, where it belongs.

Homeland Security?  If it were possible to take a broken system, destroy it, then put something worse and even more unworkable back in place, then this is it.  No more than 10 percent of cargo is actually screened, while people mill around in airports in their socks as Aunt Hazel’s walker is x-rayed until it glows.  You can have as many packs of matches as you can carry, but don’t bring that Bic lighter. 

Homeland Security was the biggest federal government reorganization since 1947 and it still looks like it was done on the back of an envelope.  Hire some crack-heads in withdrawal, make them deliberately screw it up and you’ll still get a better system than Homeland Security.  Who created it?  Dubya and Tom Ridge under the guidance of Cheney and Rumsfeld to benefit their buddies selling technology to the paranoid. 

The border fence with Mexico that would stop terrorists?  It’s still in king-size Meccano parts in Brownsville because they can’t find enough unskilled labour to bolt it together.

No Child Left Behind?  Let’s see how this worked.  Sorry, you can’t actually read this posting, as you’re unable to read, because the funding for education was cut so drastically that teachers weren’t allowed to actually teach you.  Perhaps you can sound out some of the words and glean an inkling of what I’m talking about.

Veteran’s Affairs.  Oh let’s not go there.  The cuts under Dubya will ensure that a new generation of homeless vets with deep, permanent incapacitating illnesses will walk the streets because there is no money to treat them and no facilities to treat them in.  With luck only a few will go off the deep end with automatic weapons in a crowd or from a high building.

Perhaps the ailing vets can get some assistance from Faith-Based Groups.  Oh yeah, that’s only for white, protestant, evangelical vets that have a lot of money to start with.

Foreign Relations:  There is a reason Americans don’t like to go overseas on vacations.  The locals laugh at them, at least when they’re not dodging aimed fire.  Not only were Americans duped into voting for a frat-rat, draft-dodger, drunkard, daddy’s boy, illiterate, idiot, but they did it twice!  No wonder the locals laugh and no wonder Americans stay home.   

I can keep going for hours and hours, but you get the drift.  Bush was by far, the worst, most venal, corrupt and misguided leader the United States ever had and I’m including Richard Nixon in that list.  I’m actually glad, in some ways that Hunter Thompson is no longer with us.  He would have had a massive stroke in the last few months of the Bush presidency and would now be babbling in his porridge.

Prez O has a very large mountain to climb.  Prez O is starting well, shutting down Guantanamo Bay and insisting that the Army Field Manual interrogation techniques are as far as the US can go, which means waterboarding and Abu Ghirab will not happen again without some serious repercussions.

It will get better, but damn, he’s got a mountain to climb.        

President-elect Barack Obama becomes the President of the United States today.  There is much hope that it will signify a dramatic change in America, as so many are hoping that the inauguration will mark the start of something better.

One comment that stuck with me over the hype of the past week or two, is that this historical moment is the black person’s equivalent of Man walking on the Moon:  Everyone remembered where they were, what they were doing and who they were with, when Neil Armstrong trod on the Moon. 

Today, hopefully, everyone, regardless of colour, will remember where they are and who they are with when Obama gets the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It is an important day for all of us.

Looking ahead, there will be mistakes, missteps and quite possibly some truly daft ideas that come forward.  Times are strange and to find the right answer, you have to sift through the dross to find the diamonds.  As long as the successes outnumber the failures, we’re ahead of the curve.      

Maybe this time we (the collective we) won’t screw it up.  There aren’t many chances left.

To close, there is nothing more appropriate than this quote from Dr. King.

"Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Just before the holiday season hit with the usual mad panic, there was a passing in the world that didn’t receive nearly enough mention.  Bettie Page.  She passed away December 11th, last year, aged 85.  Some of you are scratching your head right now.  Who the heck was Bettie Page?  Why should I care?  What is Dave smoking now? 

Bettie Page was a lingerie and pinup model.  Yes, a lingerie and pinup model.  Some would say that she was also a fetish model, as some of her work was what could be described as salacious and had serious kink overtones.  However, what is one person’s kink is another person’s salad dressing, so we’ll avoid making judgements.  Saucy is a good term. 

In 1955 she was a centrefold in the earliest days of Playboy as well as posing in other publications.  She never did ‘stag films’ or what we call today ‘porn’.  Nudes, yes, no issue there but she was a model who was simply knock-you-down gorgeous:  Long black hair with bangs and the kind of curves that women today spend money on harsh diets and hours of exercise to avoid. 

Bettie Page could easily be described as a legendary beauty of her era.  Contemporary artists, like Madonna, or Dita Von Teese, owe so much to Bettie Page they’ll need federal bailout money to make the payments.

Which brings us back to her passing.  She lived, at least according to her Website, a well-rounded life and passed peacefully.  What she left behind was that undeniable something not seen nearly enough any more:  Sexiness.

What we have today is multi-media access to every possible combination, permutation and perspective to every act you can imagine, as well as several hundred you can’t imagine.  And might not want to imagine let alone attempt, unless you have a chiropractor, a urologist and a good lawyer on speed dial.

What we’re missing is the erotic, the sexy, the saucy and the naughty, while remaining on this side of nice, which is where Bettie Page resided.

Consider the current crop of celebs and stars.  How many of them would measure up to the classic beauty and underlying sexiness of Grace Kelly or Lauren Bacall?  (I know this is a personal value judgement, as what presses my buttons might not press yours:  I’m a straight male.  Deal with it.)

Of our current crop of pretty-boys, how many have that handsome smolder like James Dean or Cary Grant?

So far, we’re batting 0 for 4 at least by my reckoning.  Maybe Al Pacino gets in along with Pat Weaver’s kid, Sigourney.  But Paris Hilton?  Or Brad Pitt?  I’m not seeing it or feeling it, pun intended.

Which is why it is important to recognize the passing of Bettie Page, the last of the sexy, saucy, exotic and erotic pinups.

In a good news story a USAirways Airbus 320 took off from LaGuardia airport in New York City today, heading to Charlotte, North Carolina.  Less than a minute into a routine departure, flight 1549 lost power from both engines, apparently from bird strikes.  The pilot glided the aircraft, with 155 souls on board to a water ditching in the Hudson River.  A lot of folks got wet and cold, but nobody died.

Any aircraft will glide without power, assuming all the airframe is intact.  The problem is the speed it takes to glide, to force air over the wings and generate lift.  Commercial aircraft, like the A320 are designed more for flying at cruise altitude and speed, as that is where they spend the majority of their time.  Gliders, by contrast are designed to operate at comparatively slow speeds, so the wings are designed to generate lots of lift at low speeds. 

Even with gliders, airspeed means lift.  No airspeed?  It’s called a Stall and the aircraft falls from the sky because Gravity Always Works.  A falling aircraft, if pointed nose down, will generate airspeed which means lift again.  It is part of any pilot’s rudimentary initial training to stall and recover with power off.  In a glider, that’s just another day in the air.

The dangerous part is when you don’t have a lot of space between the aircraft and the planet to dive and gain airspeed, which is exactly what the pilot, C.B. "Sully" Sullenbeger was facing.  Initial reports are he was barely at 3,000 feet.  If he was at 28,000 feet, he could potentially glide for miles, as there would be a lot of space between the aircraft and the planet:  Put the aircraft in a continuous moderate dive, to keep airspeed up, to keep the wings working, would be the principal objective.   

Sullenbeger had seconds after losing both engines, to determine where to glide towards.  The whole equation of diving enough to keep up airspeed, versus how much space was left between the aircraft and the ground started to come into play.  According to reports, the pilot hung a hard left turn and glided it into the Hudson River as slow as possible, without stalling and falling.

Imagine balancing on a unicycle, juggling a Coleman stove, a banana and a live trout, in the back of a pickup truck going down a dirt road, backwards.  Now answer your cell phone.  That’s what the crew did.

Plus Sullenberger did it in an aircraft not really designed to drive around without engines, which was full of enough gas (weight, in other words) for a flight to Charlotte as well as 154 other souls, freight, luggage, coffee, Coke and carry-ons.

The mere fact that Sullenberger and the rest of the crew got the aircraft down intact is outstanding.  That they did it as a water ditching of 81 tons of aircraft doubled the degree of difficulty.  At 160 knots/185 miles per hour, water does not give like a grass field under a glider. 

That they did it all, without a single loss of life, is a remarkable piece of airmanship.  Period.  No irony.  No smart comments.  Just remarkable airmanship.  

Last summer, in a traffic crash, three young men died after their car burst through a guardrail, ploughed through some trees and wound up in the Joseph River.  The three men drowned; one woman survived.  The Joseph River is in the Muskokas, around Bracebridge north of Toronto.  Cottage country. 

The vehicle had peeled back 30 feet of guardrail and had snapped off some trees at a height of 25 feet along the riverbank.  Alcohol and speed were "definite factors" according to the police.  The group had been up at a cottage, then gone for lunch at a local joint, the Lake Joseph Club. 

On the face it’s just another drinking-driving ten-line story that you can predict will be written three or four times each summer, buried on page 3 of the newspaper. 

This one is different.

On Monday the Ontario Provincial Police laid charges against the Lake Joseph Club directors and 16 employees of the place, under the Liquor License Act.  The charges include allowing drunkenness on the premises and serving liquor to an apparently intoxicated person.  The charges are serious.  So are the moral ramifications. 

The quandary posed is this:  Who is responsible for the crash and deaths? 

Ontario has very strict laws for places that are licensed to serve alcohol.  Managers, servers and security staff have to take a course, called Smart Serve Ontario that teaches the liquor license holder and their staff how to spot and manage those patrons who are intoxicated.  It’s mandatory training and if you don’t pass, you lose your liquor license, or can’t serve.

Every time I’ve gone into a bar, I’ve made the choice to have two or forty-six beers.  I have been refused service for being too drunk.  The server could tell that the End was Near when I ordered a shooter called Windex, which is tequila and Blue Curacao.  I woke up so badly addled that I had to consult a carton of sour cream to obtain an approximation of the current date.

However, in my drinking career, I haven’t driven a motor vehicle while drunk.  I have left the car in a skeevy area, with a note on the windshield for the cops, explaining the situation and asking not be towed.  The car was still there the next morning.  I have climbed into a taxi, without a dollar to my name, asked nicely to be driven home and been driven home.  I have also, unsteadily, walked home, or called someone to come and get me.  Conversely, I have a standing offer with several people that I will come and get them, regardless of hour, if they’re unable to drive.

I’ve been in more than a few bars in my life and have never seen the staff hold down a patron and force them to drink.  I’ve never been in a bar that insisted you get drunk pronto or get out.  I’ve never been in a bar that had a sixteen-drink minimum. 

I have been in bars that comp your soft drinks, coffee (and even your meal) if you’re the Designated Driver.  That’s quite nice and encourages sensible behaviours.  I have seen servers and bartenders discreetly confiscate car keys, or insist on cabs for patrons.  Occasionally voices have been raised, but the patron did not drive, which was the desired result.

Which brings us back to the moral issue.  Are the four people in the crash responsible for their consumption of alcohol and the choice to drive?  Certainly they are.  Nobody held a gun to a puppy’s head and insisted they guzzle it down, or the dog dies.  Nobody stuck a funnel in their mouths and dumped a half-bottle of over-proof rum down their gullets.  If the Lake Joseph Club staff did anything like that, then the charges should stand and the guilty should be sent directly to Hell for an eternity.  No question on that one. 

Should the server or the bar confiscated the car keys?  Unless the group were obviously messed up, how can you tell?  You can’t, unless the driver is trying to put his coat on over his pants, lying on the floor while singing "Who Let The Dogs Out" having consumed a litre of house red. 

Unless we have calibrated, mandatory, police supervised breathalyzers in bars, it is up to the reasonable judgement of the bar staff.  That’s the best we can do.  And, no, I don’t think we should have police with breathalyzers stationed in bars, checking every patron as they leave.  It’s completely impractical; there aren’t enough cops, too many bars and not enough equipment available.

What we do need is the families involved and the police to take a cold look at the situation.  It was a very tragic crash.  Three young men were killed.  They were killed because they chose to drink and drive.  That means the grieving families have to confront something ugly. 

Yes, it does taint the warm memories for the families of their bright eyed boys, the future laid out before them, suddenly brought to a violent end because they chose poorly.  Thirty feet of ripped up guardrail tells me other poor choices were made. 

If you need to point the finger, perhaps the ‘fault’ is with the parents, who didn’t properly teach their children that poor choices can kill you in many, many unexpected and violent ways.  

I’m sorry for their loss, I truly am, but it doesn’t change the reality.

What we need is a coroner’s finding of Death by Bad Choices.

The way we use our language is distressing me today, as the use of language is often an indicator of the depth of our mental abilities.  Now, far be it for me to stand as a paragon of linguistic and grammatical skills:  I’m not illiterate, as my parents were legally married, but I get irked with the way we butcher our language and obscure meanings with the mealy-mouthed non-threatening words of nanny-speak these days.

Green is mightily abused these days.  You name it, it’s got a green component.  Even gasoline is ‘green’ if a percentage is ethanol.  Back in The Day (2004) green meant environmentally friendly.  Change is another horse that has been flogged to within a millimetre of imminent demise, along with natural, organic and plant derived.  So, let us deconstruct the green-wash and the Change we’re seeing in our language.

Plant-derived:  This includes street heroin, as it is plant-derived from opium poppies.  Hashish, pot, tobacco, psyllicybin and most other recreational drugs are plant-derived.  Blue Agave cactus, when mashed, treated and distilled creates tequila.  Even purple-microdot is based on a synthesis from lysergic acid, derived from naturally occurring rye ergot.  Thanks to Albert Hoffman and Sandoz Labs for figuring that one out and giving us the permanent mental image of my grandmother climbing up my pant leg with a Ka-Bar knife in her teeth, singing "God Save The Queen".  At least it was plant-derived.

Organic:  Reinheitsgebot, the Ingolstadt Beer Purity Laws of 1516 ensured that beer was organically produced, at least in Germany.  For that matter, 150-proof moonshine is organic, as the ingredients are corn, water and yeast.  Distillation through a 1982 Chrysler K-Car, lead-soldered radiator is another matter, but hey, lead is organic so it must be good for you.  If you’re really into organics, put some white phosphorus on your foot.  Phosphorus is like, totally organic, dude.  It’s in the Periodic Table of Elements, so how dangerous could it be?  Oh yeah, it burns in oxygen.  Sorry about your leg dude.

Natural:  What a fertile ground this is.  The Sydney Tar Ponds are natural, as bitumen tar is a naturally occurring substance.  Lacing bitumen with more chemical toxins than there are letters in the alphabet, is not.  Weapons-grade Plutonium is natural as the compound exists in nature, just not in useable concentrations.  Plastics are not natural, I’ll grant you that, unless you make plastics out of renewable sources, like soybeans, then you can paint yourself as a environmentally responsible corporation.  By the way, avalanches are natural, so the eight back-country snowmobilers killed in BC last week, were killed naturally.  Taking a crap on your boss’ desk is supremely natural, especially if you used that recycled office paper to wipe up with, but will still get you fired.  

Renewable:  Your skin is renewable.  Crops are renewable. Oil is renewable, as long as you’re willing to wait 6 million years and push the next generation of dinosaurs into a swamp.  Even the Hummer is renewable.  Destroy the one you have and go buy another one, which is great for General Motors.  Plus, it’s made from recycled steel, so you’re rollin’ Green baby. 

Recyclable (where facilities exist).  Technically, we’re all recyclable.  Except the human recycling process involves death, so it isn’t quite as popular as one might initially think.  Recycling humans without permission is also frowned upon, as the government tends to call it serial murder.  Where facilities exist is a bit of a hook.  I just haven’t found the right municipality to live in, so I can recycle my stock of unused non-weapons-grade plutonium.  For some reason the folks in Mississauga don’t want to take a 142 pound mound of glowing, smoldering nuclear waste on Blue Box day;  What a bunch of sissies!

Fair-trade:  It depends on who is defining fair.  Some folks will label their sweatshop t-shirts as fair trade as they define fair, as in fair for them, not the workers.  Fair enough.  One supposes that we could label anything from Europe or the US as fair trade goods.  Green Giant Fair-Trade Niblets Corn?  It’s grown and canned in Iowa, so sure, why not?  Your Guatemalan nanny is obviously fair trade, as you are paying her almost minimum wage for a 100 hour week, which is so much better than she would be making back home.

Carbon Footprint:  You get a carbon footprint from walking through a pit of charcoal.  If the pit of charcoal is still flaming, then you also get burns.  You can also get into trouble by walking on a white carpet after walking through the charcoal.  That demonstrates your personal carbon footprint for all to see.  Being alive means you have a carbon footprint.  Some even argue that being dead has a negative carbon footprint, as it takes years for the casket and your remains to completely disappear.  Comforting isn’t it, to know that your dental work will be your eternal contribution to your perpetual carbon footprint.  Generations from now, carbon anthropologists will be calling me a shitheel because I have a partial plate.  Makes me want to engrave a message on my dental work along the lines of "Bite Me!"      

Change You Can Believe In. If you substitute the word ‘toothpaste’ for ‘change’, you’ll see exactly how simple-minded the statement is:  "Toothpaste You Can Believe In" would get you laughed out of every marketing class in the world, except at Yale, where you would be lauded as a friggin’ genius and invited to run the Republican party.  I choose not to have a close, personal, faith-based relationship with the seven pennies, the dime and the quarter I have in my pocket right now.  I choose to believe that if I collect my change once or twice a year I can roll it up and take it to the bank.

Which leads me to this unlikely scenario:  I roll up my Change I Can Believe In, walk to a local, unionized, store, buy a recyclable (where facilities exist) glass container of sustainable, plant-derived, organic, ethanol with natural flavenoids, pay for it with the Change I Can Believe In, put the bottle in my sustainable, free-trade fabric cloth bag, walk home to reduce  my carbon footprint and open the bottle.  Then I pour three fingers of the contents over ice made with solar-purified water and drink it. 

After a few repetitions, I’m in the midst of a sustainable, organic, natural, plant-derived drunk.  I’ll feel tempted to call up a couple of green guerillas and invite them to walk to my place and kiss my freshly-bathed (with unscented natural soap) pink, puckered, high-fibre arse.  Unfortunately, it isn’t in a nut-free zone. 

I’m going to catch nothing but heat for this, but here we go:  Israel and Palestine.

We’re into day umpteen of Israel and Palestine shooting at each other.  We need to look back and figure out why. 

One can argue that the Torah, back in Biblical times, was promised to the Three Patriarchs as Eretz Yisrael, the Jewish homeland.  One can also argue that the various Arab groups, who lived there, also had dibs on the place.  We’re never going to solve that one, as the land that you and I know as the Holy Land is important to just about every religious group you care to mention. 

Generally, Buddhists, Shinto and Hindi adherents don’t get too exercised about the area, as the land isn’t part of their religious heritage.  As a Reform Druid, Stonehenge gets me all moist and meaty, but not the Holy Land.  

It’s been fought over since the dawn of time.  Name the empire and at some time or another they’ve had a piece of the action.  The last owner was the British who tossed the keys in 1948, walked away and said "Eff it.  You figure it out.  We are so gone." 

Needless to say, since then, every faction on the ground, have spent lifetimes justifying their claims, counterclaims, excuses, reasoned argument, pissy attitudes and unrestrained violence as being ordained by whatever Deity you care to mention.  Like all groups we can come up with some truly hideous behaviours all in the Name of God.

Which is the part that has been overlooked since the dawn of time.  The Deity never said what team he or she is rooting for.  It’s the humans who are messing it up with our ‘interpretations’ of what The Deity wants. 

Which brings me to the possible solution.  The Deity has said, repeatedly, that killing each other is Not Good.  So stop.  Knock it off.  Park the snotty attitudes and vengeful justifications.  You’re both not obeying the basic rule of any religion, which is don’t do something to someone that you wouldn’t want done to yourself. 

Oh, that’s right.  Mental gymnastics allows you to justify slaughter.  The actual word of The Deity doesn’t much matter.