Sunday, March 27, 2011

Sunday musings

So the worlds women's curling championship are on today. If you have had the opportunity to follow the game you might be both surprised and disappointed at the lack of audiences in those games being held in Denmark. Every time they show a shot of the stands it seems the seats are half full and the ice rink itself seems tiny in comparison to those in Canada. Crowds of 5,000 plus are not uncommon there and today the crowd numbers in the hundreds and many seem to be curlers from the event itself.
The finalists are Sweden and Canada with the Canadian team being from a town called Kroneau (near Regina) Saskatchewan.
Sweden wins it with a steal of 2 in the final end.
Canada ends up with silver.
Well, as is said in Saskatchewan, there is always next year!
So Canada is now starting a 35 day sprint to a Federal election. There are 2 main parties, one called the Conservatives that presently are in power. The other is the Liberal which for years was the natural ruling party of the country.
There are 3 fringe parties as well .
One is the left wing NDP which to many resembles a tiny little yappy dog nipping at your heels. The other is the Bloc Quebecois which is a regional party from the province of Quebec (which has a disproportionate number of representatives not based on representation by population as is the rest of Canada- this cruel error was done in the formation of the country) whose main goal is to hold the rest of Canada hostage to the financial demands of that region. In fact the rest of Canada subsidizes that region by billions of dollars each year to support education,day care, infrastructure projects among others that are not available in the rest of the country. The third are the Greens and while they have no representation in the parliament divert votes from the other 2 national parties like the NDP do. In fact pundits argue that these 3 parties are the reason behind a lack of majority government for the last 7 years. The Conservatives are running on a platform of who is best to manage the Canadian economy in these fragile times while the Liberals are not offering alternatives at this point but running against what they call the arrogance and deceit of the Conservatives. At this early stage no one topic has emerged to be the hot one to excite the voters. That should emerge in the next week or so I believe.
I had an interesting conversation with a senior citizen this week who observed that the solution to high prices etc. would be to cut wages and prices back to those of 20 years ago. Sounds simple enough, but would it work?
No, no way because it assumes that the rest of the world would go along with this. Would emerging nations slash their standard of living back 20 years? Would oil exporting countries reduce the cost of oil? Just a couple of examples of why this is a wish of fantasy and not a cold look at reality. Only affluent societies can yearn for those times, the others are too busy catching up to want to go back to the "good old days".
We live in the moment at all times and must adjust, adapt and survive to the moment. The best do and prosper, the ones who cannot do so will and do fall behind.
Brutal but true.
On the topic of 20 years ago, now in hindsight, are there things that you wished you had done different? Or had pursued instead of walking away from? Sometimes when one has a quiet reflective moment, do you wish so? Yet if you are honest, you would not be the person that you are today if you had not followed the path you did.
But, the possibilities........
Have a great week and take care out there,
Flatlander52

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Sunday musings

Well, another Sunday, another day of light snow hitting the ground. I doubt if you will find too many complaints on this compared to other places around the world.
Will the Japanese ever get mastery over their damaged nuclear reactors?
I think so.
What is ironic is the mass hysteria on the West coast of Canada and the United States of people rushing to buy iodine pills to counteract the effects of radiation.
Well, so far there have only been trace amounts detected with doubts if there is more to come.
What this has shown in the massive integration of the world economy. American auto production is sputtering due to a lack of parts from Japan. Even production (done in China) of the mighty Ipad is slowing due to a shortage of parts manufactured in Japan.
This all comes at a cost and this is starting to ripple throughout the world economy that has just started taking baby steps towards any semblance of a recovery.
Experts suggest that another recession is imminent. Just what we needed to hear.
On a single person level, why is the world lapping up the disintegration of Charlie Sheen?
Nobody deliberately sets out to live their life in such a train wreck style.
Believe me, I have first hand knowledge of the demons he is living with and can only watch in sadness as those that are supposed to have his best interest in mind, watch this and try to maximize the almighty dollar profit before he flames out.
And flame out he will.
Where will these handlers be if and when he recovers?
You ever wonder why people lose faith in their politicians? Here is a good example. A member of the Canadian Governments Opposition party issued a statement where he condemned wording in an immigration primer that described Honour Killing and female genital circumcision as barbaric.
He said the wording is too offensive to people.
He then retracted when a furor erupted over his comments and said that he kind of, maybe did, should not have said this in such a way.
But that he definitely would have used the word barbaric in private conversation.
First off, honour killing is a b.s. way of putting a nice name on a horrific practise - period.
Second, female circumcision is barbaric - period.
Third, these practises are always directed at females, never males in the society where they originated.
Fourth, he would say one thing in private but another in public just to score political points and pander to a certain group of men?
How hypocritical can one get, and you wonder why people are turned off from politicos such as that?
On another note I just want to say thank you to those that log on to this blog. Readership now comes from Canada,mainland United States, Alaska and a couples of countries in Europe!
Well the first day of Spring is upon us.
This year it could not have come soon enough.
Ones thoughts are slowly moving towards garden planning, yard landscaping, weeding, mowing the lawn and wondering how soon it will be until the first snowfall!
Have a good week and take care out there,
flatlander52

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Sunday musings

Well today is going to be a bit of a downer for for me.
Maybe it is the winter blahs or just a sense of ennui that I feel.
So latest reports from Japan indicate a death toll of over 10,000 from the earthquake and possibly a higher count as the clean up continues. At least 2 nuclear reactors seem to be having containment problems and are venting into the atmosphere. If ever there was an apocalyptic scenario, this would seem to fit the bill.
But what would you expect anyway?
With the continual expansion of the human race and its increased demands on space, power and natural resources, did anyone not think that this would eventually happen?
Reports from various sources indicate that the loathsome practice of slavery continues to exist and indeed flourishes in this day and age.
Conservative estimates indicate that there are up to 3 million people ensnared.
Does anyone really care about this?
Or are we too concerned with the shocking price increase of gas to care?
Time was nations went to war to abolish this vile practice but not anymore it seems.
This present day era reminds me of parallels with the old Roman Empire at the start of its decline. Unparallelled wealth, prosperity, knowledge for the privileged few and increasing hardship and despair for the remainder before the collapse and ruin of the Empire.
Is the past coming back to be our future?
Speaking of gas prices, why is it that since Libya supplies around 1% of the USA needs, that trouble there can cause the dramatic ripple effect that it did? Obviously another case of speculators making lots of money (does this also sound like what Wall Street did in the latest US depression?) and the consumer paying the piper with no recourse? Of course this is a perfect example of free market capitalism that the Republicans in the Excited States embrace. Enrich the rich, devastate the middle class and disenfranchise the poor.
Have you run out and bought the latest tech toy - the Ipad2 yet?
Seems like a marvelous machine that for specific industries and professions can be a great tool with the right application. Still no competition from the non Mac world sadly. Perhaps there never will be.
Of course in Canada this machine is not yet available and when it is, the 3g version is limited to 1 carrier, so you pay what they decide. Competition seems to be an evil word in the Telco business in the country that invented the telephone.
Everyone appears to want to make a dollar of you these days it seems.Last week I approached the local writers guild to see if they had any authors that were looking for someone to edit/proof their books for free - sure they said, you can buy an ad in our publication to search for these people!
Will not do that again!
Some days you just have to laugh at the silliness that exists in the world, either that or run away and join the circus!
Well that is it for another week.
Take care out there,
flatlander52

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Sunday musings

Lets talk about the impact of recent weather ( that is over the past three years) on things like clothing, fuel and food. Did you know that with the floods in the far East that availability of cotton is a a record modern era low? This is forecast to drive the cost of clothing up  by 10% or so after April 1st?
Also, do you enjoy your daily cup of coffee? Columbia has three years of bad weather and watch how cup sizes are shrinking and prices are going up steadily - with no relief forecast for at least a couple of years.
We all know of the fighting in Africa - did you know that the majority of the worlds' coco crop comes from there and experts warn that all supplies will end by the year 2014 under current farming practices?
Did you know that the continuing mass subsidization of the American corn crop to turn it into ethanol is causing corn prices ( corn being a food staple of many so called third world countries) to skyrocket and in part is a contributor to food riots around the world?
In fact did you know how much corn is used to create a single gallon of gasoline?
You would be shocked.
Combine all this with the seemingly world wide attack on the middle class by the wealthy and you have a very grim prognosis for the future I believe.
Now to go from the serious to the idiotic - American football billionaire owners and the rich (by ordinary peoples standards) player are going to possible not have a season this year - and the owners stand to possibly get a cash payment from the TV networks of a billion to tide them through the possible strike? What is going on here?
Pampered owners/players on one hand and struggling average wage earners on the other?
Is the world going insane?
Take a deep breath, exhale and do it again.......
Spring is around the corner and that always holds the promise of better things to come. Maybe we can hope that this is true this year.
I just want my tomato plants to survive without blight this year - surely this is not too much to ask for is it?
I also realize that it is a privilege to be able to be in a country where if one works hard, that there can be results that many of the rest of the world desperately would want to have.
Clean drinking water.
Good health care.
Good housing.
The list goes on.
There but for the place of birth............well you know what I mean.
Well, that is it for this week, taker care out there.
Flatlander52