Feltham Rambles

It’s constant entertainment listening to the empty political rhetoric spewing from these jokers. What’s more interesting is that the majority of Canadians generally support the Democratic Party in the USA, even though their policies could push for a change in how and where we export our key commodities. I doubt the average Joe in American realizes that Canada is the largest supplier of oil to the USA – among many other crucial resources the hungry nation relies on from Canada to keep their economy moving. The only change that should be done in regards to NAFTA is further integration and increased trade between Canada, USA and Mexico, not stepping backwards. As I’m sure China, India and many others would gladly fill the void of consuming more of Canada’s natural resources if the trade climate becomes unpleasant here in North America.

Click on the link below to read the Globe and Mail article...

These bloody spam messages never cease to amaze me, the fact that we all get so many must mean that people are actually visiting the links, of all the messages I've received, one has to be there best...

Well, well, well… it appears as though this poor blog of mine has gone from something with a little personal substance to a collection of wacky links. What can I say; it’s hard to find the motivation to accomplish much on a consistent basis these days – or has it always been that way…

To recap - life has been great since I’ve returned to St. John’s, but, as always, there have been the constant ups and downs, and this winter has thrown its fair share at me. I’ve been feeling the pinch of the pay decrease I took when I moved back here, coupled with a bunch of house, and more so car woes - I have been thinking about selling my body for a little extra cash. And, I’m not talking about whoring myself for money either, but, actually selling extra body parts, like kidneys, spleens, and perhaps a testical, anyone interested?

Back to the car woes - the fucking VW was in the garage for three weeks, which made me count my lucky stars that I only live 2Km from work, because if I had to take the bus during that ordeal, I would be writing this entry from jail as I’m sure I would have killed someone. But, alas, the walking was very good for me, it was nice to relax a little in the morning and take in the fresh air and quirky scenery of the city of legends. Other than that daily exercise, we’ve been laying low this winter, we had hoped to get in a lot more winter activity, but, the lack of funds has proved otherwise. Oh well, all the more reason to go crazy when the summer gets here, which we seem to have got a tease of today, yesterdays low was -12c and today it was +12c, gotta love the wacky weather here.

The one thing I’ve been doing consistent since I’ve been back has been writing music; I have the lyrics for a good thirty new songs jotted down and continue to add to that collection on a weekly basis. I haven’t been as motivated with the music part, but figure it’s easy enough to add to the lyrics in time with a little herbal help on a lazy Saturday afternoon. All the same, there are a couple complete tunes that I am very happy with. On the music front, I started jamming with some folks here in the city awhile back; however, it was for a cover band, a lot of the songs were lame and not in my vocal range, so we soon parted ways. Which, I’m glad it didn’t work out, as I am much more interested in pursuing the original and creative side of music these days.

Anyway, that’s the scope from my side, here’s a couple of photos from the past couple of weeks around the city, enjoy!

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it. ~ Patrick Young

http://www.theindependent.ca/article.asp?AID=1626&ATID=2

By Ryan Cleary (St. John's)
The Independent
Friday, January 18, 2008

Now is as good a time as any to talk about the health of Canadian federalism, what with Steve and Danny beating the crap out of it.

If the two leaders were a married couple, they’d have each other killed or under a restraining order. That, or they’d be in divorce court; at the very least in counselling.

One year away from our diamond anniversary (60 years with a wedding knot wrapped around our neck), Newfoundland and Labrador and the Government of Canada can’t stay in the same room together for five minutes without flinging dishes and spitting insults. Our poor kids, what must they think of us at all?

Hard to believe the relationship has come to this when Canada has been so good to us.

Maybe we’re just ungrateful.

That’s not to say that federalism can’t work. It might work better if, say, our partner was the United States of America. A provincial minister of Fisheries once told me, off the record mind you, that there would be no trouble with foreign overfishing on the Grand Banks if we were the 51st state. All the good ol’ U.S. of A. would have to do to stop the rape of fish stocks (when we had more than a few half-starved guppies and stunted minnows) is park an aircraft carrier or two on the 200-mile limit and watch the fish pirates scurry back to their watery holes.

Truth be told, we don’t seem to care much about the fish ourselves. To answer John Crosbie’s long ago question — Who hears the fishes cry? — no one, that’s who.

Fisheries aside, there would be no problem with carting Labrador electricity across Quebec either if we hooked up with our southern neighbour. America could care less about appeasing La Belle Province. The Yanks would simply drop a cable down the Gulf of St. Lawrence — cost be damned — and tell Quebec to kiss its American arse, which, if my geography serves me correctly, would be the province of Ontario.

But then Ottawa doesn’t have the muscle mass of the Americans, or the desire to flex what little it does have for the sake of Newfoundland and Labrador. It was only this week that Danny broke his silence, revealing what he says the PM told him in late November: “‘I don’t need Newfoundland and Labrador at this point to win a future election.’”

That kind of statement was almost (but not quite) as stunned as Loyola Hearn comparing Ottawa to Santa, telling Danny he may get what he wants if he’s a good little b’y. “If you haven’t been a good boy, then it depends.”

Loyola strikes me as a half-wit elf, bumbling off just the kind of nonsensical statements to get Danny moving. He should have no trouble landing work as a motivational speaker when he exits politics.

To be fair, Steve denied making the remark, although he really doesn’t need us, not when we only have seven of 308 seats in Parliament.

The story of our Confederation life.

For Steve to actually say those words is another story. It’s almost as if Williams is the federalist and Harper is the anti-federalist.

It’s Williams who’s appealing to the Canadian federation, informing them of our particular plight, showing them how we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and actually strengthen the union.

It’s Steve who’s scorning the federation.

He could care less. He doesn’t appear interested in strengthening Canada so much as tightening the Conservative grip on power by catering to the provinces with the most votes. Promises be damned.

Clearly, from our East Coast perspective there’s a problem with Canadian federalism.

It’s not working for Newfoundland and Labrador. Not in terms of the fishery, or Labrador hydro, or federal jobs, or offshore oil, etc. When a federal promise is made, it’s never kept — not unless it benefits central Canada.

Danny constantly has his back to the wall when it comes to the federal government. That’s seen in some quarters as a strategy to keep the Tories high in the polls (we do so dearly love our fighting Newfoundlanders), but there’s more to it than that. The bitching never ends because there’s an endless list of grievances to bitch about. The question readers should ask themselves is if Williams’ passionate federalism doesn’t work now in trying to make the feds live up to black-and-white promises, cut and dry issues, when will it work?

The ABC (Anyone But Conservative) campaign is back on with the prime minister’s decision this week to basically tell Danny to screw off with the offshore horse he rode in on. If you think our place in Canada is bad now, wait until if and when the Conservatives are re-elected.

Is Canadian federalism working? My answer is no, not for us. The next question is whether the rest of Canada cares enough to make it work.

And if not federalism, then what?

ryan.cleary@theindependent.ca

Retirement Planning for 2008

If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00.

With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1000.00.

With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.

If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $49.00 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.00

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle. It's called the 401-Keg Plan

I like monkeys.

The pet store was selling them for five cents a piece. I thought that odd since they were normally a couple thousand each. I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I bought 200. I like monkeys.

I took my 200 monkeys home. I have a big car. I let one drive. His name was Sigmund. He was retarded. In fact, none of them were really bright. They kept punching themselves in their genitals. I laughed. Then they punched my genitals. I stopped laughing.

I herded them into my room. They didn't adapt very well to their new environment. They would screech, hurl themselves off of the couch at high speeds and slam into the wall. Although humorous at first, the spectacle lost its novelty halfway into its third hour.

Two hours later I found out why all the monkeys were so inexpensive: they all died. No apparent reason. They all just sorta' dropped dead. Kinda' like when you buy a goldfish and it dies five hours later. Damn cheap monkeys.

I didn't know what to do. There were 200 dead monkeys lying all over my room, on the bed, in the dresser, hanging from my bookcase. It looked like I had 200 throw rugs.

I tried to flush one down the toilet. It didn't work. It got stuck. Then I had one dead, wet monkey and 199 dead, dry monkeys.

I tried pretending that they were just stuffed animals. That worked for a while, that is until they began to decompose. It started to smell real bad.

I had to pee but there was a dead monkey in the toilet and I didn't want to call the plumber. I was embarrassed.

I tried to slow down the decomposition by freezing them. Unfortunately there was only enough room for two monkeys at a time so I had to change them every 30 seconds. I also had to eat all the food in the freezer so it didn't all go bad.

I tried burning them. Little did I know my bed was flammable. I had to extinguish the fire.

Then I had one dead, wet monkey in my toilet, two dead, frozen monkeys in my freezer, and 197 dead, charred monkeys in a pile on my bed. The odor wasn't improving.

I became agitated at my inability to dispose of my monkeys and to use the bathroom. I severely beat one of my monkeys. I felt better.

I tried throwing them way but the garbage man said that the city wasn't allowed to dispose of charred primates. I told him that I had a wet one. He couldn't take that one either. I didn't bother asking about the frozen ones.

I finally arrived at a solution. I gave them out as Christmas gifts. My friends didn't know quite what to say. They pretended that they like them but I could tell they were lying. Ingrates. So I punched them in the genitals.

I like monkeys