In the environmental front, we have protests over the continuing need for pipelines to transport oil and gas. Simply put, a pipeline make economic sense as it involves no humans to carry the liquid from place to place. So simple and easy. Except, the pipeline breaks and this causes problems of spilled oil. Well there is a simply idea to solve both concerns. The people building any new or future pipeline must agree to a new law. And the law is simple, any environmental damage clean up will ignore the corporate veil such that any front corporations and executives are liable until such amount as the cost to repair and restore the damage is paid for. This way creating front corporations to protect against liabilities, from spills and clean up will be forced up the food chain to the people who are profiting from the pipeline itself, including directors, CEO and all listed managers will be liable for all damages.   The next pipeline to be made will have those assurances built into them. I guarantee you that once this new law is passed there will never be another pipeline built because no matter how they lie about pipeline safety, the people who will suffer are not only those who are directly affected by the spill, but everyone connected to it. Under those conditions, oil and gas will return to being transported the safe way.

As Nero Fiddled, Rome Burned

Now, while Trump tweets, Washington is in flames?

Are we in fact watching the decline and fall of the American Empire? Is the United States of America in its final divide? “A house divided cannot stand,” said Abraham Lincoln, who managed to survive the Civil war. Today, will that same house outlast the cynical partisan divide? Have the house Republicans out distanced any sense of balance, fair play and dived into Hubris that they simply don’t care what Donald Trump says, i.e. The Bowling Green massacre, The Sweden massacre, the alternative facts, The Obama wire tapping.  And the list goes on. Yet at the same time we have Mike Flynn resigning for lying to people about his contact with the Russian ambassador, Jeff Session perjuring himself over the same question to the Senate and multiple people popping up to say they too meet with Russians during and after the election. Is Donald Trump’s administration merely the new Russian front? And what about the sex tape that they Steel file claims is out there of Donald Trump peeing on a bed Obama may have used, all in the best spy footage ever taking by the Russian KGB latest installment as FSB, Federal Security service? And all of this and Trump has been in office for not his 100 days but just over the first 50 days? And just who can forget the inauguration, watched by the largest crowds EVER! EVER! Thus screamed Whitehouse spokesmen Sean Spicer as he flushed any hope of his own credibility down the new paper wire, along with his reputation and the truth by lying in his first press conference with the media. “You can’t handle the Truth”, screamed another equally silly little man named Colonel Jessup in “A Few Good Men.” Sadly who ever might remember such an event clearly was not there. America was built in part on the largest internal economy allowing for the free shipment of goods and services within the borders until now, where congress will be asked to pass legislation for 1 trillion dollars in infrastructure renewal, except it won’t renew anything. It will in fact, sell off the highways and bridges to private interests creating new tariff walls against this free movement. You cannot get there from here, unless you pay, will soon be the norm.

Thankfully, in the houses and in the streets, Americans are angry, pissed even. Those few who hate Obama care but love the Affordable Care Act will soon realize they are one and the same. Well they will realize it once it is gone, repealed and replaced. The red states who voted for Trump are also the states that need Obama care the very most. Burnt once shy twice? We can only wait and see what will happen in next year’s midterm elections. Yet even that is not enough, if the people merely elect blue dog democrats instead of blue dog republicans. They need to find a liberal to rally around. They need to unleash the progressive wing of the party. In short they need to take back the hands of government from those who would drive the country to the brink of disaster. Or surely as the Roman Republic fell, so too will this republic. Not by war and invasion but by greed and stupidity. It is truly time to make America Great again. This starts with the remove of Donald J. Trump from Office that he has stained by his mere presence. The removal of his many cabinet picks with competent people and the overthrow of the Republicans death grip on the Congress. The people need to stand up and be counted for. Or truly Washington is burning to the ground to extinguish the shining beacon of hope for freedom and liberty.

Hi Jeff (Jeff@amazon.com)

Not happy here

My mother wanted some Danielle Steel books

So I help her out, she is not savvy on computers, I quickly open up to amazon.ca and start shopping

Bam right from the start

The search engine was crap

Had search in the category of books for I quote “Danielle Steel in books” in “the category of books”, because anything else gets me a lot of authors whose name are not Danielle steel.  It’s like there are books and there are book-books but to search you really need to search in book-book-books….

So strike one.

But heck we went on. Usually you get good service….

Usually….

Not today

So I want on to search for her books. She likes to read books, so can I eliminate all the rest like hard covers and Kindle. Nope have to look at those because, hey, you have to push them on me. She does not buy them or read them but I guess the search engine feels they have to push that shit on her just in case no means maybe? Can I use the categories to eliminate those options?

Hell no.

No sophisticated enough…

Strike two

Keep on pushing forward to try and find something she wants…

Get her 10 books, mass market, ordered from all over the world… All those different sellers located around the world. Great stuff except for the price. See the price for the books was fine, but the shipping? That was cost 50% of the price of books. In the summary, before you buy is the total shipping price but there is no way to tell who is charging how much for shipping and handling. All I get is a large total. So I searched to eliminate those high costs… and what do I see… a large question mark going guess what? You have to look at the home page for each book otherwise it’s a secret. So I could do that or…

After strike two comes?

You got it!

Strike three you’re out!

Or rather I am.

So I went to Heather’s site called Chapters Indigo

https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/

A nice place.

Friendly, did not try to tell me I had to buy kindle, or anything else for that matter.

I started my search in books for the author and surprise all I got was the author and the books she wrote! And best of all? I could select the format I wanted them in! I then made a few more clicks and wow all I had was mass market books that my mother wanted. Wow and then when I went to order my books, I saw how much I was being charge for each one in shipping and handling. Why that would be zero not 50% of the total price. The books arrive on my door on Wednesday. Your orders would have arrived before April 20 for the distant sellers.

But I’ll go you one further. See Jeff, I went looking to send feedback to the site. You know some weasel form you fill out that no one will bother to read. I found nothing on the site?

Why is that? Cause people are abusing it? Too many people saying they hate the lack of service? I don’t know why, but I do not see a place where I could have sent this.

So strike four? Fourth down? Forced into your own end zone?

Now it was only a small order of 100$ or less, but it was still a hundred bucks I was willing to spend on your company that went to another web site because your search results are crap. Your web site pushes shit like kindle, when I don’t want it and you refuse to accept that as a customer I am out to buy things that I want, not what you want to push at me. See Jeff, I am a simple buyer, I buy things I want, you sell thing that I want. Need meets greed and both come away happy. Can you guess by the tone of this email that *I* am not happy with Amazon? Sorry but next time, I will go to the other sites before you. You want to sell too much, too fast and too pushy. All the while not allowing me the chance to find what I want, how I want it and when I want it. Make it possible for me to buy what *I* want, how *I* want it and understand how much *I* am paying for each item. Not what you want to sell me, kindle, books by anyone other than who I want to search for and I want a simple bill that I don’t have to do 8 million things to review. All on the order review page.

Is that too much to ask that you do the job you set out to do?

Sorry for the rant Jeff. I know Heather wants to thank you for drive traffic to her site. Maybe next time you may want to add to all those other things you are selling some customer service.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” -Thomas Jefferson

The power of democracy and the American dream is the myth that all can partake in the feast, all can through hard work and ethical behavior reach for the stars and settle for the planets. However increasingly, the deck is stacked against us. The game is rigged. The odds, always in favour of the house, are seemingly only in favour of the house. When the people demand fairness and accountability, the politicians must be answerable to those calls. Or as we are seeing early in the presidency of Donald J Trump, revolution is abound. In a place where there is one gun for ever man, woman and child, this is no peaceful sentiment. But thus far those in protest are being peaceful. So far. The real rebellion will occur in 2 years if the momentum is conserved across time and distance. If it is, then this will be the first rebellion in history fought not with guns and bombs but with the ballot and a stroke of the pen. The question can only be what is to happen if the elites and business tycoons who own the politicians fail to take heed of the coming storm. Will they brush it aside as they have in the past, ignore the Lilliputians once more and grant themselves even more of the collective wealth by government tax breaks and outright hand outs? Or will the dawn arrive where the rich notice the unsustainability of their constant actions. Where people are burdens by debt for health care, Imprisoned for lifetimes for minor crimes, all because some herb is deemed illegal? Traffic tickets as revenue agents and road piracy targeting out of state visitors travel on highways as a means of seizing cash to fund cash strapped police forces? 240 years ago, the rallying cry of “No taxation without representation” cause the Colonies to take on the world’s only super power and win their freedom. Are we seeing that once again the people have found their backs to the wall and are taking action, organizing and prepared to backlash against the republicans and democrats alike, who only favour their rich donors. A president who has more skeletons in his closet that he shares with Putin’s Russia and a court system that allows for some social progress but is firmly in the interest of business? Can we see the tide is turning? Can we see a new wind blowing in a wind of change? Or is it, just a new tempest in a tea pot. The last such wind from the right paid for by the Koke brothers, blow in the ill wind of right wing do nothing to help people only help ourselves. Will this new wind blow the dust off the new deal; bring in progressive socialist legislation on health care, taxation, and new amendment to get money out of politics? As of this writing, the next election is some 19 months away. Where in politics a week is an eternity, where will we be then so long into the future? Hopefully, the time will be used to gather money and people. Mobilize a work force dedicated to introducing progressive legislation and enforcing the electoral choices above the whim of the representative. In one insane statistic; Americans overwhelmingly support background checks from the low 80 to a high in the 90 percentiles. Yet, lobbies like the NRA prevent any sort of waiting period at all. And actively resist to the point of targeting people that dare vote in such measures. This is a democracy? This is a Republic? Jefferson was right; it is time to shed some patriot’s blood and the blood tyrants upon that tree of liberty, in a death by a million votes, one ballot at a time.

In President Donald Trump’s world, were the grasp on truth is tenuous, alternative facts and outright lies are abundantly clear as being the message, a feature not an occurrence. One is constantly seeing the pundits in the news media question how people can support him. Seemingly, with each day, some new lie, some new scandal, some new revelation that would have derailed another president, is brushed aside for the next tweet, the next press conference, the next thing to send the nagging chorus of bird song to an even greater, higher pitch. From fake massacres, to “Pee-Gate” to sheer laws on the amount of people attending his inauguration, it is day by day insanity. Chicken Little had but to cry once the sky is falling, to awaken the barnyard but by the third, the other animals rolled over and ignored him. This President has not had three times, or even three times three. Nope, not even 300 times 300 times shocked and outraged the world or what should have done so under any other president. So what is going on? What do the 40 percent of the American population not get in their continuing support of Donald Trump?

The answer is depending on who you ask. Trump and the White House don’t care about anyone else is opinion. They won. And you don’t matter. So to the victor goes the spoils and let the hog feast begin. Some pigs are more equal than others. In the Hour and Senate, they don’t care either. In a Republican controlled Congress, they only need some idiot who will sign into law whatever they pass. So it does not matter what is the latest scandal issued from the lying White House, so long as Donald Trump signs whatever is put in front of him, without question, they won’t care either.

The last party involved is the people of America, those voters who voted for the man himself. The pundits who think they are all so smart, have no clue what is happening out there. They are told they are less smart, less sophisticated, less informed or else they would have long turned against Donald J Trump. Except, it is impossible to not see all those things. From Saturday Night Live to the internet to network talk shows and Cable new services, all of them are aglow with the merits of everything done by President Trump. So what are the people not getting about this conman shyster in office who is more than likely a Russian agent? We return to the first question, what are these people not getting? The answer is they are getting it, they are getting it all. What the 4th estate is not getting is this. Trump is a clown, and even the dumbest of person can see that but he is upsetting the smug self righteous elite who run the news media. He is causing them to run around like a chicken without a head. As they scurry hither and fro, the media is being mocked in the mockery, they are being laughed at by those in the laugh. The joke is on the media. The good job Donald Trump is doing is not governing the country but in upsetting the media. Drive the frenzy of the 4th estate. Dragging them to the absurd as they try to sound impartial when faced with nothing but childish taunts. Donald J. Trump is doing a fabulous job challenging the professionalism of the journalists of every sort. In that challenge lays the reason he is supported. Over the years, the dumb people, the absurd people, those who the New York Media Elites have turned down their nose to, they became the majority. They control democracy and even if they only won by a hair, it was a fine hair indeed. They won and if they want the clown to entertain them while Rome doeth burn? Then they are the will of the people. Welcome to democracy. Sometimes the good guys don’t always win the polls. 3 years and 11 months to go. Get plenty of sleep; there is no sign this is going to slow down any time soon. Bread and circus in the twenty first century, thy name is Trump, all hail (spelled Heil?) to the new President.

A new law in Sweden proposes that a man may opt out of being a father in the same way a woman having an abortion might do so and opt out of having a child. The man before the 18th week of gestation can vote to terminate all of his parental rights to the child and forgo any other privileges in being the mere sperm donor to that child. This is in effect the male abortion bill. The man would no longer be responsible or have any parental or legal input to the child’s life. This sounds like a fair proposal for the man, who no longer would be liable for child support, parent responsibility or even simple affection for said child, the fruit of his loon. Sounds like a win, err, no not a win-win, but more like a win-“go fuck yourself.” The woman has an absolute right to an abortion before the fetus is viable. Until a fetus is viable, it is not a person and as such abortion is universally allowed in most states and countries. This is biology. However at some point the women must either accept or prevent the pregnancy. The man has the absolute right to be responsible and wear protection before impregnating the women.  The normally resulting condition from such behavior is having babies?  The man has to prevent it before hand. Otherwise they are stuck with the bill. Except for a few things; what about the child? Where do their rights fit in? What about the child in question, produced by the act or acts of irresponsibility by the couple and then further betrayed by the state to allow for yet another act of take no responsibility? What about that child, forgotten in the shame of standing up for the male and being fair.

Many children living in poverty are there because of one parent families. Mostly, the father having absconded and forgone, child support , a duty of love and care, and just being there for the child as they grow to adulthood. The child has a right to know the other side, i.e. the father’s side, as in who they are and where did they come from. Claiming this is not fair to the man, considered an adult in such matters, the women may always abort is her slice of fairness. The man is without options under current law. This neatly forgets the man had all the freedom in the world to wear the condom in the first place. Why then is the disproportionate burden thrust upon the male to provide for an unwanted child without any say in the matter upon conception? Even if said child may be force to grow up in poverty, in an emotion desert, wondering why they were abandoned in the first place, what had they done to deserve such a fate? Who is equally thusly deprived of their father emotional support, legally, by law? Such an act by the government betrays the child in favour of irresponsibility. If a man, wishing to not be burdened by parental responsibility, they then have the sole responsibility to wear a condom.  Something rather simple to do, especially considered in light of the burden they force the child into a life time of living. For the state to pass such a law, allowing for such male abortion, then the state must ensure that there is no child poverty, unlimited access to psychological support, and generally impose an additional burden on the clearly shrinking moral, responsible adults within society to yet again take care of the legal cast off by an irresponsible state.

Sir Francis Bacon claimed that for any science to be worthy of the name, it needs to be mathematical. As such, Darwin was only a naturalist until George Mendel and his pea plants discovered genetics and inheritance. Until he discovered E=MC^2, Einstein was just a guy working in a Swiss patent office. So for all the claims that Climate change is scientific, I ask them for a simply and seemingly easy answer. Show us the math. How many tons of carbon pollution over what time period will result in what increase in the global temperature? Seemingly, this is something that should be as easy to show as F=MA? And until you can, then I would suggest that the Al Gore’s and other pundits of the world not say that the science is settled, for it is clearly not.

Recently, the Federal government introduced C-16, an act to amend the Human Code to add in to the protected classes, transgender, such that it will protect transgender persons from being discriminated upon. As well as adding this to the legislation for hates crimes. Something that made me feel proud to be Canadian. Helping these small minority groups be protected whereas in the United States they are looking for legislation to discriminate against them. So this was all good and great until it came to my attention that people were protesting this new bill. I was shocked yet intrigued to why they were upset. So of course, I studied their arguments. I found them to have one. This was a matter of free speech. They held that this new bill would curtail their freedom of speech in the things they were allowed to say. They are, of course, right in that. It is a limit on what can and should not be said. I waited for them to continue with more. Only there was no more to be had. This was their argument. The bill placed a limit on free speech and thus should be opposed. At which point, I understood all I need to know, which is, they do not understand free speech, freedom and or Canada. Said to say, but let me enlighten them upon this. The freedom of speech has always been to protect without limits the parts of speech that were political. So if the government passed a law saying that you cannot vote for party X then that would be a violation. Advertisers cannot lie to you in their ads and claim they have free speech. You cannot go into a crowded theater and start to scream “Fire!” Yet both of the latter two examples are speech that is curtailed. Why? Because the notion of free speech is not without its limits, and in this case, C-16 imposing rather limited extensions of speech. Not that this will stop conversation, or limit politic discussions. It will limit hate speech. Can we agree that hating is not speech we want to protect or even allow? Einstein did not write “E=mc^2, and die transgender die!” Why? It is because his argument only needed to rest on the physics of the matter, the science of this discovery, and upon the ideas themselves that needed no further elaboration. Sir Arthur Eddington who then was the first man to prove Relativity, happened to be gay, yet at no time did he mention that as part of his proof for major discovery at the turn of the last century. So then why should we allow for anything of the sort that we call protected classes to enter when discussing any issue. We limit hate speech because it is inherently not political; it is inherently not part of any discussion. It is an end to political speeches to gather support with arguments and words and the beginning of the call to violence, both verbal and sadly physical. Hate speech is a call to violence and attacks upon the person. So yes, C-16 does limit free speech, but is a narrowly construed limit that does not interfere with legitimate political speech. So the argument opposing C-16 on the grounds of free speech does not have merit. Freedom of speech is to be able to freely discuss ideas, not to be the siren song for discrimination. C-16 is a good law that needs to be enacted to protect a minority subject to violence and discrimination. Which is why we have subject classes in the first place, to protect minorities that have been discriminated upon in the past, but hopefully not into our future.

Here is a simply idea that governments are going to make too complicated. We have a carbon problem, which may or may not be the case. We have a solution; we tax carbon emitters, such as factories and cars. We cap their level of carbon they can emit and then lower each year. If they surpass they have to buy credit from someone else or pay more taxes on it. Those that reduce more are able to get a credit for their reduction of carbon and sell it to others who have not. Sound great except where again does this help us now? So we have less carbon in future. What about removing carbon from the world now?

They have not let us down, they have an idea. They will capture carbon and store it deep underground in aquifers to hold carbon. Never mind, just a few problems, like all that construction, or what if it leaks or just how much energy would it take to capture the carbon in the first place to store it under ground. Both ideas are bound to not work, and mostly cause more problems than they need to.

We need to capture carbon? Assuming this is true, how about we go old school on this. You know full retro, all the way back to nature. Yes, nature. What is the best carbon capture means we have? Plants and trees. Take a car using gas. It releases so much carbon per km. This is easy to test. Then figure out how much carbon a tree will use to grow over time. Compare how many trees are needed to absorb the gasoline released carbon into the air. Add in the cost to plant those trees, the purchase of land and the general in efficiency of government generally and you have a real carbon tax. That not only will beautify the world, trees grow into forests, and in future we can harvest those trees to reuse that captured carbon in a sustainable process. The best part is this, the tree start to absorb the carbon in the air now, as they are planted, so no hopefully future plan that will have to kick in, many, many years down the road. The cap and trade will simply be abused, go ask Volkswagen for their real environmental impact and compare to what they programmed their cars to report. The carbon storage is wasteful in additional energy and resources, not to mention the carbon is then lost and not reused.

Sent to art.acevedo@austintexas.gov as part of the right to seek redress from government and free speech to tell government officials they are acting dishonorably.

Police Chief Art Acevedo

City of Austin, Texas

I would like to bring your attention to the video tape of Philip Turner from YouTube on Saturday night. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFxMnOmzGNw&sns=tw) Which you have called on your Twitter account to be: “Actions on this video aren’t reflective of our policy or our values & are under investigation.” These blatantly aggressive and frankly provocative actions on the part of both officers involved, particularly Officer Maufrais 7432, are nearing criminal in their outrageous conduct. While the video does not show any overly racist comments, those white officers all but acted in a racist fashion to African American Turner. However, unable to prove such an assumption, I would point out that there are grounds for a Federal lawsuit for acting under the colour of law, such as illegally issuing orders with regard to limiting his free movements and not allowing him to get to his car. Not to mention the blatantly violating Turner’s rights to videotape the proceedings. Why did Officer Maufrais 7432 say that some of your officers were afraid of being photographed and recorded? Surely the only reason for such a fear would be if they were doing something wrong, as Officer Maufrais 7432 did on Saturday night. I would point out that in 19 out of 20 cases where police have been videotaped or used body cameras, police are exonerated by such recordings. These actions take on Saturday night should not be allowed to stand unchallenged. Swift follow up is needed by you and your department. Why? You have 5000 police officers at risk of being tarnished by the same brush of dishonorable conduct that this officer and his partner has done. Police are not above the law, not above department regulation. They are supposed to be guardians of the community not overlords to the inferior citizens. You have a city that is depending on you to lead your men and women to protect the city’s good name, reputation and uphold the laws of the community, the state and the nation. Not create their own on the spot as they see fit to do on mere whim. Police have been the victims of bad press all over America this last year because of the actions of a few racists officers who had no business being on the force, let alone allowed to carry weapons capable of harming citizens. When I was a child, police where whom you turned to for help, not those you flee from as more dangerous than the criminals themselves, as is often the case with this bad press and poorer public relations. Building bridges, does not use Molotov cocktails to burn them down around us all. While I think this incident is minor, no one was hurt and no lasting damage has been done, if this is allowed to continue then what is next to happen? Just how out of control would Officer Maufrais 7432 be? False arrests? Physical assault? Or as we have seen on too many other videos, police officers illegally take human life without just cause? The city of Austin pays a salary to each officer to uphold the law. Can you honestly say those officers did so Saturday night? Whose law where they upholding? The police Department have internal policies, rules of conduct. Can you say with a straight face those offices acted within those guidelines or anywhere close to them? The US Constitution has the 1st Amendment allowing for the Freedom of the Press. Did your officers shower you, your police department and the City of Austin in the Great State of Texas of the United States of America by their actions this weekend to uphold this one citizen his right to be a citizen journalist? I would say they have not. My question thus can be put to you in a very simple fashion; what will you do about it as the leader, their commander and to whom the city has entrusted to lead their police force, make no mistake the police is owned, funded and fully under citizen control. What then will you do about this incident for it will be how the citizens judge you for your ability to uphold the law, their codes and their peace.