Look into their cold dead eyes of any killer and know this person needs to be put underground. That is why we have the death penalty, as a punishment for evil doers so they will never be able to do this again. So I would put to you this simple fact, death is an escape from any punishment that a killer may face. We are adding and abetting them in said escape. They don’t care if they live or if they die. They don’t care for your rules or societies concerns. They simply don’t care. So we kill them and make us feel safer. Our prison system is supposed to be about reform. Well when dead you can deform, not reform. To reform, you must suffer. To suffer you must feel. To feel when you are dead inside is only possible with time, lots of time. The days grow weary upon the soul. Time passes endless and yet ceases not when the four walls close in on you. In maximum security, you only had time. Time to sit; time to wait and time to regret. In 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh went to his death penalty smiling. After all, it was 168 to 1 with his death. He escaped punishment. All the state did was to take his life. Today some 22 years later, is he was still alive, he would be in the same cell, with the same walls, the same view, and same 1 hour of isolated outdoors he had the day before and the day before that. Now, if he had been left alive, he would be alone. Long since forgotten. Virtually ignored by all. And yet his mind would have all the time in the world to think of what he did. To think of what he accomplished in his slaughter of how many babies in that day care? There were 19 baby angels murdered by him. If no one else, they might have sparked a message in his heart. They might have invaded his dreams at night. They might have tormented him as his ‘reward’, punishment to any other way of thinking. Scrooge changed over night with but three ghosts. How many nights and how many of the 168 ghost would have haunted his nights? For this, we shall never know.
In 1972 at the Munich Olympics’, Palestinian terrorist captured and killed 11 athletes. In the end three terrorist lived to tell their tale. While open to debate, they still fear the wraith of the Jewish State upon them. MOSSAD still hunts for them. Hunt being the right word. Now to be caught they having lived 45 years, they will die with much to lose and many more to regret their passing. When someone has death in their eyes, like those terrorists, or any child soldier they are dead within. You cannot hurt them or harm them. You cannot punish or reform. All you can do is kill them. With the passage of time, and the growing shadows of years, that death turns to life, and the fear of death creeps in with days. Then and only then, does time become the punishment itself. What waits upon the other side, if anything? Will it be seen as in favour of the slaughter of innocent? Or will it lead to an eternal torment and punishment to last all of the ages. We shall never know on this side of the vale, but rushing killers to the other side is not the answer. Let them live. Let them learn to fear that final trip. Let them know regret for their actions and finally let them understand the cruelest of all punishments is not to kill them, but to let them live in a cell for the rest of their days.

The Congress personifying the so called Leninist term, that Lenin never used, of being “Useful Idiots” continue to think they are so clever in hiding their actions from the American people of destroying all progressive legislation passed in the Obama years. A useful idiot is someone helping a third party, usually the Soviet Communists, or in todays case Putin’s Russia, to destroy the American dream from within. They think they are using Trump and his team where as Russian is using them for their own ends. Paul Ryan, speaker of the House was astonished to understand that insurance was for those not affected by events to help those that were afflicted by such events. You buy flood insurance as a large body in order to protect the few who are flooded in the rains. Ryan’s astonishment was based solely on never having seen Ayn Rand use the word in any of her nihilistic ramblings rather than his merely being stupid. Insurance? How dare those sick people pay into a system that would entitle them to help when they were struck down and afflicted with disease? Stupidity was the theme of his presentation to the media on his proposed Trump care. It is one thing that we assume you are an idiot, it is another to open your mouth and prove it to be the case. What is amazing in all this, he is consider to be one of the smart republicans and yet has not a clue what the concept of insurance is supposed to mean, supposed to do and supposed to be there for. The health bill is D.O.A., dead on arrival. The left hate it and so does the right, albeit for very different reasons. So much for “Repeal and Replace.” The health care act is merely the tip of the iceberg for the so called right wing trying to undo any and all progressive legislation. What the industrialist money owners want changed is that Obamacare is an additional tax on their greed and need to impoverish all workers from any hope of a long life beside hard work, sweat and toil for their corporate machines. For Trump it is bread and circus. As the small minded run around fighting over the crumbs, he and his small hands are quietly gutting the Department of State, the IRS and any other department they can get rid of. America used to have worldwide influence and some, not much, but some, moral authority in the world at large. No more. And done in with less than a 100 days in office. What a winner he is that small handed guy. The USA has gone from weak leadership under Obama to outright incompetence under Trump, and the only one who does not see it is Donald J. Trump himself. Steve Bannon, his special councillor, think of the movie “The Godfather” for a closer to the real truth portrayed of his job function as “mafia consigliere” to President Donald J Trump. How this man with clear links to right wing extremists is able to sit on the national Security Council boggles the mind. Let along that he is sitting in the same office as the President. His only goal is to remove the USA from the world stage into some neo isolationist camp and let the world fall to pieces. Only to be picked up again by who knows. The wealthy feel they have a puppet as a president, yet are missing the clear comparison to Hitler, who in his day was considered to be an idiot. Was considered to be their puppet and was considered to be under control. Wonder how that worked out for them and the world at large. Not to mention the Jewish populations among other minorities. The sad thing is that Trump has not even tried to hide his displeasure with Mexicans or Muslims, yet when he signs his travel ban people are surprised that he is doing this? The insanity is clear. And no one is going to win, just everyone will be losing.

God save America… because their politicians won’t.

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.