It makes you wonder..

The End..

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
Ill never look into your eyes...again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...strangers hand
In a...desperate land
Lost in a roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

Oh, the irony..

Barack Obama faces some huge challenges as he takes office as the most powerful man in the world. Despite the statement made by the outgoing President, the USA has lost a not inconsiderable amount of credibility around the world, financially and morally.

My hope is that all citizens of the USA will pull behind Obama. There is no way that he can live up to expectations unless they all pull their weight. No one person could cure the nations ills alone.

He has put together a team of varying political persuasion, all of whom have experience of the situations which have lead the country to its present state. His choice of Hillary Clinton for the position of ‘Secretary of State’ has to be good. She is well known, well respected, and she is really very smart.

I wish Barack Obama and his team all of the best as they clear the minefield which was George W Bush..

Happy Bloody New Year..

.. to all of the selfish, greedy, thoughtless bastards who contributed to the global economic crash..

.. to all of the dictators who cling onto power by decimating their own people..

.. to all terrorists who hide behind religion, women, children and the elderly while they fire rounds indiscriminately at anybody they do not like.. 

.. to all politicians who knowingly lie through their teeth when they make promises to the people in order to get elected..

You have all done a great job thus far, and I don't doubt that none of you see fit to change your sleazy ways for 2009 and beyond..

Keep up the good work and we can maybe save a forest somewhere by not bothering to print diaries and calendars for 2010.. 

Remains of missing toddler, Caylee Anthony, identified..

Discovered in an area that was supposed to have been searched already, what is left of the toddler could have been found as early as August. Cause of death would have been easier to establish at that point. As it stands, cause of death can't be determined. This little girl is a victim of incompetence in life and after death. She has been failed by all upon whom she would have relied for a decent life.

Maybe it is better this way for her that she is free of the craziness.

Casey. the mother, has not spoken one true word about her daughter's disappearance since the story originally broke. Her capacity to fabricate is enormous. This can't be anything new, and the parents of this woman must have known that she NEVER ever tells the truth.

Cindy, the grandmother, has openly admitted to misleading the authorities. She and her husband now want immunity from prosecution before they will tell a straight story. George does as he is told, it is said.

What chance would this little girl have had of anything approaching a normal life? Any innocence she had prior to death would have been replaced by less than favourable qualities shown by her immediate family of late.

The local police chief is saying that there were thousands of 'leads', so it would be easy enough to 'lose' the three leads which would have lead to finding the body months ago. The police, professional searchers, mediums, all kinds of people had been looking for Caylee, but the three reports of a suspicious bag within a half mile of her home were obviously not properly followed up. Too busy; we looked there already; didn't want to get our feet wet; there was a snake there.

It is very sad that a little child's life has to end the way this one did, but people knew that not all was well, and the statements of morons who have appeared on TV interviews justifying dysfunctional behaviour is absolutely sickening.

Let's all live in La-La land and pretend that all around us is 'tangerine trees and marmalade skies'.

Nobody wants to take responsibility anymore. Caylee Anthony is not the first to die like this, and she will not be the last, and we have learned NOTHING.

Sit quietly for a minute, close your eyes, and pray in advance for the next child to be let down by society, because there is a child there in the wings with thousands standing in line behind.

Something to consider while out Christmas shopping..

If you have never experienced the
danger of war or the solitude of
imprisonment, the agony of torture
and hunger, you are much ahead of
the 500 million people who live in
this world.

When My Times Comes..

When I pass from this life, you may see people cry. You will assume that they are crying for me, but don't be fooled. They will be crying because they could not find the pile of gold or stack of banknotes which made me happy, made me who I was and what I was.

They will not find either of the above because I never had or needed either of the above. I can take with me the things that made me who and what I was, but I will not be taking those things out of spite. They come with me because they are what makes me who and what I am. They are me..

To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine...

.. and those who don't.

As  Ben Franklin said:

In wine there is wisdom,

in beer there  is freedom,

in water there is bacteria.

In a number  of carefully controlled trials, scientists have  demonstrated that if we drink 1 litre of water each day, at  the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. coli) - bacteria  found in faeces.

In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of  poop.However, we do NOT run that risk when drinking  wine & beer (or tequila, rum, whiskey or other liquor)  because alcohol has to go through a purification process of  boiling, filtering and/or fermenting.

Remember:

Water = Poop,

Wine =  Health.

Therefore, it's  better to drink wine and talk stupid,than to drink water and be full of crap.

There is no need to thank me  for this valuable information: I'm doing it as a public service.

A Dictionary Definition..

Hope..

.. is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope implies a certain amount of despair, wanting, wishing, suffering or perseverance — i.e., believing that a better or positive outcome is possible even when there is some evidence to the contrary.

The key word here is 'some'..

Sometimes, the world does not seem like a good place to be..

Two blondes..

.. with hammers, Ann and Susie were doing some carpenter work on a Habitat for Humanity house.

Ann, who was nailing down house siding, would reach into her nail pouch, pull out a nail, and either toss it over her shoulder or nail it in.

Susie, figuring this was worth looking into, asked, "Why are you throwing those nails away?"

Ann explained, "When I pull a nail out of my pouch, about half of them have the head on the wrong end, and I throw them away."

Susie got very upset and yelled, "You! moron! Those nails aren't defective! They're for the other side of the house.

Thought of the day

I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest
Alexandre Dumas

Thought of the day

There are moments in life when the presence of another makes it worth for us to go on living

Phantom Hope..

It is said that the world is warming up. As it does, animals like the Polar Bear will disappear because their habitat will no longer exist. It is difficult to imagine a world without the North and South polar icecap. One can't help but feel that something cataclysmic would happen along the path to total meltdown, something really BIG. If you think about it, the rising ocean levels swamping what are now coastal low lying areas is bad enough.

You may think that you are sitting pretty if you live on high ground, but you would soon lose that smug grin. Where do you think all of the people in coastal cities like Montreal, New York and London England are going to be displaced?

Who, exactly is going to pay for the removal of infrastructure away from the areas which will be hit hard? How and when will it be moved?

As the oceans rise, so does the level of water in estuaries, and what is attached to all estuaries? Yes, you guessed right. The small river not too far away from you is also going to rise. Today's fields, farms, golf courses, business parks and domestic housing areas are going to be lakes.

Wild animals, their habitat fast receding, will come into conflict with the escaping hordes from the large coastal cities, whose only interests will be getting someplace to live, be it on a high ground farmers field, or vast tracts of previously forested land, all of the trees about to be cut down to allow for space and building materials.

Fishing fleets will have nowhere to bring back catches unless they fix wheels to the fish processing plants and centres, so no more Sole Meuniere at your favourite restaurant, or cod and chips out of the paper while watching the waves gently roll up the beach.

Meanwhile, up on the high ground, you can't go out in the sun for longer than fifteen minutes unless you smother yourself in sunblock with a rating of '2000', which is probably just as well because there are marauding bands of displaced city dwellers looking to take what you have got, and I don't just mean the sunblock. Better to lock yourself in at night and maybe daytime too.

Living on what is left of the surface will be no cakewalk. Ecosystems contained under glass shields are still very much in the trial stages. Billions of dollars are being poured into space research, but space is a long way from here, and from pictures sent back of our sister planet Mars, unless we are in the market for red rocks and dust, there is not much hope coming out of the research at all.

In the meantime, billions of dollars are being spent on the war to decide whose god will ultimately save us. Salvation is in our own hands, yet we do not seem to have the mind set to realize it

I woke up this morning, still holding what I see a the glimmer of hope that life will improve, but as days pass, the glimmer is like the expectation of watching a forest burn in the belief that, when the flames are extinguished, it will immediately transform into the lush green that it was just before fire took a hold.

Home Economics - Lesson One

Scenario

A husband and wife are doing their grocery shopping.

The man picks up a case of beer and sticks in into the shopping cart.

'What do you think you're doing?' asks the wife.

'They're on sale, only $10.00 for 24 cans', he says.

'Put them back. We can't afford it,' says the wife and they carry on shopping...

A few aisles later the woman picks up a $20.00 jar of face cream and sticks it into the cart.

'Whoa, what do you think you're doing?' asks the man.

'It's my face cream. It makes me look beautiful,' she says.

The man replies...'SO DOES 24 CANS OF BEER, AND IT'S HALF THE PRICE!'

Lesson learned

The introductory letter from the lawyer handling the subsequent divorce costs way in excess of the beer AND face cream combined..

Thought of the day

Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it!
Chinese proverb

All Points Of The Compass..

North

Polar Bears are still in trouble as their world melts away. It is known that when the top predator disappears, the rest of the food chain goes West too.

The warmer temperatures have resulted in faster thawing, and some places have been in danger of washing away. In response to this, a whole town was evacuated South until their hometown conditions improved. The people were flown out in military Hercules transport planes and anything else that would fly. Two days later, the threat had subsided and the people are being flown back. The whole operation must have cost a great deal, emergency bedding and food supplies having been appropriated in the temporary housing. However, the Hercules transports will not be used for the trip back. They can only be used in emergencies, and getting these displaced people back is not considered an emergency.

So what the hell is it?

East

Some Quebecois seem intent on driving a wedge between their province and adjoining Canada. There has been tension between Quebec and Canada for a while, and now it has hit the Ottawa buses. The extremists say that bus drivers should be perfectly bi-lingual. When asked if they ever talk to bus drivers, they all say 'no'. So does it make any difference if they can speak French, or English for that matter? As long as they know the route, stopping where they should and drive safely, who cares?

Further East, the Maritimes have flooding problems too but they are used to living under indifferent conditions. The most important item on the agenda is keeping the gains from mineral rights to themselves.

West

Highway 401 is being extended from Windsor, Ontario to the US border. It will take five years to complete, and will be the biggest road project Ontario has ever seen, as it involves tunnelling. The way gas prices are rising, it will be interesting to see who uses the completed section five years hence.

The oil producers in Alberta screwed up recently as a large flight of ducks landed on a toxic lake, quickly succumbing the to effects of waste from extracting oil from the oil sands. Apparently, the oil companies forgot to set up devices that would normally scare birds away. What has surprised people, I think, is the speed at which perfectly healthy ducks died. The oil sands industry has come under scrutiny re the effects on the environment lately, and I have a feeling that scrutiny will become a whole lot more intense now.

South

The people south of me are in all kinds of trouble. The country is in recession, the incumbent President is on his way out, but his legacy will live on for years. The pretenders to the 'crown' are slugging it out among themselves now, but one has to feel sorry for the one who gets elected. The worst is that whatever happens to the south will have huge repercussions in Canada.

Canadians have a tough enough time working together when everything is looking like a well oiled machine.

And Beyond..

Don't expect sympathy from me. Now is not a good time..

Thought of the day

The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goals, it lies in having no goals to reach - Benjamin Mays

How Can People Believe That Anybody Cares When They Live In A Society Where The Only 'god' Is Money?

The paper stuff or coins are not what is revered. It all comes down to the 'over the top' possibilities which the possession of money allows.

I have watched TV programs where..

• parents are paying out for plastic surgery on teenagers. Not reconstructive surgery either.
• people try to put back aging by as many years as they can through plastic surgery
• people go to huge lengths to plan weddings etc. In one case, almost an entire small castle was lit with candles.
• people buy up cheap properties ideal for those who do not have much cash, and then renovate them to the point where only somebody with huge money can afford to buy them.
• people trade currency as a commodity.

Reality TV? Good for sponsors maybe because they hope to get money from the constant advertising. How do they get it? Have you watched 'Reality' TV? How real do you think any of it is? Real or just sensationalist, it certainly panders to those who like to peep through the keyhole at what only the butler might otherwise have seen.

There was a time when, if you could see it, it was real. Do you remember those days?

Israel Is So Desperate For Housing..

.. that eleven hundred new homes are going to be built in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. The country absolutely can't do without them, and it is just unfortunate that the move will annoy the Palestinians and all of the other countries involved in getting a peace deal together. The housing situation is so desperate that the decision to build can't be reversed, a decision taken back in 1999.

Hello? That decision was made in 1999!! That's eight to nine years as the crow flies, and now you pick this time to start construction as other nations are trying to establish peace for you people that may just last?

Pardon me for thinking that you are not looking for peace at all. While we all sympathize with what happened to your people over the ages, there are limits, ya know. How about working with others who are taking the time and trouble to overcome the problems of the Middle East?