Spring forward - Bail out - Chapter 1 · Tuesday March 24, 2009 by colin newell
Thousands upon thousands of American families are destitute – their retirement savings vaporized. Job markets in the U.S. are drying up faster than a California watershed.
And yet executives at numerous bailed out corporations are getting golden buy-outs.
And we are surprised. Why are we surprised? We live in a culture of greed. Where pecuniary success is more important that ethics, decency or honest to goodness moral behavior in a civil society.
Thing is… we do not live in a civil society. We live and die by the free market system. It is what it is. And our Western World revolves around it.
Fat cats get their bonuses because that is what the culture dictates. It is a culture of class. Of societal division. Old folks scraping for their pensions do not count for anything. The middle aged dude who has worked at the mill for 35 years does not count for anything. His pension is washed up like so much flotsam and he might end up living in his car – but the Wall street executive will not go a fortnight without his pound of chocolate.
This is reality. President Obama getting all steamed in front of some committee is not going to change anything. It’s window dressing.
One official for one of the corporations getting the golden tinkle from the U.S. government said… “We have contractual obligations to fulfill these bonus contracts…
we are legally obliged to deliver…”
Legally… Obliged
Which is another way of saying… F*ck you, we are the rich, you are the poor – get over it.
Folks. We are either on the cusp of a social revolution like nothing we have ever seen before…
or we are in for a long sleep.
Pick one. And go for it.
Colin Newell is a Victoria resident and pop culture maven. His semi-coherent rants will become somewhat more common place now that he has dug himself out from underneath a pile of dung.
Give ticketmaster a break already · Sunday March 8, 2009 by colin newell
A Winnipeg woman has launched a class action lawsuit against concert ticket giant Ticketmaster for overcharging.
According to the woman’s lawyer, her daughter bought tickets through a Ticketmaster subsidiary for around $200 each when the original ticket price was just $57.
Oh boo-hoo.
I went on line over a year ago to get some Police tickets for the Vancouver show – and much to my surprise, I was redirected to an “associate” auction site to pay exorbitant prices to see the Stingster and his aged colleagues.
Did I buy a ticket? No. I am not paying $500 to see 3 old farts trot out hits from my heyday – music that was much better then thank you very much.
Oddly, I did get a call from the London Times rock editor to talk about it. The rock editor no less.
And I told this wanker the same thing. It is business. It is commerce. If there are some sweet smelling rich people out there that are willing to pay top dollar to ticketmaster for some has been band from the 70’s or 80’s… Well so what!? It is business after all.
London times editor thought, even then, that there outta be a law!
Right.
Here’s the deal.
Ticketmaster is a business, yea?
And they are in the business to make money, yea?
Well let them do it.
If there is some sour grape sap out there that is crying into their happy meal because they cannot afford a ticket to some washed up celebrity show – well, suck it up soldier. This is a free market after all.
On behalf of big corporate media, I say…
Sock it to me.
Surfing Vancouver's crime wave - bullets chapter #1 · Wednesday February 11, 2009 by colin newell
There was yet another round of gun-play in Suburban Vancouver, this time involving two vehicles circling each other through a Shell gas station and a Tim Hortons parking lot in Langley – Wednesday morning.
Startled employees at the gas vendor noted that half a dozen shots were fired as two vehicles circled the pumps before heading across the street to the Tim Hortons parking lot… Ostensibly for double-doubles and timbits.
Ok. So you know how I feel about gouging at the pumps? And although this is probably frightening for the staff, doesn’t this activity serve several useful purposes?
-Gun fire at gas stations can lead to unexpected explosions… burning or killing the bad guys. That’s good, yea?
-And if gas stations become known as shooting galleries, maybe people will drive less and the price of gas will go down.
Besides. If the explosive column of flame and smoke does not slow down the mobsters then maybe the lethal dose of trans-fats at Tim Hortons will.
Vancouver area police are currently issuing this stern warning to gangsters, mobsters, crime wannabees and their cracked out Ho mistresses…
“Stop! Stop! Stop this incessant nonsense or we are going to park outside your home and allow journalists from Global-TV to ask embarrassing questions! So stop it already!”
Yea. That will work.
I have an idea. Eliminate this useless war on drugs. Legalize and regulate the hard stuff. And leave the unemployed gansta types to find a career in that other criminal realm…
Politics.
Move over Gordon Campell, this homey wants a piece of the action!
Bonus blog - things that make me steam · Monday February 2, 2009 by colin newell
Picture at left – a portion of my ham shack – the receivers – one of which used to be used to pick up an actual Sputnik satellite (upper left Radio Shack DX150B circa 1973)!
From the Canadian wire and on Global TV news today…
Four Toronto college students have accomplished a technological feat that their teachers are calling a first. The Humber College seniors made contact with the International Space Station on Monday with a radio system they designed and built themselves.
School officials say that, to their knowledge, that’s never been accomplished by students at the college level.
These school officials have;
never used an internet search engine…
have never researched an article…
and have been living under a skull crushing pile of gravel for the duration of their miserable lives…
Hello. Has anyone ever heard of Amateur Radio? Ham radio as it is also called is a hobby enjoyed by about 1 million people Worldwide.
And thousands of student radio operators, if not tens of thousands of student radio operators (at various high-school, college and University amateur radio clubs…) have enjoyed the thrill of radio contact with orbital space craft, shuttles, space stations etc.
I am one of those people. My call sign is VA7WWV.
My first radio conversation, prior to actually having my own license, was as an 11 year old conversing with a rescue mission in Managua, Nicaragua after the 1972 earthquake that killed 5,000 of the 400,000 population, leaving 20,000 injured and over 250,000 homeless.
And as for space communications… We have been doing it since Skylab, every shuttle since, the Mir space station and the current international space station.
And to the good folks at Humber College…
Do your homework!
