Spring into long weekend gas price gouging on Vancouver Island · Thursday May 14, 2009 by colin newell
Synchronized gas price increases on a Canadian long weekend – As reliable as gravity. They come like sunrise. And Spring showers.
And this weekend is no exception.
Every gas station on Southern Vancouver Island raised their prices within minutes of each other – from about 102.9 to 106.9. Snap. Just like that.
But how does this work?
We asked a master mechanic and long time employee at a local Petro-can station.
“Gas prices in Victoria are set automatically… by a supplier in Vancouver. On a system called Viper. It is an auto-dialer. Electronic. Every gas station gets the exact phone call at the exact same time… regardless of the levels in their tanks. This is the way it has been on South Island as long as he can remember. “
They raise the prices. We get screwed. Rinse and repeat.
Petro-can employee continues…
“Tri-mac is the trucking company that delivers the gas… but it is one supplier in Vancouver… at the terminal… that calls the shot. Price fixing? Sure it is. But there is no one in government (or the media) with big enough stones to tackle the problem.”
Free market system at work I guess. More of a racket as I see it.
Anyway. The upside for me? I drive less. Or maybe a bit slower. And smell the roses… if and when they bloom.
With a little imagination we can give the finger to big oil. Boycott one station or another. Pay in buckets of pennies. Walk more. Take the bike. Car pool. Or give up your car entirely if you can.
I did not actually own my first car until I was 40. And I had my license when I was 19. That was my way of sticking it to the man. Nowadays, I actually need a vehicle – with aging parents and all… and actually wanting to live a little.
So. We live with it. Begrudgingly.
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Spring into bad habits - smoking quota in China · Monday May 11, 2009 by colin newell
Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette Puff, puff, puff until you smoke yourself to death. Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate That you hate to make him wait, But you just gotta have another cigarette.
Local government officials in China have been ordered to smoke nearly a quarter of a million packs of cigarettes in a move to boost the local economy during the global financial crisis.
Oh. My. God. I cannot take this in.
Honestly folks. The material writes itself. I just deliver it.
The edict, issued by officials in Hubei province in central China, threatens to fine officials who “fail to meet their targets” or are caught smoking rival brands manufactured in adjoining provinces.
Local schools have been issued a smoking quota for teachers, while one village was ordered to purchase 400 cartons of cigarettes a year for its officials, according to the local government’s website.
China has 350 million smokers. A million of whom die each year from smoking-related illnesses. Despite anti-smoking campaigns, cigarette taxes form a major component of China’s regional tax base.
In the late fifties, cigarette companies hired cargo planes to drop crates of cigarettes over Shanghai (this tidbit from a Slavonic prof at the University of Victoria) – His father was a doctor at the local hospital – and within days the wards were full to bursting with patients – all suffering from nicotine toxicity. The goal of the drops were to establish a beach head in a community… with fresh addicts.
Spring into lethargy - with an anti-energy slow cow beverage · Wednesday May 6, 2009 by colin newell
Quebec resident, Lino Fleury is hoping to chill out the Planet, one can at a time.
He has created what is dubbed the anti-energy drink.
On appearances, Slow Cow is packaged like the popular Red Bull energy drink, but it has the opposite effect.
Lino claims – “It’s a balm that soothes people and takes the edge off stress.”
I thought that was what beer was for?
Fleury and his team spent a year and a half dreaming up Slow Cow. The drink contains a slumber inducing pillow of natural ingredients; camomile, passion flower and valerian.
Personally, I think the World is ready for a line of Lethargy beverages as I call them. I mean, the World is moving way too fast.
Meantime. the makers of Red-Bull, the caffeine infused jet fuel marketed to college age kids, do not see the humor nor the efficacy of such a product and have filed notice through their legal team.
Maybe they need to chill out.
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Spring into knee jerk reactions - 2009 - the swine flu - epilogue · Tuesday May 5, 2009 by colin newell
Like me, you are probably shaking your head so violently now – that your neck hurts… and your nose runs. You are stressed out.
Could it be? No. Can’t be. Not me.
Despite the fact that swine flu has claimed just one victim all week, a mortality rate many times lower than the common flu, governments of the world are acting as if end of times is right around the corner.
The World Health Organization calls a virus that has felled a confirmed 12 people in over a week a “threat to humanity” and talk of martial law, obligatory vaccinations and quarantines runs amok.
Granted, some of the hoopla is being serviced by people inundating hospitals and doctor’s offices who have complaints like the common cold, but who just want to “make sure” they don’t have swine flu… Or want a day off work.
These incidents are immediately treated as “suspected swine flu cases” by the media and the “I told you so’s” spread faster than antacid at a Texas chili cook-off.
And while media headlines and government wonks opine about a potential pandemic and hundreds of thousands, millions of thousands, dozens of billions of fatalities, actual medical reports from real doctors (like you and I) report no cases and no symptoms… generally.
Meantime, the WHO (the health care equivalent of the IOC and as reputable by half!) reports that the virus is spreading far worse than officially recognized.
Reality check again. Today a Coke or Pepsi machine will kill another innocent – and I will continue to shake my head.
