Sarah Palin. She can’t be for real…

John Cleese said a mouthful when he remarked “I used to think that Micheal was the funniest Palin on earth.”  He goes on to say that not only is she *not* good enough to run for VP, but that Monty Python couldn’t have written her better.

 

So who has? 

 

It finally dawned on me, when I heard the latest statements out of this clown’s mouth... “My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse,” Palin said during a speech in Calgary on Saturday. “Believe it or not — this was in the ‘60s — we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada," that this woman can’t be an accident.  Someone is writing for her, someone is pulling the strings.  A US governor, even one from the backwater of Alaska, can’t possibly this airheaded.  She has to be some sort of a diversion from *something* else.

 

Who *is* this woman?  Where does she get off, coming to Canada, sponsored, no less, by Calgary’s publicly owned Energy company, to tell us that she’s spent perhaps the last 50 years scamming our healthcare system.  Fraudulently making use of the healthcare system that she’s spent so much time publicly reviling?  I’m officially asking for an investigation into how much her family owes Canadians.  What a great example to set – now the complaint that people are making about her is “It’s good enough for her, but what about people that don’t have easy access to Canada?”  Whoa!  Just living on the border *DOES NOT* entitle American’s to abuse our healthcare system, no matter what some scatterbrained wannabe politician might spew.

 

Apparently several well known Canadian politicians were in attendance.  Ralph, Stockwell... where are the cries of indignation over theft of services?  You should be making them.  Our government has spent decades trying to come up with more secure health cards…and this woman laughs about how easily they stole from taxpaying Canadians.

 

Hypocritical?  Sarah?  Wow, not *too* much, is she.  I guess when she said that we should dismantle our heathcare, she meant “unless it inconveniences the Palin family.”

Pravda – a Pseudo-Russian’s Inane Rant about Vancouver 2010.

Wow – sportsmanship is apparently a totally foreign concept to the journalistic staff at Pravda.  Or perhaps it’s just the fawning attempt of a pseudo-Russian to curry favour in his adopted country.  In an article Feb 19th, the paranoid ravings of one Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY (a good Russian name, that, we’ll come back to this…) appeared, accusing Canada of all sorts of wrong-doing in both the Olympic and in foreign policy.  Apparently we’re the “skinny and weakling bro to a beefy United States and a colonial outpost to the United Kingdom” and  that we’re utterly incapable of hosting a major international event.  He suggests proof: “Natalya Korosteleva was asked to provide a urine sample during a half-hour pause between the quarter-finals and semi-finals of a skiing event.”  Now that could be considered suspicious, if one were to totally discount the following statement by a Vice-President of the International Ski Federation: “There are some rules which I'm not going to discuss right now. In this case, Korosteleva was not right. She could have been banned from the race."  This VP, btw, also happens to be the President of the Russian Olympic Committee, Leonid Tyagachev. 

Hmm…the Russian President of the Russian Olympic Committee agrees that the skier was in the wrong, yet our Pseudo-Russian journalist cries foul.  Lets look at Mr. Bancroft-Hinchey for a moment...very little time spent searching turned up his Bio:

“I incidentally became involved with the world of music and even became one of the leading English song-writers of the 1980s. I took part in three Eurovision contests, released three albums, two maxi-singles and five singles. That was the time when I started establishing contacts with the press. "I had to give a lot of interviews for television and newspapers. I noticed that facts were reinterpreted on numerous occasions, almost always, in order to make an article correspond to ideas of a reporter. One fine day I realized that there was only one way to strive for the truth: to write a true story and to send it to mass media outlets. That's what I did."

I showed my first articles to a friend, a reporter, who expressed his interest in them and asked my why I did not take up journalism seriously. After that, I finished journalism courses, and worked as a freelance journalist at Portuguese, Spanish, Latin American, English and Romanian media outlets. However, journalism was not my only occupation. "I believe that there is nothing more boring for a journalist than to sit at table, working on the so-called news, which has already been picked out from the Internet by someone, retelling someone else's stories. In addition to that, it is proof of the absence of professionalism, it is not worth it, in the long run. I like to visit new places, to collect new material for my own articles."”

Ah, a silver-spoon communist ex-pat British subject, with next to no journalism background, no sporting background, no political background…nothing, in fact, more then a forum in which to spew misinformation.

 

But wait, there’s more.  In his Feb 28th “Goodbye, Vancouver” piece, this drooling paranoid questions whether the Canadian Men’s Hockey team were on drugs when they beat the Russian team.  Obviously, he says, that since they beat the Canadians 8 – 1 in the 80s  (His information, not mine, I’ve not researched it) and been “close” every year since then, well, we must have been drugged up this year.

I’d like to take a moment to rebut.  Perhaps *this* year…the Russian team *wasn’t* doped.  For a change.  See, ever since we trashed them 5 games to 4 in the Summit Series, in 1972, they’ve only ever been “close.”

Or here’s another thought.  We might just be better at the game.  See … if *our* athletes were doped, well, how does that explain the Russian team losing to Slovakia?  I guess they must have been doped up, too.

He points out, correctly, that there hasn’t been one single doping incident with a Russian athlete in Vancouver, but fails to point out that a number were disqualified for the games before they even booked their flights.  Oh well, perspective is everything.

Sochi will be better, he prognosticates while channeling the spirit of Nostradamus.  The host country will welcome everyone as friends,the judges will be fair, drug testing will be at the conveniece of everyone involved.

And Canada will show the world, once again, that Hockey is *OUR* game.  Other countries can dabble, but we own it.  Bring it on.

Recent CRTC Activity

So, after nearly 2 years of foot dragging, public hearings, and Bell obfuscation, we suddenly have more movement from the regulators then we can easily digest. First, a "decision" of sorts, on Usage Based Billing - the decision to decide nothing. At least they recognized that their interim approval was off-base, and reversed it.

A positive note was the proposed framework to decide if traffic management protocols are warranted and just. This might just affect the decision coming this week - the decision on Bell's current methods of UBB.


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Warning - Keep Broadband Competitive in Canada

Warning - Keep Broadband Competitive in Canada

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Another hit to Ontario's consumer

Now McGuinty says that, in addition to added cost for most retail items, he's not sure that he's going to go through with next year's planned raise to minimum wage. This year's increase from $8.75 to $9.50, scheduled for next Wed, will go ahead.

More news here.

Fighting for Taxpayers: Saskatchewan Rejects Sales Tax Harmonization#links#links

Saskatchewan has already rejected the idea of HST - because of the cost to the consumer.

Fighting for Taxpayers: Saskatchewan Rejects Sales Tax Harmonization#links#links

Ontario's new Harmonized Sales Tax.

Yesterday I sent the following email out to my ISP clients:

Early reports of the contents of today's Ontario Budget indicate that
the wonderful folks in Queen's Park have finally come up with a way
to tax internet service. So, I'm writing for two reasons. The first
is to notify our customers that if the budget measure to harmonize
the PST with the GST goes through, you'll be seeing an 8% increase
in your total bill, effective July 2010 (the effective date of
HST), as nearly everything that's currently subject to GST will
now also be subject to PST.

The second reason is to encourage our customers to write to their
local MPP and tell them how you feel about paying an extra 8% on
most items that are currently PST exempt. We'd really rather not
have to add the PST to our invoicing. If there's enough
public unrest, perhaps we can avoid the entire situation.

For reference, here's the mailing address of our local MPP's:

St. Catharines Riding:
Jim Bradley,
2-2 Secord Drive,
St. Catharines, ON L2N 1K8
905-935-0018

Welland Riding:
Peter Kormos,
103-60 King St., Canal View,
Welland ON M3H 2V7
905-732-6884

Niagara Riding:
Kim Craitor,
8-3930 Montrose Rd.
Niagara Falls ON L2H 3C9
905-357-0681

The argument in favour of HST is that it will allow businesses to
recover PST they pay on materials and equipment. Currently they
can't write those off on their taxes, like they can the GST.
But you don't need to add PST to everything that is currently
exempt in order to change the tax laws to allow Businesses to
claim PST rebates.

Thanks for your time,

It was pointed out to me that I missed one local MPP:

Niagara West - Glanbrook Riding
Time Hudak
Unit M1
4961 King Street East
Beamsville, Ontario L0R 1B0
905-563-1755

In most cases, it's preferable to send paper, snail mail letters to MP's and MPPs. The old adage "if its not on paper, it's not real" applies. However, if you choose to email instead, their email addresses are:

tim.hudakco@pc.ola.org
jbradley.mpp@liberal.ola.org
pkormos-qp@ndp.on.ca
kcraitor.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Taking some time to consider this new tax, I've spotted a few things that people might not realize at first. First of all, in my business, I'll have to start charging the 8% 'extra' tax on most of our internet package rates. But beyond that, so will all *my* service providers. Currently we don't get charged PST for many of the services that we have to buy in order to stay in business. Unless those new PST charges become recoverable to us through tax returns, etc. we're looking at both an 8% increase direct to our customers, and an 8% increase in costs - which could mean additional costs to end users.

In other businesses - that means that your night out to dinner and a movie just went up 8% - the restaurants will now have to charge PST. Probably the movie theaters will, too.

Some businesses will, apparently, save big bucks on this deal - rumour is to the tune of 4.6 billion dollars. Their savings are in PST on supplies they need for their products, and in savings involved in *not* having to process PST returns, etc. Those businesses could asve the exact same amount if we left the PST the way it is, and allowed the big businesses to claim rebates on paid PST.

Alternately the province could go ahead with a harmonized tax, but apply it in the reverse of what they intend. Make the new tax apply only to items that the PST applies to now. They've said that they will maintain some items that are currently PST exempt as HST exempt. Why take a half measure - jump all the way in and leave *everything* that is currently PST exempt as HST exempt items. If their true goal, as stated, is to make the province a friendlier tax environment for business, maintaining the current exemptions would achieve that goal without burying the consumer in across the board new 8% taxes.