We surrender.

Since 9/11 people in the western world are obsessed with security and in some cases have an irrational fear of terrorist acts.  In the total scheme of things, we tend to get very excited about incidents that are not always that significant.  That is not to say that we don’t need to be on alert but it’s how far should we go and what should we give up to attain that security.

1. Most important was to protect the front line health workers and wash your hands frequently.
2. It’s all done in the name of security so we just let it go.

Crossing the border is also getting harder all the time and the customs authorities have extra ordinary powers that they exercise as well.  There are a lot of stories about abuse here as well.  It’s because of security so anything they do is ok even if there was not just cause for their actions.  Give people absolute power and they will abuse it because they can.

The police are starting to show signs of being above the law since they are part of the administration of the “law”.  We seem to be seeing more and more instance where police are involved with excessive force and are not being held accountable.  It seems that they are able to break laws but they don’t have to face the consequences.  They, in many cases, can’t even be removed from the job.  Their union fights any sort of discipline even when the evidence is overwhelming that they should be dismissed and charged.  They can be violent and just flash they id and badge and they are driven home by a responding officer while they accuse the victim of causing the problem in the first place.  It’s the concept of power corrupting individual and institutions.  They are trampling on individual rights in the name of “National Security”.  Yes they have a tough job but taking away our rights in the name of security is not the answer.

It won’t be long before we will have to face the facts that we live in a police state with no real personal freedoms and we surrendered them without a wimper because we were afraid of something that really wasn’t as bad as the solution.

Highway of Heroes in Pictures

From a powerpoint presentation making the rounds.

Arrival of first Soldier

Honour Guard claiming the body

Procession Leaves Trenton for Toronto

Trenton pays its respects

Firemen honouring the procession

Police Stop to Honour Heroes

One of 50 Overpasses where people gather to salute Heroes

Greetiing our Heroes

Another overpass, another tribute

Not just on overpasses do people show respect

Oshawa greets the procession

Durham Police honour procession

Ajax says thank you

An individual shows his respect.

The Final Salute in Toronto before arriving at the coroners office.

Highway of Heroes-The people say Thank You!

I recently received a great powerpoint presentation showing how we as Canadians have made the Highway of Heroes an important element in our honouring and paying tribute to our fallen soldiers.  The average Canadian was not fully aware of the sacrifices that our military have made until Afghanistan.  The governments of the day had no use for a military but time and circumstances proved this neglect to be horribly wrong.  I served in the RCHA in the early 70’s and it was a joke, we had a regimental strength of around 176 men when it should have been over 1,100 yet we had the same roles and responsibilities of a full regiment.  We were part of the A.C.E. Mobile Force for Norway and also member of the C.A.S.T. Combat Group which was responsible for re-enforcing ACE.  In other words, we were supposedly replacing ourselves which would have been  a bit difficult since we’d have been dead or wounded to require re-enforcement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afghanistan has brought respectability for the Canadian Military and a sense of pride for the people of Canada.  It was public pressure that brought about the designation of the stretch of Highway 401 from Trenton to Toronto to be known as the Highway of Heroes.  For it is along that path that our fallen are repatriated to Canada and transported to the Ontario Coroner prior to being returning the remains to the families.  The people have spoken and speak everytime we lose a combatant.  As of today we have lost 116 service personnel both men and women.  We honour their ultimate sacrifice and pay tribute to the family members who have lost their loved ones.

Members of Fire Station 44 in Barrhaven salute returning fallen soldier Cpl. Kenneth Chad O'Quinn on the Fallowfield-Strandherd Bridge just outside of Barrhaven, Wednesday, March 25, 2009. Viewer photo submitted by: Kellie Jennifer Adams

Ottawa is home to the National Military Cemetery at Beechwood and many families are choosing to bury their fallen loved ones there.  It is a beautiful place for a cemetery.  Now the Ottawa Fire Department has chosen to follow the lead of the Highway of Heroes and they provide firefighters and police officers along 12 overpasses of  Highway 416 and 417 on the route to Beechwood where the soldier will be interred.  District Chief Dave Capstick said firefighters will make the effort to show the respect and solidarity they deserve. 

The U.S. has adopted a similar policy to Canada’s on repatriation and finally make it possible to show the flag draped coffins if the families allow it.  That gives the ordinary people the opportunity to sit up, take notice and show their apprciation and sorry for the fallen.  A recent movie on HBO called “Taking Chance” is based upon  A personal narrative by Lieutenant Colonel Michael R. Strobl (you can read his story here). 

The Highway of Heroes and the actions encountered by LCol Strobl show that the people understand and want to honour the fallen who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Lest We Forget

I am a soldier far away from home.

My 15 year old grandson Josh wrote this poem:

I am a soldier far away from home.

I wonder if I will live to see tomorrow.

I hear gunfire and explosions.

I see my friends die in front of me.

I want to see my family and live happily.

I am a soldier far away from home.

I pretend that someday peace will come.

I feel horrible because of all of the lives I have taken.

I touch my guns trigger without hesitation.

I worry about my family and how they are doing.

I cry every night from what I’ve seen the previous day.

I am a soldier far away from home.

I understand that what I am doing is for the greater good.

I say what I’m doing is for justice.

I dream of a world where everything is peaceful.

I try to enforce justice and make peace come.

I hope one day peace will prevail. 

I am a soldier far away from home.

What are the long term effects of the current world crisis?

 You can sense that something isn’t right.  Something is changing and not for the better.   If you look at the world today you get snippets of what is happening, but is it a trend? 

 Economic recovery will very much depend upon a positive attitude in the consumers and investors around the world.  Almost everything we hear nowadays is anything but good news.  The Financial Sector in a majority of countries is corrupted and virtually bankrupt.  The leaders of many companies have run their companies into the ground trying to maximize their personal wealth through salary, bonuses and equity.  Their remuneration is obscene and totally unwarranted.  They have not added value to their companies, they have destroyed them and now it is the taxpayers (their former clients) who are being tasked with bailing them out.  It’s too bad that we are rewarding bad performance and not allowing companies that deserve to fail to do just that.

In North America, we have an Automobile Sector that blew it and made all the wrong decisions.  They misread the trends and developments and actually reversed themselves in areas where they were being innovative and getting it right.  The best example is the GM EV1 which was revolutionary and a good start to getting off the carbon trail.  I equate it to the Avro Arrow which was the best fighter bomber of its day never to have been built.  In both cases the products were destroyed to try and move the clock back.  We had quality issues which have for the most part been addressed.  I remember my first Japanese car – it was a piece of junk but then they got it right in subsequent years to where they were tops in quality and it took the big three awhile to finally catch up but we still have the perception that the quality isn’t there.  Recent surveys have shown that many of the vehicles from the North American manufacturers are better than their Japanese counterparts.  The Big 3 screwed up and we are being forced to try and save them – the jury is still out on that front. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People are angry with having to bail out the financial institutions around the world and they don’t see any change in behaviour or method of operation.  Maybe China’s solution would smarten them up – look at the Milk crisis and the main perpetrators have gone to jail for a long time or have been sentence to death.  Sounds like a deterrent to me.

Robberies and violence seem to be on the upswing.   People are losing hope and are getting desperate and doing what they can to survive or thrive.  Can this be the start of a trend that could lead to anarchy?  A Russian scholar says “There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010,” Igor Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy — a lecture the ministry pointedly invited The Associated Press and other foreign media to attend.  Will there be a lot of social unrest?  There was during the Great Depression so it is quite plausible for the same to happen in modern times.  How far it goes will depend upon the levels of hope or despair we get to in the future.

If the ones who helped create this situation don’t change their ways we can expect a push back by the investors and consumers who are needed to right the ship. 

I despair for the lack of will on the part of governments to correct the causes of the problems in concert with their efforts to reverse the effects of the downturn in the economy.  It is just going to get worse but the creators of the problems are sitting pretty with their bonuses and offshore bank accounts.  They won’t even face paying the taxes that will pay the final tab on this problem.

Am I a Grumpy Old Man?

I am beginning to think that I am a grumpy old man.  There are a number of things that are happening that I don’t fully understand nor support.  These aren’t just local but national and international in scope.

 

 

 

We have a great country and have many opportunities that we can go after.  The world is in financial meltdown.  Credit and jobs are getting harder to find and easier to lose.  On the one hand the US has admitted that the financial crunch started there yet they can’t understand why we are annoyed with them.  I can’t understand why the world continues to invest in American securities when they are going downhill fast.  They are spending all kinds of money, in the $trillions, yet they are talking about tax cuts.  How will they pay for all of these bailouts and loans?  The greed of the financial marketers to create all of those bad mortgages and loans and resell them over and over creating derivatives and other totally speculative financial instruments where they made obscene profits.  Even today after the bailouts these people just don’t get it.  They continue their greedy and self serving ways with “taxpayer” money.  There is no accountability, no shame.  This thing is going to get worse before we start to see a return to financial stability in the world.  This pisses me off.

 

In Canada, we are being pressured to rescue the big 3 Auto Makers.  This is a real challenge because we need the jobs but the companies haven’t corrected the problems that got them their in the first place and they don’t seem to want to address this issue.  They went for short term profits and built gas guzzlers and not fuel efficient vehicles using new technologies.  There was little or no long term thinking nor trying to address the “green” market.  Toyota and Honda both had hybrids that perform well and sell well.  GM killed their electric car.  The Canadian autoworkers say it was the financial crisis that is causing the problems today yet these same worker wanted GM to keep a truck plant open that couldn’t sell its products.  The company screws up and the workers pay.  This pisses me off.

 

We are in NAFTA yet the Americans don’t play by the rules and they almost destroyed our forest industry because we didn’t use the same model that they use.  The US Congress is likely to become very protectionist and hurt Canadian jobs as a result.  My thinking is that we should turn off the tap for Canadian oil and sell it elsewhere in the world where is would buy the appropriate respect.  This pisses me off.

 

Canadian politicians at the municipal, provincial and federal levels are jerks.  Our city politicians can’t decide what the city should be funding and what it should not fund therefore our property taxes are out of control.  The Ontario Government has failed miserably except when it comes to teachers.  Now a teacher with the appropriate time in can make over $90,000 a year for less than 10 months work.  Their argument that they work very hard during those months doesn’t cut it, when I was in the Army we were expected to be available 24/7 no matter what for so-so pay.  The provincial liberals just got blasted by their auditor general who says they suck.  The federal politicians don’t really care about us; they only want their perks and powers.  This latest coalition crap is symptomatic of the problem.  Jack Layton says that this is the way that proportional representation would work yet he rejects things before he hears them and he is overly partisan about anything that he does provide assistance – if he touches – Jack and the NDP did it.  A pox on all their houses.  This pisses me off.

 

There are a number of strikes currently under way and I for the life of me cannot understand what is going through their heads.  I’ve been on strike and it is so stupid and non-productive, you never get it back.  The bus drives say they want respect, the postal techies say they want respect yet they show none to their customers, the people who make their jobs possible.  What about the hundreds of thousands who have lost or could lose their jobs because of all of the above?   We all have to sacrifice in this time of crisis but it seems to be me first.  This pisses me off.

 

Something is wrong with society when greed is rewarded and running a company into the ground gets you a government bailout and people show no respect for their fellow human beings.  We are doomed.  Our future is dark.  No wonder I am a turning into a grumpy old fart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Labor Has a Role in Getting Through the Financial Crisis

I have noticed the strange reactions of labor to the financial crisis.  There seems to be two approaches that we hear about.

The first approach is from those facing massive layoffs.  They want the governments to provide funding to the various industries or companies so that they can keep their jobs.  What goes missing is do we need or want want they are producing.  Case in point, the Auto Workers wanted GM to keep open a truck plant in Oshawa even though they can’t sell the product they produce.  Instead of pushing for a retooling and new vehicle they wanted Ottawa to give GM money to keep open the plant.  The companies have screwed up royally and unfortunately Labor will pay the price but should we as taxpayers (they are too) support the production of product that doesn’t meet todays markets?  It is terrible to lose a job, I faced that with a young wife and child and it was devastating but I had to move outside my trade and even outside my home province to be employed.  It took a year to find a new job and that was joining the Army.  It’s all well and good that autoworkers make great wages but when you are in a global market at some point you have to rationalize your costs in order to continue to be competitive.  You have to deliver innovative products that meet todays situations like high energy costs and increased safety requirements.  Labor has to accept that there is only so much that can be paid before they become too expensive to maintain.  Many times it comes down to a choice:  do you want to have higher wages at the cost of fellow workers jobs or do you take less and facilitate a larger workforce.  It’s a tough choice and it really sucks but it is reality in todays world.

The second approach is from Labor that is working for the different levels of government (mainly because they seem to be immune to labor cost analysis).  I can think of two situations in my province.  First the primary teachers who are making damn good money in the $80-90k with experience.  Just this summer they were offered 12% over 4 years and have yet to accept it.  Sorry but to think they are worth more in the current situation that is just plain greedy.  Our premier has increased significantly the number of teacher while enrollment has decreased so even with a shrinking class room taxpayers costs are going up faster than inflation.  The province has over the years downloaded costs on the city which uses money from the property tax base and it isn’t growing.  Add that to a city government that is into a lot of areas that I question as a cities responsibility such as my city is a huge landlord for something like 30 or 40,000 people and they can’t afford to repair these dwellings.  It is a disgrace and these people shouldn’t have to live in terrible conditions.  The money we have available should be going to subsidize rents rather than run a bureaucracy to maintain an agency that can’t afford to do what is necessary.  This brings us to the fact that we need to keep labor costs down or we have to get rid of people and services.  The property taxes are finite and not growing as fast as the labor contracts.  Most of our contracts are binding arbitration so we get screwed by the arbitrators.  Toronto was having problems retaining police so they added a retention bonus which was then award to the fire department which was then awarded to police and fire departments around the province even though they weren’t have the same problems.  Arbitration avoids strikes but increases labor costs.  Our city workers aren’t even going to consider lower wage demands – they want more but it will cost jobs and services.  When a salary freeze was to be discussed they harassed the councillor that was asking for debate and heaped scorn on the mayor as well.  They just don’t get it.

So as I said, Labor has a role to play in getting through these difficult times, will the step up to the plate to save their fellow workers or think only of themselves.  Sooner or later the taxpayer will run out of money and it will all collapse.  There are 3 levels of government, one level of taxpayer.   This same taxpayer is the consumer of products that we build and they can only afford so much.

It doesn’t matter who is responsible for the situation – everyone has to work on  resolving the problem if the jobs and organizations are to be saved.  Labor can’t just say it’s not their responsibility to save taxpayer money.  They have to work to save the country as well as the governments and companies.

Next Gen – Our Future

Every generation has heard it – “this new generation will be the end of society – they have no values and will never be outstanding citizens”.

When my generation was growing up (I was between the start of Rock and Roll and the British Invasion – I missed Flower Power by that much) our parents were saying that we showed no respect for our elders and the music would rot our brains.  My Generation (the bleeding edge of the Boomers) managed to survive the Cold War, Vietnam and Elvis Presley and turn into good citizens who achieved a much higher standard of living than our parents were able to provide.  They had us children when the country was rebuilding from the Second World War.  They created the world that we were able to build upon and make fantastic exponential advances in knowledge and information.  They reached the moon.  They enabled us to achieve.

We wanted our children to benefit from what the world had to offer in ways that our parents could only dream of providing us.  We gave our children everything except for real challenges.  They never faced a war like the Second World War or the Korean Conflict.  They saw us dealing with Vietnam with its political rules that cost the lives of over 50,000 our my generation for no real good reason.  Our children have seen war but it has been like a video game – quick and remote with fewer casualties on “our” side.  Today war is surreal like seeing the start of the Iraqi wars while watching CNN.  Our children have not seen really tough economic times.  They were given almost everything they desired without concern for need or utility.  Most of my generation had to work hard to get an advanced education.  Now it seems like it is an expectation.

Our children’s children want for nothing.  They have no responsibilities, everything is done for them.  They are led to believe that they deserve everything without concern of how they would obtain it.  These children are rewarded because they are here not for anything they have worked for nor have they saved  for anything.  They just demand (it is demand not asked for nor is there an offer to exchange work for it).

On the news today there was a report about high school graduates who don’t give a shit.  Employers were saying that about 1 in 3 graduates showed any enthusiasm for their job or demonstrated an acceptable work ethic.  They just don’t care if they keep their job since mommy and daddy will take care of them like they always have.  The upcoming generation is rewriting the English language through their using text messages and the abbreviations for these terms.  Their primary communications are done remotely and not really face to face.  They are losing the ability to read the physical expressions that we all make when we are dealing with someone else.  Are they being lied to?  Is it a joke or is it for real?  They are losing the ability to communicate mano-a-mano even though they will argue that they communicate more than we do.  Texting and Twittering are short bursts of data (hard to call it information since it is rarely in context).

So what’s the issue with this?  If the bulk of this upcoming generation fits this description then we are truly in trouble as a country.  Think about it?  They just don’t care so who’s is going to care and do what needs to be done to keep society together and functioning.  They will have to learn how to get things done when life is collapsing around them or they will not survive.  There are others in this world that would gladly get it done for a price but then again after they’ve spend their inheritances from my generation, how will the manage to pay to be taken care of.  Technology won’t be the answer because you need to care enough to learn and innovate and they may just be too busy playing video games or texting their friends to care.

We lost Buddy

My brother-in-law is now adjusting to life without his Buddy.  He lost one of his best friends – a 12 year old golden Lab called Buddy or Bud the Bear.  He died at home with Bob beside him.  When he couldn’t move, his eyes were always looking for him when he was on his way out.

He was a lot slower and looked pretty rough but Bob could still see the young pup that he got all those years ago.  This was a dog that went everywhere with him.  I can remember that every time I saw Buddy all I had to do was watch his eyes and there would be Bob.  This dog was dedicated to his owner.

Buddy in December 2003 - a dog in his prime.

Now as for me, I really liked Buddy even though I always had an alergic reaction to him.  No matter, I would pet him, play with him and then rush and wash my hands and face to try to stop the itching.  This was a good dog.  I remember one incident – We have two ragdoll cats who don’t go out.  Bob brought Buddy with him one day while my cats were at the patio door watching the world outside, Buddy came in the back yard and made a beeline for the screen door, I’m surprised that he didn’t go through the door but he managed to stop, but I heard my cats bounce off the wall on the opposite side of the house.  They immediately ran downstairs and didn’t come up for hours.   Buddy just went on running around the yard.

Many people are fortunate enough to have a pet like Buddy, a friend and companion who is always there.  You have a hard time finding human friends that would be as dedicated as a good pet.   Thanks Buddy, I know you were ready to go and you left your friend Bob but you had a good life and did your job of just being you.

Randy Pausch – October 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008

I lost a personal hero today, Professor Randy Pausch, 47, lost his battle with pancreatic cancer today.  His was a brave fight that helped us all with his Last Lecture and his philosophy of making every moment count.  I hope that he was able to accomplish his objectives for his children since they were the primary reason for him to do the lecture.

Thank you, Randy, I’m sure you’ve made it to a good place and you’ve left us with a great gift.

Read more at Carnegie Mellon University

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Here’s a link to ABC News where there are a number of videos by Diane Sawyer about this story.

Omar Khadr and other difficult choices

Omar Ahmed Khadr (عمر أحمد خضر, born September 19, 1986) is the fourth child in the Canadian Khadr family. He was captured by American forces at the age of 15 following a four-hour firefight with militants in the village of Ayub Kheyl, Afghanistan.^[1] He has spent six years in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps charged with war crimes and providing support to terrorism after allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier.^[2]

A Canadian citizen born in Toronto,^[3][4] he is the youngest prisoner held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp by the United States and has been frequently referred to as a child soldier.^[5][6] The only Western citizen remaining in Guantanamo, Khadr is unique in that Canada has refused to seek extradition or repatriation despite the urgings of Amnesty International, UNICEF, the Canadian Bar Association and other prominent organisations.^{[7][8][9][10]}

Khadr is the only Guantanamo detainee who has faced a judge and who is not boycotting the military tribunals.^[11] In February 2008, the Pentagon accidentally released documents that revealed that although Khadr was present during the firefight, there was no other evidence that he had thrown the grenade. In fact, military officials had originally reported that another of the surviving militants had thrown the grenade just before being killed. – Wikipedia

The Conservative Government of Canada refuses to seek the return of this troubled and messed up young man to Canada saying that the US Government is providing due process.  Problem is, the President and his minions should be prosecuted for torturing prisoners, denying basic human rights and acting like a dictator.  The Prime Minister is making a number of philosophical statements that are really at odds with true Canadian values of justice and human dignity.  Khadr comes from a notorious family, he was raised in that environment, indoctrinated by his family about jihad.

Khadr fits the definition of a child soldier and should have been treated as such.  He’s our problem, Canada’s that is, not the Americans and we should be dealing with it in a democratic and Canadian way not the abomination that the Americans are using.  If these prisoners are guilty then they should be handled by the legal process, provided basic legal protections and not be subjected to torture.  It has been proved over and over that torture doesn’t get at the truth but only gets what the interrogators want to called the truth.   If you look at the measures that have been put in place by western governments they are quite severe and remove many rights and privledges that we used to enjoy in the name of homeland security.  When you look at the direct threat, there has been little offered as proof that these measures were needed or have done the jobs that for which they were established.  We lose more people to drownings, accidents, disease or whatever than we have lost to terrorism.  We are paying a high price in our loss of privacy and personal rights.  The Americans are happy because they have been taught to fear the unknown, give them their guns and other personal weapons but take away all their other basic rights and they don’t even know what has hit them.  They have also set a precedent so possibly in some future conflict the same logic and rules will be applied to Americans by some new enemy and they will justify saying “you did it first!”

Why do we have to find this out from a blog?

Found by Dvorak.org/blog
From NaturalNews.com - Originally published April 10 2007

Monsanto’s GM corn MON863 shows kidney, liver toxicity in animal studies

by David Gutierrez
A variety of genetically modified corn that was approved for human consumption in 2006 caused signs of liver and kidney toxicity as well as hormonal changes in rats in a study performed by researchers from the independent Committee for Independent Research and Genetic Engineering at the University of Caen in France.

What you need to know – Conventional View

• The corn in question, MON863, is made by the Monsanto Company and approved for use in Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, and the United States. It has had a gene inserted from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which causes the plant’s cells to produce a pesticide.

• Researchers fed rats either unmodified corn or diets containing 11 or 30 percent MON863 for 90 days. The rats who ate modified corn were found to exhibit signs of liver and kidney toxicity, as well as signs of hormonal changes.

• Male rats lost an average of 3.3 percent of their body weight, and their excretion of phosphorus and sodium decreased. Female rats gained an average of 3.7 percent of their body weight, while their triglyceride levels increased by 24 to 40 percent.

• The mechanism that causes the toxicity is not yet known, but the researchers say there is evidence that the Bt toxin may cause the perforation of blood cells. They expressed concern that the methods used by Monsanto in initial tests of the corn were statistically flawed and called their own tests “the best mammalian toxicity tests available.”

• Greenpeace responded to the study by calling for an immediate recall of all MON863 corn and the reassessment of all genetically modified foods currently approved for the market.

• Quote: “Our counter-evaluation shows that there are signs of toxicity, and nobody can say scientifically and seriously the consumption of the transgenic maize MON863 is safe and good for health.” – Lead Author Gilles Eric Seralini

*****I guess we the people don’t need to know about anything that can harm us, this is the type of behavior that destroys the trust  in the proponents of GM Foods, you just can’t trust them, and they won’t tell us what has been genetically modified.

The Ewoks Gospel Song – with special guest.

This is my Ewok – Hugo. Just like the ones in Star Wars.

Good Quotations by Famous People by Gabriel Robins.

Good Quotations by Famous People:

Famous quotes, witty quotes, and funny quotations collected by Gabriel Robins over the years.

Some samples:

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance”

– Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”

– Jimi Hendrix

“A clever man commits no minor blunders.”

– Goethe (1749-1832)

“Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours.”

– Richard Bach

“A witty saying proves nothing.”

– Voltaire (1694-1778)

“Sleep is an excellent way of listening to an opera.”

– James Stephens (1882-1950)

“The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it’s their fault.”

– Henry Kissinger (1923-)

“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”

– Will Durant

“I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.”

– Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.)

more…

Gabriel Robins has assembled the following:

The Legacy of Randy Pausch

My friend and mentor Professor Randy Pausch is a virtual reality pioneer, human-computer interaction researcher, co-founder of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center, and creator of the Alice software project.

“> I have known Randy since 1992, and over the years I have been collecting and archiving his video lectures and newspaper articles, which I am happy to share below.

“> See also the background surrounding Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture”, and Randy Pausch’s Wikipedia page.

ABC ran a 1-hour special on Randy (with Diane Sawyer) on April 9, 2008. Randy’s book, called “The Last Lecture”, was published by Disney/Hyperion in April, 2008.

Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World

Is this the beginning of food shortages in America? When word of shortages of flour for bakeries was made public some people distorted the food chain by buying extra amounts that they don’t really need – in other words they hoard food creating a shortage I remember a case where they were saying there might be a shortage of toilet paper-within a day it happened because everyone went out and purchased the toilet paper, just in case, and created the shortage-therefore it was a self fulfilling prophecy. You can add to this the increase in demand for biofuels and you have farmers growing different products to meet that need since it pays more and you have less food production therefore creating a shortage. Our market system is fragile and can be manipulated fairly easily by getting the word out. Farmers are free to sell their product to the highest bidder and it’s becoming more lucrative to sell abroad. There is also increasing pressures from developing nations as their standard of living improves they demand the same opportunities as we in North America have for consumer goods and foods increasing pressure on prices and availablility.

Something to think worry about.

In a New York Sun article “Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing. Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy. “Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.” The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.

“You can’t eat this every day. It’s too heavy,” a health care executive from Palo Alto, Sharad Patel, grumbled as his son loaded two sacks of the Basmati into a shopping cart. “We only need one bag but I’m getting two in case a neighbor or a friend needs it,” the elder man said.

The Patels seemed headed for disappointment, as most Costco members were being allowed to buy only one bag. Moments earlier, a clerk dropped two sacks back on the stack after taking them from another customer who tried to exceed the one-bag cap.

An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour. Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.

The curbs and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come. “The number of reports I’ve been getting from readers who have seen signs posted with limits has increased almost exponentially, I’d say in the last three to five weeks.”

Spiking food prices have led to riots in recent weeks in Haiti, Indonesia, and several African nations. India recently banned export of all but the highest quality rice, and Vietnam blocked the signing of new contract for foreign rice sales.”