Confusion and Accountability: Do the RCMP and ICBC really give a damn?

I recently received this letter from a very good friend of mine. I asked her to write this so I could share with you all what I think is complete stupidity regarding the lack of accountability between the RCMP and interprovincial auto insurance companies. Please read on:

June 11, 2006 was a nice Sunday morning and our family was on our way to Vernon from our home in Enderby to meet some new people from the MS Society. My husband, our daughter (10 yrs old) and myself all piled into the car for a nice drive to Vernon. They were having a BBQ for all the members and, we were invited to come along as their newest editions. There was a BBQ and fun and games at the beach for the kids.

As we were travelling on Hwy 97, southbound into Vernon, we noticed a white pickup truck leaving the Silver Star RV Park (turning right off Stickle Road onto Hwy97 South) that had not stopped at the stop sign. They merged into our lane right ahead of us and almost cut us off.
So we were forced to swerve into the left lane and as we were passing we honked to let them know we were there. As we were coming onto the overpass my husband noticed that the same vehicle was coming up on us pretty fast. He watched them as they went into the left lane and began to pass us. As they came up on our left side they swung sharply in front of us and slammed on their brakes.

This resulted in my husband slamming on our brakes, and unfortunatly we slid under the bumper of their pick up. As I looked up I saw the two men in the truck ahead laughing, and they proceeded to drive off of our car and drive AWAY!! Our daughter was napping in the back seat and was woken up by the sound of crunching metal. She was terrified and began screaming.

We quickly checked ourselves, checked on our daughter, and discovered we were all okay, thank God. My husband and I agreed to follow them so we could get their licence plate number. As soon as we spotted the plate numbers we headed straight for the nearest RCMP station. The pick up, a White 93 GMC Sierra registered in Alberta, continued South bound through town, with no obvious physical damage. Our little old station wagon bore the brunt of the impact.

When we got to the RCMP station we filed a report. We were then informed that the RCMP were not going to try to "catch" the truck in question, in fact they were not going to do anything at all. They just told us to call ICBC on Monday and file a claim with them. They took pictures and then gave us a copy of the accident report and sent us on our way. To our surprise the name and address of the owner was already on the report! (I don't know if they ever checked to make sure the truck wasnt stolen...) It was registered to a Harris McMillan, from Calgary Alberta. We also have his home address. Why would they share this information with us if we have no recourse, and our hands seem tied?

The RCMP officer advised us that their may be damage under the hood so to be careful. She asked if we knew anyone in town that could help us. We said yes. We were on our way to meet them when the accident happened. She told us to go meet up with our friends and get them to follow us home to make sure we get there OK. (Officer CYR was very helpful to us, and no, she is not related to Howie CYR, formerly of the Enderby detachment)

SO far we have gotten our car towed to the ICBC claim center and we are waiting to see if they are going to write it off. We were already told that it probably would be seeing as it was an older vehicle. So that means that we will have to try to find a really cheap car, that runs good....HAHA yeah right!!

This really sucks for our family because we depend on our vehicle for a variety of things. Mostly to get my husband around, he has Multiple Sclerosis and can't walk very far. Now that we have no car, my husband cannot go anywhere and has to stay at home all the time. There is no public transit in our little city. Our family is on Disability Benifits and we cannot afford to buy a new vehicle. We also have two children who depend on us to get them back and forth to school and other events/activities/gatherings.

Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt.
My husband had a hairline fracture in his wrist, our daughter had a bad tummy ache for a couple of days and I, myself have major, soft tissue damage in my shoulders, back and neck. (Doctor gave our daughter a clean bill of health, my husband 1 week to recover and 2 weeks for myself.) Our daughter is very scared of driving and sleeping now. She vows never to nap in a car AGAIN! She also screams at the driver if they even start the car without making sure everybody's seatbelts are on. As well, this has only intensified my terrible fear of driving. At age 36 I still have no driver's licence and my fear will probably make it so that I will never get it either.

For now, we pray for a miracle to find a replacement car...
Jeannette.

Friends: If there is anything you think you can do to spread this message on, that the laws need to be changed so that this type of thing can't happen to another family... I'm at a loss here, I really don't know what I can do personally, other than talk about it.

The Motor Vehicle Act should encompass the entire country, regardless of the province in which an offending vehicle is registered. I'm very confused about my friends' situation. Would they be covered if the vehicle that caused our accident was registered in BC? I'm doing some research on this, I'm gonna try and help them out and see if the offending driver can be punished somehow. PLEASE, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, please let me know. You wouldn't want this type of thing to happen to you.

Would you?
~Maggie~

Sugar, not so sweet

Last night I watched a great documentary on CBC called "Big Sugar". It was about the sugar industry in the early 1800's and the early 2000's. It blew me away.

In the 1700-1800's, sugar was a huge industry and islands like the Dominican Republic were front and centre in it. This was during the days of slavery, where the slaves would toil all day cutting sugar cane, so that the English could put it in their tea. The slaves were horribly mistreated, killed, and in the case of women, raped. This continued for decades upon decades, until a few brave, good souls decided enough was enough. They worked tirelessly for decades to free the slaves from their servitude. The sugar plantation orders tried to counter this by funding a play (yes...one play), using the testimony of a 'scientist' who said sugar was essential for the human body (and also good for the teeth), and even calling the slaves "Assistant Sugar Planters". This is all very familiar to what corporations do now to distract the public. Eventually though, things changed and slavery was abolished (decades before the states did).

Now, we face another slavery to sugar in the early 21st century. First off, we have the Dominican Republic where people work for 12 hours a day, making 2 dollars a day. They all live on shanty towns on the company propery, are not allowed to leave, cannot grow their own vegetables, and get no health treatment except for a priest who makes the rounds every few weeks. When they do make their 2 dollars, they have to buy their food at the company store, where they are overcharged. In most cases, they have 1 meal a day, at night, from a pot that 12 people have to share. This is while the owner of the plantation is wineing and dining American political leaders and telling the camera crew for the documentary that they actually help the people who harvest their sugar cane.

They are not the only new slaves to sugar, we are too. It is in everything; bacon, bread, milk, peanut butter, english muffins, and thousands of other products. On average, we consume about 25 large bags of sugar a year. As a result, obesity is sky rocketing (in fact, for the first time in history, the fat outnumber the hungry), diabetes is rising, and the overwieght epidemic is taking hold. Many scientists now consider there to be three major epidemics on earth, that of tobbacco, HIV, and obesity. It is very hard to find anything without sugar, and even those drinks that advertise themselves as sugar free, contain aspartame, which has caused brain tumors in rats.

A new sugar revolution has to take place, but this time, we have to free not only those who harvest it...but ourselves. Enjoy the sugar in your coffee today, it is sweetened by the blood of thousands.

Global Warming kills millions

A recent report states that disease spread by global warming could kill 185 million Africans by the end of the century and turn millions into refugees.

So far, global temperatures have increased by .6 degrees in the last century and it is estimated with the explosion of car use and the emergence of China that the temperature could raise as much as 3 degrees by the end of this century. Proving disasterious for the Earth and its inhabitants.

Global Warming, it is believed would allow mosquitoes to expand their regions because of the high temperatures, thereby spreading diseases such as West Nile and Yellow Fever to places that it has never been before.

Along with this, as the ice caps melt they erode coastlines and raise sea levels, reducing the reliable sources of fresh water. Along with this, more floods and roughts and you have a climate out of control. With less fresh water, there is a real possibility for fights between countries trying to secure it for themselves.

Where once nations fought for oil (which in turn cause the global warming), they will then fight for water. So Canadians, think about this, we have a great deal of fresh water, we have a superpower to the south that will want it....perhaps our relationship with them won't be so rosey.

Want the deaths of millions on your consicounce? if not, join our protest. Contact me renfunk@gmail.com to learn what you can do.

The Renegade.

Heading up Kyoto

The Kyoto Accords as we all know were created to combat climate change and maybe save this planet, just a wee bit.

They are doing talks right now to extend the treaty and have naturally picked someone who is forefront in combatting climate change at all costs.

Rona Ambrose.

Yep, the Environment minister who cut funding to climate change programs, canceled the one tonne challenge, and said (with Stephen Harper) that Canada had no plan to follow the Kyoto Accord, is naturally heading up the committee to extend it.

This makes so much sense it is scary. Why not have someone who is opposed to your plan, head up the committee to extend the plan.

It's like having Dow Chemical merge with Ducks Unlimited and Greenpeace to decide how they should go about saving the environment.

Want a reason why we need to protest in September?....There it is.

Softened Goals

In true fashion, "Friend" of the Environment Stephen Harper has asked that the Kyoto Second Phase be softened for Canada.

They feel that the deadline should be longer, the targets voluntary, and that exceptions should be made for Canada's resource based economy. In other words, that would give Canada the ability to never meet the goals beacuse not only is the deadline longer (probably decades) but the targets are voluntary and don't even have to be reached. You have to be pretty gullible to believe that any country would sacrifice their corporate image as a whore to industry to meet those targets.

The Government has of course said it will not meet the targets of the first phases which called for a 6% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. Currently the greenhouse gases are 35% above 1990 levels.

Typical of any government, they have decided to throw the future out the window, to spout off bullshit about why they don't need to meet the goals. Yes, I know that it will impact the economy, yes I know that it will have a severe impact on my own province of Alberta, but you know what? Fuck it I don't care. We have to experience short term pain for long term gain. People will adjust, we will get by but if we sit here doing nothing and setting voluntary targets that will never be reached we are going to have a whole lot more problems than a few lost jobs.

I have heard a lot of people spout off about how the Kyoto Accord doesn't work and how it is a bad idea. Got a better one?

Why is it that Canada has such an amazing problem with these goals, yet every single member of the European Union has ratified the measures and is already committed to lowering their emissions by 8%?? 2 more than Canada!

Not to mention, Russia, India and Australia all working hard on it.

Yes I know that their economies don't revolve around that of oil like ours and the states does. But here is a news flash, Oil is going to run out, probably by 2050. In typical human fashion we ignore the problem until finally we can't. Rather than taking a global effort to shift our world from an industrial to a more eco-friendly one we pretend that oil will always be there. We build more and more cars to use more and more oil, we use more and more energy to use more and more oil. Wanna read an article that will open your eyes to this? Go Here

Wouldn't it make sense to work more for clean cars, clean energy? Perhaps we could stop being lazy and driving everywhere? Live 20 min from your job in the city? Walk, take transit. Quit being so fucking selfish and gobbling up energy. Leave one light on in your house, don't run the water when you don't need to, was dishes by hand instead of the dishwasher, plant a tree, read instead of watch tv.

No matter what I do, I write and I rant and people still come back and say "Oh it won't happen in our lifetime" or some other bullshit. Ya it might not happen in our lifetime, but that doesn't matter, why pollute and fuck up this world for our children? Thats what our parents did to us. Al Gore wrote in vanity fair recently that we have 10 years before the point of no return...10 fucking years. I have tried busting my ass to do something, I tried setting up a protest day but aside from someone whose name ryhmes with bin, there was no interest and no encouragement. I will probably have to scrap the idea if I don't get involvement. People are more concerned with watching American Idol than helping the world, those people are what is wrong with this world. Finally, anyone who says "I can't do anything so why try?" should have a cinderblock tossed at their head cause they aren't helping the human race out in the least.

Ya I know I began to rant and deviate but I don't give a shit, Im as mad as hell and Im not going to take it anymore.

The Renegade.

Add to that that the David Suzuki Foundation has done a study proving that setting voluntary goals for industry is totally inadequate. Want to read it? Go here: Here

8:20am: Write a blog

Schedules have begun to define who we are, what we do, and how we do it. Millions carry around day timers, black berries, PDA's, laptops, all synchronized to a global clock so that we are never late, never early, right on schedule, never behind.

Our lives have gone from being defined in years, to months, to weeks, to days, to hours, to minutes and now...to the very second. We control every aspect of our daily life with a schedule. The television schedule sets out when we will eat, and during what shows. The work schedule of meetings, conferences, deadlines and overtime tell us how the majority of our days will be spent.

Instead of fighting against the schedule, we conform to it. We allow ourselves to be told how our day will progress. The concept of simply blowing in the wind is being lost, we cant' stop to smell the roses unless it is on the itinerary in our blackberry.

It has gotten to the point where women will schedule C-sections not for health concerns, but to make sure it conforms to a schedule. The birth of life itself is now scheduled to meet our demands.

Schedules are a man made invention, and in many ways they are the chains that hold us down. Deadlines keep us working when we don't want to, meetings have us listening to information about TPS Reports when more important things are going on in the world.

Throw away the schedule, smash the blackberry. Free yourself from the constraints of a manufactured society selling you the image of a Utopia made up of hard work, time management, and life long service.

The only schedule we need to be concerned with the global one. 10 Years to our deadline....don't forget.

Unwelcome Angels?

In the first decade of the 21^st century, Edmonton is enjoying a financial boom unlike anything the province has ever seen in its 101-year history. As the wealth pours into the city, more and more people are moving here looking to cash in and get their peace of the oil bonanza pie, causing the population, as a result to boom. In most ways, this is great for a city; more citizens mean more tax revenues, which in turn go back into the infrastructure. Charities benefit, roads are repaired quicker, transit is more efficient, and the city enjoys a collective prosperity, except for one nagging problem; crime. Crime comes with the population boom, the more citizens who come here for a better life, the more who are lost in the shuffle, fading into the underworld of crime and violence.

The crime rate of Edmonton in the last census year was 10,669 per 100,000 populations, ranking them 6^th in the country. The crime rate was higher than Calgary, a city of similar size, as well as that of Toronto, which has over three times the population. Some other cities that Edmonton has a higher crime rate than include Victoria, Montreal, London, Windsor, Hamilton, Ottawa and Quebec.

I have lived inside Edmonton since 2004, and I happen to reside in one of the higher scale neighborhoods of the city where many players from the Edmonton Oilers also live, but violent crime has reached even that part of the city. In late 2005, a man was shot twice in the head only two blocks from my apartment. It has become painfully clear that crime was becoming a major problem in the city.

Citizens of Edmonton are fed up, gang violence has become a serious problem, assaults and arson have become forefront on the news and the murder rate has skyrocketed by 30 percent to an all time high. While the police are involved in photo radar scandals and illegal sting operations, a group has quietly been looking at Edmonton for its next Canadian chapter.

The Guardian Angels is a group founded in New York by Curtis Sliwa in 1979, currently they operate in the United States, Canada, Europe, South Africa, Brazil, Japan, The Philippines, and New Zealand. They are well known for their outfit of red berets and red jackets with the Guardian Angel logo of an eye inside a shield with wings. They have stated that their goal is to solve community problems through getting citizens involved in their community. Crimes are usually not committed in their presence and they have proven to be a deterrent in many of the cities that they operate. As a result, they are usually welcomed by the people of a city as an alternative to the police in reducing crime and making the streets safer. Some officials also feel they are a good influence; Rudolph Giuliani is one of the group’s biggest supporters, as well as Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. However, in England and Canada they are not quite as welcomed by city officials.

Therefore, this brings us to the situation that faced Edmonton yesterday when it was announced that the Guardian Angels would be looking into setting up a chapter in the city, making it the second city, after Toronto to have one. The news was full of pictures of citizens shaking their hands and welcoming them into the area, glad to have at least some resemblance of order returning to their crime-ravaged communities. While this may seem like a welcome addition for the police in their efforts, the reception in Edmonton from the Police and City Hall has been, well, cool. Both the Police Chief and Mayor Mandel have stated they do not want the Guardian Angels operating in the city and do not need them there. This is in far contrast to the south, where in Calgary, the Angels are meeting with City Hall in a friendly atmosphere where they Angels are very welcome to join the city.

Why would the Guardian Angels, whose only purpose is to deter crime by performing legal citizen arrests, along with their presence actually making criminals’ move on, be unwelcome in the so-called City of Champions? Would it not make sense that the police would make use of any means of outside help that they could?

The police here have called the Guardian Angels, ‘vigilantes’. They state that they do not want people running around the city with a superhero complex, stopping crime and putting themselves in danger. I do understand the police wanting to make sure that people are not running amok in the city fighting criminals and most likely, in most cases ending up dead or very near to it. However, the Guardian Angels do not let you join without training you in a variety of self-defense techniques aimed to ensure your safety on the street. The Guardian Angels are also not going around killing criminals or arresting criminals after the fact. Instead, they catch them in the act and perform the citizen arrest at that point. Therefore, identifying them as vigilantes would be grossly incorrect; a more accurate interpretation would be to call them ‘caring citizens’.

I think more than anything, this cool reception from Edmonton Officials comes from one insecure aspect of the police force. They do not want to look bad. What kind of message does it send about the police force when unarmed individuals wearing red berets can deter crime without the need for sirens, assault gear, or weapons of any kind? Before long, people will start asking why the police have such a hard time with crime and the Guardian Angels do not. The last thing any Police Chief wants is to have the police look bad in the face of the public, all because a group of individuals happens to garner more praise for their crime fighting techniques than those who are paid to actually do it.

Do not get me wrong, I think the police do as much as they can with the tools at their disposal, and they do help keep the city safe. I have a great deal of respect for the police force; they are putting their lives on the line every day to keep us safe. Sure, there are bad apples, and yes they do not catch all the criminals but in most cases, they do their best. The question has to be asked though, with the money they are getting, the training they have, with crime still occurring in the city and in some cases rising, couldn’t they use just a little bit of help?

I welcome the Guardian Angels, because not only do they make the commitment to help the community but also because they show me that through it all, the human race may not be as selfish as I once thought.

Easter, Pitcairn, and Henderson Island: A lesson to us all

In the south pacific, there are three very remote Islands called Pitcairn, Henderson and Easter Island. Now, we all know the story of Easter Island and it's large heads that circle all around the island, but few actually know about the history of Easter Island and the others, as well as the important lesson they can teach us.

There was a time, when humans first arrived at these islands between A.D. 900 and A.D. 1200, when the islands were plentiful with food and trees. The environments were pristine and resources were plentiful (For the most part, Henderson Island was not a total paradise and quite small). Much in the same way Earth was, before humans decided to leave their footprint all over the planet.

As time went on for these Islands, the inhabitants multiplied under the chiefdom hierachy, things were relatively peaceful, and trade was active. However, as time went on, the trees became fewer and fewer, the animals, one by one fell to extinction because of habitat destruction and overhunting. Before long, what was once pristine paradises, had now become wastelands devoid of animals, or trees.

It was around this time that the islands began to fall into civil war, as factions fought against each other (In the case of the smaller islands, wars were fought over a 5 square km island), for control of the island and its now, scarce resources. Civil War raged, starvation set in and the inhabitants turned to the only type of food left on the island, humans. Canabalism was rampant and these ideal islands and societies become a nightmare of murder, war, death and savagery. By the time Europeans came along, Pitcairn and Henderson were empty, and Easter Island had only 1000 people left.

What lesson does this teach us? Well, we are all on this island called Earth. Just as those inhabitants were too remote to leave the island (especially cutting down all the trees), we too are remote with no where to go but this rock. We too are destroying our habitat, cutting down our trees and one by one, turning species towards extinction. With the inevtable hit of Peak Oil, and the resulting crash in oil supplies, we too can look forward to our world falling into war over oil, water, food, and resources. Our populations will crash, and our eden will turn to a wasteland for the starving and dying.

I know it seems a bit overblown to say all this, but I wish it was not true. Oil is going to be running out, current estimates put it at 2050 when it happens. Now, we already have the USA fighting in Iraq for Oil, what happens when it all bottoms out? Think they won't have their eyes on Canada? or Alberta? They have a hundred million cars there, they will want oil to use them. What about if the Gulf Stream shuts down and Europe is pushed into a deep freeze? Think people won't fight each other to get the few remaining supplies available for them? As hurricanes destroy the southeastern USA, think the people farther north won't fight for the resources no longer coming from that region?

If nothing is done, we will remember this time as the time of plenty, unless something is done, we can look forward to a future filled with hardship, war, starvation, and death. Unless something is done now, our descendants will curse our names.

It is not too late.......yet.

Alberta Climate Outlook

Waking up this morning, the first thing I do is grab my paper and look at the front page, and what big bold letters meet my eyes?

"LONG RANGE FORCAST: HOT AND DRY"

What was it talking about? Well, apparently by 2050 Alberta's climate is going to much more dry and hot. As a result of climate change, the warmer weather from down south will slowly move up towards us, drastically altering the eco-system. With the warmer weather, many species will be lost and other species that we don't want from warmer climates, insects, spiders, snakes; will all come up here, introducing foriegn invaders to our delicate system.

Many people will say "Oh, Warmer weather? I don't mind that". Well, farmers do. Warmer and Drier means that crops will fail, and the breadbasket of Alberta and Saskatchewan will fail. Look forward to paying more for food like bread, beer, and cereal.

Along with this, I heard recently that polar bears have now been added to the Red List. The Red List is meant for species who are on the decline and without help, will be lost.

Along with that, does everyone know what the Gulf Stream is? Well, it is a nice current that brings warm water from The Gulf Coast and takes it up to Europe and gives places like London the mild weather they enjoy. Well, since 1992 it has slowed by 30% and if it fails, London will stop feeling like New York and will start feeling like Anchorage, Alaska.

Just something else to think about as the world's climate begins to bitch slap us.

Anyone care to join me in my protest on Aug 26 2006? still looking for volunteers and people to launch protests in their own cities...

The Renegade.

No More Soda

In a move that Canadian schools should adopt, the United States has decided to stop having soft drinks sold in schools.

In their place will be Diet drinks (just as bad if you count asparteme, which gives tumors to mice), Fruit drinks, and bottled water.

The beverage companies decided to remove thier products from schools because of the sky rocketing obesity rate among children who are more likely to eat chips and a pop for lunch than a meal they (or parents) have prepared at home.

Canadian schools should adopt this policy, soft drinks in moderation are fine but teenagers and children rarely do anything in moderation. In high school I have seen people down a 2 L pop in the course of a day, thats only about 48 tablespoons of sugar rushing into the blood stream and bringing on diabetes.

Are you listening Canada?....perhaps this is a case where you should follow the United States example.

The Renegade.

Federal Budget

Well, the federal budget was released yesterday and contrary to what some people think... Parts of this budget are not to bad, and in many ways better than the previous budgets I have looked at in past years.

However, it is not all good and we must always remember that politicians are adept at the slight of hand. While they throw tax cuts at you with one hand, they distract you from the other hand...the best analogy is from The Wizard of Oz....pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...here is a tax cut!

I am happy about them putting more money into the military and the police service, so it is not all bad.

So, the highlights of the budget.

1. GST is cut by 1%. On average this will save a family making 30 grand a year $145 dollars a year. This is mostly face value, and an attempt to make people think hey are saving money. They save money but it is minor. Remember, the government is losing a bunch of cash by doing this...its just gonna come from somewhere else now.

2. Child Care Allowance. $100 for every child every month. Now I don't doubt for a second that this will help families. So if you have 2 kids than you get $200.00 every month for them, and i know that will help but I feel more could have been done. As well, there is a catch. This is taxable, so the families will not get the whole $1200 a year, it depends on how much is made by the parents. You also only get the money if your kid is under 6 years old.

3. Scrapped 5.1 billion for aboriginal. A plan that would give housing, health care and education to aboriginal has been entirely scrapped by the government. Amnesty International has criticized Canada for its treatment of aboriginal, this only furthers their claim.

4. Environment Initiatives scrapped. Even with the tax credit on transit passes, the biggest cuts in the budget seem to come from anything and everything related to the environment. This is by far the most troubling aspect of the budget and the reason why I am trying to organize a protest on August 26th

5. Post secondary education. This has suffered as well with large cuts coming to it, it has been glossed over with the Torie promise to give tax breaks each year for students on their books, amounting to about 80 dollars each.

Every budget has problems and not everything can be funded, I know this. However, the government budget could use improvement.

contrary to what some people who comment here think, just because I criticized their transit pass plan, it does not mean I criticize the government as a whole. I agree with many points of this budget and commend the government for coming through on it's promises. I just urge people not to be blinded by the magic show, and make sure to pay attention to the man behind the curtain....

Transit Tax Credit

The Federal government is about to release its budget today (look for a blog about it later) and one of the initiatives they are highlighting is a tax credit for public transit.

On the surface this seems like a great idea, something to get people out of their cars and into transit, but under the surface it is very different.

This tax credit amounts to about $16.00 per month to an individual who buys a bus pass, so instead of paying $60 for month pass, we pay $46. That is about it for the credit, that is what it underlines and what it does.

Something tells me that someone driving a car to work and everywhere else isn't going to stop and say "Hey, I love my car but I can save $16.00 on a bus pass and take public transit", why won't this person say that? Because the transit initiative does nothing to improve public transit.

What the Tories need to concentrate on is improving the transit system of Canadian cities, before they start cutting how much we pay on bus passes. In many cases, the transit system is at capacity and in dire need of improvement. Nobody is going to stop driving their car where they sit in comfort, to jam themselves into a bus or train to go to work.

The entire tax break will cost 2 billion dollars, but here is the kicker: 1 billion dollars of the cost is coming from the climate fund the Liberals set up for emissions-reductions projects. So we are taking the money from a fund that would serve a much better purpose to combat climate change, and instead putting it into something that looks good on paper but in fact does very little to fight climate change.

Whats the point in increasing the amount of people waiting at a bus stop, when the bus isn't going to come any more frequent?

Climate Change Day

As many of us know, climate change is becoming a serious problem, with every passing year the threat and evidence of it become clearer and clearer. In 2005 alone, we recorded the hottest year on record, more powerful and plentiful hurricanes since we began recording them and a record loss of glaciers and arctic/Antarctic ice.

While these problems and their consequences become clearer and clearer, our governments as usual have done little to combat or even acknowledge them.

Since coming to power, Stephen Harper has done the following, in regards to climate change

· Stated that he will find a way for us to get out of Kyoto, even though we are bound to it by International Law

· Canceling the one-tonne challenge

· He has cut funding to a wide variety of environmental groups contracted to urge people to practice a cleaner lifestyle to help the environment.

· Pulled funding on wind power

· Scrapped the 260 million the Liberals promised to give the UN to fight climate change.

· Put us into a climate pact with the six worst polluters in the world, where the conditions are all voluntary and nothing is required for cutting greenhouse gases

They have stated that they want a plan that reduces greenhouse gases over the course of many decades, not in seven years as the Kyoto Accord dictates. Unfortunately, we do not have that kind of time.

Studies have shown that polar ice will be gone as early as 2025 or as late as 2060, with the loss of the ice, we will lose one of our Canadian symbols; the polar bear. What is troublesome is that no one cares. Everyday as I walk home I see hundreds of cars going by with one occupant, spewing out harmful toxins that destroy our ozone (there was an 8% loss of it over Canada this year alone), pollute our air, and warm our Earth.

The Harper government has to be pressured to take a stand on climate change, to not give in to big business, who care more about financial gain, than the state of the world we will leave to our children and our grand children.

Do you want to have to explain to your grandchildren what a polar bear was? Do you want to explain to them why we let our world’s environment become a mess and why we let our paradise become lost?

I know I do not.

The line in the sand has to be drawn now, our government won’t be the ones to do it, so it is up to us as citizens to make the change.

This is what I propose, we protest, all together, collectively as one Canadian voice on August 26 2006. In every city, town, province and territory, we raise our voice so that the government can hear. We have rallies, marches, and make our voice heard so that the government will have no choice but to listen to us.

As ordinary citizens we forget that the true power lies not with the government, but with us. We dictate the direction of our country, we dictate what we want Canada to be, and how we want the rest of the world to view us.

So please, help me organize a Climate Change Day on August 26 2006. With rallies, events, marches, and protests we can really change things and hopefully save the environment from the Stephen Harper.

If you are interested in assisting me, both through ideas and volunteering please contact me at:

renfunk@gmail.com

I would like to get a nationwide event organized with media coverage.

We have the power to change the world; we just have not realized it yet.

Sincerely,

Craig Baird.

Edmonton, Alberta

renfunk@gmail.com

cwbaird@spartsolutions.com

Unknown Genocide

While we sit on our couches worrying about who will be voted off the island, or who will make it to the next round of American Idol, a region of Sudan called Darfur has turned to hell on Earth.

In the Darfur Region, years of fighting between ethnic groups and Arab militias in western Sudan have left at least 180,000 people dead and about 2 million homeless. Men, women, and children, entire families have been slaughtered in the fighting and nobody has done much to stop it.

A cease fire was reached in 2003, but the fighting continued. Many have died from starvation and disease, as well as the murdering, raping, and simple genocide.

UN intervention is not entirely likely as the key members of the security council struggle to do up a plan they can all agree on, to tackle the situation.

While they debate foriegn policy, thousands die...

I thought I would put this in your mind, so the next time you sit watching Survivor, American Idol, or any other show where over paid losers pretend that they matter, you can think about what truly matters, and what is truly important.

It's sad that more people care about who the next American Idol is, than how many die half a world away.

The Renegade.

Waiting till the last moment....

It's the Canadian/American Way, waiting to the last moment, getting things done at crunch time, procrastinating to the point where you are down the wire, no time left, sweating bullets and swearing you will never do it again...

But you do.

Waiting to the last moment is never more prominant than April 3oth of each year, or in this case May 1st. Today is the last day to do your taxes, and much as we saw on April 15th in the US, people today will be clamoring to the post office, lining up at H&R block, and sweating bullets to get their tax return out on time, or risk facing a penatly (if you owe money, if they owe you money than they don't give a crap)

We have months to get our taxes done (granted sometimes our T4's come late), yet every year you see people lining up at the post office to get everything out on time. Stressing themselves out and causing severe damage to their stomach lining. All because of procrastination. All it takes is doing your taxes a few weeks before hand and you can be like me, watching everyone freak out at the post office, and it can be quite funny at times.

Now, I am not innocent in this. During High School, I used to get my homework done on the school bus, writing it over the bumps and shaking, hoping to have it done. I hated it, the stress, the agitation, the worry...I decided "who needs it?" and decided at one point to have everything done long before it needed to be. It was a great decision.

I still had to do the work but I was no longer under the gun to get it completed, I could go at my own pace, relaxed. Even with that, I was finished long before others (essays, week long homework, etc..) and would greatly enjoy watching them stress away at the last moment, hoping the book they needed was in, or that there would be enough time to get all their sources cited, etc..

I moved this into my working life, I don't quite operate with deadlines in my line of work, but they have existed. I will set my deadlines and make sure I am finished long before they come, that way I can deal with unforseen circumstances and relax knowing I have everything done, long before it is due.

We should all take this approach. Yes, pushing your work ahead gives you monetary gain at first, allowing you to relax and do what you want, but that runs out and eventually you have to buckle down to finish. As humans, we never do. Pushing and pushing farther and farther ahead until we are back against the wall and ready to freak from the stress.

All this ties in with a blog I did a few weeks ago about taking the slow approach. If you take the slow approach, you will get what you needed done, on time, and done well. My parents always used to pound into my head the concept of "DIRFT" Do It Right the First Time. By tackling things early, slowing down, and really taking the time you need, you can ensure everything is done right the first time.

The Renegade.

Softwood Dispute Over

After five years of legal wrangling, the softwood lumber dispute has been resolved. For those who don't know about the softwood lumber dispute, first read a paper once in awhile, and second, here is a quick rundown.

The heart of the dispute is the claim that the Canadian lumber industry is unfairly subsidized by the federal and provincial governments. Specifically, most timber in Canada is owned by provincial governments. The price charged to harvest the timber (the "stumpage fee") is set administratively rather than through a competitive auction, as is often the practice in the United States. The United States claims that the provision of government timber at below market prices constitutes an unfair subsidy.

So, they setup tariffs on all Canadian softwood lumber going through the border in 2001. This was a disaster for many lumber companies in Canada as they saw, in some cases, their profits cut in half. Canada appealed the decision, NAFTA and The World Trade Organization all sided with Canada (although the WTO changed its decision after the USA pressured it). The USA constantly refused to pay back the money from the tariffs and we have been stuck in a stale mate, until now.

Yesterday, Harper announced that the dispute was over. He made a point of emphasizing that the United States had agreed to give back 4 of the 5 billion it took in illegal tariffs. This did not make sense to many Canadians, including me. The USA essentially stole five billion dollars from us and in true Canadian fashion we forgave them and only asked for 80% of it back.

Another point of the deal is that the United States will not impose tariffs at "Current Prices". However, if prices go down then Canada has to pay a "tax" to help out the Americans.

All in all, we accomplished nothing and come out worse off than we were five years ago.

This is like someone robbing your house and the judge saying "Okay, the theif has to give back 80% of what he stole, but he can keep the rest. Also, if the value of your goods goes down then you have to compensate the theif because the market value of the goods is not what they were when he stole them"

Chalk this one up to another great move by Harper and his farce of a government.

Canada Health Report

Canada's Health Report Card is in, and there is good and bad news.

First, more Canadians than ever are stopping smoking. Its links to many various diseases including cancer has much to do with it. Along with this, Canadians are less likely to die of heart disease than before, and we are projected to live a few years longer as our average life expectancy has risen.

But it is not all good.

Obesity as usual is skyrocketing and the figures show that 1 out of 2 people are overweight or obese. With this rise comes risk from liver problems, joint problems, heart problems, and diabetes.

I think it is appropriate that this report came along during "Turn off TV" week. Too many people sit in front of the television watching it, instead of going out to walk, practice sports, work out, or simply spend time outdoors. It has causes families to not eat at the table and instead stare at the TV while they shovel unhealthy food into their mouths.

Obesity isn't a like most diseases, it is treatable and totally within the individuals ability to lose weight, the effort just has to be made. There in lies the problem, our quick fix-one hour photo-instant oatmeal society doesn't want the long drawn out solution of exercise and proper diet and losing weight over a year. They choose instead to staple their stomachs because the results happen faster, never mind the health effects. Same goes for liposuction.

It takes time, but simply excercising every day can yield great results...just be patient.

The Renegade.

Kill your weeds and get cancer

In true Canadian fashion, we continue to use products that are banned elsewhere and in no way are good for our health.

The most common weed killer in Canada, called 2,4-D has been linked to cancer. While many towns and cities and the entire province of Quebec have banned the use of this weed killer, efforts to ban it at the federal level have always failed.

The Canadian Government has put the results under review and will assess whether they the product should be banned or if there is not as much of a danger to individuals and the research by SCIENTISTS and DOCTORS suggests.

Don't worry, politicians know everything and only have our best interest at heart.

Made in Canada Solution?

While the Harper government is telling Canadians that they won't support the Kyoto Accord and instead are looking for a Made in Canada solution, they decided to do something completely different.

Apparently, according to the Harper Government, "Made In Canada Solution" actually means "Joining a United States plan that doesn't fight climate change at all"

Instead of going with the Kyoto Accord, they have decided to join a six nation pact that does not believe in setting targets to cut greenhouse gases. This is good because as everyone knows, greenhouse gases have absolutely nothing to do with the greenhouse effect aka Global Warming. The group consists of United States, Australia, Japan, China, India and South Korea. These six nations also happen to be the worst polluters in the world and for some reason don't want the Kyoto Accord.

This agreement between the six nations (and now Canada) only sets voluntary goals, so in other words, nations are not required to meet the goals at all. This means that the entire pact is meaningless because your going with the honor system and we all know that when it comes to government, there is no honor.

Luckily though, Martin signed us into the Kyoto Accord and as a result it is illegal for us to try and get out of it. The Harper government is of course trying to find ways around it but like it or not, we are in the Kyoto Accord.

Don't let this make you think we will meet the targets though, Canada has already stated it has no intentions of doing so.

Once again the Harper government sells out our futures for money now, enjoy the planet as it is people because Harper is making sure its a pile of garbage by the time he is dead and we are in our old age.

We need to have a protest...any ideas?

TV Turnoff Week

This week is TV Turnoff week, and we are all being urged to turn the television off and instead invest our time in other activities that prove more fruitful, usefull, and healthy.

With the exception of the Oilers playoff games, I will do the same.

What makes television so bad though? Why do we need to actually set a week aside and ask people not to watch it? Personally, television is the holy shrine of laziness. Everyday, millions upon millions sit in front of the holy tv screen and listen to everything that it tells them. They laugh when they are told to by the laugh track, they feel sadness when the music dictates, and they believe everything that the empty anchors on the news tell them.

What about your brain? Well, think of your mind like a muscle, the most important one. With all your other muscles, if you don't excercise them they turn to mush, you get fat, and sweat while you eat. The brain is no different, if you spend all your time staring at the television, never exercising it; it turns to mush. Reading, puzzles, writing, drawing, anything that puts your mind to work is good. Reading allows you to create the book as you see it in your mind, you want the main character to look like you, that is the way you see it then. Television does not allow that, they show you what they want you to see, imagination has nothing to do with it. Not excercising the brain slowly turns you from a finely tuned healthy machine, into a lazy, fat, person with no thoughts of your own.

The sun is shining, it is spring, the air is sweet. Instead of staring at the television as it dictates life to you go outside, read, relax, hike, jog, do anything other than television. Be an example to your children, show them that television is not that important, don't let it be a babysitter. Teach your kids to use their imagination, be creative.

Watching television is not totally bad, there are many great shows on it, shows that can change the world. Just don't over do it.

As for me, I am goign to be reading and writing on my deck, and watching the Oilers, but that is it.

The Renegade.

No to Half Mast

As everyone knows, four soldiers died in Afghanistan this weekend, and in typical fashion the Harper government displayed total lack of class by not lowering the flags of parliament hill to half mast.

Whether an individual wants to do it, is up to them. However, the federal government, I feel has a duty to honor individuals who give their lives for their country. Yes, the Harper government said that they have a policy of honoring soldiers on November 11th and that it includes those who died during the year. That is fine, but what effort does it take to simply honor those killed on the day they die? I am not saying we should have a week of mourning or anything, but lowering the flag to half mast on the fateful day shows class, respect, and thanks to the soldiers who died.

Harper and his government are going around the country explaining why Canada needs to fight in Afghanistan, and why we can't pull out. I will not go into my view regarding this, but if the Harper government is trying to sell the message of a War in Afghanistan as something Canada has to do, not lowering the flags slaps in the face of all the people you are trying to convince.

It is a small gesture, that takes no time, it should have been made.

The Renegade.

Supplement to Five Point Plan

I decided to put this as a blog of it's own as it is better for people to see it right away, rather than as a comment somewhere.

Maggie wrote this.

"ok, this may not fall under the same lines as this blog, but since we're talking about pollutants here, i have to share some valid information. those i care about need to know how to be safe and continue to be healthy.

i've been working at a freight company for just over a week now, these containers come from Asia, mostly China. it only took three days for me to develop a severe pleghmy cough (is phlegmy a word?) and break out in teenage-style zits. BIG ZITS! :s
we, at work, call it "yellow-dust", please excuse me for the obvious negative connotation, but we all apparently suffer from it, regardless of what we call it. all these goods that we unload and repack are sent all over Canada. just be aware that if you buy something from a store ANYWHERE, that it most likely came from the far east, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, The Phillipines, Korea... etc. then the goods sit in the container for five weeks while being shipped across the Pacific Ocean. then they sit at docks like ours til we get to them to unload and divert to various points across this fair country. they are dirty, dusty and musty, sometimes carrying moulds and mildews, and in most cases, have had ample opportunity to have been personally handled by at least 80 people.
don't be afraid, just be aware.
just please, everyone, remember to clean things when you get them.

"new" does not mean "sterile"!!!!
especially if you have children, take extra precautions to clean and sanitize ANY and ALL new articles that you purchase.

~Maggie~"

Makes you think...

The Renegade

Five Point Plan for Saving Earth

How wonderful is it to be Canadian, thought we led the world in environmental awareness and that the United States was the worse of the bunch? Think Again. Here are five points where we need to save the Earth and why we fail. These points are from an article in the Edmonton Journal Saturday Edition

1. Ban Poisonous pollutants - these are already on their way out in the United States and Europe and contain nice sounding names like brominated flame retardants, phthalates, and perflourinated chemicals. Canada has not banned these at all and all of these items are still found in household poducts, childrens toys, and medical equipment
2. Announce a national mercury-pollution-reduction program. Mercury is a toxic that can severaly effect the brain and is very dangerous to children. This is already on the way out in the United States, not Canada.
3. Ensure the announcement of an action plan to prevent pollution on Sept 14, 2006, a very significant day in Canadian Environmental Policy. It is the deadline for completing the categorization of 23,000 pollutants in use in the commerce of Canada. Canada is most likely going to announce a 5 year extension to these, even though they had 5 years already to do it
4. Announce a renewed priority for Great Lakes protection, beginning with a commitment to work with the US on improving the Great Lakes Water. George Bush and the US State Governments have spent billions on Great Lakes clean up, and Canada...nearly nothing
5. Table a Clean Air Act to institute real national smog standards and a timetable for smog cleanup.
   

Canada has fallen so far behind the rest of the world that many of our sofas, cosmetics, and children's toys are caked in pollutants that are illegal in the rest of the world.

Something has to be done...

Polar Bears Extinct in 25 Years

I read an article in the paper today that said polar bears would be extinct in 25 years. Before the time most of the people who read this blog reach 50, Polar Bears will be gone from the Earth except as attractions in zoos....but eventually those will die out too.

Polar bears used to give birth to triplets but that birth rate has fallen to 1 per polar bear and the weaning time has risen from 12 months to 18, along with a 15% reduction in polar bear cub wieght.

So, if you have the chance to travel to Churchill, Manitoba and see the polar bears, do it...cause they won't be here much longer...

...unless we do something..

Harper gets a letter

This week, 90 researchers with years and years of experience, drafted a letter to PM Harper urging him to combat climate change now, not later. These researchers have many degrees, have experience in the field studying the effects and probably every one are more intelligent than Harper and they all know exactly what they are talking about.

In their letter they highlighted:

1. There is clear evidence of climate change in Canada and around the world
2. There will be increasing impacts on Canada's ecosystems and socio-economic activities, including: more extreme weather, water shortages, insect infestations, forest fires, and major changes to the north
3. Advances in climate science have provided more evidence supporting the need for action
4. Canada needs a national climate-change strategy with continued investments in research to track the rate and nature of changes

So how does Harper, a man with no experience in climate science, deal with this? By doing the following:

1. Removing Canada from the Kyoto Accord, which is designed to combat climate change
2. Cutting 15 climate change programs saying they had run their course (really? then why is climate change still a problem?)
3. Cutting 80% of Environment Canada programs aimed at curbing global warming
4. Slashing climate change budgets in other government departments by 40%

I love how policiticians always assume that they are more intelligent than the scientists who try and warn them. But you know what they say about assuming, it makes an ass out of the leaders and destroys the world for U and Me

Earth Day

This sunday, Earth day will be here, to help raise awareness to everyone about the importance of our environment, the beauty of the planet, and why we need to protect it. Unfortunatly, no one will be caring.

Started in 1971, 35 years later very few people even know nor care about it and I can't really blame them.

Our Earth is on the brink of collapse, if nothing is done we will fall over the edge and begin the inevitable decline of countless species who became too populous and disrupted the balance...we will go exinct. Faced with this realization, we do the only thing our species can, we put aside one day to talk about it each year. Kind of like Christmas with being nice to your fellow humans, Earth Day is the one day out of the year you act nice to Earth. Drive a hummer every day of the year? Then walk on Earth Day. Sure you have put thousands of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere during the year, but at least you can look like you care about the environment on that one day.

The point I am making here is that we shouldn't resign ourselves to one day out of the year for Earth Day, we need a year, a decade, even a century. Call it the Earth Century and put all the values from Earth Day into it, then just maybe our great grandchildren can enjoy rain forests, large mammals, and fish from water that isn't caked in various chemicals that cause a wide assortment of cancers.

Earth Day is a wonderful idea, but it is not enough. Like the many stop gap solutions our government puts out there, it is far too little nearly too late. Like phasing out gas cars over the course of 50 years, or the Conservative proposal to take the Kyoto Accord goal of reduction by 2012 and instead push the end date to 2100. What the world needs now is extreme solutions. If we don't...then mother nature will show us just what kind of bitch she can be.

Think I am wrong? Look at New Orleans. That city has been shut down for nearly a year now...Mother Nature nearly destroyed that city in 6 hours. All she needs to do to fix us is shut down a few ocean currents, melt the ice caps and throw a few mega storms our way. We don't control nor own this planet...she does.

So, this weekend, you can celebrate Earth Day and pretend like you care about the environment because you put part of your Sunday to being green, or you can spend the next few decades with people like me and others like us, trying to save the world from ourselves.

The Renegade.

Gas Prices Shoot Up

All across Canada the price of gas has shot up to well over a dollar in many areas, and all across Canada people scream about the price, bitch about the oil companies, and then fill their car with gas.

No matter how much they bitch and complain, people simply bow down to the will of the Oil companies and fill up their cars with gas, and why? Because North America has become totally dependent upon its vehicles.

In Europe, the cities have been around for centuries, in some cases thousands of years, long before the car came along. Therefore, they were designed with the thought that people would walk where they needed to go, sure you still need to drive to certain places but all in all Europe was made for walking and that is just what they do, and these days we should be walking all over too.

In North America, it is different. Our cities for the most part came into being shortly before or after the invention of the automobile, so the cities have been designed not with walking in mind but driving. Suburbs are an invention of America, living on the outskirts of a city because you can drive into its interior with your car, suburbs are unknown in many areas of Europe. Many homes are near where they need to work or at least in walking distance.

All this brings us to our dependency on the automobile for our daily life. Many people have to have a car to get to work, shop and do many of their daily errands, it is simply a fact of their life. But does it have to be?

If you live in the city, you can get anywhere you need to by public transit, walking, or riding a bike. My car broke down in November and I have decided not to repair it until now (for my honeymoon) because I enjoy taking the bus. Driving my car I get to work and back to home in the space of 15 min, its nice, its quick but its aggravating. I get angry behind the wheel, bitch about paying high prices for gas and worry that I will get into an accident. Riding the bus to work takes 30 min, and back takes 45 min. It is longer but I lack the stress normally associated with driving. I do not worry about accidents, traffic jams or gas prices. I stand at my stop listening to mp3's and reading watching car after car go by with only one person in it, shaking my head at the idiocy of it.

Living in the country, you need a vehicle and I understand that, I grew up on a farm. So this blog is directed at people who live and work in a town or city.

Instead of bitching about gas prices, buy a bike. You can usually buy one for the price you pay in a month for gas. Ride to and from work, home, school, or stores. Its refreshing, faster than walking and great exercise. If you don't want to do that, then walk. Don't just walk to the corner to get your mail but walk everywhere. It takes longer but I find that the walk gives ample time to think and contemplate. Some of my best short stories have come from my mind while I am walking. On sunny, beautiful days it can be a truly rewarding experience, and again...its healthy. And if you still feel the need to ride in a vehicle, then take transit. I spend 60 dollars a month on a transit pass and it is good anytime for an entire month, unlimited rides. A fraction of the price you would pay at the pump.

So enjoy your walks, ride that bike, or take the bus, but cut your dependency on the vehicle. It is at the point where we no longer own our cars, they own us. Without them we feel lost, I know, I have been there. But soon enough you realize that having a car is nice, but its not a need it is a want, a luxury. You can get by without it.

The Renegade.

Working for the weekend

Back in the late 1700's Benjamin Franklin stated that because of the Industrial Revolution people would enjoy a 4 hour work week soon, that turned out to be far from the truth as many slaved away for upwards of 15 hours a DAY back then. Then around the late 19th Century people again started saying that we would enjoy a 4 hour work week, and again it was proven very wrong.

This trend continued from the 50's all the way to the 80's with "experts" saying that the work week would amount to only a few hours by the year 2000 and computers would take all the burden off of us, allowing us to enjoy life.

Way off...

In fact, computers the very thing that was supposed to free us is in fact holding us down even more. In a time gone by, once you left the office you were away from it, there was no way to check your messages or do work (minus a bit of paperwork) from home. However, now you can log into your work server to access emails and documents, cell phones allow you to be reached 24/7, emails come to you wherever you can access a computer, and Blackberry's make the situation even worse.

So, while we were supposed to have a 4 hour work week now, we instead have upwards of 50 hours to as much as 60 hours of work each week. Work has become everything for us and it drives everything for many people, all other schedules bow to the ultimate work schedule.

While work hours in a week have risen in North America since 1980, they have actually fallen in Europe. In fact, in France, the law won't allow anything over 35 hours of work a week. This allows many people to leave work at 3pm, and to enjoy 3 day weekends twice a month, not to mention some middle managers who enjoy NINE weeks of vacation time a year.

Why has North America gone the opposite way? Why are we driving ourselves to the brink of insanity? It has been proven that people who work more than 50 hours of work a week have a much higher chance of suffering a heart attack. This is not right, nor safe.

The France system isn't perfect, many laborers are unable to make what they used to because of the lack of overtime and stringent hour counting to comply with the law, but it is a small price to pay to enjoy life.

I am guilty of working in the off hours, or at least I was. I used to check my email constantly, not that I wanted to work but that I wanted to make sure the email server was working properly, I would check at least every 20 min at home to make sure it was all okay. Then one day a few weeks ago it didn't work and I felt my insides starting to feel pain, a few minutes later everything was working again. It was at that point I realized I would have never known about the problem if I simply came home and didn't think about work. So, from that point on I made the effort not to check email from home nor deal with work at all. It was suprisingly hard to do, but over a couple weeks I am at the point I will check the email ONCE when I get home and that is it.

I find myself to be calmer, and happier by doing this. Now I cut work off the minute it hits 3:15 and I leave. Work does not exist for me on evenings or weekends anymore, work gave me a cell phone in case people have problems in off hours, but I do not answer it. Months ago here I put in hours and hours and hours of overtime making an application for work, time I didn't get paid for (didn't ask to but still), so I have decided that if I am not being paid to do my job, I won't be doing it. I don't get paid to answer calls or emails on the evenings or weekends, therefore...while I am away from work I don't deal with it.

This isn't true for everyone, but make the effort to cut work off when you leave, don't let it seep into your personal life...take back your time.

The Renegade.

This thing called Life

While sitting here in my job that slowly drains my soul away to leave me as a shell of a man, I reflect on this thing called life and how, almost always it falls far short of the expectations we set out for it.

There is a rule I have, never go to a career day where children can ask you questions because it will inevitably go like this:

You: "Well I work, five days a week...I don't really like what I do...it isn't really what I wanted to do with my life, it just doesn't really make me happy"
Kid: "Then why do you do it?"

Now, a lot of us will look at kids as just immature rascals running around having fun before reality sets in and slowly beats them down the a shell of a person, but in reality they are quite intelligent and see the world in a way we should all see. Kids can be called naive for asking "Then why do you do it?", not thinking of things such as bills, taxes, food, rent, car payments, credit card payments, etc... but really, why do we do it? Why do we put ourselves through jobs we dislike, knowing it is not what we are meant to do?

Well, one good answer is to pay for all those things like bills, rent, etc...the more we buy or want, the more we have to work. So wouldn't the solution be to simply scale back? Don't want as much, don't own as much? In a great book I read years ago called "How I found freedom in an unfree world", it offers up an explanation for how to be happy without worrying about bills, car payments, insurance and such. Simply, don't have them. Hate having to pay so much for cable? Don't get it. Tired of car payments? Don't have one. I know things like rent and car payments may not work for everyone, but by simply living within your means, sacrificing things that chain you down and hold you in place, you will find yourself happier and able to pursue the things you want.

There is a lot of risk taking as well to do what you want with your life without having to sacrifice your years working in a cubicle for a boss who doesn't remember your name. In response to this, I remember a quote from Jerry Maguire. It is at the point where Jerry has written the memo that will cost him his job but ultimately free him, the clerk at the copy store says: "That's how you become great, man. Hang your balls out there!" and its true.

Putting your balls on the line, taking the risk and making the plunge can reap more rewards than you can imagine. It may bring about hard times, it may cause you stress and anxiety but in the end, through effort and hard work...you come out on top and better than before.

So what am I trying to say here?

Be happy, do what makes you happy, quit living the life you think your supposed to, think for yourself. Want to write children's books for a living? Then do it. Want to travel the world relying only on the kindness of strangers? People have done it, you can to. Follow your dreams, don't be one of those people who are in their 80s looking back on you didn't enjoy, a life that did not matter. Don't live for the weekend...make your life a weekend.

I am also reminded of an image from another great movie about a senior citizen, recently retired and realizing that his life has yielded very little. Its About Schmidt. Jack Nicholson is walking out of the building he just spent 40 years working in, and in the garbage collection area he sees all the boxes from his offfice. 40 years of work, toiling, and effort being thrown out with no regard...don't be that man.

Lastly, I give you a short story I read a long time ago that puts everything in perspective for me.

A man walks along the beach to work every morning, and every morning he sees another man sitting there drinking wine watching the sun rise over the sea. After many days of seeing the same thing the man stops and says "Every day I walk past here to see you sitting here drinking wine and looking at the sea, don't you have a job?" To which the man replies "You spend your life working towards a few weeks of vacation so you can sit on the beach and sip wine while the sun rises...me, I just come straight to the beach"

It may take sacrifice, but to truly enjoy life you have to see it in a different way, stop working for the holidays, make life a holiday.

311 costs 10 million

There is a proposal flying around Edmonton here to get rid of the blue pages in the phone book and replacement with a '311' phone number, because many people find the blue pages confusing and have trouble understanding categories, words, and other braindead things.

This 24/7 phone number is going to cost approx. 10 million dollars to implement. Now if you think that number is a bit high to justify doing this, well you would be right.

Other cities have tried this, including Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Calgary. In fact Calgary is in the process of implementing it and currently it is running way over budget, so Edmonton has that to look forward to.

Another question has to be raised, why do we need a 24/7 311 line anyways? Are people going to feel the need to find the number for the Department of Overspending and Screwing the Citizens at 3am on a Sunday?

I think what this comes down to, is people not being able to understand how a phone book works. There is nothing wrong with the blue pages and a few minutes of looking will yield results and save everyone a lot of money. I know it costs money to print the blue pages, but somehow it pales in comparision to 10 million dollars I think.

Here is to overspending by our noble and wonderful municipal, provincial, and federal governments.

The Renegade.

One Tonne Challenge Lost

To pursue their agenda of destroying the environment at all costs, the Conservative Government decided to immediately cut funding to The One Tonne Challenge, earlier this month. Along with the OTC, they cut funding to a wide variety of environmental groups contracted to urge people to practice a cleaner lifestyle to help the environment.

Why did they do this? Who knows, they will probably say something about costs and that they wanted their own initiative apart from the Liberals. Well I call bullcrap on all that. These are not huge organizations that cost millions for the government, they are small grassroots campaigns usually run by an individual or groups hard work, and their ultimate goal is to stop global warming, how is this bad?

Well obviously they did do it because of costs, and like I said above they will spout about how they are trying to save Canadians money. What a nice thing to do! But let me ask Harper this then, if your trying to save money for us....why did your party vote to give yourselves a raise just a couple days ago?..hmm odd... In fact, while the Tories are trying to save money by cutting the programs designed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, they won't cut government staff positions, so most of the money earmarked for climate change will be going to salaries for bureaucrats. BAM take that people! They fuck us with the environment and then pad their wallets.

Not stopping there, they are also going to pull funding on wind power and the 260 million the Liberals promised to give the UN to fight climate change. I don't know about you, but I would prefer it if our money went to the environment rather than our douche bag leaders. But hold on...isn't it our money? I mean we give it to the government off our paycheques...and I really don't want my money going to them so they can buy themselves another car to pollute our environment even more.

The Harper government has said on paper that they will try and tax big factories for the pollution they put out because apparently they are responsible for most of it, hence the reason for canceling the one tonne challenge which urged individuals to cut their pollution. Yet, last night on The Rick Mercer Report, Rona Ambrose said on camera that individuals were responsible for most of the pollution...if this is the case, whey did Harper cut funding to programs aimed at individual pollution and instead claim they would tax big industry?...I am confused.

If you thought Bush was bad....we aint seen nothing yet with Harper...

Slow Down...you move to fast...

We live in a culture of speed, every minute, every second we are on the go, trying to fit as much as we can into the smallest fraction of time possible. We have alarm clocks, PDA's, email reminders, and wake up calls all controlling what we do from when we get up to when we go to bed, how did it get like this?

Over the course of time, humanity has shrunk the sections of time from months, to days, to hours, to minutes and now...to seconds. Is this the way we should live?

Should we be racing back and forth, worrying about deadlines or how long we have to stand in line for a coffee? Life is hard enough, why make it harder by pushing ourselves to the brink. Think of the times you have gotten annoyed at someone moving slower than you, does it really matter if you get to work a few minutes later? Why not just slow down, take your time, you will feel better and trust me it does your body a world of good. What about when your standing in line somewhere? Do you get impatient? Why? The coffee or product will still be there when you get to the front of the line, sure it may take longer than you would like but thats the way it is sometimes. Getting mad only makes you look like an ass and annoys the people standing in line with you.

Another good example is the subway or C-Trains. In th morning they usually run with every 5 min, sit there and watch how many people cram themselves into one just to save 5 min? Usually the next one is empty because of that, if only a few people waited just a few more minutes for the next train they would free up room on the first train and make everyone much happier.

I take the bus, and there are times I get annoyed when my bus is late. Yesterday, my bus was 14 min late and caused me to miss my connection. Was I annoyed? No. Why? Because it happens. Instead of getting annoyed, I enjoyed a 25 min walk through a beautiful day to the mall where I bought a coffee. I got home a little later than usual, but the walk was healthy and refreshing and coffee is always good. So why should I get mad if the bus is a bit late? The way I see it, its affording me the opportunity to exercise a bit on a beautiful day.

Death is coming, whether we like it or not, so quit rushing yourself to that point. Stop, relax and enjoy the small things in life. We are moving so fast we don't see what is around us, while waiting in line, perhaps day dream, while waiting for the bus just enjoy the sounds of the birds and the heat of the sun.

Life is short, its sweet, enjoy it...slow down.

Dismantle Bombs or We Bomb You

Reports have begun to leak out of the United States that US President George W. Bush is prepared to use nuclear weapons against Iran if they do not halt their effort to build nuclear weapons. In a typical "You can't have what I have" attitude, the United States has reiterated the fact that the world isn't safe if Iran has weapons of mass destruction.

Let us back up here for a second.

First off, The World isn't safe if ANYONE has nuclear weapons, whether it be Iran, North Korea, England or the USA. The simple fact that the weapons exist on our planet means that we are all in danger, all the time. Accidents happen.

Back to Iran.

What sense does it make for the US to tell Iran they can't have a few nuclear weapons when the United States currently has over 10,000. I have a hard time believing that the United States is doing this to make sure the world is safe, dismantle all bombs and then make sure no one has them and the world will be safe.

I don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons, that would be a bad situation all over but the way I see it bombing someone with Nukes because they are making Nukes and you don't want that because you "want to keep the world safe" makes no sense to me. Personally, having a cowboy president with enough weapons to destroy the planet many times over scares me a lot more than Iran having a few nuclear weapons that can barely go a few hundred km.

Renegade Out.

Arctic Dispute

On most occasions I do not like nor agree with what Stephen Harper does, I find him to be hypocritical and just as bad as the Liberals he replaced, but there is something I commend him on. His effort to assert Canada's control over our arctic region.

As the ice melts because of global warming, in the coming decades the Northwest Passage will become a major shipping lane for the Northern Hemisphere. This is a bonanza for Canada but not without its disputes.

Many countries, notably the United States state that the Northwest Passage is not Canadian waters but International Waters and therefore, a country does not have to ask for permission to enter it. This is proven by the US putting submarines through the passage on a yearly basis without asking Canada's permission.

Along with the passage, there is the diamond mines, and suspected vast oil reserves that are believed to be in the arctic. Some have speculated there may be more oil there than in the Middle East. This is another cash cow for Canada but again, not without disputes. The United States and Russia both claim portions of the waters because of continental shelves extending from their territory, it does not matter to them that our actual land extends all the way up there, not the land under the water.

So to show countries like Finland, Russia, USA, and Denmark, that in fact the north belongs to us, the Arctic rangers completed a 2500 km trip around the arctic to show that we in fact do have a presence on those islands. It was only 50 people but it was a message to the rest of the world that we own these islands and the waters around them.

This is a good start but not nearly enough. We need ships up there patrolling constantly, large groups of rangers moving around the islands, and most importantly a message to the world to say that The Arctic belongs to Canada. It may not be a big deal to many people right now, but trust me, in the coming decades and in our lifetime it will become a major issue for our future governments. As the ice melts, Canada has the chance to either raise our world profile significantly with our passage and vast oil reserves in the north, or to become merely an onlooker as our north is carved up by other hungry countries.

Renegade Out.

Environment Minister wants out of Kyoto

Environmental Minister Rona Ambrose feels that the best thing Canadians can do right now for the environment is to leave the Kyoto Accord, which is a measure signed by many of the worlds industrial countries (minus the USA) to curb greenhouse gases.

Ms. Ambrose feels that the goals of reducing emisisons to pre 1990 levels by 2012 is unrealistic and we should be looking at over a period of 50 to 100 years instead.

Now this makes sense from an economical standpoint as the longer you take to do something, the less each year you have to pay to do it. However, from an environmental standpoint this is disaster. Waiting fifty to one hundred years to lower green house gasses to 1990 levels would have untold effects on the environment. We are only in 2006 and already the signs are there, warmer winters, less ice in the north, stronger and more frequent hurricanes.

Another flaw in this plan is that as we go through the years our emission levels tend to increase, so if we devise a plan to lower emission levels by 20% over 50 years, in that fifty years we have probably raised our emission by nearly the same, therefore we end up right where we started.

Ms. Ambrose is also quick to claim that the United States pulled out of the Kyoto Accord and it has a better track record to do with emission reduction than we do.

There are some glaring errors in this statement.
1. In 1990 the United States produced 5.7 billion tonnes of CO2
2. In 2005 the United States produced 6.8 billion tonnes of CO2
3. If they were part of the Kyoto Accord, they would have to lower their emission output by over 20% just to match the Kyoto Accords mandate of having pre-1990 levels by 2012

This does not seem like they have reduced their levels.

Another point that needs to be made is that Canada's emissions per year pale in comparision with that of the United States. In 1990 our emissions were 620 tonnes of CO2, in 2005 we are above 700 tonnes of CO2. The United States currently produces nearly 10 times as much CO2 as Canada in a year.

Ms. Ambrose has stated that the government is trying to put in measures to limit the emissions produce by big industry. Now, while this is a very good thing to be doing, a far more important task should be implementing restrictions for citizens as well.

While waiting for the bus, I watch the cars go by, as I watch I count how many cars have only 1 occupant in them. Every single time I do this, the overwhelming majority and I am talking 85-90% here, have only 1 person in the car. There is your big cause of greenhouse gases, laziness!

Perhaps implementing mandatory car pools at work, incentives to by hybrid vehicles, or pushing people to stop using big pieces of machinery to push their 150 pound bodies and bike where they need to go. Increasing funding to public transit would help as well and push people not to drive but take a collective community measure to lower emissions. Having people be energy conservative, ie. turning lights off when not in the room and encouraging them to choose environmental friendly and low emission household appliances.

Kyoto may not be the best solution we got but right now it is the only real global one. Even if we lower emissions to 1990 levels by 2012, well we have probably bought ourselves a few years or decades. Waiting to 2106 won't do, by that time there will be nothing left to save.

Renegade Out.

Every day matters

I was just reading the paper and saw an article about a man, 29 years old who has been diagnosed with terminal skin cancer. Doctors say he will be dead in just a few months, there is nothing they can do. The man has said its hard to deal with not knowing how his wife will be after he is gone, nor the loss of all the dreams he had for the future.

I found this hit home for me.

We believe that we have all the time in the world until it is too late, almost always. We never think that there might be a car around that corner about to hit us, or that we will wake up tomorrow with a cancerous mole on our skin...we assume that it only happens to others.

It really makes one remember, that no matter what happens at work, or the stress you feel about things around you, it doesn't matter. What matters is taking each day and making it matter, treating as if it was your last.

Life is more fragile than any of us realize, and too often people realize that too late, accepting that we will die makes life much sweeter. There is a buddhist story I heard once (I am sure some of you will recognize it), that I keep in my mind to always remind me how great life can be.

A man, fleeing a man-eating tiger, came to the edge of a cliff. The only way was down. He found a vine and climbed down it; but there, at the foot of the cliff, was a second man-eating tiger. Then he saw two mice, one black and one white (yin and yang) eating the vine in two above him. He knew, for sure that he was going to die. Just then he saw a strawberry growing on a branch, so he plucked it and ate it and It was the sweetest strawberry he ever tasted.

Why was it so sweet? Because he knew that it would be the last strawberry he would ever taste, knowing that he would die made that strawberry truly sweet. So each day you go through life, remember that one day you will die no matter what you do. Knowing that you will die, makes everything, including life much sweeter.

Renegade Out.

Alberta Boom

If you live in Alberta then you know all about it, we are booming with cash and the signs of our wealth are everywhere.

While riding home on the bus yesterday, I noticed that there are literally dozens of signs outside businesses advertising their desperate need for workers. All are paying as high as they can with full benefits because, well, there is NO ONE TO WORK HERE. All the people who can work already have jobs they like, or are making more than what these small businesses can offer.

Yes of course we have homeless, but in all honesty if they wanted to they could find a job here easy. I could quit my job right now and have three jobs by this afternoon, that is how crazy it is here for work. This is no exaggeration.

The question one has to ask though...will it last?

No.

Sorry, but it won't. This may go on for another year, decade, or until the day oil dries up in Alberta, but eventually it will end. Its the nature of any rush, look at all the gold rushes in history. For a time business boomed, people were rich but soon enough it dried up and all there is to show for it is a lot of ghost towns. Same for coal mines, mineral mines, and even diamond mines one day.

I don't think it will end soon, so all I can say is if you live elsewhere in Alberta then move here, if you live in Alberta then enjoy the ride! Oh...and looks like Albertans are getting free money again in January, just like this year when we got $400 each from the government.

Renegade Out.

Homeland Security Official Charged

Yesterday, an official working for Homeland Security in the United States was charged with trying to corrupt a minor.

Brian J. Doyle, who is a spokesman for Homeland Security is being charged with a total of 23 felony counts -- seven counts of use of a computer to seduce a child and 16 counts of transmission of harmful material to a minor after he was caught in a sting operation by the FBI. The apparent 14 year old girl he thought he was talking to was in fact an undercover FBI Officer.

Police said Doyle engaged in sexually explicit conversations online and sent pornographic movies to what he thought was a 14-year-old girl. In fact, when the FBI knocked on his door with an arrest warrant and a search warrant, he was in the middle of talking to the undercover FBI officer online. .

It is sad when an official who is in a department that is assigned to keeping America safe is in fact doing something that threatens the safety of a young girl.

In addition, he used the Internet to send "hard-core pornographic movie clips" to the girl, and used an America Online instant-messaging service to have explicit online conversations with a detective posing as the girl, they said. "Many of the conversations he initiated with the 'victim' are too extraordinary and graphic for public release," according to a statement from the sheriff's office. During a telephone conversation Tuesday, the "girl" told Doyle she had access to a Web camera and her mother would be out, making a date to meet him online.

This is a serious issue facing the young people of North America, the internet has led to an explosion of perverts trying to lure young children for their own disgusting purposes. What is a child supposed to do when members of the very government trying to protect them are in fact trying to lure them?

Renegade Out.

The Renegade Times

Well here we have it, the first post of The Renegade Times.

What is The Renegade Times?

Well it is a blog devoted to talking about current events, issues in our world, and the general state of things and perhaps how we can change things for the better. Simple as that.

Who am I?

Why, I am The Renegade. The Editor, Writer, and Maintainer of this blog. Away from the blog I am a writer who has a few short stories published, and has written two books. One of which is available to on www.lulu.com

Thats about all there is to say. I hope everyone likes the blog, comments and offers opinions on everything that bothers them.

Renegade Out.