Monday, June 30, 2008

Senate passes anti-spanking bill

Here we go again. Our government and why the senate and not the house of commons I don't know passes another law to prevent parents from spanking their kids. I don't advocate child abuse but we have gone over the limit in limiting the parents ability to parent. I don't know how many times I have been in a mall with my girls and there is some kid screaming it's head off and there is the mother trying to get the kid out of there without touching it because she is scared that someone will call the cops and report her for abuse. My oldest daughter turned to me and said, "We never acted like that when we were small, did we?" The answer was no and before you rant that I beat my kids when they were young, I didn't. My daughter laughed and said that I just had to give her the "look" and they behaved.

I think I only had to spank either one of my girls once and only one crack on the arse was more of a shock to their ego than a pain in the butt. After that the "look" was all it took but I never had to give it that often. They were well behaved kids that knew that they didn't behave like barnyard animals in public. If they wanted something they asked and if I said no then no amount of whining or temper would make a difference.

I remember watching a teacher at daycare "talking" to her daughter who was about 2 at the time. She was doing the frying bacon on the floor and howling because she didn't want to get dressed. Her mother kept saying, "I'm not talking to you if you act like that". Well what was she doing, talking to the kid and getting nowhere.

When I was a kid I got the belt from my dad and I deserved it. When I went to school I got the strap a few times and of course I didn't think I deserved it. Kids in school behaved because you know that the strap was there. At first in the class and later in the VP's office. Now the school is handing out the 1-800 number for abuse and don't dare touch the kids or the parents will sue them. And we wonder why little Johnny is in a gang, doing b&e's and drugs.

Discipline has gone down the drain and the kids are ruling the schools. Then they get out in real life and end up in jail and can't figure out why or spend their life whining about how unfair everything is. The education system is going down the toilet because the teachers can't teach because kids are swearing in their class at them and if they don't do their work they have to pass them anyway. Then you wonder why universities have remedial English and math for first year students because they can't put a full sentence together.

A snack on the butt when they are 2 will be a lesson learned that will last a lifetime. The government is in our life enough as it is. Tell them to mind their own business until they can show us that they have their own house in better order than ours.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

The Iphone in Canada

Apple has a nice product that either you love or hate. Just like Apple vs Microsoft. The Iphone is a great phone but a huge data hog. Of course Apple wants it that way so they can shovel all those adds to you while you are browsing or reading feeds or emails. Problem is that all that data on a mobile device costs big bucks. Now when Apple released the Iphone last year in the states they held a big stick over AT&T and "convinced" them to come up with a great data plan to go along with the Iphone. It was the only way that AT&T got the hardware as an exclusive.

One year later and the Iphone comes to Canada via Rogers. Now Rogers was never known for being generous to their users on their contracts for minutes or data. Everyone was waiting for the news on how much they were going to charge for the package and now the word is out. OUCH!!! 3 year contracts and 70 to 115 bucks for up to 2gb of data. Now Rogers says that it enough for over 1,000,000 text emails. Note the word text. most people get their emails in html format which take much more data. Also everyone knows that Apple is pushing the video capabilities of the Iphone so watching youtube and tv shows on the unit will gobble up data at a huge rate.

Needless to say the people in the know like at the Howard forums, http://www.howardforums.com/ are not surprised at the plans that have been announced.

The rest of the poor unsuspecting public that were waiting and drooling for the new phone are howling in anger. Articles on blogs like http://www.boygeniusreport.com/?p=4086 and web sites like http://www.ruinediphone.com/ are popping up all over and some like the above web site are targeting Steve Jobs for help with what they see is a raw deal to get his new product.

So much hype and with this product well deserved, but a hefty price to pay to get it.

Watch the interesting feeds on the right to keep up with the story or visit the Howard forums for all the latest news in cell phones, hardware and carriers.

Manny Maroun

If nothing else he is a sharp businessman. Right in the middle of the DRIC study to build a second bridge from Windsor to Detroit he comes out and tells everyone that he is going to twin the Ambassador Bridge that he owns. Who cares that there is a binational study going on that will decide the best place to put one. He just ups and starts digging up both ends of the bridge to expand the plazas. Gets the state government online to revamp the I75 and I96 ramps and all at breakneck speeds. I wonder how many friends he has in government, it seems lots. Unfortunately for him his best friend is the mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick. If you have not heard about Detroits famous mayor then you must be living under a rock.

Needless to say the politics are as thick and messy as can be on the Michigan side and he just ignores everyone over here and keeps building. His latest rant was if they build another bridge he will loose money. No shit sherlock. His real bitch is that they are going to build a bridge that he is neither going to own or control.

Just watch. he will spend all that money on the plazas and aproaches and when he doesn't get to build the twin span he will sue everyone on both sides of the border and accept the consolation prize of control and management of the new bridge for a 50 year lease.

New bridge for Windsor

For the last few years there has been an ongoing fight on where and how to put a second bridge from Windsor to Detroit. Politics has of course overruled all and the fight is getting down to the end game. The two sides are the city of Windsor with our mayor Eddie Francis at the helm and DRIC the binational study group that is looking at all options or so they say.

The Windsor proposal is called Greenlink and is about the access to the new bridge. They don't have any problems with the bridge itself just the access road through the city. They have a nice web site that shows there view on things.

http://www.greenlinkwindsor.com/

DRIC on the other hand has their site which tells their story.

http://www.partnershipborderstudy.com/

The long and the short of it is that Windsor wanted the access route tunnelled below ground with parks above. DRIC wanted a below grade road with no tunnelling. Of course there is more to it. Thousands of details that were nit picked over. Windsor hired some very good experts and comprimised with the Greenlink which would tunnel about 2/3rds of the route. DRIC responded with a new proposal which covered about 1/3rd

DRIC says that the Windsor proposal doesn't meet spec, costs too much and so forth. Windsor says that DRIC doesn't know shit about tunneling as they are using Ontario provincial transport engineers who have never tunneled anything in Ontario.

A huge pissing match that will come to no good end for sure. Add the multiple levels of politicians in the mix and the people of Windsor are now suffering battle fatigue and just want something built. I am sure that DRIC was counting on that and figure that they would just give up. Eddie has other ideas though and will not let it die. He has lots of support and may take them to court especially after they admited that they didn't look at the new Windsor plan as an option.

I am sure though in the end we will get screwed by our polititions especially at the provincial level. They don't give a shit about the people, just the bucks. Get it done and get it done cheap. That is their mantra.

The irony is that the whole thing started because of the traffic conjestion and increase in truck traffic. With both the American and Canadian economies headed to the toilet we won't need the new bridge for a while, sigh.

And then there is Manny Maroun, but that is another story.

First one

Well I thought I would give this blogging thing a try. I promise not to rant and rave too much but there is a lot out there to rant and rave about. I am not a political animal but we all have thoughts on what our elected representatives are doing or not doing for us. I will be touching on local and national items as they grate my nerves.

I am a big fan of new technologies but preach caution about adopting things too early as you are bound to get burned by paying too much or getting junk that is pushed on the market too soon. More about that later.

Don't look for sports news as I gave up on hockey when Ballard traded Dave Keon so that should tell you where I stand on the NHL. I think the best sport I have ever seen is Aussie rules football. TSN had it on years ago and of course cancelled it :-(

I'll try to post regularly but don't bother flaming me if I miss a day here or there.