The immediacy of the Internet

This just in at 09.33

"I must say Ben I did not put that there a friend posted that as a bithday joke as yesterday was my birthday ."
thank you
John Floyd

so there you are folks John is not looking for a cartoonist his friends are!

People will complain about anything

A Solar energy farm located on scrubby class 6 agrictultural land story here was the subject of a meeting in Baltimore recently. Those in opposition don't have much to complain about except the charge that their view of the countryside will be affected.  If that's the case people you go ahead and buy the land and then you can look at pristine, but agriculturally poor, land without the blight of passive solar collectors.

Meanwhile here's my whine of the day: the music in the Victoria Park bandshell in Cobourg should have a decibel limit placed on it. When you can hear the bandshell music as far away as Elgin St. don't you think that's a good indicator of "loud". This is one complaint of the Baystreeters that I agree with, oops that's wrong they only complain about ethnic music!!

If you want to win get serious

John Floyd is looking for a campaign cartoonist. apply within. This appeal appeared on Facebook yesterday.

As we all know John Floyd will be announcing his candidacy for the position of Mayor of Port Hope on the 25th at a BBQ at his house on Madison St.. This perennial candidate has tried before and lost, this time he feels it will be a better chance. But in order to do better he has to lose his image of gad-about populist angry guy and get serious. This facebook appeal may have been in jest but the last thing a serious candidate needs is a cartoonist. Try a good copywriter instead perhaps even an image-maker too.

This is bizarre

The Ontario PCs issued a press release and it was picked up by Northumberlandview.ca here. This release takes the McGuinty government to task for not making Lou Rinaldi a Cabinet member in the latest shuffle. First of all who are these faceless people in the PCs? Last time I looked the local PCs were floundering to find a candidate to run against Loo. Secondly since when does "Little Mike"  speak for constituents in NQW. Thirdly by nominating Loo to be Cabinet material is says bucket loads about the standards of a Hudak Cabinet, presumably Loo would be a key member if he was a PC!

The Ford saga continues

The old saw "There is no such thing as bad publicity" certainly holds true for the fat guy running for Mayor of Toronto. Rob Ford riding his one trick pony seems to be taking it down the road of success. The more outrageous his behaviour becomes the more his supporters howl in glee. Makes remarks about immigrants, shown to be a man with a faulty memory not being able to remember a conviction in Florida, but then he couldn't remember what he said at the maple Leaf gardens after an evening of lubrication. His record of self-abuse which leads to memory loss is working out well for him amongst the lads. White males love this guy. His one trait for electoral success appears to be one of the populist type. But we have been down this road before. Angry white males voted in grat numbers for that other person who "did what he said he was going to do". Unfortunately Mike Harris didn't do what he said he would do half of the time and still gained a reputation for doing it all. 

Frankly the BurdReport is appalled at a candidate who doesn't admit to his warts but in fact denies them. Having warts is OK but lying about them is not. Just remember the front runner of four months ago being hounded from the race when Adam Gianbrone, a single man admitted to having a bit on the side - he admitted it and was booted. What does the fat buffoon Ford have to do to get booted too? 

Fun on the Pier

A guest post from W Keeler - to view the pic click on it

Cobourg's waterfront was assaulted by outsiders Monday afternoon. The outside agitators came from the west, an unrelenting swarm of heavy breezes silting Corktown with fine sand dredged up earlier in the year. The outside agitators also stirred up some exhilarating head-banger waves to entice local teenagers to the bottom end of Division Street.  

Occasional waves exploded two or three stories into the air, drenching girls who perched themselves, like sweet little seagulls, on the steel railing that perimeters the pier. 

There were three boys and a girl in the frothing turbulence of the water, riding the surface currents of the waves. It was a wonderful display of mental alertness and physical strength and endurance of their prime-of-life bodies. The background ambience is Danger. Risky behaviour? Of course. How else does a human being test their abilities? 

 

The waves had a rough rhythm roughly learned by the teens, when they were climbing the ladder, the impact and withdrawal of a single wave ripped them off the rungs and pulled them back down in to the deep. One of the boys gripped the girl's arm to ensure her safety. She successfully made to the arms of a girlfriend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, everyone is safe and secure, drenched in a lifetime memories. They will eventually become responsible civilians, pass through two or three decades, and recall the sheer exhilaration if this day. One older woman admonished the teens, telling them the fine details of bashed heads, lungs full of water, etc. It reminded me of the words of Irving Layton in The Whole Bloody Bird: "It is cruel for the old to inflict their disillusioned wisdom on the young. Fortunately it is also impossible."    

 

 

 

 

 

 

Online gambling - what are the odds?

British Columbia has online gambling, it is outlawed in the USA and many rinky-dink nations have embraced it as a way to make money. Premier Dad has decided that Ontario should get into it later this year. After voicing concerns for many years he has come around to the position of his Lottery Czar – Paul Godfrey, who on his very fiirst  interview after being appointed, mused about getting into online gambling. So what will make online gamblers switch to the OLG? Nobody knows but as online gamblers have the world to choose from the odds on the OLG site better be more than average. This will be the norm – online offers to entice numbers to the site and better odds will keep them there, although the complexity of the games and the ability of the games to hold gamblers’ attention will be necessary.

The downside is that without investing heavily in programs for problem gamblers this will be a very risky and immoral venture. Once again a demonstration of greed before morality. Perhaps if the proceeds of this new venture were to be dedicated to health care or any other such government program rather than just being pumped into general revenue the public may be more accepting.

Legalise Pot, Not Gambling

Recently I watched some coverage of Proposition 19 , currently up for a vote in California. This innovative initiative is designed to raise tax revenue in that state, which is in imminent danger of not being able to run essential government services. Proponents want to legalise possession of small amounts of marijuana, setting up a system to collect taxes on its sale like they do on alcohol. They figure they can raise 1.4 billion a year doing it, and polls show 52% of Californians support it.

Watching the show my thoughts turned to our own Premier Dad announcing last week that online gambling, once disdained by him and his party, is to be the latest new tax generating tool of our government. I'm no expert on addictions, and no gambler either, but my gut (don't need no experts to tell me stuff) assures me that many more lives have been ruined by obsessive gambling than obsessive pot smoking, if there even is such a thing, which I doubt.

There are enough closet puffers out there to finance a few government projects, believe me, and there are also many pot growers in the province who would welcome a chance to grow and sell their product legally.

California will have the same problem as Ontario if pot was legalised though, and that is a federal government with a contrary law. While the feds in the USA are relaxing their stance, allowing medical marijuana in its military hospitals in the 14 states where medicinal pot is legal, we would certainly face a huge battle here with Captain Stevie and his Robot Puppets in charge. They're the guys who keep busting and jailing disabled people who have medical certificates to smoke up in Canada. It could take some convincing to bring them along. They'd have to think up new uses for all the jails they want to build, for one thing. Maybe hydroponic grow-ups, I'm sure we can think of something useful.

All I know is given a choice between sitting in front of a computer screen gambling away the rent money, and paying a tax on pot like we do at the liquor store, I'll take the latter option any day. It's so much less perilous for the people.

Anonymous postings

Yet another muse about anonymous postings. This comes in response to both a desire to do something different with the site and a question from Greg Hancock, who like many others is getting a little peeved with the ease that anonymouses can snipe from the bushes and PO the rest of the site. Pleading guilty to having a liberal policy about comments it is realised that such a policy is not pleasing to some.

The answer is to transfer to another platform where comments have to be accompanied by an email address. This email address should not be displayed but known only to me. You don't give it up you don't get to play. The real alternative would be to switch on the 'users only' switch to read the site and that is far too private. We at the BR like comments but bear with us as we tighten them up a bit.

BTW if you are really interested in the next phase of the BR checkout this beta site and submit comments and explore the work so far. The difference in this site is that when comments are submitted you will asked to submit a name and email address. The details will be confidential, the name chosen will be shown and all that this will do is PO the anonymousers who hide behind anons. Just to restate you can still be anonymous but youo must provide an email address. Even this can be a pseudonym as yahoo and google mail can be faked.

Pssst - want to buy your neighbours' junk

If you do head on down to the largest yard-sale in the province. Sales from one end of the Town to the other. This collectin of tables was in Victoria park, presumably these folks either came from out of Town or live in apartments. The best buy of the day was at the Library book sale - five for a dollar, everyone else was at least fifty cents or a dollar each. Great fun and a wonderful Saturday morning.