Another Dishonest Gas Pump? Westpark Husky

Gassed up in Fort Saskatchewan this afternoon at the Westpark Husky on Hwy 21. The two pumps I checked either were out of date or not stamped. Gas was $74.00

The Pope Says "Communism Doesn't Work..."

Pope Benedict XVI was on his way for a planned trip to Cuba and Mexico today.  The full sentence was in fact, "Communism doesn't work in Cuba."  But history has already shown it hasn't worked anywhere.

Here's the quote from Reuters:

Speaking on the plane taking him from Rome for a trip to Mexico and Cuba, the pope told reporters: "Today it is evident that Marxist ideology in the way it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality."  "In this way we can no longer respond and build a society. New models must be found with patience and in a constructive way."

He's not the first head of the Catholic Church to speak out against communism, just the latest. 
 

I hope this serves as yet another poke in the eye for all those so-called "Social Justice Catholics" who repeatedly vote for the Pro-abortion Socialist-leaning parties in our elections in the name of the "Poor".. 

The Power is Out

The power has been out for half an hour now, and the house is getting colder. It's snowing outside too... And its March 22nd. Hahahahaha! At least the snowflakes are a lot smaller now than they were an hour ago. So much so that It's hard to make them out in this iPhone photo.


I can't work in the office, I might as well drive into the city and use the electricity at a Starbucks or something...

(Posted via smartphone)

 

Update: Cancel Armageddon, the power came back on two hours later...

 

Our Contempt for Judges Increases

The ridiculous two-year sentence gifted ( yes, GIFTED ) to boy's hockey coach and self-confessed lifetime pedophile Graham James serves only to increase again the contempt that many ordinary Canadians feel for our Judges on an increasingly frequent basis.

It appears to me that Justice Catherine Carlson gave what amounted to mere lip-service yesterday to the heinous nature of Jame's actions before waxing poetic about how the embarrasing scrutiny James had endured granted her leeway to be lenient to Graham James in his sentencing.

Based on his past convictions, Graham James likely won't even serve one full year of incarceration for the hundreds of molestations he committed against the two victims of this case, Theo Fleury and Todd Holt. Throughout the trial, the two victims suffered through repeated re-victimization and the humiliation of having what happened to them publicized across the nation's media, yet it was only Graham Jame's humiliation that Justice Catherine Carlson seemed to truly have care for. What did she say again? Oh yeah, something along the lines of being concerned about the humiliation of the so-called 'intense media scrutiny' James had undergone throughout his trial.

Perhaps there was scrutiny, but the only interviews and photos I ever saw were of his victims. Graham James was allowed to hide his face from the public, avoid the media, and with Justice Carlson's assistance, avoid having his sentence televised, which would have allowed the world to see what this perv looked like.

Yes, the World. It appears that would be a good thing, because although Graham James had been banned from coaching boys FOR LIFE in Canada, he has been able to continue meeting and grooming young boys in Spain and Latin America for years. Does that sound to you like the actions of a 'reformed' pedophile? Supposedly grooming them for hockey, but... Was Justice Carlson so clueless as to believe that?

Outrage against lenient sentencing has been increasing amongst ordinary citizens ever since the liberal progressive theorists gained ascendancy in the 1960's and changed the Justice System (which had been concerned with concepts like justice and punishment of crimes) into a Legal System where justice took a back seat to legal-technicalities, rehabilitation and other groovy social engineering concepts. Whenever this subject is raised, the bleeding hearts confuse the issue by whining "but punishment doesn't work as a deterrent."

Well listen up: It's not deterrence we want. We Want Punishment. We want the rotters thrown out of society where they can't hurt people any more, dammit. Forty years of "rehab penal theory" has done NOTHING to reduce recidivism. Don't you get it yet? If they're in jail long enough not to offend again that's Good Enough for the rest of us.

Thinking about my contempt for this sentence and for the judge who gifted it to the criminal, it occurs to me that I know very little about Justice Carlson's career or previous judgements. They may have been good ones. She might be proud of her record. So perhaps It is an ideological problem that has put her out-of-step with the rest of us. How else is it that so many of our supposedly intelligent Judges decisions offend more and more ordinary citizens???? That's the truth at the core of this rant: it is out of step with the rest of us. I'm thinking of starting a weblog that just lists stupid dumbassed judgements and stupid dumbassed judges who make them.

I think there'd be lots of entries.

As for scrutiny, It's remarkably hard to find photos of judges online, otherwise you'd see your puss up here too Catherine. Your decision to keep the television cameras out of your courtroom sure saved you that little disgrace, didn't it? I have to settle for posting Graham Jame's new look in your stead.

Link: Sun News: "Two Years for Graham James" Link: Wikipedia: Catherine Carlson

Posting Comments, Honesty and Anonymity

I'm pretty opinionated.  Really.

So I have come to expect that my comments here and on other forums on the web will sometimes elicit an angry response by some (usually of the politically correct, lefty liberal types) here and on those other websites and forums.

Now when I make a comment on someone else's website I normally identify myself and even include this blog as a place to contact me.  So I think it's reasonable to expect visitors to my blog to identify themselves too. I won't post anyone's anonymous comments. Anonymity on the web sometimes brings out the worse in people.

(Image from www.penny-arcade.com)

I once had a guy ( let's assume it was a guy ) who so objected to my statements on one web forum, he created a blogger account just so he could come here and call me names.  Of course he blocked anyone (like me, for instance) from seeing his blogger profile so I archived his comments where they deserved to be, in oblivion.

Coward.

Signs of Spring (...and honesty at Costco)

It's March 20th, the time of the Spring Equinox, and the signs of a new season are around us.  The first migrating geese of the year, the first glimpse of snow mold on last year's lawn,  the unique smell of the first of the thawing dog doo emerging from under last winter's blanket of snow...

...and since Christmas, my first honest gasoline pump. Yup.  It's March 20th, and this is the first honest gas pump I've seen in nearly three months. I was so excited I took a picture of it.

See the sticker? There's a Federal Regulation that requires all Service Stations and Gas Bars to have their gasoline pumps certified according to a set schedule. Since I gas up at least twice a week that's at last 27 other times I could have been gouged at the pump.

Seeing as how the oil companies have already been manipulating the cost of oil to gouge us honestly at the pump this little bit of extra larceny on the part of the retailer just pisses me off.  One time last month, at a highway gas station between Fort Saskatchewan and Lamont, Alberta, the pumps didn't even have the old, outdated certification stickers that showed they'd at least been certified once in the past. I went into the store and complained to the elderly lady ( I thought she was the owner/manager) behind the till about her pumps not being certified. Even though I had heard her speak to a customer ahead of me, she pretended she couldn't speak or understand english well enough to answer me.

I'll be gassing up at the Costco again in the future. 

A stolen blonde joik.

I stole this joke from Grumpy old Cripple:





During a recent password audit, it was found that a blonde was using the following password:
"MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento"

When asked why she had such a long password, she said she was told that it had to be at least 8 characters
long and include at least one capital.

New Education Act an Attack on Parenting

A New Education Act will likely become law this week that STEALS your Parental Right to teach your kids as you see fit, and gives it to the STATE. The Premier, Allison REDford, has tried to say she's not doing that, she's just putting into law a requirement that we teach our kids 'Alberta Values', specifically, the Alberta Human Rights Act.

Why? The Provincial government already sets the curriculum. They don't need a new LAW for that.

Yet by definition, as Albertan parents we pass on to kids our Albertan Values anyway. So why do we need a LAW? We only need a LAW if Premier REDford or some of her bureaucrats have think they know better than YOU which Values are in their view more Albertan than others.

The fact that the Alberta Human Rights act and it's Starchamber Tribunals have been used repeatedly by activists to ruin people's finances and careers was completely glossed over. Rather than tolerance, they seem motivated by a desire to wipe out all opposing viewpoints and punish anyone who dares voice a point of view other than their own.

 But this is not about an anti-gay agenda. Yes, this mostly concerns Homeschoolers, many of whom are Christian. That doesn't necessarily mean anti-gay. It does mean that we're the canary in the coal mine folks. Every new law steals away a little bit more of your freedom. Every time.

We need to call the Premier's office and the Sinister of Education's office TOMORROW to register our opposition to the new Education Act which will most likely become law Monday or Tuesday this week. (The phone numbers are Minister of Education, Mr. Thomas Lukaszuk at 780-427-5010 and then the premier, Allison Redford at 780-427-2251) Call them. You don't have to know what to say, they're just counting calls over there, anyway.

 Link:  Ottawa Citizen   Link:National Post

(Thanks to my friend Paul Nawrocki for the email about this.)

"Belogging" Again.

A few friends have pointedly asked me why I'm not blogging since my facebook updates have taken a blog-like bent of late. The facebook updates I dislike the most are the spam-type messages that are selling a person, product, thing, or poolitical point of view.  ...ok, those and the chain-letter ones. I once said I'd never do that to my friends and family, but I made one this evening. So here I am to post it instead here in my dusty little corner of blogspace...

My son Mark's death in 2010 pretty well derailed both my writing and my blogging, but I'm finally ready to follow my last post.


...in my next one.

A Birthday today, remembered.

Mark would have been eighteen today. But that will never happen. Mark is dead. I have to accept that. It still seems dreamlike that he could be so, is no longer among us. I still expect him to enter the room at odd moments, and when I catch myself, I cry.

My son my son, oh I miss you so. Your mother speaks of her dream, where you came up behind her, and hugged her, giving her the comfort of your embrace. I am so envious of her, that she has once more been able to touch you; hold your hand, and hug you. To feel you hug her back, not a little boy’s hug, but with the wide-shouldered strength of the man you had just so recently become. Oh Mark, I was so so proud of you.

Each night I go to sleep hoping that you will come to me in my dreams, that I could hold my son in my arms again, and in the dream at least, have the experience having you with me one more time..

I miss you boy. I miss your voice, your words, your smile. I miss you so.

You would have been eighteen today.

I love you son.

Midstream Media Defames the Pope

Over the last month the Midstream media has, in accordance with it's established gutter standards in news reporting, been fanning the flames of controversy with stories that the current Pope helped to hide priestly child molesters from justice.

More specifically, the former Principal of St.Johns School for the Deaf, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a Father Laurence Murphy.

The New York Times, AP, etc. have inflamed public outrage to the point where thousands have signed petitions in England against a future visit from the pontiff, and caused various legal types to ponder publicly, whether legal action could be taken against the head of the Catholic Church.

Now the Priest who sat as the ecclesiastical judge in the Murphy case has come forward, complaining that not only has he been widely misquoted and falsely quoted in the New York Times and over 100 other publications, but that the accused molestor died in 1998 just before the case could come to trial, and had never been referred to the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at all.

Writing in the Catholic Anchor, Father Thomas Brundage, JCL, says he was never once contacted by any of the news organizations who so widely misquoted him, and that he would have gone all the way to the Pope at the time, John Paul II, in appealing any instructions to refrain from Judging the case against Father Lawrence Murphy.

Now dear reader, you know most of the people in our media could not be bothered, obviously, to follow the link to Father Brundage's story, nor trusted to believe him. -After all he was only an eyewitness at the center of the events of the day. Far far better to take a juicy story that attacks the present Pope and run with it.

(ADDED ON APRIL 6TH)

The New York Times antipathy or possibly, antagonistic attitude towards the Church is no secret. One example I remember, was in the mid 1990's when the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic Men's Fraternal society, had to threaten legal action before the NYT would publish a Paid-for full-page KofC advertisement in the paper.

Earth Hour

The taxpayers in the City of Edmonton should be happy to know the idiots in the city administration are blowing tax dollars advertising the hell out of Saturday's Earth Hour.

Yup, they're exhorting the ignorant masses to shut off all their lights Saturday night for an hour to help curb greenhouse gas emissions and thus do a bit to save the planet.

It's all B.S. so I'm going to protest in my own way. I've set up some hi-power halogen spotlights on my house for this event so that I can consume extra electricity to help take up the slack in demand from all the soft-headed types who're planning on shutting their lights off.




How do you make yourself feel good doing nothing about climate change? Earth Hour!!!!

To hell with that shit. My lights are ON.