Messages

1

Environment / Re: Algae slime coasts Hamilton harbour

« on: October 09, 2008, 11:40:12 PM »

Jeebus, Toe... that is well past "scarey"... I think I get out of touch with some of the ugly underside of "industry".  We don't have any of it here, not since NAFTA and countervale and...suchlike.  We DO have an enormous piece of waterfront property where "the mill" was which is so polluted it's been tagged as unfit for use...and it would cost so much to clean it up even the province has backed off...so it's left for the sun, wind, rain, and ocean, I guess....

And I suspect that as the bills come due there will be more and more of this once nurturing planet turned into toxic wasteland.

and that's a sin.  A real sin.

Hope you can get yourself outta there soon.  Thanks for the information.  I think I'll pass on the idea of visiting the place.

2

Environment / Re: Algae slime coasts Hamilton harbour

« on: October 09, 2008, 10:58:43 PM »

Wouldn't you kind'a expect anything called "cyano...." anything would be kind of, well, like, y'know, poisonous?  As in cyanide?  Or maybe cyanotic?  Or...

so why are they taking corn, which is a food, to turn into "bio fuel" when it looks like they could take algae from the lakes and turn it...y'know?

I understand there's a patch of algae off China that is something like a foot thick and miles long and wide...just keep harvesting it and...

surely it isn't brain surgery or rocket science...

3

Banter / Re: The YouTube thread that doesn't break my browser

« on: October 09, 2008, 10:50:54 PM »

Skullgirl, darlin'...pay attention to your spelling.  It'd be a shame to grow up spelling as poorly as the guy who made that undeniably funny video!!!

4

Work, Employment, Money / Re: Boom about to go Bust?

« on: October 09, 2008, 04:05:21 PM »

For probably less money the US feds could have provided mortgage insurance for the working people who are within days or even minutes of losing their house.  For most of us the house is the only thing we have to show for a lifetime of work, it is our "equity" in more than just the roof, the walls, the nails and shingles.

This bailout will put more $$$ in the hands of foreign banks than it gives to working people.  I agree, the ones who were the mechanics who caused this wreck should have their assets frozen, including offshore bank accounts of which I'm sure there are more than a few.

What I find interesting ... and depressing...is that Obama-Biden have not come up with an alternate and better plan but seem quite content to just nod agreement like those little bobble-head dolls some people put on the dashboard of their pickup trucks.

Change?  This is not change.  Nothing has changed except the workers are getting the corn cob inserted all the way up.  Nothing new in that.

5

U.S. Elections / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Sarah Palin....

« on: October 08, 2008, 08:13:12 PM »

Well, I don't know about the rest of you but MY relatives are a whole helluva lot nicer than yours are, nyah nyah!!

thread drift thread drift thread drift

we had the most hellacious windstorm, winds over 130 kph...one boat at the marina sank and another was torn loose from the moorings and tossed up on the beach.  This morning I go outside at crack of dawn and...Rugged Mountain is sheathed in SNOW.

fer chrissakes, it's only October!

well, I blame Sarah Palin for this.

6

U.S. Elections / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Sarah Palin....

« on: October 08, 2008, 05:25:46 PM »

Hey, if you're Christian believers then we're all cousins.  Adam and Eve , Cain and Abel...I mean, really, how can we be anything else.  That has to mean I'm related to...ohmigawd, Fern Hill, we're both related to Sarah Palin...!

7

U.S. Elections / Re: 2008 Presidential Race

« on: October 06, 2008, 12:55:05 AM »

I have no theories.  I just asked a question, is all.  It seems as if a number who used to post fairly regularly either don't post at all or else post only occasionally.

I'm not sure there's a conspiracy although, as you know, I'm compiling a collection of them.  Maybe pull them all together in a book, "Great Conspiracies I Have Known."

8

U.S. Elections / Re: 2008 Presidential Race

« on: October 05, 2008, 10:36:30 PM »

Has anyone noticed there seem to be fewer and fewer individuals posting to B'n'R in the past oh, month or so?  Has anyone noticed those who do post do it less often?

I wonder why that would be.

9

U.S. Elections / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Sarah Palin....

« on: October 05, 2008, 06:14:18 PM »

"Victimhood"?  Me?

A victim would just lower her eyes and accept, would not challenge nor speak above the humm of the contented hive.

But we've known all along it's your site.  Your rules.  Yours.  All yours.  No question about that.  None at all.

10

U.S. Elections / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Sarah Palin....

« on: October 05, 2008, 02:55:29 PM »

Well, I'm going to go get a cup of tea for a couple of hours.  Maybe Fern would like to join me in worshipping the Brown Betty.

Not allowed to comment on a discussion.  So it isn't a "discussion" at all, it's , what, a screed, a lecture, a...what, exactly.  Closed discussion, seems like.  Exclusive discussion.  Maybe even a tree fort.  Or a dolls house.

Sometimes it almost feels as if there's a pyramid, with some on top who must never be disobeyed or disagreed with or challenged, and others who, well, aren't at the top and can be any or all of the above.  As if some are The Final Word and others aren't.

In any event, I'm going for a couple of cups of tea.

11

U.S. Elections / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Sarah Palin....

« on: October 05, 2008, 02:23:14 PM »

Yes, I saw Biden choke up.  And I didn't believe it.  So his kid is in Iraq.  Jeebus, whose kid down there isn't either there, on the way , or coming home on a stretcher?  I think it is shitty that Palin is making political hay on the fact her juvenile delinquent is on his way to Saudi Arabia or Kuwait (they're never very clear on just where Sonnyboy is going and she, of course, makes it sound as if he's being dropped into the very middle of a shitstorm) and I'm not impressed if Biden uses his sons' military service politically.

You see, I'm not a fan of Joe Biden.  I think he was picked because he's a counterfoil for Obama.  He's white, he's got nearly a lifetime of experience dealing with the backroom boys, experience which easily counterbalances Madman's claims.  And he is in no way a threat where "charisma: is concerned (thank you PET for reviving that term!!)

Obama-Biden are trying to come in as crusaders, trying to pull the kind of heartstrings which resonated when Martin Luther King hypnotized huge crowds.  And they're trying to do it without really getting very specific about just what it is they're going to alter.  It's false , it's phoney and it's unfair to try to incite a movement on such amorphous things as "change".  Change what?  Obama has said "all options are on the table".  he supported going into Iraq.  What's he going to change?  His own voting record?  His own my country right or wrong lockstep pace?

Damn it, Bruce Springsteen does a better job!!

No, I don't believe Biden's momentary choke.

I do accept the "speaking to the camera" comments, and I think I probably agree with them.  But in a TV debate that's pretty much what you're supposed to do, isn't it?  So she's a well trained lap dog.  We knew that.

What needs to be pointed out is that the well trained lap dog has rabies.  She caught it from the cabal which is putting her out there.

WHY is it up to internet bloggers to emphasize that this self proclaimed advocate of women's rights and programmes made rape victims pay for their own rape kits IN VIOLATION of federal law?  WHY isn't it being said clearly by Obama-Biden that she risked having federal funding CUT OFF to hospitals in Alaska by her stupid and vengeful treatment of rape survivors?

Why aren't they just enunciating clearly the several known instances of her fudging the truth?
And for that matter, why aren't our own politicians just reciting a list of all the many and various ways Steeeeeeevie has been a total prick and cut programmes?

I mean "polite" is one thing but this other is ridiculous.

and nobody told anybody to shut up

12

U.S. Elections / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Sarah Palin....

« on: October 05, 2008, 01:22:03 PM »

Well, with regard to the "eruptions I never understand"; I understand it.  For one thing it wasn't an eruption, and for another there's a trap in falling for the appearance thing.  I think we were all ticked off by the Repugnants' mocking of Hillary's pant suits...but somehow when it has to do with Palin it's okay to discuss her wardrobe.  We've pretty much all sort of agreed we're sick of female politicians first being described by their clothes while nobody describes a male politicians outfits.  You don't read "the prime minister was resplendent in gray slacks, a white shirt, and a blue sweater vest" but we're just all too used to reading shite like that before we get to hear what a female politician said.  And yet it's okay if it's Palin?

I wasn't "touched" when Joe Biden choked up.  If it was "manipulative" when Hillary did it, it's manipulative when he does it.  Okay, the guy is tired, he's stressed, he's overworked, and that always makes anybody less in control of their emotions but it was, after all, years ago.  But what better, or more brief, way to remind us all than to choke up, swallow, and then bravely go on?  After all those years in Warshington you can't convince me Biden isn't every bit as much a politician as any of them, and just as quick to connive and manipulate.

And I don't get the emphasis on wondering how tall each or the other is.  That's just more of the looks-ist thing.  When the finger presses the red button it isn't going to matter if it's a long finger or a short one.  It's the button is important, the pressing of it the death knell.

Gawd knows there's enough of Palin's past dictatorship and enough of her gawd-view to give us all the chills, and there's enough evidence of her unsuitability both mentally, emotionally and educationally to keep us awake and sweating at night.  The rest of it, how tall she is, how much she weighs, does she or doesn't she diet , work out, or ... just doesn't really matter.

Maybe she does have a slim gene.  Maybe she's five foot four.  She's dangerous, and getting too involved in whether or not her clothes reflect an AUdrey Hepburn influence is diminishing the visibility of just how dangerous she is.

Not necessarily dangerous herself.  She's not going to walk into Mac's milk with a machine gun and mow down the people buying a loaf of bread at ten at night, and she isn't going to go into Wendy's with an automatic rifle.  But dangerous in that the cabal which has controlled Amerikkka and spread disaster across the world has chosen this lowbrow BITCH to be the figurehead for their mindset.  I hesitate to use the word "facist" because of historic connotations and yet that is what I think this woman is, and that is why I use the word bitch as in Isle Koch the bitch of Buchenwald.  Because Palin could all too easily be exactly that.

Regardless of her height or wardrobe.

13

U.S. Elections / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Sarah Palin....

« on: October 04, 2008, 05:09:48 PM »

Damn, did I do that?  Again?!  Kick to butt several times.  Gotta stop doing that.

Thanks, Skdadl... I didn't see the face-off you describe, but I very much would have liked to have seen it.

And I MUST be more careful about which Naomi!!  Sorry about that. :oops:

I thought the debate lacked one really important aspect...what , is everyone afraid to just go chapter and verse on the unconsciounable cuts Harper has made?  Afraid to come out really strong in case they get, what, called "shrill" or something.

You'd have loved..we'd all have loved...the conversation in the building supply store a half hour or so ago.  Guy comes in, French speaking originally but fully at home in English after some twenty years in the mill.  He grins at me and says "Eh, bien...et Duceppe?" and we both laugh.  One guy hears the name Duceppe and fires the bird and we both say Number One, see, even he says number one...and then we launch into our version of Franglish, discussing the debate.  Someone else chimes in, then someone else, and at the end it was decided if Layton had half the "guts" of May he'd be a shoo-in.

Nuanced or not, EM impressed people.  In this riding it's either Cons with their blue signs or NDP with the orange ones.  I've got an NDP sign in my front yard, right now we seem to be outnumbering the blue signs but if this ferocious storm doesn't stop soon there won't be a sign left standing!

While we were having our political discussion in the hardware store three different people came in to buy tarps...it takes a storm or two for you to find the new leaks.  Summer heat does something to the roofing tar and...

Final result of the discussion?  Put them all in a big bag with some large rocks and take them out to the rift, then dump them over the side into 2000+ meters of water.

People do not feel represented by ANY of them.

14

U.S. Elections / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Sarah Palin....

« on: October 04, 2008, 02:30:43 PM »

I have to admit something here, and admit it publicly.  Which is never easy.  Private admissions are more comfortable.

I didn't finish "The Beauty Myth".  I got to maybe page 25 and dropped it on the floor.  I didn't make any attempt to analyze my reaction to it (and it was a reaction, I know, not a response!), all I could think was "presumptuous little twerp" and "sour grapes" and a touch of "who the hell do you think you are , anyway?"

It was much the same as the reaction I had to "Lies, Secrets, and Silences", which I still think was unadulterated shit.  Touchy-feely unadulterated shit.

I have a friend, a good friend, born in Holland at the very end of the war, brought here as an infant, her dad got a job in a mill, but they really did live hand-to-mouth for years, they had nothing but a couple of changes of clothes when they arrived.  She quit school in about grade nine or ten and went to work in a sawmill.  She was the right age but not the right "class" to go fullscale hippy, but she spent some time on the edges of it.  Met a guy, they had two kids, both of them working at "whatever".  She went to work in an oyster plant and even won a couple of "best shucker on the coast" competitons.  Between them they lived a good life.  Good enough they dared dream and he quit his job at the mill and they invested every cent they had in a prawn boat.

Well.

Then her wrists started to act up.  Then her fingers would swell.  At first all she had to do was ice them when she got home and the swelling would be gone by morning but over time...until she couldn't shuck any more.  And they had to sell the prawn boat, it's brutal work and they were twenty years late getting together the money to buy it, he just couldn't do it any more, his back rebelled.

So there they are.  Coming on to retirement age.  Each of them working at basic wage, both of them crocked up by the work they did.  And they aren't alone!  This Island and this coast is covered with people just like them.  Always paid their taxes in full and on time, no criminal convictions or hidden skeletons, well liked, intelligent, she does photography and sells greeting cards with her photo's on the front, it's a sideline, a hobby, and she's good but doesn't think of herself as an artist.  And yet she really is!

And then some young twit writes a book and becomes some sort of heroine for a day and it is to make anybody choke on bile!!

I am sure my friend, on listening to Sarah Palin, would howl with laughter.  Her reasons might be very different than mine, but we'd meet and agree that nobody with a million dollars worth of assets is "middle class" and sure as hell not working class and it's an act, and she does it well.  wink, wink, nudge, nudge.  And I know my dear friend wouldn't have made it to page 25 in that self satisfied little oh-aren't-I-the-clever-one piece of shit.

And I think there's something the Palins and Kleins of the world share in common...and it's a lack of real respect and even love for the people they're trying to appeal to, trying to lecture to, trying to USE for their own ends.

Of course, we know about me, eh?
"Too political", they tell me.

15

U.S. Elections / Re: Everything you wanted to know about Sarah Palin....

« on: October 04, 2008, 01:17:58 PM »

I'm not always fondly on-side with Naomi Wolf but , damn, this is a good article!!

The women's movement has several times been taken down side-paths , led by priviledged, highly educated, even academic women into areas which do not resonate with the majority of working women.  We've tried time and again to get ourselves a firm handle on the divisions class can cause and we have made progress, but , obviously, not enough.

It would be ... something... maybe "ironic" if Sarah Palin became the push we need to really come to grips with class divisions.

Right now, from one coast to the other, women are losing jobs which paid half-decent wages.  Too many of them will wind up having to take lesser paying jobs as the economy slides toward the septic tank.  Some will wind up going from middle class to working class or even lower on the class ladder we're told by the big boys doesn't exist (we know it does!), and maybe, through adversity, we'll manage to really examine how capitalism has kept us divided, and thus conquered.

I know women who work long miserable hours standing on a cold, wet cement floor, shucking oysters.  When their hands become so cold they are numb the women move to a bucket of warm, almost hot, water and soak their hands until the feeling comes back and they can again shuck ice-chilled oysters.  It's piece work, the more you shuck the more you get paid and your future is guaranteed: varicose veins and carpal tunnel.  When oysters aren't in season these women sort and pack prawns or else work on the line in a fish plant.

And we haven't recognized these women, nor been able to make ourselves look at just how frikken awful the job conditions are.  Most of them, the ones I know anyway, wouldn't vote for Sarah Palin because they don't agree with her on war or on religion, but they like the idea she's up there, and they know she's only pretending to be "folksy" but still, it's a good act, and a welcome one.

We've talked and written about what happened to women after the end of WW2, when the men came home and the women's jobs were gone, they were "encouraged" and in many cases forced back into the kitchen.  Had to have those jobs for the men!!

Well, that's going to happen again.  Women who were making decent money in sawmills know they have seen the last of that level of wage.  Should a sawmill ever re-open on this coast the men will get the few jobs.  And women who were making decent money are going to wind up on the oyster shucking line, or working on fish farms or... and there goes any hope of ever reaching "the middle class".

It's only the haves and have-nots.  And they only pretended there was ever anything in between.

Time to get out those old tee shirts!  Time for the "sisterhood is powerful" bumper stickers again.  We'd best pack a lunch and fill a thermos with coffee, we're heading back to the barricades again.