By the way, my numbers show that tomorrow’s gas price should be 94.6 cents per litre in Zone 1 ( Halifax Area ).

Sorry,

A Sour Kraut

PS. Fill up tonight if you can.

So Fox News, that paragon of intelligent journalism, thinks that our military men and women like it cushy.

Marine Colonel Pete Petronzio stated that we did not come here (Afghanistan) to rescue anyone, (referring to the Canadian and British Military). “The Canadians, he said, were the ones doing the rescuing early in April when a marine convoy struck a huge roadside bomb near Forward Operating Base Wilson in the Zhari district.

Two marines 1st Sgt. Luke Mercardante, 35, and Cpl. Kyle Wilks, 24, were killed and two seriously wounded in the April 15 incident, where Canadian troops rushed to provide assistance and care for the casualties – something Canadian commanders have never discussed.” – Marine Corps News Room – June 1, 2008 (I guess the Canadians were too busy with their Yoga classes.)

“The five soldiers, all members of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, were recommended for United States bronze stars for their bravery and professionalism last March. The recommendations were approved by General Warren Edwards, the deputy commanding officer for coalition forces in Afghanistan.” – Winnipeg Free Press – May 13, 2002

“During the Gulf War, two Canadian F-18 pilots were awarded U.S. bronze stars” – Winnipeg Free Press – May 13, 2002.

Capt. Paul Madej, a Catholic padre from the U.S. 101st Airborne, who spent 13 days with the Canadians, said: “They were professional soldiers. They were physically and mentally ready. You can’t just put a war-hungry gun in there. They were trained to think.”

On the morning of 18 February 1991, during Operation Desert Storm, (United States missle frigate) “Princeton” was patrolling an operating area 28 nautical miles off Failaka Island in the Persian Gulf, on the west side of the decoy U.S. Marine and naval invasion forces afloat. Two bottom-mounted influence mines (MANTAs) detonated, one just under the port rudder and the other just forward of the starboard bow, most likely a sympathetic detonation caused by the first explosion. The blasts cracked the superstructure, buckled three lines in the hull, jammed the port rudder, flooded the #3 switchboard room through chillwater pipe cracks, and damaged the starboard propeller shaft. Two crew members were seriously injured, and another sustained minor injuries.

At great peril, the Canadian warship HMCS|Athabaskan|DDH-282|6 moved north through the minefield to deliver damage-control supplies to the severely damaged “Princeton”, which remained on station for 30 hours until she was relieved. – dic.academic.ru

So, you pinheads at Fox, next time you want to pick on someone, pick on someone your own size like a four year-old. They would be a match for you intellectualy also.

For the rest of us Canadians, be proud of the men and women who follow our governments orders. We may not believe in the mission they have been sent on, but we sure should be proud of them and their efforts.

Until then, I remain,

A Sour Kraut.

Here we go again. March 28, 2009, to save our planet, we are all supposed to turn off all of our lights and electrical appliances. This is one of these feel good things that makes absolutely NO SENSE! Okay, so we are all going to sit around in the dark from 8pm to 9pm (I think that is the correct time) wondering if anyone has scored yet on the hockey game. And this is supposed to save the planet? To be fair, I don’t think that it is supposed to save the planet, but I am unsure of what exactly it is supposed to accomplish.

The big problem is that we can use zero energy for that hour and we won’t save anything. Why? Because you can’t turn off power generation for one hour. Sure you could turn it off, but you may be a week before the system is back up and running. Coal fired generators, hyrdo-electric and nuclear like to run at a steady rate. They don’t like being shut off. Sooooo, we stop using electicity for an hour and all of the electricity that is still going to be created is going to be bled off the system and wasted. Smart.

This is right up there with banning plastic shopping bags. Do you know how little energy and raw materials are required to make a plastic shopping bag compared to a resuable one? Squat. Couple that to the fact that these bags may be the most easily recycled thing on the planet and it is a no brainer. Plastic shopping bags make sense. Banning them in other contries has actually seen a rise in polyethylene production of bags. Huh? Yup, the plastic shopping bag is used for so many other things, from bags for you kids gym stuff to picking up dog poop, that removing them from the system creates a demand for other bags that may only be single use. Read the stats.

So, come this Saturday, I will be watching the game at 8:30pm and I will continue to tell my kids to not turn on every light in every room they go in. And I will be relining the waste paper basket with a plastic shopping bag. That seems like a better from of conservation.

Until then, I remain,

A Sour Kraut

A mother of a ten year-old boy, living in a small town of Mississippi, allowed her son to walk to his soccer practice by himself. Seems harmless enough. The mother also had to be at the soccer field shortly after her son, so she gave the boy her cell phone with the instruction that he use it if he had any problems. The soccer field was about a 1/3 of a mile away. The boy headed off. The mother completed her work around the house and drove to the soccer field where she expected to see her son. He was not there.

People in the neighbourhood had seen the boy walking alone and had phoned 911. The police arrived and bundled the boy in the car to take him home. When they arrived at the boy’s home they were met with his two younger siblings and the grandmother. The mother was at the soccer field looking for her son. Eventually, the police met the mother and informed her of the “hundreds” of calls 911 had received about this boy, on the street alone and surely ready to be kidnapped or murdered. The police told the mother that they could charge her with “endangering the welfare of a child”.

What in the heck is wrong with people? Are we that afraid to go outside that we sick the police on a poor little boy that just wants to feel like a grown-up by doing something as innocent as walking to his soccer practice by himself? Are we nuts? For God Sake, if you are that paranoid about the world around you, how about getting up of your fat nosey duff and walking out to the sidewalk, and doing something crazy like talking to the boy and ask him if he is lost or needs any help. The boy won’t mind, you will find out the truth and this insanity might stop. But noooooo, we have to stay bunkered in our houses calling 911 while we peak out through the curtains.

Guess what. If there was some person trailing this boy to nab him or worse, the sight of a neighbour walking out to talk to the boy would scare the criminal off. It is hard to commit a crime when the streets are full of people and everyone knows everyone else. It is easy to commit a crime if we are all holed up in our houses afraid to come out.

Sanity prevailed. The mother was not charged and the police chief even appologized. See there is hope.

If you want to get the mother’s account word for word try this site:

Freerange Kids

Until then, I remain,

A Sour Kraut

Here is an interesting issue. There are people in this province who cannot afford medications they need to keep them alive. However, they pay taxes and those taxes are used to fund heath care insurance and benefits for politicians and civil servants. I’m sorry, but that does not wash with me. How can we use the income of others who can’t afford medications to pay for the medications of others? I would stop that immediately. If you are in the public service you use money out of your salary to pay for your own health care. If you don’t like it go work for someone else.

Here we are with a rich shipbuilding history and yet our shipbuildng industry is always battling to stay alive. We should change the tax structure to allow a more competitive industry and the industry and government should determine what niche/s we can exploit. And I don’t want to hear that our cost structures (wages, overheads, taxes, etc ) are too high and we can’t compete with the Far East. Norway, Finland and Italy have cost structures that are on par or higher than ours, yet they rule when it comes to the construction of cruise ships. I know that we can excell in our own way. Modern shipbuilding is an industry that provides it all, trades, IT, design and fabrication. Let’s get on it.

Many years ago I was heavily involved with the crafts community. I hate that word so you will never see it again. This sector is more accurately described by the terms: artisans, design and manufacture. It is eye opening when you see how much this sector contributes to the Nova Scotian economy. It provides rural employment and exports. Our artisans are at least as talented as any others I have seen. My personal opinion is that some of them are the best I have seen. What do we do to support this industry sector? Nothing. One key area that is simple is to revamp ACOA’s rules. Artisan’s are frugal and they know that they can probably get a used piece of equipment that will do the job at a quarter the price of new. However, government grant programs do not apply to new equipment. Why not? I am sure that it has something to do with fear over proper paper trails and receipts, but that is simple to change.

We also have to support our own. Look around you, recognize the tremendous talent of businesses and artisans around you and support them. I think it is more important to spend dollars at home especially when the product or service is probably better.

Finally, I would ban all meetings in public service. The only times you need to hold a meeting is at the begining of a project to assign tasks and if someone dies. Otherwise get on with it. Meetings have become a terrific waste of time. The meeting has become a way to make sure nothing gets done. Instead of staff implementing a solution, they meet to decide courses of action. When nothing gets done, no one is held responsible because it was a committee decision. Many decisions would never be made if one person had to sign off and be repsonsible. Can you imagine someone saying “Sure, I’ll authorize 27 hour wait times in the ER.” I think not. It more likely would be “I’m not signing off on that until you get wait times down around two hours.” Get good people and let them do their job. Reward them when they do it right and keep track of their mistakes. If they keep making the same ones over and over you have a problem. If they learn from their mistakes and move on you have a winner.

That’s about it. No applause necessary.

Until then, I remain,

A Sour Kraut.

I heard a radio advertisement today that slammed the idea of a NDP government for Nova Scoita. Since it was sponsored by the Conservative Party of Nova Scoita, my pea brain has deduced that a provincial election is in the offing. So being a citizen who is concerned about the direction of the Province I have put together an election platform that can be adopted by any of the parties. My gift to them. What a guy!

First and foremost we have to look at health care. My platform eliminates hospital budgets. Why are we budgeting the health and welfare of our citizens? If a person needs a hip they need a hip. We are going to have to pay for it sometime, why not sooner than later? Provide the funding to get treatment sooner. Now, I know that the bean counters are going to say that the province cannot run a balanced budget if they spend more money on health care. So what! Do you really think that a person in pain, or needing cancer treatment or cardiac surgery is going to give two hoots about a deficit if they can get relief tomorrow rather than 6 to 11 months down the road? Run the defecit. Your payback will come in the years to follow. You will save money on follow up care and reduced complications. You will have a healthier population and what better attraction for immigration and business growth in this province than a health care system second to none.

There is a catch. Actually a number. First and foremost you get rid of the money wasting regional health boards. One provincial board will do fine. Better yet, let the Department of Health run it. That was the way it used to be. Oh, but that was a time when we were considered to have the best system in the country and things ran well, so maybe not. If I have cancer in Sydney or Yarmouth, why do I need a different Health Board to allocate resources for my treatment? Exactly.

Secondly, the health system has to eliminate unions. Why do we have unions? The government is you and me. Its funny how we forget that. So, we allow unions because we mistreat the people we ask to provide us with the services we need? No, unions have snuck into the system and have held it to ransom. We need to get back to employment based on service not entitlement.

Finally, the hospitals do not get this money without any responsibility. They will have to account for every penny. If the citizens of Nova Scotia are giving a good chunk of their hard earned dollars to the hospitals and staff to provide top notch care, then we want to have every expense justified. If they are doing a good job they get more, if not, there is the door.

Then we get into economic growth. Spending billions on infrastructure projects to stimulate the economy is insane. Has anyone asked how repairing water lines in Digby is going to help an out of work autoparts worker in North Sydney, or a Michelin worker in Granton? No, nobody has. The answer is it won’t. It is just window dressing to put the province further in debt and make Nova Scotian’s feel like something is being done. Well, rubbish I say. Lets sit down and decide what we want Nova Scotia to be rather than let others tell us our destiny, or worse just fall into whatever comes along.

The first thing I would do is cancel all moneys going to start a container port in Sydney. This has nothing to do with me being anti-Cape Breton, it is just a dumb place to put money. We have a global downturn, and nobody is sure where the whole Asia export/import situation will work out. Couple that with two existing terminals in (ice-free) Halifax operating way under capacity and the idea of developing Sydney to compete with Halifax is ludacris. Rather we should develop a long term plan to make Halifax a distribution hub for all container traffic coming through the Suez Canal that is destined for North America. Post-Panamax ships could land their whole cargo in Halifax and then it could be broken up and loaded on to smaller ships for shipment to New York, Baltimore, Charleston and beyond. Here is where it gets interesting. Where are we going to put such a terminal? McNabs Island. Really. Level McNab’s Island and put your terminal there. Yes I understand that McNab’s Island has history and it is not supposed to be developed, but what is more important? Using McNab’s Island with the result being regaining the use of the shoreline around the Bedford Basin and southend Halifax is a worthwhile trade off to me. I have never met anyone who has even been to McNab’s Island. All the rail lines already lead to that part of Dartmouth and Eastern Passage, truck traffic has an easier route in and out and you may have a potential air link down the road (Shearwater). Seems like that would be a better infrastructure project.

Now to Cape Breton. The world is craving new and ecologically friendly sources of energy. I propose that Industrial Cape Breton be turned into the world’s leading research center in power generation. It is well suited for this. It already has two coal-fired power generation facilities and wind power is growing. With the abandoned mines they have the opportunity for geothermal. What they need is solar and nuclear. Yup, I said it. Build a nuclear generation plant in north eastern Cape Breton. Why not? It is clean and safe, and we know that the power generated will always be in demand in central Canada or the US. We can even shut down some of our other coal fired plants. It is the future, so we better jump on board. Another great spot for stimulus money.

Lets talk schools. Like the health system I would eliminate all school boards and establish one for the province. Put one competent person in charge for each district and be done with it. I am sure that my children’s education would not suffer. Oh, and guess what, no unions. I’ll say it again. We are the government, the government/we are the employer and in some instances you may be employer and employee. Where is the need for a union? We are bargaining with ourselves?

Part Two to Follow,

Until then, I remain,

A Sour Kraut

I was shocked to learn that 22 schools in this province had padded rooms for students that get “out of hand”. We have REALLY sunk to a new low. Imagine that we have come from an age where children were terrified of getting the strap if they stepped out of line to now when students have to be thrown in a room to have their “time out”. Where’s a good nun when you need one.

So, it got me thinking (and that can be dangerous). Why do children “lose it” in school? I remember children who were “bad” in school, and they were dealt with by the teacher and or the principal and then sent home with a “note” whereby they were also dealt with at home. They usually learned their lesson after one or two of these “dealings”. But, as bad as these boys and girls were, none of them ever got to the point where they had to be fired into a room and the door closed. So are today’s children so undisciplined that they have so little respect for the authority of the teacher and the school that they can’t be reasoned with they way we used to? If so we are in real trouble down the road.

Or is this a result of mainstreaming. Do the children being sent to these rooms for a “time out” have other issues that can not be dealt with in the school. Or lets be fair, these are issues that school staff should not have to deal with. If I signed on to be a teacher, I would want to teach, not police a child or number of children that had issues that did not allow them to be a constructive part of the class.

I asked my children what effect a disruptive child had on their school experience. The responses were not good. Rather than accept these children as part of their class, they resented the disruptions and even questioned the reasons the student was there. They wondered why these boys and girls were not at another school that had special programs that would suit them better. Kind of deep stuff for an eight year old. I didn’t have any answers for them. Why indeed?

Is there actual data that shows that students of all abilities actually learn more if they are grouped in together? Do the other students in the class enjoy the sight of an out-of-control child being taken to a padded room, or does it upset them? I think we all know the answers.

Then to top it off I see that they want to reduce speed limits in school zones to 30kph. Sure why not. Why not just eliminate traffic in school zones during the day. At some point we as parents have to realize that the world is not a nice place and things are going to happen to our children. We need to raise children who are mature, thinking, confident individuals that when faced with a situation are going to be able to handle it in a fashion that reduces the potential for harm. Trying to let children go through life with no responsibility while attempting to safeguard the world around them is stupid. If we are worried about children in school zones being safe we have to do two things. Teach them what to do to be safe, and crack down on speeders. We can reduce the speed limit to 10kph, but the chance of your child being hit by a drunk or inatentive driver is still there. Teach your children.

Then we have a student head butting an RCMP officer as he is being led from the school for disruptive behaviour. Can you imagine! If I was the RCMP officer I would have dropped that kid right there. Then I would have gone to his house and head-butted his parents.

Here is an idea. Lets raise the minimum speed limit in a school zone to 130kph. We will have to redesign the roads so they encircle every school. During the school day if a student misbehaves he or she will be told that they have to walk home. I would call it the “Gauntlet”. See how they like dodging cars at 130. Maybe that would smarten some kids up. (Just kidding. Sort of. No really.)

Until then, I remain,

A Sour Kraut.

If you ever have a need for tile or marble countertops, consider using Nova Tile and Marble. If the company is anything like its employees you can’t go wrong.

Let me explain. Friday afternoon I was driving on the 103 when a line of cars came up behind a very slow moving car. At a passing lane a number of cars managed to pass the slow moving vehicle. Yes it was slushy, but a car didn’t have to go that slow. As I approached the car the driver decided that he/she had had enough of cars passing him/her and pulled out in front of me so I couldn’t pass. Well, I got angry and decided to act like the idiot in front of me by pulling into the right lane to go by this car. Remember I mentioned it was slushy? By the time I realized the error of my ways it was too late. I hit the slush and the rear end snapped around on me. I spun down the road and exited off the other side backwards. By that time I wasn’t going very fast and the car sunk into the snow of the gutter. I shut the engine off, said a few words and got out of the car. Standing there I said a few more choice words and phoned home. I noticed a truck pull off on the shoulder. It said Nova Tile and Marble on the side. The driver got out, looked at me, and instead of berating my driving, which would have been justified, said “You went off kind of soft. I think I can pull you out!” I was still angry with myself and didn’t really pay much attention. I was asking home for the number of a wrecker. The Nova guy was busy surveying the situation. “Yeah, if I can get a strap on you we can pull you back up the way you came in.” Now I was starting to pay attention. I asked what I could do and he said “nothing”. Well, we got the strap on the car, he started to pull and in about ten seconds I was back up on the side of the road. Amazing. A little damage to the bumper. That was it.

I hadn’t introduced myself and I found out his name was Bruce. I reached in my pocket and pulled out some money. Keep it he said. Your kidding I said. A wrecker would have cost me twice what I have here. Go do something nice for your spouse he said. Well he said, if you ever need any countertops keep us in mind. No problem. Ten minutes after I went off the road I was back on, all due to the efforts of Bruce. There are some amazing people in the world and I have been lucky enough to meet a good number of them.

Things come in threes. I lost control on the highway and was lucky enough that I didn’t hit anyone. I wasn’t hurt. And I met a man named Bruce who works for Nova Tile and Marble. How’s that for luck. Yes I did buy a lotto ticket.

At this point, I am nowhere near being

A Sour Kraut.

PS. I reinforced to my children that two wrongs do not make a right. Sure the person should not have pulled out in front of me, but I should have been the better person and just bided my time. Well, Mom didn’t raise many stupid children so maybe I learned something.

Here is one you won’t read in the regular press. The whole global warming/greenhouse gas thing may be the biggest scientific boondoggle ever. One of the big problems through all of this was the computer models being used to predict the future climate were unable to take the data already known and use that to predict the climate that had already occurred. Well a research team of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Science and the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology (hard to question their credentials )were able to get their model working last year. They could accurately reproduce the climate of the past half-century. When they used this new model to predict the climate over the next ten years it showed a cooling period. It may last longer. This is on top of the cooling the planet has gone through for the last decade. Yup, depending on whose data you use 1998 was the warmest year on record and after the cooling of 2007 the global climate has given back most of the warming that has occurred since the 1970′s. To top this off as it were, news came out recently that the sensors used to monitor arctic ice melt have been malfunctioning and in reality there is a lot more ice in the Arctic than anyone was suspecting. This winter, Arctic ice has been expanding more rapidly than at any other time since satellite data has become available. In fact the current ice cap is only fractionally smaller than it was in 1980. Please, please, please lets look at the REAL data around global warming, agree that it is not the catastrophe that alarmist have been predicting and continue monitoring it. Then we can get back to real issues like the impending collapse of our ocean’s fish stocks and ecosystems and the continued destruction of the rainforests. But who is going to get excited about hagfish and salamanders? Not Al Gore or David Suzuki.

Rodney for Senate! Wow, now there is a good one. Personnally I am all for it. If we can trust Mr. Harper, and we all know that we can!, his current Senate appointments are not patronage positions. Rather ol’ Stevie is placing people in the Senate that are going to work tirelessly to abolish it. Oh I have to stop, that one always cracks me up… Well, if we can shove Rodney off to Ottawa where he will work tirelessly to eliminate his Senate seat why not?

I am having a hard time getting my head around the court room defense of being “not criminally responsible”. Yesterday a judge in Manitoba ruled that Vince Li, the lovely gentleman from Edmonton who brutally stabbed and then beheaded a fellow passenger would not stand trial for the crime since Li was suffering from mental illness and was therefore not responsible for his actions. You know what, a person was brutally murdered and yet no one is responsible! One human being killed another and yet no one is responsible. So, if you kill someone while not being in your right mind, and isn’t that the case for most murders, you won’t stand trial. I understand the concept of the defense, I just am having trouble figuring out where justice comes into it. I think the MacLean family is having the same issue. Now that Mr. Li is receiving treatment for his illness, there is a possibility that he could be released immediately if he is considered to no longer be a threat to society. Huh?

The world economy is in the tank and there are different trains of thought on where it is all going. One is the view that all of the pessimists should just shut up. If they keep scaring people to think things are worse than they actually are, purchases will continue to diminish thereby exacerbating the problem. True. Another is the optimists view that this is just a correction and we will be heading back to economic prosperity by the end of the year. Then there is me. Right now things are awful. Nobody wants to spend and access to easy credit is a thing of the past. The whole economic boom of the past ten years was a result of unprecendented consumerism in the US. And that was fueled by bad credit. Well that funny money is gone and won’t be coming back soon. So in reality the last ten years were a sham and this downturn is going to take us back to where we should be if the guys on Wall Street hadn’t figured out a way to give money to non-credit worthy people. It is going to be a long, rough ride.

Until then, I remain,

A Sour Kraut

Yeah, get ready for it. The US Energy report last week showed a drop in gasoline inventories in the US coupled with an increase in demand. As a result, gasoline futures shot up. Based the rise in prices and the dropping Canadian dollar, you can expect a price increase on Friday of up to 10 cents per litre. I hope I am wrong.

Until then, I remain

A Sour Kraut