Oversized Spouses

Just a posting I put on the Cowboy Junkies website

My musings and thoughts on this particular subject are not Shakespearean and perhaps don't belong here and if not, will I am sure Blair will set me right. It's about my pet peeve as a male.

Why do women allow themselves get grossly fat. It has been my experience, first with my 1st wife, then my next spouse that they started out slim and then gradually got heavier and heavier until I lost all interest in them. And I am not talking about some pleasing junk in the trunk, I am talking about all out obesity. And they wonder why my mojo is moribund? Where are their heads at? I have some aquaintances in the same boat; they also bemoan the fact and let me add that we are all physically fit males. And to top it off, they(the fat housewives) moan on about how they are the same persons inside and the extra weight should make no difference, Yeah, right, what that shows is a severe lack of insight on what makes a male tick. Who do they think they are fooling? They are only fooling themselves.

It's just not all about being pleasing to look at because I am not any Tom Cruise handsome hunk by any means. I can't do anything about my thinning hair, nor the whitening of what's left nor my facial features but I sure as hell have enough pride in appearance to have a fit body. The fat woman does not seem to have that attribute. And yet they expect us to be all hot to trot when they get into the mood. Sorry Toots, that's not how it works. Appearance does count. If we try to talk to our so-called better halves about maybe slimming down a bit, we get the huffy silent treatment, the cold eye stare, the moaning about what pigs we are, etc etc. So ladies, if you have wondered why your man drifted away, perhaps the answer is in the mirror. Take a look.

This is not meant to be woman-bashing. I just wanted to get this off my chest and am interested in any feedback. Do I have a point or do I have a point?

Maine Impressions

With another couple, we spent a week in Maine,arriving July 19. We spent 1 night in Bar Harbour at the LedgeLawn Inn and 6 nights in Old Orchard Beach at a condo building called the Brunswick. I went to enjoy the beach but except for Monday afternoon and Saturday, the weather was unfit for sunning and swimming except the early mornings when lots of people are walking about before the afternoon rains arrived.. However we made use of the non beach time by travelling to nearby destinations such as Kennebunk Port, Cape Elizabeth(where Bush Sr. has a summer home), Portland and some other small towns.

We each had a great room at the LedgeLawn for a mere $105US. It was formerly a huge old mansion thus had a rich charm about it. The condo we rented at the Brunswick for 6 nights, two bedrooms, big living room, kitchen and balcony overlooking an open air bar and the beach, somebody's home that they rent out when away, cost $1926US, pretty reasonable when split between two couples. The location was within a few minutes walking to a pier which is about the middle of that fine 7 mile beach.

In spite of the weather,we had a great time, good food, quaint sights and our women were delirious about the shopping. A few observations and happenings.
1. I saw very few blacks overall, on the beach at Old Orchard, the Quebecers were thick as flies, the amount of blacks that I spotted in the beach area, I could count on one hand. I put this as #1 because I have seen more blacks in my little home town than when I was on vacation in Maine.
2. Saw no signs of trouble, never felt threatened or even uncomfortable by the many people about. No fights or rowdy behaviour but I am sure that there must be some of that, just not where I observed. Then again, we spent the late evenings at the condo.
3. Heh, saw one lone Muslim woman walking on the beach, covered head to toe. I wondered what was going through her mind that morning as young sexy bikinied women walked and pranced about. Did she resent her confinement and wish to be free? Or did she view the young women with contempt. Or did she think nothing of it at all. I wish I had the balls to ask her.
4. Lots of famlies with children who delighted in the beach when they were out and about.
5. Friendly waitresses, encountered some from Russia and Bulgaria, charming young women with delightful accents.
6. The few random Americans we engaged in conversation were friendly and outgoing.
7. I made a point to read a newspaper from Portland and the Friday and Saturday editions of the Boston Globe. There was only one mention of Canada (the Portland one) and it was a story on the local association of lumbermen bitching about Canuck lumberjacks working in the Maine woods.
8. The road ways we travelled from the I95 to smaller routes impressed me with their good shape(too many roads in my province of New Brunswick are embrassing) and lack of litter. The houses for the most part were well kept, neat, many were often quaint which gives the area its charm.
9. Even though the Olive Garden is just a chain resturant, we thoroughly enjoyed the two meals we had there, one on our first day in Maine and another as we were leaving.
10. Thoroughly impressed when we went shopping at a Maine grocery chain, Hannaford. beautifuly laid out, an impressive place that the managers of the food stores in my town should visit to learn how to refresh their businesses.
11. Bought a 750 ml of Gordon's Gin at Hannaford for a total of $11.69US ($13.25 CND). A 375 ml bottle, (half the size of the Hannaford purchase) in my province sells for $13.00 CND while the 750 ml sells for $23.29CND. We have to go to the government liquor store to get our booze in New Brunswick, no booze in our grocery stores. Also beer is so much cheaper, there was a special on sale, 30 cans of a 5.9% beer called Natural Ice for just under $15US. A pack of 24 cans of Bud costs $39.98 in N.B. The natural Ice was certainly to our tastes as it was stronger than our average beer which is usually 5% alcohol. My friend drank 24 cans of it and bought another case to take home.
12. I was the only one we saw that went into the water with flippers and facemask/snorkle.
13. We only saw one begger, a young forlorn young woman in Portland holding a cardboard sign (Homeless and Pregnant). We are suckers for that kind of stuff so my friend and I each gave her a dollar. She shyly thanked us.
14. When (and if) I think of some other interesting tibits, I shall add them later.

July 31 Update
15. Just remembered, while reading a Maine publication, came across a survey that 1 in 4 adult Mainers are obese, yes, obese, BMI of 30, not merely overweight. Jeeze, if Mercan society keeps going in that direction, the government will be hard pressed to find enough fit people to fight in the wars.

Income Tax Gouges the Low Income Earners

Here is an example income tax situation in Canada, New Brunswick specifically. I worked out the 2008 income tax figures for an acquaintance who is retired, female and living with her boyfriend who also is also retired. In summary, her figures are

Total income: $16,168 (Sources: CPP, Company pension & a LIF)
Taxable income: same
Income Tax: $1370

I consider it outrageous that somebody with such a low income has to pay such a large amount of income tax relative to her income. This woman is living with someone, otherwise she would have been forced to continue working beyond the 37 years she already put in.

It is clear that the low income people are paying too much income tax. Instead of giving tax breaks to the very well off, the low income should get more of a break.

Mutual Funds - Stay for the Long term???

A posting I made on the Cowboy Junkie website:
................................................................................................................
",,,generation of financial gains have been wiped from the books (we're at 1996 levels), " - Stoned Immaculate

Well I can certainly vouch for that with real life personal experience.
In 1995, when my daughter turned 16, I purchased $5000(CND) in mutual funds in her name. It stayed with mainstream mutual funds. Here is the pitiful history. Yeah, that old advice of staying in for the long term certainly stinks.
$5000 - Aug 1995
$10700 - Dec 1999
$8580 - June 2007
$7870 - May 2008
$4410 - Mar 2009
Similiar calamity befell my own funds.

I am on the same page as Gloom and Doom Gainesvillebob2. Run for the hills, the sky is falling, the sky is falling.
Pluck pluck pluck, pluck pluuuucccckkk!!!.

Testing making a Link - Chris Rock

Chris Rock speaking hard truths in his usual hilarious fearless way.


Like this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7b2oCYgfik&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Update: March 28/10
Opps, that link does not work anymore, copyright issues.

Sham Marriages

Lately(May 2008) there has been a spate of articles in the Globe & Mail about the racket of sham marriages. It usually involves women being suckered into an arranged marriage with some bum foreigner looking to fast track into the country. However some men are played for suckers as well. This country should immediately deport these frauds.

Anyway, I personally know a girl, early 20’s who was suckered in. When I was chatting her up 2 years ago, she mentioned she was engaged. As I saw her man occasionally and assuming he was middle eastern from his appearance, I asked her where he was from. When she told me he was a student from Morocco and that he was not asking her to convert(to Islam). As soon as I heard that, I would have bet my bottom dollar he was using her to get to stay in the country. The part of ‘non-conversion’ clinched my opinion. Well guess what? When I saw her after a two year absence, I found out that he married and divorced her and is now a permanent resident in this country. You know, I could have told her that was going to happen but let’s face it, in such situations, women will not listen to such cautions. In fact, she would have been very angry at me if I had expressed my misgivings. There are many more dumb broads like her.

As usual, Canada is useless and gutless to crack down on this stuff.

N.B. Liberals - Inflation Creeps - An Example

OK, these Liberals have been in power for a while now. Let me give you an example on how they nickel and dime low income taxpayers. With just one example.

There is a NB government program for low income people. In 2006, my aged retired mother qualified for the property tax allowance (a rebate of $200). To qualify, the taxable income (Line 260 on the Income tax form) can not exceed $20,000 for the previous year, which in this case, would be 2005. She just got in under the line with an income of $19,700.

Tough titties for the following year, her three government pensions(OAS, CPP, Nurses Pension) are indexed, the increased in pension income pushed her over the line by a hair since the max. income allowed stayed at $20,000. It should be adjusted upward to take care of inflation creep. So she missed out for the rebate in 2007 and 2008. The max. income allowed is still at $20,000 after 3 years.

If a few people in every MLA district would go to the MLA's local home office and bitch about this, something can be done. I intend to do so.

This Liberal government has sunk $60 million into a corrupt credit union, a few more million into a frigging golf course(Royal Oaks in Moncton) and I am sure there are other examples I will think of later. And they have the bloodsucking gall not to rectify this injustice.

April 22/08 Update:
--Another example, NB liberal government bails out nursing homes pension plan to the tune of $20 million of taxpayers money.

Taxed To Death

It's that time of the year. I do my own income tax. Many people don't realize how heavily taxed we are. An example, I am in the second tax bracket, since my taxable income is above $37,178 for the tax year 2007. I found a missing T5 slip for interest. So I recalculated my income tax knowing what a large bite will be charged to this extra declaration. My missing T5 slip was for $586.00 and I had to pay 37.48% of that amount in additional taxes. That's $219.63

Highway robbery, no doubt about it.

Can't State The Facts Against the Protected

Hey! Here in Canuckstan, I read this story in the Globe&Mail: a right wing web site, ‘Freedominion.ca’ has a Canadian Human Rights Commission complaint against it for allowing an anti-gay activist to disseminate Muslim hate literature on the Internet. One of the posts cited as discriminatory was written by a Bill Whatcott who wrote:

“I can’t figure out why the homosexuals I ran into are on the side of the Muslims. After all, Muslims who practice Sharia tend to advocate beheading homosexuals”

Bill also disseminated posts that condemned the Prophet Mohammed as “a man of violence” (Yo Pope, better not set foot in Canada)

A bleeding heart liberal (not a Muslim) complainer is upset that Bill is contributing to racial tension.

Good grief, what Bill posted is perfectly accurate. I don’t know what else he posted, never bothered looking but the comments in quotes are being complained about. I guess the facts cannot be stated anymore.

I am disgusted they even allowed it to be filed as it triggered an investigation and paperwork. Hopefuly somebody sensible tosses the complaint out.

Update: Aug 9/07
I read a short while ago that the Commission is not going to proceed with the complaint. The complainer is still an idiot however.

The Peaceful Majority - Muslims?

I saw this essay circulating on the e-mails and in my opinion, it sums things up perfectly with regard to all the ass licking that goes on as the politically correct police tip toe around.


The Peaceful Majority

I used to know a man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War Two. They owned a number of large industries and estates. I asked him how many German people were true Nazis, and the answer he gave has stuck with me and guided my attitude toward fanaticism ever since.

"Very few people were true Nazis "he said," but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories."

We are told again and again by "experts" and "talking heads" that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.

It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard quantifiable fact is that the "peaceful majority" is the "silent majority" and it is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority was irrelevant. China 's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War 2 was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And, who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were "peace loving"?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold; we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, I wish to add: At the risk of offending someone, I sincerely think that anyone who rejects this as just another political rant, or doubts the seriousness of this issue or just deletes it, is part of the problem. Let's quit laughing at and forwarding the jokes and cartoons which denigrate and ridicule our leaders in this war against terror. They are trying to protect the interests and well being of Canada and its citizens. Best we support the military and enable it to do it's job..
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Environmental Footprint

I was impressed by Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" and I am a believer that we are going to be in big trouble if global warming is not slowed significantly. And I buy the line that mankind is mostly responsible and therefore only mankind can minimize the effects by a world wide concerted effort. So Gore, by not walking the talk, as evidenced by his big power consuming house, and in that I am disappointed but the message by him and hoards of scientists should not be airily dismissed because he is leaving a large so-called environmental footprint. He really should have realized that the American Republicans and other naysayers would jump on the smallest thing to discredit the message.

I live on the coast and I surely will see bad things happen in my area within my lifetime. I also feel bad for my children's generation for they will feel the brunt of the upcoming chaos if the predictions come true. Individuals may think it is out of their hands but if enough individuals world-wide, bitch slap the politicians to wake them up, then something concrete can be accomplished. My apologies if any feminists are perturbed at the use of that term 'bitch slap' but it resonates so well in this case.

So what did I do lately to lessen my environmental footprint?.
1. When I drove my 15 year old car to the junkyard, I did not follow up on my original plan to buy a new car. So we are down to 1 car for this household.
2. I added 6 inches of insulation to my attic and replaced all the windows and door plus added insulation to the outside walls.
3. I recycle as much as possible garbage wise though I am not green enough yet to compost(I plan to look into that).
4. I walk and bike a lot even when the lone car is available.
5. I lower the thermostats in my house every evening before bedtime(except the bedroom)
6. Replaced one of the toilets with a new more water conserving type.

The Time magazine article on 51 things one can do to lessen your footprint is a must read.

Killer Drunk Driver Outrage

This is a direct quote from the NB blogger, Spink who nicely summarizes this latest judicial outrage

“Okay, this guy, Peter Leon Howe drinks 24 beers, half a bottle of whisky, jumps behind the wheel and ends up killing 23-year old Robbie MacRitchie who was on his bicycle in Fredericton and gets house arrest?!? Is it any wonder MADD determined last year that New Brunswick was the slackest province in the country when it came to drunk driving? Judge Graydon Nicholas sides with the criminal and not the victim or in this case, the victim’s family by saying, “Now mind you, people make mistakes.” A mistake? This guy got smashed and jumped behind the wheel of his car and took a young man’s life. It’s a poor, poor message Nicholas and the justice system in New Brunswick has sent out to the public regarding the consequences (or lack there of) of drinking and driving...again”

Pretty sad isn’t it? Now contrast the actions of this judge Knucklehead Nicholas to the actions of Judge Judy Glenndenning as relayed by this April 6 article in the Telegraph Journal:

“WOODSTOCK: A judge sentenced a Plaster Rock man to three and one-half years in prison Monday for a fatal car-pedestrian collision last fall. The RCMP charged Thomas Clyde Daye, 43, after the hit and run accident that killed Crystal Tapely, 31. Officers found her body on the side of the road early November 19. Court of Queen’s Bench Judy Glenndenning imposed the sentence in Woodstock and prohibited Daye from driving for life.”

Same province, very different outcomes. Way to go Judge Judy ! We need more women with balls like her.

Another but different kind of case, Judge Patricia Cumming sentenced a pervert pedophile (is there any other kind?) to a year in jail for counseling a father (actually an undercover officer) to abuse his 4 year old daughter. So this guy did not kill anybody but got a year in the slammer for urging a father to abuse his daughter and tell him the details later. However Judge Knucklehead Nicholas sees fit to release a killer drunk driver house arrest? Judge Patsy has balls unlike Nicholas. (Patsy was what we called her in high school –Bathurst High to be precise.)

So the big question is why the sentence handed down by Judge Knucklehead Nicholas is not being appealed by the crown?

Where is the justice?????????

April 12/07 Update
Last week I read that the crown will be appealing the sentence.

Enough of the NB liberals

Boozehounds - Rise Up -- Strike

The money grabbing, tax happy Liberals have:
1. Increased income taxes
2. Increased property taxes
3. Increased booze prices.
4. NB Power getting ready to ream us with double digit electrical rate increases

All while bailing out their political liberal cronies of the credit union management to the tune of $60 million of your taxpayers money.

Enough is enough. Strike!!!. Stop buying booze. Let them feel the power of the previously quietly suffering taxpayer. For those of you who cannot go cold turkey, at least cut your purchases by half. If necessary, make a run to Quebec with a van. If enough people do this, it will have an impact.

As for me personally, I will hold out as long as possible. I already make my own wine, I can always start making my own beer. To the barricades!!! Spread the word!!!!

God, I am so sick of the corruption of politics in this province, no matter what party is in power. Just heard that the Premier saw to it a company in his riding and who has his father on the board of directors, got a government grant. Something stinks there as well.

Miramichi Hospital Case - The Missing Money

Outrageous!! In the St. John Telegraph newspaper Nov 15/06, there is an article about the fraudster, a former judge, the disgraced A. R. Drew Stymiest, who ripped off the funds of the Miramichi Hospital. He will be out on parole Jan 2007 after spending less than 8 months in prison after his conviction. He was ordered to pay restitution of $218,000 and has so far paid $41,000.

What is disgusting is in the quote from the article

“Sgt. Rick Daigle of the RCMP proceeds of crime section … said there has been no decision yet whether the RCMP will launch a proceeds of crime investigation to determine where the missing hospital money went”

Why the hell not? Is this the kind of police work we have to put up with? The Miramichi people have every right to expect that this money be traced. About $1 million was stolen. It’s my bet that the judge salted away a chunk of that money and surely it can be traced if RCMP will just do their job.

Does anybody care? Does anybody know what is really going on? Are the fraudsters being protected by their political cronies? What can explain the lack of action on this issue??

Health Observation – High Blood Pressure

History:
Back in 1993, my blood pressure suddenly jumped when compared to the previous years and all the years before. Normally it was in the area of 130/70. I am 6 ft 2 in. and at the time, weighed 215 lbs. I did not smoke and was and still am, a light social drinker who went on an occasional toot(like one a quarter). The timing of the BP increase was at the same time as when I suffered a job reversal and weathered a strike. My father had high blood pressure and a stroke felled him when he was only 63, he died of a heart attack three years later, never fully recovering from the effects of the stroke, spending the rest of his days in a veterns hospital.

So I am facing a blood pressure is 150/90. WTF!!!. So I ignored it, waiting for it to go away but after a couple of months, upon advice of my doctor, I went on BP pills. So the pills lowered me back in an acceptable range of 135/80. During my last year of work, I gained weight reaching my highest ever at 230 lbs. I regularly monitored my BP and noticed a shift upwards in tne area of 140/85. Then I retired Dec 2004.

I doubled my time in the gym upon retiring. Without the pressure of work and a planned weight reduction, I was hoping to lower my BP. So I gradually lowered my weight from 230 to 208 where I plateaued out in the spring of 2006. My BP was in the area of 135/80. As I was not making any progress in further weight loss, so sadly, I gave up a habit. It was customery for me to snack on nachos almost every night. About 1/3 of a 240 gram bag with 75 grams of salsa and a beer. Hey, they were trans-fat free and the salsa was fat free and also I figuredI it was a healthy treat plus all the medical articles claimed a drink a day is better than no drink a day for health reasons.

Well within 5 weeks, I lost 10 lbs, reaching 198 lbs, my lightest since 1990. My BP dropped to the area of 105/60. Ah ha!! Thought I. Also my doctor suggested I reduce my dosage when half way through this time period, he noticed my BP was 130/70. I did not follow his suggestion as 130/70 was a good pressure and it would only go up if I lowered my dosage. For example, on my trip to Europe in May 2005, my bag with my blood pressure pills was misplaced and I did without BP pills for 8 days during which my BP climbed to 160/95.

So during the 6th week, I forgot one morning to take my BP pill. I checked my BP that afternoon and it was still ok. So I decided to stop taking the BP pills then and there. So the following day, Tuesday Oct 18, it was 122/82. Hmmm. I did not like the 82 but I decided to continue my experiment(without my doctor’s approval, mind ja).

I checked into the labelling of that favourite snack of mine that I gave up. Between the salsa and the nacho chips, I was injesting 1000 mg of sodium which is nearly half of the daily recommended dosage of 2300 mg. Hmmm, so between the last 10 lbs weight loss and salt reduction, my BP was affected for the good. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that I had my destiny in my own hands. I always wanted to get off those BP pills and all it took was elimination of my favourite snack. Well so be it. This way, I can throw away the BP pills which saves me $80 every 2 months. To date, my pressure, which I check twice a day, is in the 125/75 range. Seems like I am free of the BP pills. It has been over 2 weeks.

My eventual target is to get my weight down to the 190-194 range and keep it there. And to watch my salt intake. I had previously believed the old adage that once on BP pills, always on BP pills.

Miramchi Hospital Case

Regarding the fraud case at the Miramchi Hospital: I address this to the citizens of the Miramichi:

How is the government doing getting back the money those 4 thieves stole from your hospital? What about that? Two of them are out on parole now. Another will be in Jan/07. Spent only 1/6 of their sentence in jail, all of 9 months or there abouts. They deserve all the scorn the locals can heap on them if they even have the nerve to live in the Miramichi. I especially have issue with that convicted judge. He gets a fat pension now; is the government taking a good chunk of it to pay back what he has been ordered to? Does anybody know what is going on? Where can this information be found?

Furthemore: Regarding the Investigation Bill:
I completely agree with the mayor of the Miramichi. Why should his small city be stuck with the $250,000 investigation bill on the Hospital fraud. The fraud was carried out against a provincially run institution(a hospital) by 4 officers of the hospital board, thus government employees, one of whom is a provincial judge (since retired when convicted). As the mayor said, “it was a provincially ordered investigation into its own employees” and so he is against being tagged with this bill. Incompetence by the Department of Health allowed the lax audit controls which permitted this fraud in milking the hospital for close to one million dollars. The people of this city must support their mayor and flood their MLA’s with complaints.

NB Election Results

This posting is for the lone Mercan who was curious about the results.

Well the Liberals eeked out a win. Actually the Conservatives got the most votes at 47.7% of the votes cast to the Liberals 46.9% while the NDP got 5.1%. But that did not translate to victory for the Conservatives, with the Liberals getting 29 seats to the Conservatives 26. As I expected and prayed for, the useless left wing nuts NDP lost their one and only seat. I did not see it reported, but I was informed by another blogger that we had a 70% voter turnout. N.B. typically gets better turnouts than the rest of the country. Howere that is still too many non voters, too much apathy.

The liberal candidate for my riding won with 3221 votes to the Conservative’s 3028 votes. The hapless NDP got 326 votes. Though I voted against the Liberal, I am ok with that as I said before, he is a nice guy. And there is not much difference between the parties, the difference on ideology is much more pronunced at the federal level. At the provincial level, both parties had similar promises, bribing us with expensive promises with money we don’t got.

We had 8 years of Conservative fumbling and I expect 4 years of Liberal big spending and mismanagement with a good whiff of corruption thrown in for good measure. Actually the Conservatives managed fairly well but they screwed up royally on a three big issues, car insurance, financial disaster with our power generation corporation(government controlled) and the nursing home issue.

The Hated NB Liberal Nursing Home Policy:

When you go vote this Sept 18, one of the things to remember is that the NB provincial Liberals, while in power in 1997, brought in the hated policies that counted fixed and liquid assets into how much nursing home clients had to pay for their care. They cannot be trusted!!!

Though Lord is dismantling that, he would have gotten more brownie points if he had completed the process rather than wait to hand it out as an election plum. But regardless, it was the so-called friend of the people Liberals that screwed the nursing home seniors. It took the persistent struggle of the likes of Veronica Ratchford (of my home town, Bathurst) and some others to push the Liberal policy into the garbage where it belonged.

NB Power up to their Tricks Again

Take a look at your July household power statement, it differs from the previous months. The older statements show the cost per KWH. Not anymore. If you want to know this cost, you have to get out your calculator. I am curious as to why they changed this. Oh, wait, I think I know. They figure the less you know, the better and they are also counting on you to be too stupid to calculate it out. Well for your information, the July cost is 8.98 cents/kwh as compared to 8.37 cents/kwh, an increase of 7.3% for consumed power up to 1300 kw. Well we read about that increase in the papers so no surprise there. But that bill format change is sneaky though. They are up to no good when they do things like that..

The service charge increased from $17.74 to $19.06, an increase of 7.4%. I must have missed that increase in the papers.

Well somebody has to pay for the mismanagement.

N.B. Election Issues - Energy Items

Again the politicians will buy the votes of NB citizens with the voters' own money. And like the whores the voters are, they will vote for whoever puts the most in their(voters') pockets. Never mind policies for the greater good.

Take gasoline and power. Both the Conservatives and Liberals are now offering a reduction in gas tax, ah, money in the pockets of the voters. The Conservatives are rebating the NB share of the sales tax of the NB Power bills. More money for the whores. What needs to be done is to encourage conservation and making energy artifically cheaper, does not do this. Leave the gas tax where it is, increase it even, then maybe the people will get serious and buy energy efficient vehicles. Same for power, never mind the rebate. That works counter to any efforts to get homeowners to reduce their electrical usage.

Last year, I personally added insulation to my attic and three years earlier, I added insulation to my exterior walls and replaced all the doors and windows with higher quality items. All without a nickel of help from the government. I am benefiting now with lower power bills inspite of the rate increases.

So I say, vote for the party that encourages conservation, if we have such a party. Or are we going to be a herd of whores. Speak up at your political meetings. If you take my stance, be prepared for catcalls.