Shanghai-ed – Then Liberated
— Sunday, March 20th, 2016 — // -2˚C / +27˚F in brilliant sunlight reflected on very white snow at 12:06 pm in Atlantic Canada — // — I believe today is Dona ( née Flynn ) from my hippy days in Brattleboro’s birthday —
— Yup, looks good to me –
— Jim & Cathi’s East Side Yard At Sun-Up.
— Today dawned almost as picturesquely as yesterday –
— yup, magic happens, isn’t it great when things work out better than you expect them to?
—jda—
Hi – Jim W. Is having problems with his WordPress Theme or his connection and asked me to see if this works in my ‘blog’ – :
= = = = =
— Saturday, March 19th, 2016 — // -10˚C / +14˚F & Clear & quite bright out there at 9:00 am Atlantic Daylight Savings Time — I think today is my grammar school friend, Donald Hanichek’s Birthday. I could have the spelling wrong – and the last time I bumped into him we were in our twenties and both shopping at an art supply store where my friend, Kim, worked. I think Don was picking up art supplies for the place where he worked, and he pointed at me, smiled and said, “This is what I like about living here-” (bumping into childhood friends) —
— This week’s Media News included a bit on how consumers brought a complaint to the CRTC (Canadian Radio & Television Commission? — expanded to include cable and satellite etc. ? ) About the way Cable ‘Provider’s are handling things. The CRTC ordered cable companies to provide a cheap, stripped down ‘basic’ package that had to include the major Canadian Networks and possibly a couple US networks — I’m not 1,000 % ‘up’ on the details – But – They were also supposed to ‘provide’ single channel options, and not just offer channels inside ‘Bundles’ that a lot of people were complaining contain a bunch of channels they never watch and have no desire to pay for. & Now it seems that the cable ‘providers’ – “jacked” the price of all the single channels they offer – up as high as they could get away with – and people are complaining now that it would cost them more to get just the few channels they want than all the channels they didn’t want before.
— & Now, Yesterday, Our local CBC Morning News Program reported that a new complaint has come to the CRTC regarding one of the major Media Providers and the way they charge for Cell Phone ‘service’ – They made it very easy for anyone on a family’s plan, including the minor children, to go past the ‘Data Transfer’ limits on their family plan – As in Testing and connecting to radio and YouTube NetFlix and stuff like that. The woman who brought this one complaint in question to the CBC reporters discovered that her minor son was able to go to a ‘screen’ where the warning “You are about to exceed the monthly Data Transfer Limit associated with your family plan – If you wish to continue receiving the program you are attempting to connect to you must verify that you will pay for the additional Data transferred. Do you wish to continue? If So Type “Yes” – ” The woman got her bill for that month, opened it and nearly fell down. The additional data transfer the company said she owed amounted to over $1,700.00 Canadian. After she complained to the CRTC the Cell Phone ‘Service’ was ordered to pay most of that back to her. The reporter told us that some complaints reported much higher amounts the ‘provider’ claimed the consumer owed, whether a minor child or the actual bill payer ‘okayed’ the extra data transfer or whatever –
— The CBC reporter identified the company in this case as ‘Rogers’ who may now own the iconic tower in ‘Downtown Toronto’ and might even own the Toronto Blue Jays. I could be wrong on this point. But anyway. The love of my life had a family plan with Rogers and needed to watch her bills extremely closely because the company tried to bill her in accordance to one plan after numerous long phone calls complaining and explaining that she had the plan that allowed her teenaged daughter either unlimited or close to unlimited data transfer every month while holding the rest of us, who didn’t text much, or in my case, not at all – And every month they tried to tell her that that was not the plan she had and every month she fought and argued and said, “Yes it was the plan she agreed to-” And they would get those details correct and the company representative would say that ‘these are your contract’s terms’ – and read her what she wanted to hear, and then the very next month the bill would come in as if those conversations/complaints had never happened. She was close to tears every month over this nonsense. It seemed ver much like the company had a policy of: “Charge them whatever we freakin feel like charging them – and threaten them with legal action for breach of contract if they don’t pay our version of this- and to hell with what they think they want or what they think they agreed to-” And then they made their customers service complaints so contentious and maddening that they hoped their ‘treasured customers’ would just shut up and pay whatever was on their bills.
— Schnarr! —
And Now back to pretty pictures:
— Okay, this blog doesn’t like full sized photos, let me publish what I have here and see how it comes out and maybe edit some more later.
— Schnarr –.
~~~~~ Jim
= = = = =
— Um – It looks okay in my blog- ,
— shrug –,
—jda—
Copied & Pasted from Jim W’s “Latest News From Aerendel” Blog:
= = = = =
— Tuesday Evening, March 8th, 2016 — // — Dark and -1˚C / +30˚F @ 7:45 pm in Atlantic Canada —
— I guess you can tell you live in a ‘Civilized’ area when last night’s Television News included the following:
— The culprit was a young and scruffy looking raccoon.
— I tried to find a photo of the scruffy young raccoon in the green plastic recycling bin via Twitter and became severely distracted by too much positive reinforcement going around – like:
— There is way too much positive stuff in the ‘Tweet-Us-Sphere’ tonight. Most of it concerns women’s safety and equality – with a hashtag #InternationalWomensDay –
— And I left a lot of stuff out. There’s not enough room here to fill with all the good stuff on the internet tonight. Now that’s different –
~~~~~ Jim
— Thursday, 03 March, 2016 — // -10˚C / +14˚F With Bright Sunlight and Bitter Cold Wind in Atlantic Canada @ 4:59 pm // Ian Punnett’s Birthday 🙂 —
— We had a busy early afternoon here in Atlantic Canada — The sun looked warm and the air was clear. But the wind – coming from the South West ahead of a winter storm blowing this way from Ontario and Quebec – was very damp and cold – the kind of cold that cuts right through you –
— We took a break in the middle of our tasks and appointments to gaze at the beauty of the river with its very bright reflections – And stepped out of the vehicle to take a couple of photos – But — Brrrrrr! Cathi gave up trying to stand outside and take a video of the wave action causing the built up ice to undulate near the edge of the solidly frozen ice. I took a couple of my own photos and ran back to the warmth, grabbed my warm insulated gloves, wore one of them and pulled my right hand up inside the cuff of my jacket so I could push the camera’s shutter button and not watch my fingers freeze and drop off my hand –
— Yeah, so we got all our stuff done and hurried back home to thaw out and catch up on the news that Mitt Romney is warning his fellow Republicans not to vote for Donald Trump – who he called a Con-Artist and a Fraud. A friend told us that photos of Mr Trump as well as transcripts and excerpts from some of his television spots were used by a Psychology professor to describe the look and characteristics of a “Narcissistic Sociopath”.
— Enough for now –,
—jda—
Friday, February 19th, 2016 §§ — -7˚C / +19˚F — Clear with a nice warm sun om Atlantic Canada @ 10:45 am §§ —
— The guy who was arguing that the F.B.I. should be able to protect civilians from terrorists scoffed at the ‘slippery slope’ argument that if Apple gave government agents any help in cracking into their iPhones Then nobody’s privacy would be protected. He called Apple’s argument ‘disingenuous’. — The other side in this discussion did not mention anything about the idea that Government should be the servants of the citizenry, not despotic dictators who believe they should control everything and everybody and should have the right to snoop on everybody’s private thoughts, words and deeds. — The weird thing was, as a kind of aside in this discussion, it was mentioned that young people don’t believe their potential lack of privacy is as big a deal as do older people.
— Several Earthquakes in the past couple weeks have also caught my attention, and Earthquakes and Volcanic eruptions were accurately predicted by Astrologer Dr. Luis Turi.
— This will have to be all for now. I have some ‘Real World’ commitments to fulfill.
— jda —
Copied & Pasted from “Latest News From Aerendel”
= = = = =
Wednesday, February 3rd ∞ -9˚C / +16˚F & snowing in Atlantic Canada @ 11:11 am ∴ I think it might be Ian Anderson’s Birthday ψ
— It just took me two hours to wade through a lot of beautiful and sometimes disturbing tweets. Eek.
— I was the recording engineer for an interview between Dr John Battista – a Psychiatrist and Green Party Activist in Connecticut – and David Cobb – a Texas Lawyer who was part of a group that had researched the history of corporations in the United States – and that group was fighting against Corporate Fascism – David Cobb, I do believe, ran for President of the USA as the Green Party Candidate in 2004 – After I had followed my heart to Canada and was trying to first become a permanent resident, and later, a dual citizen of the US & Canada. In 2004 I couldn’t leave Canada – unless I wanted to start the long and expensive process of applying for permanent residency all over again.
— & speaking of evil corporations – Canada has ruled that cable teevee providers must offer channels that they currently only offer as part of bundles – and so lower the cost that consumers need to pay to get what they want. Rogers Cable is blitzing the airwaves with propaganda commercials trying to lure customers into falling for their – “Get our packaged bundles now and lock yourself in to wonderful lower prices for three years!” b.s. — And Bell Aliant – who promised us three years of low prices and later informed us that we misinterpreted what they told us – had MTV in our channel line up on Monday, and no MTV was there on Tuesday, when the Shannara Chronicles air. So I guess that proves that Bell is definitely on the side of the demons that the ‘Druid’ and the three young hero types in that series are trying to defeat. Yup, Bell is probably one of the bad guys.
— The Mouse that Roared? In Reverse?
— Your government is lying to you. They want you to voluntarily give up every right and privilege you have. They want to say you voted away your rights. They want to be able to point their fingers at you and say, “They made me do it-” & When they get to Hell, they want to show the devils there that they really were on the side of darkness and deceit, so they can get a job as one of the demons torturing the decent folks they deceived into backing policies and programs that drove other good people into despair and economic slavery.
— Today’s weather report, “Well, this afternoon we will experience Winter and by tomorrow it will feel like Spring.”
— I do like to have at least something positive to add any time I go through the trouble to write up what I see coming at us via the ‘Tweet-Us-Sphere’ and in real life beyond.
— Looks like another place I’d like to visit and stay for a while.
— But I have other real world stuff to attend to, so I better end here – Have a wonderful, spiritually enlightening day –,
~~~~~ Jim
Insanely Early, Monday Morning, February 1st, 2016 -( -1˚C / +30˚F — Dark and comparatively warm for this time of year in Atlantic Canada @ 1:35 am )-
— Progress in non-polluting technology? & Here’s a quote from a tweet that got away – “More Energy Shines on the Earth in An Hour than the world uses in a Year.”
— Ex- Bridgeport, Connecticut, actor and ‘personality’ Robert Mitchum once said, “The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I’ve spent more time in jail.”
— & Strangely enough – Prince Edward Island has the best recent record for rising wages. ( But a woman who talks to ‘Aliens’ said they told her that P.E.I. will be under water when Climate Change roars across the planet. )
— jda —
Sunday, January 31st, 2016 -( 0˚C / +32˚F — Dark and fairly warm for this time of year in Atlantic Canada @ 8:37 pm )-
— I spent too much of last night trying to undo weird glitches on my laptop – Then I switched to this computer to look up “How do you delete a user account that isn’t working right on a Mac with OS X 10.9.5?” ( It won’t accept its passwords – and nobody logged in and changed those passwords, so I haven’t the foggiest what might be going on there. )
— But ya know what? There’s a lot of back and forth grumbling about politiks, especially back in the “States” where the Iowans are about to kick off another round of Presidential Election Season maneuvering.
— Michael Moore has been poking holes in a lot of arguments about the Republicrats’ race to the White House, including citing poles that say that Bernie can’t get enough Democrats’ votes to beat Trump – But when Independent voters are figured into the mix Sanders clobbers Trump – But Hillary wouldn’t.
— A lot of people are now openly calling ex-Prime Minister Stephen Harper a Corporate Fascist.
— [ ‘Carers’ listed above would be ‘Home Health Care Providers’, as in: someone taking care of a sick parent or relative, or foster child, etc. ]
— How about, “The problem is that Sensitive People take their time to think about the consequences of their propsed actions while Belligerant people turn their minds off and charge straight ahead swinging virtual and verbal clubs and axes at anything in their way.” ?
— This is probably enough damage for anyone’s peace of mind to suffer through tonight –
— jda —
Friday, January 29th, 2016 -( -2˚C / +28˚F — already dark & snowing lightly here in Atlantic Canada @6:51 pm )-
— Um – after reading a delightful ‘friendly warning’ message in the new wordpress blog I was tricked into signing up for – “From time to time we may need to [ stick ] ads [ into your blog messages ] to keep your blog free [ hint – hint – send us money ] ” – I went and downloaded, activated another blog with the intent of copying everything from the one I didn’t want in the first place, and, after messing around with settings etc. I learned that it’s really hard to get your favourite fonts ported over into your self-hosted blogs – And – while I was changing fonts in the “Appearance / Editor” css coded listing – the whole freakin thing went bonkers like it decided I wanted it to look like something that could fit on an iPad or my Sweetie’s Tablet – I ended up wasting an hour trying to find a place to click on “I do not want this to look like no stupid mobile device blog” before I deleted the theme I started with and imported a new instance of that theme (“Twenty Sixteen” – you are probably looking at it right now.)
— Um. It took me all freakin afternoon to ‘create’ the blog, copy and paste maybe 5 articles/posts – and I was about to start writing my hopefully uplifting novel when I foolishly checked email and twitter – and – oh well –
— And I couldn’t let that go by un-praised.
— & so – tired as I am, I needed to write a little more here to share with anyone who might care before I go knock myself out working out the tougher mind-bending plot twists in a novel that’s supposed to make everybody who reads it feel happy they’re alive and at least trying to be nice to each other –
— I took screen shots of several hopeful photographs from quite a few tweets I read this late afternoon, and I think only one or two of them are about to find their way into this little article here-
— But I wanted this to be an almost entirely positive article – dangit –
— Enough for today? I’ve gone beyond and have almost nothing left to write my soul saving novel with – It is now 9:43 pm. –
— jda —
Jim W. posted this on “Latest News From Arendel” – Copied and Pasted below:
=====
Wednesday, January 27th, 2016 -( +5˚C / +41˚F — Grey skies & damp in Atlantic Canada @ 8:00 am )-
— The oil and gas industries received $34 Billion dollars per year in taxpayer-funded subsidies? Mid-priced Electric cars cost about $31,000.00 Canadian Dollars. They figure there are 9 million families in Canada?
— The Province of New Brunswick, crying poverty, has told the people of New Brunswick that their ‘duly elected government’ is trying to decide how to institute tolls on New Brunswick’s highways to raise money because they’re not bringing in enough tax revenues? ***Why don’t they raise taxes on the corporations that have been getting away with downsizing, knocking hardworking people from their ability to pay those taxes, which may be fraudulently reported to the media which, in turn, ‘report’ those fraudulent figures to the news-consuming public.
— Walter Burien – of cafr1.com [ (CAFR+the number 1) dot com ] is an investment counselor who has been trying to explain that virtually every level of Federal, State or Provincial, County, and municipal government has more income streams than they admit to, that tax revenues amount to one third of their actual income, and if they’re not receiving two thirds of their income from non-tax revenues, well then, shame on them for being incredibly stupid – Mr. Burien has been trying to explain this for years, has been politely screaming at seemingly sleeping citizens who, apparently, would much rather plug their ears than listen to him.
— The proposed Energy East Pipeline upgrade would bring oil from Alberta to Saint John, New Brunswick, – reportedly: not to be refined here, an operation which would create Canadian jobs, but to be loaded on ships and carried off to refineries in the USA, where US citizens would have job security that is lacking in Canada?
— Meanwhile, Fracking has been shown to create earthquakes. Earthquakes endanger pipelines. Oil pipelines that split open spill poison into the groundwater. Poisoned groundwater forces humans to pay extra for water that isn’t poisoned, and it kills animals. Animals that die from poisoned water include farm animals that people eat, and pets that people love, and wild animals, like the Beluga whales in the Saint Lawrence River/Seaway.
— When the Mayor of Montreal cried out against the pipeline, he was first accused of being selfish, then accused of trying to divide Canadians along East Versus West, or even Anglophones versus Francophones lines. Then, after a talk with Justin Trudeau, the Mayor of Montreal clarified that his stance against the pipeline was not against economic progress or opportunities, but against the shoddy inability of industry controlled watchdogs to insure that the pipelines would be properly built, properly inspected, and properly maintained. Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, for his part, has announced that he is not a cheerleader for this pipeline project, or any other pipeline project. First Nations/Native Americans – the people whose country was stolen out from under them by Europeans – who claimed they were saving the aboriginal citizens of the ‘Americas’ from ignorance, eternal damnation and poverty – have been fighting pipelines both in the east and in the west. They have also been fighting against the practice of ‘Fracking’, which threatens their drinking water and the stability of their lands.
— Canadian ‘Law’ sees mineral rights as belonging to the ‘Crown’, land owners have been shocked and dismayed to discover that their property has been invaded without their permission by somebody who dug a hole, searching for possible minerals or other exploitable resources, & left the ‘exploratory’ holes open and dangerous to children and other living things. And then the property owners discovered that (1) they are powerless to stop this sort of thing, (2) if anything valuable was discovered on or under their property, they would not benefit from that discovery, or its exploitation or development – at all – and (3) they just might have to pay the cost of filling any dangerous holes left in their own property, or be held financially liable if the next trespasser looking to make money at the property owners’ expense fell into a hole and injured their precious selves.
— First Nations people have been fighting for centuries to keep their land and mineral rights, citing the fact that they never did sign away their mineral rights. Miners want to be able to walk onto Tribal lands and poison and ruin the area, grab whatever minerals and ores they find there, cart the valuable substances away and gesture obscenely as they ‘laugh all the way to the bank’ and capitalize on what they’ve stolen.
— Corporations have also been getting away with not paying their fair share of taxes in the United Kingdom. Google, which ‘mines’ information from the browsers of anybody connecting to their ‘services’ – and selling that information to the highest bidder – has recently been slapped on the wrist and asked to pay a pittance to cover back taxes – while ‘common’ taxpayers in the UK have discovered that they are now being charged unbelievably ridiculous new taxes [ like a bedroom tax? ] that sound more like Monty Python routines than anything like a real tax that any government in the Western ‘Free World’ would have the gall to suggest.
— And so, sadly, tragically, this has been a snapshot of this morning’s schnarr news of the world as perceived and shared from Atlantic Canada.
— & On the Ethics front: In France, the Justice Minister resigned her post in protest over the new French law that strips citizenship from those accused of terrorism. So human beings with their humanity and moral values intact actually still do exist as of today, the 27th day of January/janvier, 2016. Of course, the newscast that announced this brave and ethical act went on to tell us that the Justice Minister who resigned had already been replaced by a schnarr ice-hole of an Elitist shill who was firmly in favour of advancing himself without regard for ethical behaviour, due process of any law, or the health and well-being of anybody but himself.
— Hopelessly remaining optimistic –,
~~~~~ Jim
= = = = =
Re-posted by:
— jda —