35 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  2. Congratulations Gord Turk – that was a very catchy jingle! Loved the photos – where those part of the package? I spent many days in all those beautiful places when I lived in Alberta – I spent summer of 1970 at Malign Lake – what a summer! Thanks for the link Robert.
    I wish to thank-you, EBD, for the tribute to farmers. Beautiful; and so true. My Dad and most of my relatives were farmers/ranchers and I have seen the truth to that tribute.

  3. Yeah, Gord! I smiled through the whole thing: SUPER!!
    Good for you and bless you.

  4. Congrats Gord. Awesome tune.
    Say Kate, with all the success you had with the CWB, I was wondering if you thought we could dispose of the Metric system and bilingualism as well.
    We will call it the detrudeaufication of Canada.

  5. Right on Gord, I’m still smiling. Nice to know you are far more than an excellent wordsmith, I wholeheartedly agree with everything Dennis had to say about you, always well thought.

  6. Thanks EBD.
    The fellow in the video reminds me of my grandfather.
    He and my grandmother had a family of 9 children and they managed on a wheat farm in the Pense-Rouleau-Drinkwater area in Sask.
    The old farmhouse basically had no electricity (save for a sometimes working, one-light DC system with a battery which was powered by a jerry-rigged generator on the windmill).
    I remember going to the farm in the 50’s and even as a youngster, I knew that they were special in some way I could not fully appreciate apart from them being my grandparents.
    At that time, they were not actively farming and lived in Regina but sometimes returned to the farm. Luckily, I got to go with them.
    The video touched a nerve and I can now appreciate more of what they gave me, though I don’t have the words to adequately explain it.
    I hope I am capable of passing some of it on to my 3 grandchildren.

  7. Jema, the video was of my creation. I had the audio track from Dennis Miller’s show and thought that it would be more interesting for all if there were some nice scenes from Gord’s neck of the woods.
    P.S. If you think his comments on here are great, and they are, you should hear the brilliant words he brings to Miller’s shows. Does us Canadians proud every time!!

  8. Hats off to all the farmers who are out there plowing mud and getting the crop in. From Saskatchewan with love.

  9. Gord’s a bad mother…
    Hey, don’t know if it’s news, but I had it from a FB friend who’s a teacher that the STF is looking at strike action Wed/Thurs next week. No link. He had this to say:
    Proposal 1: put our salary 1/2 way between Manitoba and Alberta – rejected
    Proposal 2: go to binding arbitration – rejected
    that makes two groups that the prov. gov. has refused binding arbitration… if they are so sure their offers are fair what are they so afraid of?
    Kind of a bit of false logic and faulty assumptions in that bit.

  10. Flattered by the song, the comments here and the regard that Dennis has for what I have to say. Thanks to Robert too – he facilitated the song getting written.

  13. I share your impressions about the video, Rich. My grandparents – my mom’s parents – came over from Norway in 1912 and homesteaded near Gull Lake, Saskatchewan, and had 13 kids there.
    About fifteen years ago my brother and I went to see the ruins of the house – which wasn’t much bigger than a lot of people’s living rooms – and we realized that ol’ mom wasn’t joking about the hardships.
    Remarkably, all of the kids grew up to be fine, productive, gracious, non-criminal people. So much for the “root cause” proponents…

  14. I heard a story today that I found difficult to believe but the woman who related it assured me it was true:
    She told me about a young man who moved from Sri Lanka to Niagara Falls. He got a well paying job in government. Then his brother also moved from Sri Lanka as well. A bit later their mother moved over, stayed 3 years, got her Canadian citizenship, and then immediately moved back home to Sri Lanka where the family owns a Tea Plantation.
    Apparently the mother is now receiving social security benefit cheques being sent to her from Canada. She’s never worked a day here in our country.
    I don’t know the rules on this sort of stuff so defer to the rest of you. Do you think the story is credible?

  15. Robert….i think it’s ten years residency to get citizenship or for the benefits, or both. Not sure, and don’t necessarily quote me. That’s just what my addled brain is saying. Part of this is remembering something an immigrant co-worker of mine got upset about during the election campaign.

  16. Re: the struggles of farming back in the day.
    Without question the very best description of what it was like that i have read was regarding specifically the south and southwest US and was in of all things a biography (part of a yet to be competed four book set) of LBJ by a life-long new york cliff dweller Robert Caro.
    His description of the daily and weekly hardships of farming in the unfertile, arid Texas hill country where LBJ was born, lived and died and the (White) sharecropper life of a young Sam Rayburn (the longest serving speaker of the house ever) are detailed and compelling reading.
    Damn, they worked hard.
    http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0679729453/ref=mp_s_a_6?qid=1305951620&sr=8-6
    Sorry to go on about it,’but here’s a review that I very much agree with:
    “I’m a Texan, but a Republican, and I never particularly admired LBJ for his political decisions. However, he’s a fascinating study in contemporary politics. Even if you hated Lyndon, he was the most masterful politician of the 20th Century.
    This book is a 24 karat gold winner. I’ve probably re-read it twenty times and each time I learn something else.
    The Washington Post called it “a book of radiant excellence”. That is a gross understatement. This book transcends everthing I have ever read about American politics.
    It captures the true feelings, emotions, ambitions, and everything else about America in the middle of the 20th century.
    This is the most compelling book I have ever read. You have to read it too. Get it now. You’ll love me and thank me later for recommending it.”

  18. Congratulations Gord and thanks EBD for the Paul Harvey clip God Made A farmer.

  20. 13 kids!?!
    The amazing thing is they probably weren’t even Catholic. The skifeet are snake-handlers I think.
    It’s too late, infitiysquared. There’s too many of them, and not enough normies. They’re like the Borg, but without the humour.
    Meanwhile, El Presidente Narcissto is “limiting” the Boston Herald‘s access because they’re “biased”. Their headline two days ago in response was Yes We Ban!
    http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/white-house-restricts-boston-newspapers-access-obama-fund-raiser
    (Congrats Gord.)

  22. Socialism: Hope* and Fear*.
    “In the past, the future always implied hope for Greeks but now it implies fear,””
    “Zapatero’s problems are a preview of the fate which awaits a left-wing politician who promises to lower the level of the oceans and winds up raising the price of gas. Added to the pangs of hunger is the outrage at betrayal. After years of telling a base that you can get money for nothing and your chicks for free, it doesn’t go over well to explain that it was all a joke, and hey guys — don’t you have a sense of humor? When they are told their inflated college degrees are worthless, their money valueless, and their employment prospects are nil, the exhortation to take it all in good part often falls flat. So end the economic crisis already. Or else the revolutionary youth will seize power and print enough money to make everything right again. It can be done, you know: just call it Quantitative Easing.”
    http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/05/20/esperanza-y-cambio/2/
    *Hope and Fear:
    “Hope* is charming, lively, blue-eyed wench, & I am always glad of her company, but could dispense with the visitor she brings with her, her younger sister, fear*, a white liver’d-lilly-cheeked, bashful palpitating, awkward hussey that hangs like a green girl at her sister’s apron strings & will go with her whithersoever she goes.”
    (Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb)

  23. Club that bear: Free memberships.
    …-
    “Polar bear population – no change
    From CNS News:
    From that article:
    “The PBSG confirmed its earlier conclusion that unabated global warming will ultimately threaten polar bears everywhere,” it said.
    At the same time, the report cited an American scientist who told the group that a research team had used a collar to track a polar bear that swam for more than 650 kilometers across the sea. “He described the extensive spatial data recovered from one particular collar that showed the bear swimming more than 650 km in the Beaufort Sea,” said the report.
    Despite its concern that climate change could threaten the polar bear, the group also said it supported the right of human beings to “harvest” the bears.
    Full story here”
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/20/polar-bear-population-no-change/#more-40323

  24. Socialism vs equality and social justice: the sitter’s dignity vs “loo with a view”.
    “There is nothing more powerful than the image of a woman sitting on a toilet without an enclosure,”
    …-
    “Why is South Africa still providing ‘apartheid toilets’?”
    http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/5/16/1305569857870/South-Africa-toilets-007.jpg
    “Cape Town councillor June Frans surveys an open-air toilet in Khayelitsha.”
    “Waiting for a flight from Cape Town the other day, I stumbled upon the airport club lounge’s “loo with a view”. Alongside the hotel-style fluffy towels and Molton Brown soap, the mesh-coated glass walls offer a grandstand from which to observe the runway while keeping your ablutions to yourself. Sit and contemplate the world-class luxury of the haves; a short distance across the city are the have-nots. In the sprawling Khayelitsha township there are dozens of loos with a view. That is, loos built at ground level, exposed to the elements and the public gaze, shredding the last vestiges of the sitter’s dignity.
    “There is nothing more powerful than the image of a woman sitting on a toilet without an enclosure,” said Judith February of the African democracy institute Idasa. “It’s a graphic description of local government failure.””
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2722354/posts

  26. What batb said to Robert and Gord. Way to go, you two!
    When we used to watch that sycophantic, master spinner, Bill O’Reilly—even Steve Paikin’s more reliable!—we always enjoyed Dennis Miller. What a fine motor mouth—the wit and biting commentary just gush out: quite a talent!! (He quite often seemed to be rolling his eyeballs at “Billy’s” dissembling and equivocations: I wish Dennis would tell Billy what he really thinks of his lily-livered juggling act. But I guess he gets paid too much . . .)
    To think there’s only two degrees of separation—or is it one or three: who/how does one count?!—between me and Dennis Miller: wow!
    This city girl has actually been to a farm near Pence—and quite a few other farms in Saskatchewan. It was long ago, and I found the endless flat with almost no trees disturbing. But I absolutely admired the weather-beaten, leather-skinned farmers and their hardy wives. Lunches at harvest time were like a Christmas feast, with vegetables just picked from the kitchen garden. Since experiencing a little of what a prairie farm is like, I’ve had the highest respect for the really fine folks who lived good lives of astonishing hardship—but with hope in their hearts and often amazing good humour. They were the salt of the earth: we aren’t making many of those any more—and we’re paying for it.
    Thank God for the West: it might just drag Canada out of progressive, panty-waist territory. (One can dream . . .)

  27. According to the CCPA, securing a $1 Billion loan is a “windfall”
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/the-economists/newfoundland-has-a-lesson-for-canada-on-globalization/article2029960/
    Mere days before the inquiry started, the federal government gave Vale a $1-billion U.S. loan, one of Export Development Corporation’s largest. Less than a month after that windfall, Vale announced that it was laying off 500 workers at the refinery and smelter in Thompson, Man., which has been in continuous operation since the 1950s under Inco.

  28. Robert, Canadian citizenship.
    To become Canadian citizens, adults must have lived in Canada for at least three years (1,095 days) in the past four years before applying. Children under the age of 18 do not need to meet this requirement.
    You may be able to count time you spent in Canada before you became a permanent resident if that time falls within the four-year period.

  31. Actually, when you think about it – what profession is more essential that a Farmer? True, a Doctor can save your life but if you have no food you will die anyways – right? A carpenter can provide you with shelter – no food, die anyways.
    Our poor wildlife have a brutal existence – a life on the edge, constant fear, eat or be eaten, 24/7 – because there are no farmer ducks, farmer deers, farmer lions.
    Whether a democracy, a dictator or marxist – primary food production is essential to keeping the populace “under control”. That is why agriculture is a massive gov’t agency whose primary intent is to keep food production stable and cheap.
    By ‘stable’, the biggest fear of the Ruling Class is if Framers ever became financially independent and therefore are not beholden. The Political Class biggest fear, IMO, is if Farmers had complete control of primary food production, they, not the Politicos, would truly have control. Think OPEC – and oil is no where near as crucial to your life as is food.
    Census Canada also sees ag as thee most important survey – pages and pages of prying questions. The Canadian gov’t agreed with setting up the Wheat Board 70 years ago because they saw it as a means of control. The politicos would have never ever agreed to a Farmer run CWB.
    I also think the world’s Leaders wish they would have never agreed to allow biofuels to compete with food production. The only madnesss-in-their-method that I can see – biofuels have enticed an enormous amount of new crop production world wide, especially South America. Biofuels can be eliminated with a stroke of the pen (subsidies, fuel mandates) and viola! – frees up a huge quantity of grain for food. Viola! much lower food prices.
    Am I wrong with any of this?

  32. Farmers are the basis of all civilizations.
    Without farmers there would be no cities.

  33. Herman Cain announced that he’s running for pres. If he starts leading in the primaries, it’s going to be very interesting watching how the MSM handles it.

  34. Oxygen et al, thank you for the feedback. I knew something didn’t sound right with the story. I’m going to get back to the lady who told me and challenge her to look more into it when she gets back home.

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