27 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. For the aficionados of good music, culture and the performing arts. This is one of my favorite movements and take note if you will of the crescendos, tonal quality and absence of flat spots. I look forward to future performances where we can enjoy not only the upper range but the full benefit of an organ or organs.
    Eine kleine Nachtmusik
    https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/UDXUDehUgIQ?rel=0&%3bcontrols=0&%3bshowinfo=0
    A very rare talent indeed! Enjoy.

  2. $21M audit of senator expenses, HoleeSheetBatman. Only in Canada. Shut that thing down.

  4. http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/senate-audit-cost-21m-another-10-senators-will-be-referred-to-rcmp-sources-1.2381537
    So, the audit cost 21 million, but the total questionable expenses was $100,000 ?
    ***
    A sweeping Auditor General’s audit of the Senate has cost taxpayers $21 million, and uncovered troubling expense claims from 10 more sitting and former senators, CTV News has learned.
    The 10 senators filed questionable expenses amounting to more than $100,000, sources told CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife.
    ***

  6. Eraser dust.
    They are no better or worse than the rest of the public service where fudging per diems is common practice. (Much as it is in many private companies).
    The scandal now is the feeding frenzy of hourly billings by the auditors.

  9. Just what were the auditors doing? Sounds like a cushy job; wish I were in on it.
    As far as a basic audit is concerned, it’s simple: look for receipts. No tickee, no laundry. That would get rid of all those claims where meals were expensed that weren’t actually eaten, not to mention a lot of other claims.
    Then it gets trickier. The whole housing mess has to be clearly sorted out, with fair and comprehensible rules.
    Then there’s the travel. Should Senators be restricted to travelling to and from the provinces they represent? If so, then we could lose a lot. Have been privileged to hear a Senator from Central Canada discuss the constitution and the Monarchy. Would love to have the opportunity to hear senatorial voices from regions other than my own.
    The Senate could be great. It needs to cleaned up, and the sense of entitlement removed (remember Nancy Ruth, Liberal Senator, who complained about the hardship of traversing the globe to get from Toronto to Ottawa?). But there have been great Senators – Eugene Forsey springs to mind. We need more like him in our political sphere.

  10. No one could sing ”Blue Spanish Eyes” like Al Martino. What’s amazing about this particular performance however is the fact that it was done on the second day that color TV was introduced to the German people, on Aug. 26, 1967. Check out the quality of the picture and note the resolution!!
    https://youtu.be/enIdTGckjKs

  12. 34 million vehicles recalled for faulty Takata airbags. It would be reasonable to beleive that each of those vehicles will have at least two airbags affected, bringing the replacement numbers to 68 million. It might be astute to identify publicly traded airbag manufacturers (other than Takata) and invest heavily.

  14. Liberal Wynnetario: Bolshevik green-red slurmonger.
    …-
    “Wynne challenges ‘climate-change deniers’ in Washington speech” (ctv)
    …-
    “The Harper government has been successful in avoiding suicidal action on climate”
    “Harper dodges climate change Guillotine”
    “Peter Foster: The Harper government has been quite successful in avoiding suicidal action on climate, but climate hysteria has certainly had an impact on energy infrastructure, resulting in tens of billions of dollars in losses to the Canadian economy from transportation hold-ups and price discounts.”
    “The main thing for skeptical governments (although they cannot admit being skeptical) is to continue playing the hypocritical game until it becomes glaringly obvious that the climate emperor has no clothes.”
    http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/peter-foster-harper-dodges-climate-change-guillotine

  18. How terrible and embarrassing that this cost so much with little result. The problem is Senate rules are pretty loose. There is way more money than $100,000 wasted, but most of it within the rules. I think even Duffy will be found to have been operating within the rules — and how much is that costing?

  20. ABOLISH THE SENATE!!!
    They supposedly exist as a form of sober second thought, yet as anyone not mentally retarded has plainly witnessed, they are infected with the same partisan bigotries as their Parliamentary counterparts thus rendering their responsibility to produce any fair and impartial decisions IMPOSSIBLE to attain.
    ABOLISH THE SENATE!!!
    Next major chore?…. Help the leaching, socialist, anti-west Party Quebecois achieve their dream of leaving the confederation.

  22. Quote from LindaL: “How terrible and embarrassing that this cost so much with little result.”
    The senate scandal is only a microcosm of the real scandal – the massive fraud that is government itself. The scandal is a mere diversion and if anything takes our attention away from the issues that really matter. That issue is summed up in one sentence, “Who should decide?”

  24. ” The Liberals decried the Conservative Party’s decision to reject debate invites from the consortium of major broadcasters.”
    This is from Maz2’s link above ;
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/conservatives-ndp-agree-to-globe-election-debate-on-economy/article24510188/
    The Liberals desperately want the CBC led consortium to control the debates. They are throwing out the ‘broadest number of viewers’ argument again. That is weak.
    More debates equal more viewers. There are very few Canadians that only have CBC as their window to the outside world.
    Those people have bigger problems than finding a place to watch the debate.
    CBC’s ‘Power and Politics’ will be debating the debates today, that should be interesting.

  25. A Salute to PM Harper. Bravo!
    …-
    “How a 19th Century Shipwreck Could Give Canada Control of the Arctic”
    “Directly beneath the hole in the ice, visible on the seafloor, is the biggest symbol of all: the HMS Erebus, one of two British navy ships lost during Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 quest to find the Northwest Passage through the Arctic.”
    “Jim Balsillie toes the frozen lip of a 5-foot triangular hole cut through 5 feet of ice. He’s wearing nothing but boxer-briefs. It’s mid-April, and it’s –5F outside of a tent that covers the opening. The water in the hole is so cold that, if left unstirred, the surface refreezes in minutes. About a dozen people, mostly officers from the Royal Canadian navy, are waiting to see if Balsillie, the former co-chief executive officer of Research In Motion, the company behind the BlackBerry, will actually go through with it. Someone stands by with a defibrillator. A couple of people have cameras. He jumps.
    Submerging in the frigid waters of the Arctic is a rite of passage for visitors here in the Queen Maud Gulf, 69 degrees north latitude, in the Nunavut territory. Later, Balsillie says he believes rituals are scenes we perform so our lives might take the shape we need them to take. It’s a symbolic act, and symbols matter to him.”
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-05-20/how-the-hms-erebus-shipwreck-could-secure-canada-s-arctic-control

  26. AGW RIP.
    “A focus on extreme weather (such as heat waves) might ignore the incremental risk of moderately unusual temperatures,” wrote Keith Dear and Zhan Wang of the Global Health Research Center at Duke Kunshan University in Jiangsu, China.”
    …-
    “Moderately cold weather ‘more deadly than heatwaves or extreme cold'”
    “Study finds cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather, and that premature deaths are most often caused by prolonged spells of moderate cold”
    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/21/moderately-cold-weather-more-deadly-than-heatwaves-or-extreme-cold
    …-
    “Cold temps cause more premature deaths than heat: study”
    “On of the authors, Eric Lavigne of the University of Ottawa, says the study suggests that in Canada, cold temperatures kill nine times as many people as hot weather does.”
    http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/cold-temps-cause-more-premature-deaths-than-heat-study-1.2383114

  27. This is the 10 minute clip from CBC’s “Power and Politics” with Kory Teneycke and Evan Soloman discussing the Conservative shutting out the ‘Consortium’. Perhaps, they should be called the ‘Cartel’.
    http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Politics/ID/2667569036/
    Evan is quite animated all through it. He gets personal in the last few minutes when he asks Kory about his relationship with Quebecor/Sun News. I think he was looking for a ‘gotcha’ moment. If looks could kill, Rosemary Barton would be the new host of PnP tomorrow.
    Too bad, Kory didn’t ask him if he worked for the Liberal party.
    The NDP will debate anywhere and at anytime.
    The Conservatives will not debate if the cartel controls the debate.
    The Liberals are hesitant about anything outside the control of the CBC’s consortium. What a shocker !!!
    The Libs also are upset that there may be 3 English debates and only 2 French debates, and Lizzie May and the BQ may not be there.
    The consortium has already agreed that they will not air any advertisements that use their material without permission. Basically that means if JT messes up, the others will not carry an ad that shows JT being JT. This concept has already been shot down by the courts years ago, but it won’t matter after the election. This is JT’s gaffe insurance, premium due Oct.20th.
    We will be paying it for years.
    Soloman pushes a specious argument that the CBC is doing Canadians a favour by airing the debates and foregoing advertising revenue. He conveniently forgets that the CBC is owned by Canadians, and if the network foregoes advertising for 90 minutes, we can live with it.
    The CBC mandate is to inform Canadians, not to make a profit, and certainly not to champion the Liberal party. If their mandate was to make a profit, they would have been gone 75 years ago.
    http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Politics/ID/2667569036/
    IMHO,the bottom line is that the Conservatives do not trust the CBC’s consortium, and rightfully so.
    The NDP don’t care who puts it on, they are confident in their leader.
    The Liberals do not want JT to be anywhere near a camera unless they, through their proxies, have complete control.
    If the CBC cartel has control of the technical aspects, the copyright, and the questions beforehand, Justin will benefit greatly.
    Remember the last French debate? The fellow that did PM Harper’s voice sounded like the CBC found him in a Montreal bathhouse.
    The CBC can air any debate, but they cannot control EVERY debate. That has got them and the Liberals worried.
    It is going to be an interesting 5 months.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation