July 18, 2020: Reader Tips

Reader Tips 59 Comments

After a long and tiring week with a heavy work load and not much sleep, I intend to take the weekend easy on the blogging front. You should as well. Get out and enjoy the summer. We’ll be here when you get back.

Tips thread is open.

59 Replies to “July 18, 2020: Reader Tips”

      1. Where I live, Airdrie Alberta, we hit a high of 21degrees Celsius. That’s it. Hottest day in months.
        Trees that are over a decade old are DEAD all over the neighborhood. Too cold and too much rain.

        1. In NE B. C., it’s the birches that are dying off, largely due to some sort of insect infestation.

          A few days ago, I was at the house I inherited and I had the one in my front yard taken down. It had several trunks and one of them was nearly dead. The rest of it might not have lasted the winter, so I had a tree crew come by and turn it into firewood before it became a traffic hazard.

          I can’t remember if we planted it or if it was courtesy of the town. I remember that it was there for more than 50 years.

          I wasn’t the only one with a dying birch. Just about every lot in the neighbourhood and further along the street had at least one that was in rough shape. From what I gathered, this is happening at least as far north as Fort Nelson and as far west as Peace River.

          1. It could be birch leaf miner. It’s hitting all the birches in Calgary. Used to be a treatment for same that one painted on the trunk in a wide band. Can’t get that now as “too toxic” but don’t know what for. So the birches are dying.

        2. I live just down the road from you in SW Calgary. We had what appeared to be 3 “dead” shrubs long after everything else leafed out, flowered and fruited. They were marked for removal. Suddenly, they sprouted leaves, flowers on one and seem to be making a bit of a comeback. We’ll see by summer’s end. I’ll make sure to water over winter this year.

          And, yeah this is the coolest and wettest July I’ve ever experienced in this part of Alberta the last 30 years.

          1. Fort St. John was hit by a flash flood just over 2 weeks ago due to a torrential downpour. A lot of basements, including the one for my house there, got flooded. From what I saw on YouTube, the water was more than curb-deep in certain parts of town.

          2. Our hardy roses had a very slow start this year and one I thought dead is just coming back this week.

            If you drive down Banff trail in the NW, it seems every Birch is gone. They are hard to grow in Calgary because of the dry spells. It might be they age out at around 40 or 50 or it could be pests. Our weeping birch seems to be developing a birch leaf miner problem. It happens every few years.

          4. Nancy:

            I wasn’t too happy about what happened when I got back to the house. A few personal items I stored in one part of my basement were damaged, so I chucked them out. Someone listening in would have learned a few new swear words.

            Unfortunately, I can’t be in 2 places at once, so this is the risk I have to take. Had I known about it earlier, I might have asked my neighbours to help, but I don’t entirely trust them.

            Maybe a year from now, the house might be someone else’s problem.

        3. For the last few weeks we have been warm and dry with a few thunderstorms mixed in. most days it has hit 30 on our deck in the shade. You sweat a bit when golfing but hey a little water and all is well.

        4. That would be a cool day in Winnipeg, hottest summer in years 25 to 30 everyday.

        5. Clearly the carbon tax is working 🙂 How cold does Canada have to get before we can stop paying the carbon tax.

          Has anyone heard what revenues are being received from said tax to control the weatherÉ I bet itès billions, a sneaky way of raising the GST without actually raising the GST.

    2. Environment and Tossing Virgins Into Volcanoes Kanuckistan will still proclaim this the hottest summer ever.

  2. Risk of thunderstorms tonight in NW Calgary. In-laws are moved. Family is home. Bills are paid. Dog is staring at me, taunting me to go to bed. It is well with my soul.

    1. Those videos remind me of something from the comic strip Li’l Abner. One group of characters Al Capp introduced during the mid-1960s was SWINE–Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything.

      Somehow SWINE would be an appropriate name for that lot.

      1. Al Capp also said once that he never felt more threatened than when visiting a “commune” or some sort of “peaceful” group that was around in the late ’60s.

    1. I’d have to pay capital gains tax on the house I inherited anyway when I sell it as it’s not my principal residence. According to the CRA, I needed to have it appraised for the value it had when my father died in order to establish a fair market price upon acquisition.

      Then, because I’m not a B. C. resident, I pay a premium on my property tax. The catch is that the house was assessed at the value that similar residences and properties were selling for in town, which was around 30% above what the appraised worth is. I convinced B. C. Assessment to knock off $20,000, but it didn’t do me much good this year. I still paid about the same amount in property tax, because the town can still soak me for whatever it wants. B. C. Assessment’s estimate really doesn’t mean much.

      “Level the playing field” between renters and owners. Yeah, right.

      1. You’re an optimist? You expect to sell the house for more than the value at the date of death? With the Liberals in Ottawa and the Bolsheviks in BC – good luck on that one. There are fair market values and then there are fair market values. The point is to declare a value as high as you can without breaking out laughing. Alberta tax assessments are supposed to be fair market value but because of municipal greed are often stupid high. In this case, that would be a good thing. Take care of yourself but come with backup.

        1. I’ll be satisfied if I can sell the house for the appraised value. I paid a large chunk in taxes when I filed the final return for my father. Prinz Dummkopf, Christy Clark, and John Andrew Horganweaver all made a lot of money from me because I inherited the entire estate.

    2. Interesting that the govt rent seekers claim housing is tax free.
      Municipal rates and taxes are a straight up property tax based on market price not usage.
      Besides boys, please go ahead and tax the family home because you spent too much money and your political survival will be counted in picoseconds.

      1. Remember when Chretien taxed us on our investments about 25 years ago? Was he chucked out of office after that?

        The Libranos have long pitted the makers versus the takers for financial and political benefit.

      2. We’ll see it the Trudeauites put the youth vote above homeowners. There are a lot of expensive homes in Toronto.

        1. Agreed, I can’t see the residents of TO or Van standing up for that level of theft through taxation given their huge home valuations.

          I can’t imagine why the liberals would float such an asinine idea aimed right at their base. Those folks are the brown bread n’ caviar of the non-WE Liberal funding.

          But then again the carbon tax may have emboldened them or they could be terrified of their overspending and desparate to solve the problem they manufactured.

      3. I think that’s crossing the Rubicon and it might be worse than just political suicide.

        1. Buddy

          In my opinion Trudeau is stupid enough to implement a home equity tax.

          Given his many ethics violations, SNC, Wilson-Raybould, Philpott, Caeser-chavannes, Mark Norman, WEScam, etc. he’s convinced his public will still vote for him no matter what he does.

          1. This isn’t paywalled but it will piss you off big time.
            ://nationalpost.com/news/national/cmhc-spending-a-quarter-million-on-federal-home-equity-tax-research/wcm/4d0ce195-34f8-4544-9110-ee6294156471/

            “We need to make it so that no Canadian relies on gains in housing wealth to feel secure, and we need to rethink policies that by encouraging the financialization of housing push the cost to buy or rent a home even further out of reach.”

            That line from the UBC project Generation Squeeze.

          2. We need to make it so that no Canadian relies on gains in housing wealth to feel secure

            In other words, they want the proles to rely on the government for even more.

            Of course, the people proposing this idea, namely Prinz Dummkopf and Bill “Gee, I forgot about my villa in France” Morneau, were, shall we say, loaded. They don’t need to rely on their houses for financial security as they already have more money than they could possibly spend.

            Like one of the commenters wrote, this shows that the country is broke and that it’s desperately looking for ways to raise money.

  7. I am always amused by the health experts.

    http://joannenova.com.au/2020/07/for-80-years-cholesterol-experts-said-eat-less-fat-but-they-never-had-any-evidence/

    I changed to a new doctor a few years ago.
    After my check up, she said you are in excellent health and good shape.
    I said, it must be my diet.
    What’s that she asked.
    I said brown bread, fat milk, and beer, not necessarily in that order.
    And I never shied away from good old red meat. Hamburgers are my favorite.

    At one point, I saw a doctor only 3 times in 30 yrs.
    I was part time farming for 5 yrs first and full time farming the last part, not exactly the safest occupation to be in.
    Have seen the doc more often these last yrs but still not much.

  11. Hot in Ottawa and not just because the Liberals are burning money and probably evidence.
    Been hot for quite some time but thankfully there has finally been some rain. Crops and plants needed it
    Too hot for fishing. Range appointment at 9. Maybe a patio after that.

  12. I’m sure all Canadians want to know that our Great Leader is spending a relaxing weekend on the private beach at his Harrington Lake resort. He is so cool and wonderful, just ask the media.

  13. And now the Canadian news this morning. Racism against Asians in B.C.!!! Nazis are running rampant across Canada! Rampant persecution of blacks across Canada! Trump is Hitler! Justin is wonderful! The Liberal Party is wonderful! Indians need more money! We need more unionized teachers! Socialism is wonderful! Canadians are racist bastards!

  14. Traitors in our midst, the corollary of diversity is our strength:

    “The national security law China recently imposed on Hong Kong has been widely condemned as an assault on the city’s freedoms.

    But a major Vancouver group with ties to the Chinese government published an ad in a popular Chinese-Canadian newspaper Friday praising the controversial new legislation — and echoing Beijing’s official line.”

    https://nationalpost.com/news/vancouver-group-runs-newspaper-ad-praising-controversial-new-security-law-in-hong-kong/wcm/543c5cc7-4499-44df-9622-bb1f1132cb60/

  15. Glen Clarke tried to tax home equity in the mid 90’s in BC.
    He had woken the blue haired mob and he backtracked inside 24 hours.
    Renters do not take on the risk of home ownership, or pay property taxes.
    Equity my arse.

    1. Equity my arse.

      Exactly.

      Ever since I finished my B. Sc., I rented my accommodations. I was never a home owner until I inherited my house. After what I’ve had to deal with including dying trees on the lot, having the roof re-shingled, fighting with a basement that can’t seem to stay dry, and everything else that’s wrong with a place that was built in 1963, renting isn’t so bad.

      There’s a reason a house has been nicknamed a money pit.

  18. The Edmonton Eskimos are changing the team’s name even though some indigenous groups in the north prefer the word Eskimo. The following was in an Anchorage paper:
    In Inupiaq, the word Inuit means people, so it works in northern Alaska as well as it does in Canada. But Yup’ik doesn’t have the word Inuit, and those Southwest Alaska people are Eskimos, too, sharing cultural traits with the Inupiat and with other peoples along the coast to Prince William Sound. Calling them Inuit would be giving them an outsider’s name.
    “More than 20 years ago, Sambo Dorough called for getting rid of the word in the Anchorage Daily News. But about 10 years ago I was scolded by a North Slope elder for using Inuit.
    He said, “That’s Canadian. In Alaska we’re Eskimo.”

    1. “The Edmonton Eskimo’s are changing the teams name”. Some how, “The Edmonton Inuits” doesn’t have the same ring to it. How about “The Edmonton Idiots”? Everyone will be offended equally, and the natives, indigenous, locals and imports, can fight and complain about something else.

  20. 78% of Eskimos in the Western Arctic love the name Edmonton Eskimos and racist white liberals have said they can’t have it. Why aren’t Eskimos allowed to call themselves Eskimos? I have known a few Western Arctic Eskimos over the years and they called themselves Eskimos. Last one was about 10 years ago.

    https://globalnews.ca/news/7180842/eskimos-agm-team-name-2019-finances/?utm_medium=Facebook&utm_source=GlobalEdmonton&fbclid=IwAR27ZIVaFpRutq8PyRtzyblNEBAEYdnLgjngCLQp15eSVbaVtDCU6f3RkdI

    1. They could use rock singer Prince as an example. The name “Eskimos” could be replaced by some obscure symbol (how about a middle finger?) and the team could go by “Edmonton Team Formerly Known As The Eskimos”.

  21. Breaking news in diverse, progressive, Toronto. Rioters are taking advantage of their exemption from the China virus regulations, and vandalizing statues all over the city. Buckets of paint and slogans on statues of our first prime minister, King Edward etc. The protest started at Ryerson university and moved down streets to Queens Park. Black Lives Matter invites everyone to come down and destroy the relics of white, colonial, racist bastards. Gee, and they wonder why Toronto is still in stage two.

  22. Why are minority owners of Football teams employing EXTORTION to force Name Changes…The Edmonton Eskimos have a insurance Company “belairdirect” that is demanding the name change..

    The Minority Owners of the Washington Redskins have also used extortion to force a Name Change… Federal Express.Etc

    These Owners bought shares & supported these teams until they saw an opportunity to destroy all connections to tribal culture… Why and to what end gain?

    Do Belairdirect or FEDEX think they are to big to Fail….Why play in shark infested waters where they don’t belong… Dumb… unless they are already insolvent!

    BTW: The hard question for the Marxist organization that supports Violent Demonstrators is how do they end the Violence & Riots… The solution in Haiti worked for those of the winning Blacks.. They herded them all into the Ocean feeding the hungry Sharks…..GONE FOR GOOD

    JMHO

      1. After I took title of my house, I needed to get insurance for it as my father’s insurer promptly dumped me because I wasn’t living there. I even approached Belair and was given short shrift, even after I explained my situation that I was settling an estate and that I couldn’t live in 2 places at once.

        Fortunately, my personal insurer added my house to the account.

  23. The childish Economic Experts don’t understand the 100% of a Companies wealth is always on the TABLE…When they get into political stupidity on the whim of SJW…. they MAY BE DONE… Take a look at what happened to #1 GE … Managing limited liability only works in a Court of Law…Reality is not measured in degrees of “Poof” (Correctly spelled)

    Apple or Microsoft would be crazy to bet all their wealth on the turn of a card…but some don’t understand that virtual signaling is the same as gambling on a 50/50 flip…..

  24. Today it’s the Edmonton Eskimos tomorrow it’s the Calgary Stampede.

    Don’t think it couldn’t happen. Hell half of Calgary hate the Stampede as it is.

    Calgary is no longer cow town. It’s a liberal as T-zero

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation