Lindsay Lohan To Pose For Playboy

On November 4, 2011November 5, 2011 By WinstonIn Pop Culture, Rants, Society, ValuesLeave a comment

In the Ottawa Sun there’s an article about Lindsay Lohan. It seems she’s now going to pose for Playboy. That’s not really that surprising. Lots of “off prime” female celebs have taken that route. I’m probably the only one who finds this hilariously funny.

My first giggle is the idea of her getting paid for what she’s already given away for free. Considering that Ms. Lohan was part of the knicker free craze that included Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. A quick Google search will also “reveal” (double entendre #1) that she has a penchant for bra-free, sheer tops. Given all that, what has she got left that qualifies as a million dollar surprise.

About her only claim to current fame is with the male of the “Prison Bunny” species. Her acting career such as it was, tanked ages ago. The only time we see her anymore is during tabloid TV coverage of her latest court appearance. I can understand her motive. Everyone’s seen everything, so why not get some cash out of it while there’s still at least some interest. But why would Playboy give a million dollars to a no-talent has-been for a been there, seen that bill of goods?

That’s not the biggest giggle though. Nope. That title goes to her mother’s take on the “spread”(double entendre #2). Dina Lohan says “It will be tastefully done.” So Mom is one hundred percent supportive of her daughters decision. Oh Yes! Momma Lohan is soooo gonna get Mother of the Year! How could she not? After all, she’s just being incredibly supportive of her daughter. Really now, just ’cause she isn’t currently a cash cow doesn’t mean she can’t be a trash cow.

Just A Quick Clarification
On re-reading this post I realized it could give the impression that I feel it’s

trashy

to pose for Playboy. This is not the case. I’m certain that the majority of their models are fine people, or as much so as any other group of people.

The term

trash cow

refers to a faded, wannabe starlet trying desperately to extend a totally undeserved fifteen minutes in the spotlight. She is the sad product of our current

cult of celebrity

wherein there is a growing failure to differentiate notoriety from fame.

Cheers, Winston

Will Cheap Tablets Drive The Next Internet Revolution?

On October 30, 2011 By WinstonIn Global Issues, Politics, Society, TechnologyLeave a comment

In a recent article in Macleans, Jesse Brown was talking about the new Aakash tablet which is being made in India. It’s not here yet, but it’s likely coming soon.

The first thing to know about it, is that it’s a bottom end tablet. The processor is slow. The networking is substandard and there’s no multi-touch. But they sell for about $50 so who cares. Those are the facts. From there, it’s off to imagination land.

According to Mr. Brown, an influx of cheap tablets will get a billion more people on the internet. I’m just curious who’s going to pay those billion monthly bills. The fact is, hardware is the cheapest part of the online experience. Access fees are the biggest financial disincentive to more widespread embrace of the net.

I doubt that cheap tablets are going to be the great democratizing force foreseen in this article. Hardware is a one shot expenditure. You buy your device and it’s yours. Access fees recur every month. Depending on what level of access you want, a couple of months fees will run you more than the cost of these new tablets. Until we find a way to bring down ISP charges, widespread access remains a pipedream.

The true value of these types of products lies with people like me. It’s not going to be my primary device, but if it was that cheap, I’d consider one for certain applications. It would piggyback on my existing internet plan, and that’s the key here. It would be an auxillary device. If they’d been around when my daughter was younger, she would’ve had one. Instead of a netbook which cost several times as much.

Of course, it ignores the larger issue. We complain about the lack of manufacturing jobs but then get excited about how cheaply they build tablets in India. We want $50 tablets, but we want $20 an hour to build them. That’s the bigger issue. The government needs to find a way to create incentives for that type of manufacturing in Canada. We need to create entry level industries that can employ less skilled workers. The resulting products may not be the bleeding edge, but they will be more affordable.

That’s what will lead more Canadians online. Not affordable hardware, but real jobs that allow them to pay those monthly fees. Without those jobs, and others like them, there will be less people online, not more. That’s the real secret to the democratization of the internet.

Cheers, Winston

Keep The Beaver, Ditch The Senate

On October 29, 2011 By WinstonIn Politics, Society, Values1 Comment

Conservative Canadian Senator Nicole Eaton has launched a campaign to replace the beaver as the symbol of Canada. What you may wonder did she want to replace it with? The “majestic and splendid polar bear”. According to the allegedly honorable member, “The polar bear is the largest terrestrial carnivore… holding reign over the arctic for thousands of years.”

Ms. Eaton refers to the beaver as a “dentally defective rat” and a “toothy tyrant” who wreaks havoc on it’s environment. It’s a “nineteenth century has been.” as opposed to the polar bear described as a “twenty-first century hero”. But let’s take a closer look at the contenders.

Beavers are smart, monogamous, industrious herbivores found in every province. Polar bears are strong, resourceful and good looking. It’s a pretty simple question. Do we want Canada represented by an idealized action figure, or something a bit more universal? Beavers are hard working but unassuming. You rarely see them, but you see their handiwork everywhere. They undertake massive engineering projects. Not for glory or posterity, but simply to provide for their families. What is more utterly Canadian than that?

If Senator Eaton really wants to get rid of an outdated symbol of the nineteenth century, she could start with the senate. When the rest of the world is clamoring to elect their governments, isn’t it time to get rid of these unelected tax drains. If they really have nothing better to do than victimize and badmouth beavers, it’s time to rethink what the Senate says about Canada. It seems to say we have a one hell of a lot of money to waste on people who don’t really seem to contribute all that much in return.

We’ve been talking about Senate reform for ages. Maybe we just need to get our priorities straight. Lets’s keep the beaver and ditch the senate.

Cheers, Winston

Good Thing The Conservatives Hate Spending Our Tax Dollars

On October 29, 2011 By WinstonIn Canadian Military, Politics, Society, ValuesLeave a comment

So yesterday I wrote about the Conservatives plan to spend billions on new F-35 fighter aircraft. Here’s a quick follow up.

The tab for 65 F-35 fighters will ring in around nine billion dollars. But wait, it gets better. When you purchase a bunch of shiny new aircraft, you need parts and service on them. This is called a service contract. If you’ve bought anything from Best Buy, you know what that is. Now think about this. If the geek of the week at Best Buy says “Sign here for the service contract, and I’ll tell you later how much it will be.” Would you still take the service contract? I suspect not.

Not so for Mr. Harper’s Conservative government. They signed off on the F-35 purchase without getting an actual dollar figure for the accompanying support. That apparently won’t be available until production is under way. If that seems a tad peculiar, that’s the sort of thing to expect when you agree to single source your new aircraft. That’s right folks. We can only purchase our new jets from Lockheed Martin, and only they can service them.

But, there is some good news from our leaderless fears. They’re also going to upgrade our navy. To the tune of thirty-three billion dollars. The good news, that money is scheduled to remain in Canada. Twenty-five billion goes to contracts in Halifax, the other eight billion goes to Vancouver. Which is exactly what I wanted for the aircraft update. The project is expected to generate around fifteen thousand jobs. Which kind of makes my point about the kind of jobs that would be created by building our own jets. But for reasons best known to themselves, the Conservatives decided that it would be bad to create too many jobs all at once.

Now, they’re talking about maybe buying us some nuclear submarines. The used non-nuclear subs that we bought from Britain were a total bust from the get-go. We’ve spent more rebuilding them than we paid for them, and they still aren’t actually sea-worthy. So the only obvious solution is to buy some used nuclear subs. The estimated price tag for all this plutoinum powered goodness? How about three billion a pop. If we replace our four leaky, crappy existing subs with spiffy new used subs it’ll ring in at around twelve million. Cheap at half the price. Yes? Probably.

Here’s the fun part and the punchline to my headline. During our recent federal election, the Conservatives were at great pains to tell Canadians how much money the Liberals would spend if elected. The Conservatives would be our fiscal saviours. Or maybe not.

F-35s=9 billion + unspecified multi-billion support contract. New ships=33 billion. Nuclear subs=12 billion. Total 63 billion + unspecified multi-billion dollar support contract.

Good thing we didn’t elect those free spending Liberals eh?

Cheers, Winston

Two Reasons Canada Shouldn’t Buy F-35 Jets

On October 27, 2011October 27, 2011 By WinstonIn Canadian Military, Global Issues, Politics, Society, Technology1 Comment

Actually, there are more than two, but I don’t feel like writing a twenty-thousand word essay tonight. So I’ll limit this to just a couple, or so.

First up of course is the idea of spending BILLIONS of dollars on new fighter aircraft. I’m going to assume that’s because we live in an unstable part of the world where we are constantly at risk of invasion. No? Maybe the Conservative government is correct and we need them to assert our Arctic sovereignty. Against whom?

Anyone who is likely to be trekking about in the high north isn’t anyone we’re likely to shoot at. Let’s face it. The only countries actively challenging us in the Arctic are the U.S. and Russia. It’s really unlikely that we’re going to shoot at either of them. I mean really. If the U.S. thought that might happen, they probably wouldn’t be selling us the aircraft to make that possible. Add to this Prime Minister Harper’s own comment. According to the man who wants to buy these planes, the greatest threat to Canadian sovereignty is “Islamicist Terror”. I think it would be nice if he decided which threat we’re supposed to address and who these jets will address either.

My next nit to pick regards a fairly simple question. Why don’t we build our own jets? We’ve got our own aircraft industry. We’ve got more than enough technical knowledge. The Conservatives keep talking about how they plan to create jobs. Seems like a no-brainer to me. It’s not like we have any imminent threat demanding we upgrade in the immediate future. Fact is this could be a long term investment in Canadian businesses, creating Canadian jobs and employing Canadian technologists. What a concept.

Lastly tonight, I would like to raise a point I noticed in an article in Maclean’s. The jets which Mr. Harper and his fellow Bedlamites want spend billions on to defend the Arctic from “Islamicist Terror”, seems there might be a little problem with that. Apparently they won’t be able to communicate from there. A lack of polar orbiting communications satellites renders these awesome beasts mute. Way to plan Team Harper!

If the same salesperson from the U.S. shows up and starts talking bridges, give me a call. For twenty bucks and a couple of beers I can do a better job of advising you than the “pro”s you had for this one.

Cheers, Winston

We Are The 90 Percent

On October 24, 2011October 24, 2011 By WinstonIn Global Issues, Personal Responsibility, Politics, Society, Uncategorized, ValuesLeave a comment

Rare though it may be, I agree heartily with a recent article by Andrew Coyne in this weeks Maclean’s magazine. In it, he argues that the problem isn’t with the super rich one percent. It’s them and the eighty nine percent under them.

Here in Canada, we don’t have the same issues as are motivating the Occupy Wall street movement in the U.S. The fact is, we’ve experienced a combination of good management and good luck. Every time I hear someone advocate for less government regulation I just point at our respective mortgage and housing industries and smile.

So the Occupiers in Canada make me laugh. It’s just more enjoyable and polite than swearing at them. Their main protest seems to be that other people have more than they do. Oh boo hoo.

As Mr. Coyne points out in his article, our housing market didn’t collapse, so our banks didn’t need to be bailed out. The gap between the top one percent and the next eighty-nine percent isn’t as serious as the one between those ninety percent and the bottom ten percent.

Maybe we can’t get that second car, but the bottom ten percent can’t necessarily get that second meal. I lose my job and we have to cut some corners until I find a new one. For the bottom ten percent, the only corner they have is the one they are backed into. They have nothing left to cut.

Probably the most telling comment in the piece was in the last paragraph. If the money went into the hands of the bottom ten percent, it would take only a two percent increase in the HST to bring their standard of living above the poverty line.

The poor aren’t poor because of the top one percent. They live in poverty because of everyone who believes that tax cuts are the way to create economic health. Sure they are if you already have enough. Sadly, if you have nothing to spend, HST cuts don’t actually help you all that much.

If you want to make the world a better place, how about making better for people who need it more than we do.

Cheers, Winston

Nickelodeon Says It’s Okay To Vandalize School Property

On October 23, 2011August 31, 2012 By WinstonIn Education, Media, Personal Responsibility, Pop Culture, Society, ValuesLeave a comment

My daughter is a fan of the Nickelodeon show Victorious. It’s not one I’ve taken the time to watch, but the bits I’ve seen over her shoulder tell me it’s another teen/highschool dramedy. Seen one, seen them all. Or so I thought. Then I caught a couple of minutes on while it was recording on the PVR.

One of the characters skips a couple of classes. Her friends determine that she is upset because the school isn’t going produce the play she wrote. Apparently, they found it too “strange and disturbing”. Her friends are concerned for her, and go look for her. They find her in the janitors closet where she is cutting up a large wastebasket with pair of scissors.

One of her classmates is impressed that she cut up the janitors large waste bin with a pair of scissors. That’s it. No one comments on her destroying school property. The episode goes on from there with no further mention of it. How is that an appropriate message?

The school won’t produce her play, so she starts destroying school property. Everyone’s okay with this. The writers, actors, editors, show-runners, everyone. People complain all the time about how violent or “immoral” programs are destroying today’s youth. How about youth programming that doesn’t think before it broadcasts?

Sure, I realize that it’s just a waste bin. I realize that she’s supposed to be high strung and emotional because she’s creative. She’s just expressing her emotional distress. Yeah right. If one of the teachers says her play is poorly written, do we get a hilarious scene of her slashing their tires. Too much of a stretch to assume that such an emotionally stunted and self-obsessed character might respond to criticism that way? Ummm…. probably not.

Under the guise of “youth oriented” programming, they are normalizing this type of behavior. Let me break this down for you. A student writes a play and offers it to their school. The school deems it unsuitable and declines to produce it. Rather than accepting the decision and either re-writing it or seeking another venue, the student starts destroying school property. How is that depicting any type of healthy behavior?

Nickelodeon’s message of the day, “If someone doesn’t let you do what you want, destroy their property. It may not solve the problem, but it will show everyone how angst laden you are about things.” Great conflict resolution skills you’re teaching there team.

I bet Victorious gets a couple of awards for that one. I’m just glad my daughter is eighteen. She’s always been pretty good about understanding that not everything in “G” rated programming is appropriate in the real world. I’m more concerned about the viewers who may not make that distinction.

Cheers, Winston

The Fast And The Criminally Stupid

On October 22, 2011October 22, 2011 By WinstonIn Personal Responsibility, Pop Culture, Society, ValuesLeave a comment

According to the Ottawa Sun, a seventeen year old child was clocked driving 175 kph in an 80 kph zone. When police stopped him, he had two other minors in the car with him. His license and vehicle have been seized for seven days. The driver is facing a charge of “stunt driving”. Actually, it wasn’t his car, it was his parents BMW. So am I the only one who’s tired of this crap?

This kid will get a slap on the wrist, the parents probably won’t get even that. In less than a year, he’ll turn eighteen and the entire incident will be officially forgotten. He will face absolutely no consequences to his actions. Is there anyone who is going to try and justify that to me?

This child could have killed himself, his passengers and who knows how many others, but none of that matters. At least not to anyone in the business of passing laws. The Conservatives talk about getting tough on crime, but there hasn’t been a lot of talk about rewriting the Young Offender laws. Or putting some actual teeth into the law. How about some consequences that might mean something?

This kid should have his name smeared across every possible media outlet. His license should be seized for a lot more than seven days. How about seven years? How about a psych evaluation after that before he can get it back? Let’s make sure he’s a little less self-obsessed, self-absorbed and just generally stupid. If not, how about we make it a lifetime suspension? Too much? I don’t think so.

While we’re at it, how about something similar for impaired driving. Only for that one, how about a mandatory lifetime suspension? Too much again? How about we take a poll of everyone who has lost a family member to an impaired driver? How about just the people who’ve been crippled, maimed or scarred for life? I bet they wouldn’t find it too much at all.

Let’s keep in mind that driving isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. Like any privilege, it has to be earned, and it has to be deserved. When a privilege is abused, it needs to be revoked. If it is a serious abuse, that revocation needs to be permanent.

Some people do the right thing because it is right. Others will only do it if they are sufficiently afraid of what will happen if they don’t.. Under the current laws, there’s nothing there for them to fear. That needs to change. It needs to change now, before anyone else dies.

That’s something worth thinking about.

Cheers, Winston

Math For Protesters

On October 20, 2011October 20, 2011 By WinstonIn Global Issues, Media, Personal Responsibility, Politics, Pop Culture, Society2 Comments

The more I see of the Occupy This And That crowd, the more they annoy me. One of their most annoying habits is claiming to be the “99%”. Even the most math challenged should be able to understand that this is decidedly not the case.

I’m going to be generous (and lazy) and give them a total of 500,000 protesters in Canada. Judging from the reports in a variety of media sources, there aren’t that many, but like I say, I’m feeling generous. A quick Google search for the population of Canada reveals that in 2009 there were 33,739,900 people here. If you divide the protesters by the population, you find out that the Occupy Whatever movement actually accounts for less than 2% of the available bodies.

Of course, “We are the 99%.” sounds much more impressive than “We are less than 2%.” But hey, what do I know? I’m not part of a magazine that specializes in inflammatory, anti-capitalist images and soundbites like AdBusters. For those of you who hadn’t heard, that’s who’s behind the “spontaneous” Occupy Wall Street movement. The nice people at AdBusters claim they were inspired by the Tahrir protests in Egypt. Because of course we have so much in common with people living under a military backed single party system. Sure we do.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. The people in Tahrir square weren’t there because they were too lazy to get involved in the democratic process, they were protesting the total lack of a democratic process to be involved with. The issue in Canada and the U.S. isn’t that people can’t change the system, it’s that they can’t be bothered.

The tragedy of Democracy is that you end up not with what you wish for, but rather what you deserve. The system isn’t broken, it’s ignored. It gets ignored for the same reason our personal debt is so high. (If you said “Corporate Greed”, consider yourself slapped.) It’s all because people want short cuts. They want what they want, and they want it right now. Thank you very much.

Instead of saving up to buy a house, car and big screen TV or pay their tuition, they borrow and then blame their debt on the “greedy banks” with easy credit and high interest. Instead of years of political action and organizing and hard, slogging work, they expect the system to change because they spend a few weeks or months camping in a bunch of parks. Yeah. That’ll work for sure.

The biggest indicator of how the protests are failing is the media coverage they are receiving. Think about who owns the major media outlets. Those nasty, “greedy” corporations. If the Occupy Yourselves Protesting movement offered even the slightest threat to them, do you think they’d give them any ink at all? Sure, you’re reading this online, but answer me this. Who gets more voting eyeballs, YouTube, or CNN? That’s my point. Those big corporations don’t feel threatened because a couple of thousand people in a park are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

They are just another part of the Roman “bread and circuses”. They occupy the attention of the people and repeat the message that the system is broken. That means that people won’t engage with the system, and that ensures status quo, and that’s good new for all those evil corporate types.

So to wrap up, the math is pretty clear. half a million (inflated to salve the organizers egos) divided by thirty four million is not ninety-nine percent. Nobody voted for you, so you should stop saying you represent the ninety-nine percent. Next time AdBusters decides to stir people up , it would be nice if they could do it during an election year and try to stir them towards the polling stations.

Oh yeah. One more quick note. When movie stars and directors show up in support of people protesting against the “economic divide”, it looks a little bit… what’s the word I want? Oh yeah…. HYPOCRITICAL!

Cheers, Winston

Brain Bits To Go

Category: Society

Lindsay Lohan To Pose For Playboy

Will Cheap Tablets Drive The Next Internet Revolution?

Keep The Beaver, Ditch The Senate

Good Thing The Conservatives Hate Spending Our Tax Dollars

Two Reasons Canada Shouldn’t Buy F-35 Jets

We Are The 90 Percent

Nickelodeon Says It’s Okay To Vandalize School Property

The Fast And The Criminally Stupid

Math For Protesters