Ever heard the expression “beggars can’t be choosers?” Well – apparently the Chilean government hasn’t.

Chile asks Canada for “a field hospital, a pontoon bridge, generators and telecommunications equipment”

This is horrible horrible HORRIBLE etiquette. Imagine if your neighbours had their home burn down, and maybe lost a child or the family dog or what. It’s a terrible tragedy – to be sure – not many would deny this. I’m sure that most people would contribute help in some way to the bereaved family, perhaps financial, or perhaps in other ways. But even under these circumstances, it would doubtless be considered a faux-pas if the family then gave specialized lists to each of their neighbours (eg: vinyl siding, cellphones and computers for all family members, and a new central air conditioning system). For a nation’s ambassador to make such a directed and blunt demand, is quite honestly, so absurd as to rival the most narcotic/psychotic inspired works of art.

While I approved of the current Governor General’s (Michaelle Jean) actions regarding the hunting/ingestion of seals, my confidence in her at this time is at an all-time low due to her lobbying to get Canada to contribute the most earthquake aid money to Haiti (by the way: she’s of Haitian descent) of any country (at least initially – see my last post). She has a chance to somewhat redeem herself now by lobbying to tell the Chilean government to go fuck itself until it can learn some manners.

Yes yes, I’m an ogre for not feeling compassion for fellow human beings. I should think before I speak, I’m not being PC enough, whatever. What I think makes the earthquake situation in Haiti – correction – the international aid that’s flowing into the earthquake stricken Haiti that’s being championed as some sort of “chance to pull together” for all, regardless of political or other agendas. Since I’m Canadian, I’m most concerned with the promise that the federal government made to match all donations by Canadians. The fact that our current Governor General is of Haitian descent doesn’t really help placate my concerns.

However, over and above all of these other legitimate self-serving concerns, I’m quite distraught about the fact that all of this aid is not actually going to have much positive impact on the lives of these people in the long run, even if it is morally justifiable. The people of Haiti were (for the most part) living in poverty before the disaster, in a country devoid of transparent systems and decent infrastructure. After all of the aid arrives and the earthquake victims consume all of their bottled water and Canadian bacon, or whatever it is that we’re sending, how will their lives change? What’s to stop the donations from being diverted by corrupt officials for uses other than originally intended? I for one don’t support the donations; if those people weren’t worthy of donations before the earthquake, I don’t think they’re any more worthy after; the corruption index for Haiti is rather too high to be able to entrust the Haitian government with large quantities of supplies and money. It’s entirely possible, and even likely, that donations will perpetuate the state of poverty and misery that the majority of people in Haiti are already in, rather than alleviating the problems.

A long time ago in 1993, Adobe decided to create a format for sharing files called “PDF” that was allegedly independent of application software, hardware, and operating system – this three letter acronym quickly grew infamous as millions worldwide were exposed to the format. The catch, of course, was that for a long time, the free (and thus most common) way of viewing these files, was with a terrible program called “Adobe Acrobat” (now “Adobe Reader“). This program is really quite astounding, in that it essentially transforms your computer into a badly bound photocopied version of whatever content you were trying to view in PDF format, in fact, if one views enough PDF files, one might come to believe that one doesn’t actually posses a computer at all. This leads me to believe that PDF format was in fact funded by some sort of anti-technology secret society – perhaps the Amish or the like. Although – in the contemporary version – there is now an option to “save as text”, this option is still basically useless for most practical uses, such as viewing a spreadsheet that’s been sent to you in PDF format in Excel or Open Office.

If you are unfortunate enough to encounter a PDF file that must be viewed, there is a good download called “pdf download” by “Nitro PDF Software” – you can get it here for Firefox or IE7/8. While this software is useful, I am not sure if “Nitro PDF Software” is a company that has the best morals. After all – they’re essentially profiting off of one of the worst crimes against human civilization (PDF).

In any case, it seems obvious to me that the secret intent of PDF format was to inhibit the technological advancement of mankind. The tragedy of the PDF atrocity, is that, unlike the holocaust, mankind has not learned its lesson from this atrocity (except Bosnia, Darfur, Chechnya, Tibet, and such) – and PDF files are still in wide and open circulation today. Even though all of the evils of PDF files are known, there are still people out there who continue to create and distribute them as if they were oblivious to the plight of the many who are forced to interact with PDF format on a day-to-day basis. When will we, as a species, stand up for our rights and shout as one “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!” I – for one – have had enough. It’s my sincere hope that, in the future, humanity can be free of all forms of oppression and intellectual suppression – why not start by quashing PDF?

People angry about man underfeeding dogs

As easy as it is to pick holes in the beliefs of animal rights activists, I haven’t seemed to have tired of it yet. At any rate – I think one of the biggest problems with these sort of cases is that it’s hard to know where to draw the line. What animals are included in this ban? Why do animal rights activists not push harder for the rights of cows or sheep (well, I guess the super hardcore ones (Vegans) do, but they’re completely batshit insane)? Would people be just as outraged over cows being improperly slaughtered? Obviously, “love for animals” is reserved only for cats, dogs, and perhaps seals and whales depending on the sort of animal rights quack who you happen to talk to.

Animals are animals – until it’s illegal to eat a steak or go duck hunting, it should be legal to do whatever you want to a dog or cat (assuming it’s yours). Enough of this pointless, selective, and often hypocritical animal rights nonsense already! I’ve been meaning to get a picture of myself at a dog restaurant eating meat that is visibly from a dog – I guess I’ll have to get going on that – will post pictures!

For those who would argue that many serial killers and such get their start by torturing animals – I have a counterargument: why not set them up in slaughterhouses or allot them a monthly supply of baby kittens or puppies with which to torture? Maybe all this prohibition on “violence” against animals in our society is what drove these guys to become what they became. I mean, maybe all they really needed was some encouragement, along the lines of “yes – those are animals, we can do what we like with them, because they’re not human.” When we start to treat animals the same as humans, then we blur the bounds of morality, and suddenly, a boy who is reprimanded for torturing a kitten thinks “well – I guess torturing a kitten is the same or worse than torturing a baby.” Maybe, just maybe, animal rights activism is one of the root causes of much of the sadistic homicide that is prevalent in our society.

OK – I recently re-watched the “9/11 truth” episode of South Park, and it got me thinking about the 9/11 conspiracy theories that I’ve seen over the years. Some of them appear quite convincing, and I think that for a time, it was even popular for high school students (perhaps even including myself) to do up reports on the possible theories and spell America with three ‘K’s instead of a ‘C’.. at least, my reality removed teachers gave me ‘A’s for such reports.

Anyhow, since “911truth.org” was featured in the episode of South Park, I checked out their site and quickly stumbled upon this article which was apparently censored by “them”.

Now, call me elitist or overly sceptical, but I just can’t take anything as poorly written as this article seriously. I haven’t been in school for a while, but – at least to me – these seem like really elementary mistakes that a journalist certainly would not make. The insure / ensure one particularly.

Here’s a few mistakes that I noticed:

All [of] these would require public debate and [the] participation of Congress.

Canada’s influential Department of National Defence; its new Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier; and Defense Minister Gordon O’Connor are on board as well.

1 US policy seeks to insure America gets unlimited access to Canada water as well.

… when I got to that last one, I stopped reading. Perhaps there’s a good reason that these “articles” aren’t proof read: I’m guessing that the target audience is largely uneducated and ignorant and wont notice anyway, and anyone who would notice such mistakes is obviously not stupid enough to believe this dribble anyhow.The occaisional slip up I can take, gradeschool level homonym confusion – no, sorry, “your stupid”.

I’m a pretty conservative thinking person – but this guy needs the boot. The only problem is that I’m not sure what other parties are worthy of taking over. I’d never vote for the NDP or the BQ (or the Greens, LOL), so I guess that leaves the Liberals. The problem, however, is that the Liberals would work with the NDP / BQ, and that’s probably even worse. I guess in an ideal situation, the Conservatives would work with the Liberals, and the NDP and BQ would be largely ignored (as the should be).

Nice Harper video right here:

I was reading this article, and one of the comments by a reader really leapt off the page.

Charlotte the Hambeast wrote:

Walt, I am one of those women who would never come to a guy’s house to cook dinner with him as a first date….maybe a third or fourth date, but I will not spend any time alone in a guy’s home with him until I know him a little bit. If there is another couple there for the dinner, that’s different, or the guy’s mom or kid, but no WAY would I put myself in such a potentially dangerous situation unless I already know the guy fairly well. This doesn’t mean I “want a free dinner.” Personally I am not a fan of eating out. I’d prefer something that doesn’t involve expense for the guy, or danger for myself. We could go skiing in the winter (unless that’s too dangerous for HIM), go horseback riding with friends, go to the rodeo, the fair, a crafts market, a flea market or go garage saling together just as a way to do something inexpensive that provides for conversation…..

If a man rejected me because I vetoed the idea of dinner alone in his apartment as a first date, he isn’t worth my time because he cannot see past the end of his nose and isn’t smart enough to grasp the real reason a woman would not want to do this. It has nothing to do with mooching a free meal. I make more than enough money to feed myself, as do the lion’s share of women, and we have no interest in mooching off a guy. If that’s his idea of “the only reason she won’t come to my home alone on the first date” then he isn’t very bright, is he?

Seriously lady? You don’t sound like someone I’d want to penetrate with my worst enemy’s member.

I think the answer is quite simple. They’re not afraid of being raped, they’re afraid of nobody wanting to rape them. Mid to late 30s, starting to get a bit fat, still single – best to act the part of the attractive young girl who is actually in danger of being raped.. best for the ego, anyway. It’s always the ancient whales who probably have to pay young Sri Lankan boys to mount them that are so morbidly “afraid” of rape, too. In fact, I don’t think I’ve met a single fun loving young attractive girl who has ever expressed fear of rape. Do the world a favour, the next time you see a woman who is prime past her time express fear about the sanctity of her virtue, please waste no time in vigorously dispelling such fears with utmost lack of subtlety.

A rather interesting characteristic of radiation poisoning is a phenomenon known as the “walking ghost phase” – this is a period of relatively good health that follows initially harsh symptoms of fatal level radiation poisoning. Upon conclusion of the walking ghost phase, the poisoned person can look forward to a painful death that is marked by delirium followed by a terminal coma. One of the drawbacks of radiological weapons (such as the neutron bomb) is that upon realizing its sealed fate, a radiation poisoned army would almost certainly fight fanatically during the week or so in which the walking ghost phase occurs.

Learn More:
Wikipedia on Radiation Poisoning

Wikipedia on the Neutron Bomb

So,

This evening I was out to dinner with a couple of friends at a Thai restaurant. The food was really quite nice, in fact, I am pretty sure I will go back, despite the dances. Oh… the dancers…

Near the start of the meal, the Philippine dancing troupe (it was a Thai restaurant, but this is China and Philippine performers are a dime a dozen) came over and sang a song to some people at a table near us. That was all fine and good, I suppose, but one of the Philippine girls looked over at me and I made the mistake of looking back. She looked a little like the friend of another Philippine “performer” girl who had once dated a colleague of mine; I soon realized that she was not, but alas, I had already crossed the Rubicon.

She came over to me and said I was very handsome, and asked me my name. I supposed that was a little forward, but I tolerated it and divulged my name to her. She left it at that, and scampered off to some other part of the restaurant with the rest of her troupe, babbling away in Tagalog about what, given what was to happen, I can only assume was me.

Anyway – I sat and enjoyed my meal, which as aforementioned, was reasonable by most standards. We were just about to go, and enjoying some tea, when the troupe advanced upon us. First, the girl who had first asked my name proceeded to ask me my name again, and apologized to me for forgetting it. Then, a dancing “girl” (I think it was a guy in drag) asked me to dance. I refused several times, finally citing my recently full stomach as an excuse (not that a simple “no thanks” shouldn’t have been enough). This wasn’t it, though, as then a male member of the troupe came over and started… what I can only describe as, um, making me feel very uncomfortable. The conversation went something like this…

Creepy Philippine Dancing Guy = CPDG
Me = Me

CPDG: Hi, you are so handsome did you know that?
Me: Um, thank you.
CPDG: Yeah, really, really handsome.
Me: Thanks.
CPDG: I like you.
Me: Thank you.
CPDG: Do you like me?
Me: Sure but, uh, not like that.
CPDG: Can I have your phone number or can we meet up some time?
Me: Uh.
CPDG: Yeah, can I get your number please?
Me: I don’t think that would be appropriate.
CPDG: Ok, well, I really like you.
Me: K.
CPDG: Increasingly forward remarks.
Me: Increasingly annoyed responses.

The girl, the guy in drag, and the flamboyantly gay guy in turn asked me to dance with them again, to which I in turn refused them with increasingly less degrees of politeness, although I kept my cool. They finally went off saying “come back soon Evan!!!” Well, except for that little bit, the restaurant was good. I am on the fence about going back though.

Honestly, what the fuck? I know that most Philippine people in China are pretty low in culture, but they were serving all flavours this evening. Girls, he-she’s, and guys. The part that pissed me off the most was that they completely spared my friends this harassment, and only focussed on me. I was pretty close to speaking with their manager, but decided against it in the end. Next time though, if I do decide to go back, I’m going to ask them not to pull that shit, and if they do I’m going to get their manager involved. Completely unacceptable.

I am trying not to pre-judge people, but good grief, every time I meet Philippine people in the entertainment industry, it’s like this. I find that they simply lack the common sense of decency that more cultured people take for granted. Spanish influenced peoples of the world simply don’t appeal to me.