I am confused?!

   What the heck is going on? I am confused…. Everything I thought I knew about the way the parties worked, doesn’t seem to be true anymore. The Liberals are for helping those in need. The Conservative are for big business and crime and punishment.  The NDP or Jack, well who knows. I have mentioned before. I am doing some upgrading and preparing for college. Its been a long time since I have been in a classroom, out side of my children’s classrooms of course. I didn’t need to prepare for that. I also had that head injury thing and have found counseling very helpful. For both of these I have taken advantage of the services at the John Howard Society here in town. I can walk there within ten minutes so it’s very convenient. I have become comfortable with my counselor Heather and the tutors and teachers there. Beth was the first teacher to go and left about a month and a half ago. Since Steve has stepped in and made up for the loss. He is also responsible for my new found fondness for writing so you can blame him for all your extra reading. Yesterday I found out my next appointment with Heather may be my last as the funding it no longer there. Today I find that Steve is gone next week!! You have to be joking, next week they will be sending a teacher from the John Howard in the next town, but guess what she is gone next month. It takes time to build trust with a counselor and for us older students our teachers as well. So how does this make scene. This is not very good management. So I called and spoke to the Executive Officer of John Howard Durham, something like that I kind of missed the title as I was shocked when I heard it. I thought I would get a answering machine to tell you the truth. I voiced my opinion and was apologized to and thanked for my concern. I was also told that funding had dried up form some charities, that to me is understandable as it has been a little lean for the last few years. I was also told that some funding had been cut from this office. So I looked up these offices and ministers. They where all Provincial offices. This is where I get confused. Ontario is in an election year as well as the Nation. In Ontario we have a Liberal Government. The Liberals are for helping people, but they cut funding to a organization that was helping me and many more. On the Federal side the Liberals and the rest of the coalition stop a budget aimed at helping people.

   Today was budget day in Ontario and the finance minister stood up and pat his party on the back for saving Ontario and Canada for that matter from the global depression pointing to the recovery of jobs in Ontario and how the U.S and Great Britain have not recovered even close to numbers as we here in Ontario and Canada have. If you are pointing out how much better off we are here in Canada then other nations, wouldn’t that be the Federal Government's work you are claiming as yours? Your Federal counter parts have stopped the Conservatives from helping the have nots of this Nation. The Minster went on to say they would spend more for Education promising new schools, but wait why did you cut the funding for adults learning programs and made it harder to for me to get the help I need, and stopped others from get any help at all? I think the Federal and Ontario Liberals should stop talking and have a little meeting. You are contradicting one another and if you keep going neither of you will be in power when the dust settles. After all the hard work the Federal Government did in the name of the Ontario Liberals. You don’t want your Federal friends to be promising to taxes the companies that are supplying the jobs you are pointing to. Why try to chase them out I don’t get it? I don’t think anyone is getting your vision here. You have change from your roots and keep flip flopping and saying what ever sounds good at the time. Now the Federal Liberals are promising to give money to you for post secondary education but the problem is the Conservatives have already done this a few years ago remember and you didn’t agree then. Now you promise to give less money then we would get in the current system. The big difference is the Conservative match you and the Liberals will just give you up to $1,500 per year of school up to $6000 if you qualify, if not its $1000 per year up to $4000. Most will not qualify for the higher amount as you will need a income under $20,000 per year. There are perimeters in the current system for that income level as well. If you put in five hundred dollars per year, Which is about $ 40.00 a month and the Conservatives match that over 15 years your child will have fifteen thousand for school that’s a lot better then $4000 isn’t it?



   I must say I am surprised to see that it is the Conservatives that have figured it out if you want to lead this country or just one of her wonderful Provinces or Territories. You can’t be a big C Conservative on all things or a big L Liberal or Jack Layton on everything either. You have to do what is good for us all, and be a true leader. So please stop the finger pointing and playing the blame game and get down to finding a way to do what is good for Canada her provinces, territories and most of all her people.





    Thank- you as always. R. England

Lets be realistic

 
    I was reading the paper and listening to the new in the background this evening. I read two stories of people being murdered, and I also picked up one murder story in the background. One of those murder victims was a young exotic dancer. This reminded of a story in the paper not to long ago. The story then was about a court case in I think, in The Ontario Supreme Court that challenges the Ontario prostitution laws sighting the dangers involved. I don’t know if the case is over or moved on to The Supreme Court of Canada? They said if the courts ruled the one way it would pave the way for legalized prostitution in Ontario. Then I hear Michael Ignatieff in the background talking about how they are against “ super jails” and against something about the jets and something else, I tuned him out sorry, I just don’t like the guy, he seems shifty, arrogant and pompous to me. Yes we know the Liberals idea of defense. If you missed it. The post is History Repeating. Now this all got me thinking. This is how my mind works, it takes two things seemingly not connected and mixes it all to gather and viola. Something to write about.

    Here is a, not so Conservative thought. The writing seems to be on the wall that legalized prostitution is coming so I am going to say it. Lets just excepted it and at least control it. Red light districts have worked elsewhere in the world. I am going on what people have told me about their experiences as tourists so take that with a grain of salt. There are studies to show  both it works, and doesn’t work. So that’s a dead end. I have been in about 90% of the major cities of the U.S and Canada. I can tell you that the drug and prostitution problems are everywhere and not going away. They are also not hidden away. So lets be realistic, this way isn’t working. So maybe we should try to at least corral the problem. This way needle exchanges and methadone clinics can be where they are needed. We can have regular testing for prostitutes who of course will need a license and will have protection. I would lean toward legalizing pot too. Again it is a major cost to fight and, we don’t seem we are getting anywhere. At the moment people are destroying property trying to hide their grow op’s. Costing millions in insurance claims and, we all know what happens when those guys lose money, we pay more. If we legalize it and I think most would agree it is going to happen anyway. We can tax it too. Something that has cost us billions to fight a losing battle. Can turn around and generate millions new revenue maybe even more. The money saved in police budgets can be put to better use like finding killers and fighting organized crime. Which will take a serious kick in the teeth when we take two major money makes from them. The rest can go to health care to clear our conscious. This would also take a lot of people out of the justice system therefore opening space in our over populated jails and maybe forgoing the need for some of these new jails. One more point on the jails thing. Mr. Ignatieff doesn’t want “ Super jails”. I have a question. Would you like say 500 little jails? Lets go all out and not put locks on the doors too! If we can’t find 50 communities willing to have jails with lots of locks. How will you find 500 communities willing to take jails without locks? Be realistic.

    After the Earthquakes and Tsunamis in Japan and subsequent cracked nuclear reactors and radiation leaks. People took to protesting the Nuclear Power Plant down the road from me at Darlington. I don’t understand this. First off, you should have paid attention in geography class. The Ring of Fire is more then a Johny Cash song. If I remember correctly this Ring of Fire is the Pacific Plate. It is home to most of the worlds Volcanoes and one of the most active areas in the world as far as seismic activity (earthquakes) go. I would think this would be key information before digging a big hole in the ground over or even close to the worlds most active fault lines. Mr. Alderson my grade nine geography teacher must have been a geniuses. Then to top it all off you put  what amounts to a nuclear bomb in the hole and hope for the best? You are sure this is wise? We here in Ontario are not in the same boat as Japan. There is however no less then five nuke plants in California. Guess nobody told them they are prone to earthquakes too. Sorry got off track a little. I wished I could ask the protesters what they would like us to do? Should we go back to coal burning hydro plants? I thought you didn’t like that idea the first time? We can’t put up windmills or solar fields as nobody wants those either. They are an eye sore everyone cries. I guess we could just abandon this whole pesky electricity thing. Just go back to candle light, hand pumping your water oh and the best is the good old out house. Yup the old out house, smells ever so pleasant in the summer and, you don’t want to know what it is like first thing in the morning, in January. I will tell you. You're awake after your visit!! If you stick around to read the paper you may find yourself stuck. Somehow I can see a someone finding something to complain about if we did that. So please oh righteous one. What shall we do?

    My point is we have come to a point where we have to be realistic, Sometimes we have to let go of old ways, and crave out new paths. There are times we need to stop and think things through. Pick the things we can fix and stop chancing our tail trying to fix the things we can’t. Maybe we are just taking the wrong approach. Maybe we need to refresh our thinking.

    I don’t care how you vote. I do hope you vote the way I do, doesn’t everyone. The most important thing is you take some time to think about who you are voting for and why you are voting for them. Because that’s the way I have always voted or all my friends/family are voting this way doesn’t seem like a good reason. Please be realistic. These are just examples and outside of the jails thing are not topics in this election, but you never know what could pop up. Oh and I don’t really know 100% how I feel about most of the topics I have talked about. Not yet and really don’t need to worry about them not today. Tomorrow could change, till then I can mull it over. I do know we need to rethink a few things and stop banging our heads off the wall, and do things that make a difference.

   Logic will get you form A to Z, imagination will get everywhere. Albert Einstein.



   Once again, Thank-you for your time. R. England

First Things First

                      
                        
                          

　

    Hello and welcome to my thoughts. I have always had a opinion however have always had a problem in expressing it. Those who know me would tell you the same thing. I have had those close to me read some of what I have written, so that they could give me feed back. It worked, the best feed back was. Who wrote that for you? It doesn’t sound like you. That I take as a compliment. I know its doesn’t sound like me, if it did you wouldn’t read it. This is a way I can get my message a crossed to everyone without getting upset and side tracked. If you don’t agree with my point of view stop reading, But do come back and try a different post. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me it would be a boring world if you did. That being said. What I think, is what I think. I make no apologizes for it as this is my opinion. I believe you have the right to your opinion as well. I do not mean to offend anyone. If you want to challenge me on something great if I am wrong I can live with it. Just keep in mind I do research what I write about.

    I plan to write about, what I want to write about that day. I can tell you there will be some politics. Just because politics interests me. I love to watch some blow hard flat out lie and watch as people eat it up. In this day and age the truth is at your finger tips. My political views are all over the place if you ask me. I am right of center for the most part, but I don’t care if gay people want to get married. Don’t fret to much about it if they are like everyone else they to will be divorced in five years anyway. I will do some writing about hockey I am sure, but not right away. I am a Sens fan and they are doing their Leafs impression so I will hold off till at least the draft. I have plans to a blog about what recovering from a head injury is really like as I have first hand experience with this and there is so much more to it then you know. It is a very difficult thing for those around the recovering person, and much worse for the person going thought it. I find hearing Marc Savard talking about his problems very interesting. I can read between the lines unlike the rest of you. If you know someone going thought this, be patient they are going through a hell you cant imagine. They will get through it in time. The most important thing is they never give up and they have to push themselves to get better. You can’t push them! For the loved ones taking the brunt of the back lash don’t take it to heart they don’t mean it and wont remember doing. I will get to work on this post soon as I am starting to write it here and now. These are the most important points I can give you.

    I would also like you to suggest topics. If don’t have the time to research it maybe I can do it for you. I am a information junkie, ( stop laughing it’s true ) I have my lap top at arms reach at all times. If some thing is on TV and I want to know more. I look it up. If some random thought pops into my head I research it. Watching the history channel is just futile I can never get through a half hour show. I have even missed MASH. Did you know that the show lasted almost four times as long as the Korean War. The War was fought for three years, the show lasted eleven. The Korean war was the first time helicopters were used to air lift troops to the Mash Units. The survival rate was amazing too, 97% chance of living once at the unit, that was in the 1950’s and a few miles form the front lines. That’s impressive.

    This really isn’t much of anything. I just wanted to give you a feel of what my intentions are and just say hello. So I will let you get back to whatever it is you should be doing. Thank you for your time. I hope to get your feed back in the future. Take care, you will hear form me soon.

History Repeating

History Repeating

So let me start by telling you, it has been a while since I have paid much attention to the news. I am not completely out of touch. I have heard about the disaster in Japan and the mess that has come to a head in northern Africa. The other night my show ended and before I could change the channel to Sports Center. The National news program started. You will not believe this! I was shocked and amazed to find the news. Was a repeat!!!?? I didn’t know they did this. I know it was a repeat of a 2008 program. The lead story was that of the Liberals, NDP and the Bloc forming a collision to block the federal Budget and force an Election. I remember how upset the population was. It was just one year after we elected the Conservative Government. What it seemed to boiled down to was the Liberals thought they had ran with the wrong leader and now wanted a do over.

The next day the news papers had a printing problem as they too, have reprinted the same articles from 2008. I read a little farther to find, now brace yourself, these same three parties have done it again! I am still baffled by this. I am also offended to say the least, Mr. New lib demi bloc. Do you really thing I forgot about the tamper tantrum you had a little over two years ago? Do you think the people of this Nation are so dense we can’t see that you are doing the same thing? This time you blocked a budget that highlights include more money for people on guaranteed income to help off set raising food prices. Oh and when you are pushing for more ethanol in fuel, you are going to drive the price of the food even higher. For those of you who have been under a rock. Ethanol is made from corn, and corn,, is in everything. Medication included. The people who were going to benefit the most from these hikes in their income. Would have been single seniors by $ 600 per year and senior couples $ 840 per year. Did you just say, you don’t think my grandmother deserves more money so she can afford to eat? I don’t know where, or by whom you were raised, but I can tell you where I come from, and the way I was raised, was to respect my elders that included my Grandparents.



Another big investment was to forgive up to $ 40,000 of student loads for doctors who settled in rural areas. This was an effort to bring more doctors the wonderful folks in the country who grow, raise and harvest our food. Are you telling Canadians, you don’t want to help the people who provide this essential service? For us forgetful, foolish, Canadian Citizens? Why do you insist on committing political suicide on national television? I do see your point. We don’t need the farmers of this nation. We can all just grow our own food in the postage stamp yards we have here in the cities. I hope my neighbors don’t mind the cows and chickens I will need to keep out in the backyard. The Conservatives also wanted to make it easier to get funding for the, “have not’s” to get a post secondary education, as you need a collage degree to sweep the floor in today job market. I can see how that would be a bad idea. I mean we can out source all the jobs to people from other countries. Right? That makes more sense. But wait. If we can’t afford collage and we can’t get work. Who is going to pay your salary? How will we eat? You see there is a problem with your way. Maybe that’s why you are not running this country. That’s Canada Mr. Ignatieff.

The coalition points to money that is being spent to buy the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet. I must tell you I have a little thing for The F-35 this is a truly wild machine. The JSF F-35 is a 5^th generation stealth fighter that is as good air to air as it is air to ground, and is versatile enough to switch mid mission without landing and re-arming. It is meant to replace the 30 year old F 18 fighters we are currently using. We had 80 F 18’s however we have lost a few in recent years. These are the planes that are patrolling our air space. Air space that our planes needed to escort Russian spy planes out of a few years back. Canada is one of ten nations involved with this fighter program which by the way started in 1997 with production starting in 2006. The Conservatives where not elected until 2006. The other countries involved in this program would be, all of our allies. That includes The U.S and Britain. Britain by the why has the second most money into this program. They have two billion invested and are a level 1 partner, Italy has one billion invested and is a level 2 partner. Canada is a level 3 partner with 150 million invested. That investment allows Canadian companies to bid on High Tech contracts. So its kind of a investment in Canada too. We could have bought the Euro-fighter Typhoon, a 4^th generation non stealth fighter jet we kicked tires on. They cost 90 million each, and we need 80 of them.



We may not have to spend so much on our defenses, if the last Liberal Government would have spent some smart money on defense. We really would be patrol our coasts in row boats, and our air space with hot air balloons if The Liberals have their way. Case in point the last Liberal Government bought four retired British submarines. You remember the HMCS Chicoutimi? Those four subs where docked for an inquiry into the fire that cost the life of Lieut. Chris Saunders. This left Canada without a sub for the first time since 1961. So when I say row boats, and hot air balloons I am only half joking. The plus side though, The New lib demi blocs can supply the fuel for the balloons. In case you haven’t noticed there is a lot of tension in some areas of the world. We now have some of those F- 18’s in Libya.

Maybe if Michael Igantieff had spent some more time here in Canada he would know we also have our brave men and women of our Armed Forces in Afghanistan. Maybe he would know we want them all back safe. If giving them the proper tools to do the job they are there to do. Then so be it. Maybe Mr. Igantieff if you where here in this country, and not south of the border with you lips stuck to the collective American rear end. You would have heard about our Highway of Heroes. I have stood in the winters cold, and in the summers heat to show my respect for the brave solider who isn’t going to ask for old age security. I am not afraid to tell you I have wiped my tiers every time.



So, what is really the problem here? Is it just that you really want to be The Prime Minister? How will that work? Will you share the seat? Or will you turn on each other? I thought it was the bleeding heart liberals always wanting to give out a helping hand? What’s your story Jack? You don’t support the worker, after they have retired? Let me just say one last thing. If this election goes on, and the Conservatives remind the Great people of this wonderful land, what was so horrible about this budget. If these people love their Grandparents and Parents as much as I do. That you have tried this before, and that you again made a deal with the Bloc to get your way. There could be a serious back lash. So much so it will have you seeing blue! Everywhere. I would think, if the majority of the population didn’t like the way things are going, I would have heard people talking about it. So Mr. Ignatieff when all is said and done. I will draw you a map to the closest U.S border crossing and Jack if the back lash hurts your party I am sure you can get a job working at the Shouldice Clinic. I hope that you will not be in need of retraining as you don’t want Canadians to have that available to them….. Good luck!! Let the mud fly…. And lets keep it to mud!









Thank - you, for your time. Robert England.