US POLITICS–The bully enters the race.

Business, Cdn Politics, Entertainment, General

What a joke!  How could anyone possibly think that Mr. Trump could possibly run the USA?

trumpsterHe is one of the most visible corporate bullies in US business.

Trump believes that “GOD” has chosen him to fix all of the problems currently existing in the USA.  He says that he would have the Mexicans build a 2200 mile wall spanning the Mexican border with the USA and have Mexico pay for it.  Is he joking? Sounds like J. Stalin.

He says he would bring the Chinese down because of the way they treat American business. Does he not realize that  Wall Street  in their ongoing greed for profit.. profit.. profit, along with the Republican Party  forced companies to find alternate manufacturing locations to bring costs down to maximize returns.

Trump on a David Letterman show did not even know that the suits, shirts, ties, colognes and jewelry marketed under his name are all made in China.  More profit for Trump if he makes it in China.

Trump used to go after Obama saying he just did not have enough Federal Political experience to be President.  Now let’s have a quick look here. Trump has no federal political experience, no state political experience, no city political experience not even a boy scout leader and he thinks he has the knowledge to manage the USA.

God help the USA if Trump ever gets elected.

ONTARIO EDUCATION — Among world’s best?

Cdn Politics, Education, General

How could anyone possibly believe that Ontario’s education system is among the world’s best.

How could a student in grade 7 not know: The provinces of Canada, Our Governor General’s name, The first, second or current Prime Minister of our Country?

How could a student in grade 7 not be able to multiply 4 X 6,  or be able to add two columns of 3 digit numbers with 4 numbers in each column?

How could a student in grade 3 not know anything about basic addition or how to print legibly or read simple books?

Are these students just being pushed forward by uncaring teachers, or is it some decree by the province that no student gets held back no matter how poorly they are doing.

Maybe some parents should consider suing the province for their blatant disregard of our students progress.

ONTARIO TEACHERS — Lost respect

Cdn Politics, Education, General

Teachers deserve a good salary, good benefits and good working conditions. THEY HAVE ALL OF THESE.

Parents deserve great teaching, children learning well and quality feedback on the students progress. THEY GET LITTLE OF THAT.

What is it about our teachers that they do not have the guts to go battle their union about how our kids are getting treated. Many if not most teachers do not agree with the union stance on not implementing students data with comments into computers so that parents can get a proper evaluation of the students progress. But the teachers are so afraid of the union that they just won’t stand up to them.

Parents are losing all respect for teachers and it is now time that the province do whatever is necessary to take control away from these unions and possibly even ban them in the future.

The education system in this province has become disgusting.

TEACHERS BREAK OFF NEGOTIATIONS — Take control Kathleen Wynne

Cdn Politics, General, Our Money

Again the teachers union has broken off negotiations and heading for a strike early next week.

Now is the time to pass legislation stopping them from going on strike until at least the end of the school year.   Then what we need to do is something similar to what Ronald Reagan did with the air traffic controllers in the USA.    Let’s fire every high school teacher in this Province,  outlaw or decimate the unions and then re-hire those teachers that are accomplished teachers that have a real interest in teaching our children.  And we start with paying them exactly the same salary and benefits they currently have but at the same time institute a method of measuring competence and then start to pay them accordingly.

The teacher unions are destroying our ability to properly educate our kids and they need to be stopped. Breaking the teachers union in this province is 20 years over due and our kids have paid the price year after year after year.

TEACHERS THREATENING STRIKE — Again

Cdn Politics, General, Our Money

Once again the high school teachers in many of the school boards across the province are threatening to go on strike towards the end of April if they do not receive a new gold plated contract.

Once again, they say that outdoor activities and possible final exams may have to be cancelled if they are forced to go on strike.

I am so sick and tired of the tactics by these teacher unions that our government needs to once and for all deal with these overpaid, under worked prima-donna unions and focus on the needs of our students.

Ontario is among the worst when it comes to student excellence in this country.  Don’t get me wrong. We have many excellent teachers, but they are constantly being hand tied by these big unions.  And our government is so afraid of them because of their size that they continue to cater to their unreasonable demands.

What private business employee has his or her job protected forever? (When was the last time a teacher was fired in this province?) What private business employee gets automatically a minimum of 10 weeks holidays per year?  (And don’t tell me they need this time to update their skills as private sector people do it  in night classes.) What private business employee has their pension automatically indexed forever? (Not in the private sector.)

The teachers unions want to reduce the number of students per class to less than 20.  They want to have teaching assistants in every class.  It is time we raised the pupil to student ration closer to 30 like it was when most seniors went to school and we seemed to do OK. In college or university the ratio in many cases is in excess of a hundred to one. (And they don’t seem to have a problem.)

I say … Get rid of 50% of the school boards in the province.. Get rid of all teacher unions.. Change the gold plated pension plans that we all pay for and take control over the cost of new schools. And finally let’s measure the competence of teachers and get rid of those that don’t meet the grade.

Big public service unions hold this province hostage and it is time we dealt these unions a fatal blow.

 

CHRIS BROWN — Denied Entry Into Canada

Cdn Politics, Entertainment, General

Chris thought he could just enter Canada to perform at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Wednesday night.  Not so.  An artist with two very serious convictions for assault in the US and having been in jail for several months the Canadian Border Services Agency denied him entry into Canada.

Assaulting a woman (Rihanna) is something that not one Canadian citizen should ever condone.  We stopped doing his line dances,  most of us shun buying his CD’s, and only those that do not think this to be a big deal were ready to pay to see him perform. Shame on them.

Let’s hope the Canadian Government do not issue him a special permit to perform here at some later date.

ARIZONA — Red Light Cameras

General, US Politics

Politicians in the State Assembly are at it again.

They want to ban all red light cameras unless they are monitored by a police officer who then issues the ticket.

When did running a red light become legal.  Ever since they banned them in some areas, people continue to run red lights and the cities have had to increase the time from red to going green to several seconds. Running red lights causes countless  accidents and deaths and the police want the cameras to remain but these politicians are so biased by the few red light running voters that they have no intestinal fortitude to do what is right for the citizens.

Shame on you Arizona politicians.  Maybe a serious accident with one of your family members would sway your opinion.

SAWED OFF SHOTGUNS — More important than lives

Cdn Politics, Foreign, General

Welcome to Arizona… The politicians here are now about to pass a law allowing people to purchase sawed off shotguns and silencers for their handguns in violation of the federal laws.  These politicians need a head shake.

It is obvious to any reasonable person that this just allows more people to be killed with these unwanted weapons. I think, like I have said in the past, if they are going to be this ridiculous, then they should also permit people to have shoulder fired missile’s and nuclear weapons.  These politicians are nuts and need to be removed from power before they authorize the killing of more citizens.

US REPUBLICANS — Now they need to deliver

Foreign, US Politics

Republicans have taken over Congress in the US midterm elections, following a campaign in which they focused on attacking President Obama’s policies.

By any rational standard U.S. President Barack Obama doesn’t have a bad story to tell. Granted, he raised hopes for a sea-change in American politics than he couldn’t deliver.

But after inheriting the Great Recession, and facing ferocious Republican obstructionism, he has presided over four years of steady growth and credible job-creation. He has provided millions with health care. Broken Al Qaeda. And brought troops home from two wars.

Looking ahead, his Democrats promise to hike the minimum wage, to push for better pay for women, to reform immigration, to provide more help for student borrowers and to curb carbon emissions.

Yet for all that, two in three Americans — whipped into a lather by strident Republican negativity — have succumbed to a futile anger. They have persuaded themselves that the nation is heading for a train wreck when it remains the envy of much of the world. And they have dealt Obama a stinging rebuke in the midterm elections.

In many voters’ minds the recovery, while real, has been too slow and uneven to float working families’ boats. They blame Obama for overselling his health care act, and for not deporting illegal immigrant children. And fairly or not, they regard him as weak on foreign policy including coping with Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the Islamic State and Ebola.

That scattered dissatisfaction has handed the Republicans control of Congress, with a newly won majority in the Senate as well as a bigger majority in the House of Representatives.  And of course it raises the prospect that Washington’s divided government, notorious for gridlock, will settle into partisan cement as both parties square off for the 2016 presidential election.

While Obama is no doubt right that Americans expect the president to “push hard … to get things done,” as he put it on Wednesday, it won’t be easy to “take care of business” given this result. Even his cautious hope for bipartisan agreement on measures to fund infrastructure and boost exports seems optimistic.

Canadians have only a limited stake in this result.  Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s tired Conservative government can hope that the Republicans will make good on promises to press the White House to approve, the long-delayed, and extremely bad for the Canadian environment,  Keystone XL oil pipeline.  The Republicans, like the temporizing Tories, are disposed to put industry before climate initiatives.

Democrat  Hillary Clinton is more popular than her potential Republican presidential rivals. Most voters still see the Democrats as more concerned about “the needs of people.” And they regard the Republicans as politically extreme and captive to special interests.

Crucially, the Republicans have yet to give working Americans a positive reason to support them. House Speaker John Boehner talks about the need for the new Congress to “start getting results.”  But the Republican program includes tax cuts that are likely to favour the wealthy, repeal of Obamacare, opposition to the minimum-wage hike and fighting carbon regulations. None of this will improve life for working families.

The Republicans have retaken Congress on an angry vote. They have yet to advance a winning agenda for the bigger prize.

(excerpt from an editorial published in the Toronto Star)

COMMUNITY MAIL BOXES — The graffiti begins

Cdn Politics, General, Our Money

Looks like the community mail boxes are rapidly being installed in my area of town.  Our box will be in a cluster of 80 such boxes (5 units of 16) and is located about a block and a half away.

Down the street in the other direction a new set of 64 such boxes has already been marked with graffiti and some sticky posters.  I am certainly pleased that these are not placed in front of my home but I just wonder how Canada Post plans to stop these from being vandalized in the future.

Well Canada, we are the only major country in the Western World not to have home to home mail delivery.  I feel really sad for handicapped citizens and those that have to venture out in the very cold, very harsh winter soon to bear down on us.

Community boxes are just another mistake by our current misinformed federal government.