U.S. of A. Yay and Nay.

First of all, let me say, I have a lot of American friends whom I adore. As well as friends from other countries. All of us discuss our various governemnts and we all complain. I don't think any of us has a government to be proud of, except perhaps Sweden, Denmark, Finland and the like. The rest of us put up with crap and corruption, lies and laziness, dolts and dumbasses.

One of the things I like best about going to the States is going to the grocery stores. For a country so similar to ours, I cannot  believe the wonderful things they stock on their shelves! Things I just never see around here...new and exciting cereals, packaged foods that I've never heard of, canned goods that boggle my mind, and the prices....whoa...the prices.....



Soup varieties I've never seen!



GIANT jars af Vlasic for $1.98. We pay $6.00 for half this size.

I could spend hours wandering through the aisles. I saw pickled watermelon rind, I saw powdered goat milk, I saw canned crawfish and brown tomatoes called "kumatos". I saw gold and silver spray "paint" that you actually spray on your food. I wonder if that makes your poop sparkle?

We get bothered by mosquitos up here, and we can buy all sorts of mosquito and bug repellent, but I've never seen this before, damn pesky birds:

And outside the store, I almost bought one of these:

I don't know why this came out sideways.  Boo.

But some of the "freedoms" allowed in the USA, I think go too far.
We went to The Black Sheep, which is a sporting goods/hunting/camping place. Steven buys almost all his hunting stuff here, the people are great and the prices are rock bottom. Cheaper than anywhere else, and they have three huge stores, one with the hunting/camping gear, from guns and knives and fishing supplies...everything you could need for the outdoors, one with clothes for the aforementioned sports, and a liquidation place.In other words, its not some rinky-dink Mom & Pop place.

So, I'm wandering around and I see some posters. I thought for a second they were Justin Beiber, and I wondered why he  would be here. Then I realized it was someone else, but I didnt recognize who, perhaps a hunting icon? I wandered over, and to my shock, I realized it wasn't a poster, but a target. A target of a kid. A kid in a hoodie.
A target of a kid in a hoodie that you are supposed to practice shooting at.
Really? Really?
There were actually 2, they were attatched and you got them both for .99. The second one had the prime kill zones, so you'd know where to shoot.
Seriously? I honestly felt my stomach lurch.
I thought to myself "No one is going to believe this." So I picked one up and went to the till. The clerk was a young girl, maybe late teens, early twenties and and when I said "Is this a shooting target?" She smiled and said "Yeah, crazy hey? We can hardly keep them in stock, especially after that whole Treyvan thing. We also had zombies and President Obama." and she happily rang up my purchase.

Zombies...OK, whatever. But this?

I'm actually at a loss for words.

Clean up your mess.

 I have a good idea.

You know how ICBC, or whatever car insurance place you deal with, will either pay to have your vehicle fixed after an accident, or it will pay you out if your vehicle is non-fixable?

Well, I think that the person responsible should have to clean up the mess before they get their money.

Another car went off the road up by where we walk, and all the glass and metal pieces are strewn all over. And you know its going to stay there forever, literally, since it's all nonbiodegradable.

So, before you get your car fixed, or your money...you should have to clean it up. Oh, but you're in the hospital? That's OK, we'll hang on to your money until you''re better. Oh, but you'll never be able to walk or bend over again? That's OK, pay someone else to do it, and then you'll get your money. We'll even deduct it from what you're getting, just to help you out. Oh...you died? Still OK, before your estate or family gets the money, they can pay someone to clean it up. Not your fault at all? Hey...that happens, some accidents are really no-fault. But, you know what? Life sucks, be a decent member of the human race and clean it up anyway.

As I was standing there, spouting my words of wisdom, Steven was gathering up some of the sharper metal pieces as this is a prime dog walking area. I confess, I took home nothing, but tomorrow I'll bring a sturdy bag and gather some of the mess. People that live in glass houses.....

How smart?

So, we got a letter from BC Hydro the other day, saying that we will soon be getting a new Smart Meter. And that got me thinking about some of the articles I've seen but have not really paid much attention to, about said Smart Meters, so I did a bit of googling and browsing, and I have a few concerns.

First, it isn't very easy to find good, reliable, unbiased pros and cons. I found a lot of proponents and a lot of opponents. I'd read the articles of the people who were for the Smart Meters and find myself nodding and agreeing, then I'd read the against articles and I'd find myself siding with them. I read and read until my head was spinning with both information and misinformation.

 If they were genuinely going to save money, I'd be all for it, but from what I can see, that just ain't gonna happen. The installation of them will be, and this is according to government figures......$930 million...yes, million dollars. I can't wrap my mind around that kind of money. How long will it take to recoup that?

 I'd be curious as to who has the contract to supply these meters to the government.

But, here's the thing, apparently, in a nutshell, this is how the system is supposed to work: it tracks the high period of usage and the low period, and you pay more if you use more during the high period. You pay less if you use less. So if everyone runs their dishwasher, for example, between 5 and 7 PM, the amount of electricity being used is high, thus you will pay more.

So, what? I'm supposed to run my dishwasher at 8PM when no one else is? Makes sense, except won't everyone do that? Then that makes 8PM the 'bad' time. Should I set my alarm and get up at 3AM and run it then, and maybe throw in a quick load of laundry? Why don't we do that? Oh, because most people use electricity when they do, for valid reasons, like cooking dinner at dinner time, and getting up to go to work in the morning , and getting the kids off to school. That's why.

Or maybe 'they' can set it up like watering your yard, even numbered houses can use their dishwashers and washers and dryers on even numbered days.

 And what about huge electricity consumers, like the air conditioner? We're all gonna be using that at the same time...man, that smart meter is gonna be whirlin' and BC Hydro will be just agrinnin'....maybe that's their whole plan? Because, come on, you KNOW that they would not be spending $930,000,000 if they were not going to be making beaucoup dollars. I mean, really, let's be serious.

The BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre says that the smart meter will increase our Hydro bills by about 8.3%. Hydro then gave these tips on how to reduce your bill:

1. Change how you use your air conditioner, turn it off when you're not home, set it to 77, use a ceiling or portable fan as they use much less electricity.

2. Don't run your pool pump all the time.

3. Don't operate your appliances at peak hours, and maybe purchase Energy Star efficient ones.

4.Cook efficiently, (ie) put more than one dish in the oven at a time and freeze one for later use, use an electric frying pan instead of a burner or oven.

5. Replace your light bulbs with CFL's.

6. Turn off electric devices when not in use.

And so on.... These are all excellent ideas and we should all try to incorporate them in our daily lives, but hey, BC Hydro....how about we continue to do this, as most of us already are, and you DON'T install the new meters and you just continue to bill us as you already are? Because you don't seem to have a problem with sending out those bills and collecting our money, and raising your prices.

But what really made me think twice were all the articles (and there were many, many, many) written by BC Hydro officials and government officials touting the safety of the new meters, since the main concern seems to be the amount of radiation that they emit.

There are a number of prominent doctors, scientists, members of the World Health Organization, members of various governments who claim that the smart meters are not safe. There are an equal number who claim that they are. There seems to be just as many who say that there have not been enough studies done to decide either way. We havent lived with smart meters in our homes for long enough, or in neighbourhoods where there are hundreds of them emitting their small bits a radiation.

 And that, my friends, to me, is the deciding factor. "Not enough studies done." Let's just take a quick look at a few things that our government, the FDA, the WHO and other groups have told us were safe, shall we? Bear in  mind that all of these were supposed to be perfectly safe/good for us.

1. Thalidomide.  No further words needed.

2. Cigarettes. My parents each used to get a carton with their paychecks, as a bonus, from the government. My parents are now dead. Cancer. In their lungs.

3. Something as innocuous as living beneath a power line. Who would have ever thought that could be a health hazard to your children?

4. Aspartame...approved by the FDA as a "healthy alternative" to sugar.

5. fen-phen.. Better than being fat, but being fat is better than being dead.

6. Bisphenol A in baby bottles.

7. Mercury fillings.

8. Silicone breast implants. And what's with this anyhow....banned and withdrawn in 1992, yet back on the market in 2006?

9.DDT. Agent Orange. Again, no words needed. But if you google Agent Orange birth defects and look at images, I guarantee you'll cry, and if you ever trust anything the government says again, you're a fool.

10. Lead paint. How many babies do you think chewed on the rails of their cribs that were painted in lead based paint? But that's OK, the government told us it was safe.

11. Here's a big one...asbestos.

12. Glow in the dark watch dials.  I had one, and I'll bet you or your parents did too. Read the book "Radium Halos" by Shelly Stout. They were female factory workers who died of radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with supposedly safe glow in the dark paint. An estimated 4000 women were hired by large corporations in both the US and Canadian factories to paint the watch dials and hands. The US company was a defence contractor, supplying glow in the dark watches to the military. We all know the secrets the military tried to keep.

    We don't really know how many women died of radiation poisoning...and do you know why? Because the deaths of the women were attributed to syphilis, to smear their reputation so that the ones who did insist that the paint was causing their deaths and illnesses would not be believed. And why were the deaths attributed to syphilis? At the urging of the companies and the government.  Doctors and dentists were urged to destroy information. Sounds a bit far-fetched and ludicuous, I know, but its true. There was litigation and court cases, and the end result was a huge factor in the establishment of labour standards and occupational hazard laws.

But, guess what? That happened in 1928 and raduim paint was used in watch making until the 1960's. Why? Because the government said it was safe.


And this is a tiny, minuscule, small list of all the things that we were once told were safe for ourselves and our families.

Its not that I think the governments/industries/huge corporations are necessarily lying...but the thing is, they don't know for sure...they have never known for sure....so why take a chance?