Hergest Ridge

This post is a tad bit of a rant as to why I’ll never vote for a conservative (con) party.

To illustrate my example, I’ll use the conservative goals of dismantling national health care and the welfare system. The cons argue that welfare and national health care are communistic abominations which punish those that work hard for their money.

For a second, imagine Canada without either of the two services. No welfare, and no health care.

A father of a six year old child has found himself out of a job for the last two years. He was the sole breadwinner, but has been without work for over two years now. His poor health resulted in a lot of time missed on his last job, and the employer had to hire someone more reliable. Since, the family used up all family savings on day to day expenses like putting food on the table. As if things were not bad enough, his child is now sick too.

If the child does not get medical attention, things are only going to get worse. What are the man’s choices? No job, and a dieing child. What can he do now? What would you do?

Crime is the quickest solution. He is going to go down the road, break the window in your new BMW. He’ll then steal it, cut it into pieces, and sell it for parts so his child can see a doctor, and his family can eat again.

The man is only but one of many in a similar situation. Their society abandoned them, because ‘they were owed nothing’. The flip side is that they don’t owe you and me anything either. How long before the guilt of stealing your BMW becomes justified in the mind of an individual in such a predicament?

Any system you put in place is susceptible to abuse. There will be people living on welfare that don’t have to be there, but if you think it’s such a great life “sitting on your ass and getting paid (shit all) to do so”, do me a favour and quit your job. Go on welfare. “Live it up” as you tend to call it, because I’m sick of hearing you whine what a great life it must be to live in a dump, with nothing to do but drink yourself into an early grave. I’ll gladly pay the extra taxes so you can live this delusion dream of your’s, and to shut you up while at it.

Coming full circle, a society that wishes to have any sort of stability needs to care for those weakest. If we don’t, we’ll pay for it in the form of increased insurance premiums and monthly insurance deductible charges. More police officers will be needed to try and keep some form of order, and many, many more jails will have to be built. Now, taxes will have to be raised too. The list of expenses is long.

Let’s work on prevention, not paying for the cure down the road. Next time you see a poverty stricken individual, do me a favour and don’t open your mouth unless you’re willing to use your brain first. His life is not great, and you wouldn’t want to be there yourself. His life sucks a lot more than us paying taxes to keep him away from crime necessitated by the primal need to survive.

… when not to tell anyone about the upcoming change of plans, because by the time the changes are all over, due to no fault of your own everything will be back at square one with no changes in plans.

On another note, I finally got through the daunting task of upgrading the Bytech Forums. What a chore. I missed one update, and since they come out on average monthly, I was waiting for the next one to hit and just do everything at once. Of course since I was awaiting the update, it didn’t come for another two months. Now that I’ve got one forum down, I’m sure that the next patch will be out very, very soon, just so I can do all this all over again.

Yes, I’m being deliberately boring. Typing and doing things keeps the gremlins in my mind from escaping. A small price to pay to keep those uglies confined.

On the last visit to my bank, I found a day planner staring me in the face at the teller’s window. Those before me have written in some interesting comments on it:

Feb 6: Cold Tuesday
Feb 11: Coldest ever
Feb 13: Move to North Pole | Been there
Feb 20: Broke | Life is great
Feb 21: It’s snowing | No it’s not
Feb 28: Spring is coming

Our ancient predecessors wrote on the walls of caves, while we leave our mark on the calendars of our financial institutions. Here’s to hoping each one of us has something a little more memorable to leave our mark on.

While trying to find to what Chinese Zodiac group I belong to, I found that the general ‘If you are born in such and such a year, you are so and so’ are not very accurate. See, the zodiac spans according to Chinese years, and not the Roman.

With that in mind, I found a site that proclaims I’m a Horse. I read the description of what I am likely to be like, and here are the results with my comments in italics.

Horses are very appealing people. (I doubt it, not me anyway.) They are warm and friendly and dearly love social atherings with plenty of people. (Come again?) They are perceptive and enjoy talking. (Close enough.) They have a high spirited nature and are changeable. (Again, close enough.) This makes them hot-tempered, rash, and headstrong. (Headstrong, yes. No to the rest.) They are always falling in and out of love. (No, not if we are talking about people.) Quick to warm to someone, they are just as quick to lose interest. (Wrong.) Here today and gone tomorrow-these are the Horses. (Wrong.) Then when you decide not to see them again, here they come ready to pick up where they left off! (Wrong.)

Horses are adventurers at heart, (Close enough.) but they do have sharp minds and good abilities for managing money. (Mainly true.) They are self-reliant and energetic. (Yup.) They love exercise, both mental and physical. (Kinda, and yes.) Their movements are rapid, yet graceful; (lol, never thought of myself that way.) their speech is quick, yet elegant. (I guess it depends on what language is in question.) Horses want things their way and they will become aggressive when all else fails. (What happened to the above “they are changable”?) They value their freedom above all else. (Don’t we all?) They are not possessive or jealous of others. (I wish.) Being moody creatures, Horses depend on the feel of things. (I’m grumpy in the mornings, but moody is all wrong.) They possess the ability to improvise while events are in motion and can handle several things at once. (Average.) Horses find it difficult to unwind. (Guess again.) They keep strange hours and suffer from insomnia. (Strange hours, yes. Insomnia, far from it.) When they stop, it is usually from exhaustion. (Wrong, wrong, wrong.) It is hard for them to follow a schedule for they have no respect for routine. (True enough.) They need to keep busy but do best when given a free hand. (Yup.)

Horses are full of new ideas to solve tricky problems. (Sudoku, anyone?) When they have an idea, they want to get right to it. (Depends on the idea.) They work around the clock until they finish. (Laugh-out-Loud.) Horses want you to come to the point quickly since they don’t have time to spare. (Time to spare, yes. Still, the sooner you get to the point the better.) They will not care if you are blunt, just don’t waste their time. (True enough.)

Horses must be allowed to show their emotions. (No idea what this means.) They are hot-blooded, hot-tempered, and impatient, and they will gladly demonstrate. (Wrong²) In love, Horses are quite vulnerable. (Average.) They give up everything for the object of their affections. (Used to, but then I grew up.) This causes them trouble since they are such impulsive creatures! They must learn to use caution (Done.) If one has a Horse in their house, you can bet the Horse receives most of the attention. (No, please. No. Just leave me alone!) Horses like being the hub and have everything revolving about them. (Not unless you mean the hub of solitude.) In return, they work hard and share with everyone. (Average.)

Horses don’t mind starting over. (Chrono Trigger anyone?) They maintain their determination and enjoy new successes. (Maintain determination, average. Enjoy new success: Don’t we all?) They belong in careers where they are surrounded by people. (Hahahaha, I’m laughing, no one can hear me, and I’m loving it. You do the math.) They sway crowds and love being flattered. (“Opps, you made me throw up a little.”) The willful Horses get into countless predicaments (Wrong³) but they bail themselves out. They enjoy fighting their own battles. (Fair enough.) Colorful and lively, they make many friends. (Define ‘many’.) If they could be in several places at once,they would be delighted! (In bed sleeping, while getting my work done would be perfect.) Their spirit is restless and searching. (Kinda.) Creativity is part of their being. (I like to think so…) They are talented writers and performers. (I’ll leave the world to judge that.)

The original and uncommented horoscope was grabbed from here . Look yourself up on this page.

Being a child is getting more and more complicated. The “Safe for Microwave” inscription on nearly everything plastic in the kitchen is only safe for the container, and not the human. Who’d thunk that the plastic would release carcinogens while your food is warming up? If I was a child, I would be seriously confused about why something that specifically tells me it’s okay to use, really isn’t (but maybe the kiddies have already learned about that from the cigarette companies).

My book reading spurt came to a grinding halt with my completion of “Larry’s Party”. I’m trying to kick-start the process again with completing the long ago started “No one makes you shop at Wal-Mart”. I’ve left it for months with something like 40 pages to go. Just in case you thought the book is some commie propaganda, think again: It’s economics for the 21st century and beyond. Wal-Mart is hardly mentioned in the book. But since you asked, no, I do not shop at Wal-Mart.

I did start on “The Plague”, but have not been back to it since that first session with it. I’m actually feeling like reading something more directly educational, like Chomsky’s “Hegemony or Survival”. I bought the book, and tried reading it for a while, but all I could hear was the sound of 747s over my head. Maybe I got a little smarter since I last tried reading it.

Last on my list of ‘boring things to talk about on your blog’ is a little blurb on my guitar practice. After two months of learning, I’m starting to feel really comfortable with it. The “I’ll never be able to play that” line is being replaced with “I’m obviously trying this piece to soon”. I just wish I had started the whole musical journey a lot sooner, but isn’t that the case with starting anything worth while? It’s things like playing the guitar that make me look forward to being 40 some day. I can’t help but wonder how good I’ll be in another decade, and beyond. If doing the limited jamming I’m capable of now is so much fun, I’m really going to have a blast 10 years from now!

I normally don’t sit down to write these kind of random thoughts, but had to fill the time somehow while waiting for the stomach cramps to go away before heading of to do some skating. All’s well now, and I’m off to catch some fresh air while hopefully avoiding coming face to face with the ice. :)