The Wealthy West Burns

Toronto, Vancouver, and London. Three of the wealthiest cities in the world. 

Also the site of recent riots.

So what to make of all this. There seem to be some emerging trends.

contemporary rioting is safe and fun. in the G8 rioting is like the high tree-go, a six flags roller coaster, skydiving, bungee jumping. there's thrill, excitement and an illusion of danger but overall it is actually pretty safe for participants. We hear terms like "riot tourist", "recreational rioter", "sportriot" to describe modern rioters and they are all accurate.

rioting is profitable. in addition to the fun and excitement of being there for the smirnoff moment. if anything does happen to a rioter then the rioter benefits. look at the upskirt Vancouver riot kissing couple. ooohhh she was, gasp, knocked down during the Vancouver riot. now they are famous. 

plus if the cops or citizens disrupt rioters in the act then now the rioter can sue. this is in addition to whatever they can grab during the looting spree

cops and shopkeepers won't act. there is a new unspoken rule that the safety of rioters is of paramount importance. trumping protection of law abiding citizens, protection of property, and the supremacy of the rule of law. I was shocked during the Toronto riots the criminals were walking up to shop windows and smashing them. I was thinking "where's the shotgun blast from inside?" 

why can't or won't the cops act? consider this soft judge acquits Toronto rioter. Puddy Tatt shows up at a "peaceful" protest with a 9 inch knife. cops actually arrest him and lock him up. now a judge has dismissed the charges and said the cops were "too aggressive". I wonder what the judge would think if the riot came to his wealthy neighbourhood. would he be so concerned about police "aggression" if there was a mob of people packing 9 inch knives outside his big expensive house looking to loot and burn it? but as long as the mayhem stays out of their neighbourhood judges and the media will side with the rioters

by the way, the difference between a peaceful protest and a riot is when people start showing up with 9 inch knives. the cops kept it peaceful by disrupting the likes of Puddy Tatt but the judge and the media don't want to hear about that. look at the Toronto aftermath. as far as I can tell the only significant arrests, charges and public enquiries have been onto the cops who finally acted to restore the rule of law and prevent the entire city from being burned and looted!

so what's next

given events in London this is the new era of "rioting for fun and profit" in the G8. here at home is Halifax at risk? yes it is. Halifax has the combination of high murder rate, neighbourhood criminal gangs, pockets of a high sense of entitlement, a large university population. so a major riot in Halifax is definitely possible. possibly a 10% chance something in the next say 12 months. and as we saw in Vancouver (lost a hockey game) it sure doesn't take much of an excuse to light up a riot

so the law abiding must think about how to be prepared for this real possibility. how to defend ourselves and our property

This is a start. San Francisco had the right idea. disrupt communication. For once they put the welfare of the general public ahead of criminal opportunists.

Captain America

I saw Captain America in the theatre this week with my older son. It was a good movie. The theatre was around half full on a Thursday night. Which is about how I like it, I prefer to see movies when they've been in for a while.

I noticed a few movies this summer. I missed Bad Teacher but that was kind of a borderline DVD anyway. Horrible Boss looks good plus Planet of the Apes and Conan all look worth seeing there.

I don't go to the theatre a lot. Before this week I think it was Star Trek and then 2012 before that.

misc

Just sitting around for a bit waiting for the kijiji buyer for my mom's sewing machine. Moved one yesterday and hopefully will get this second and final one sold in the next few minutes.

I bought a book case on kijiji yesterday. It was a about a 5 minute drive away. It was in good shape for $15 and already assembled. Good enough for my purposes. It was time for some new book storage space. I've done a few purges of the books the last couple years when space ran out but right now I'm down to books I want to keep. It's good to have books. So kijiji is working pretty well. kijijij is a great thing on the internet.

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I saw a bit about the cbc report on the canadian cancer society. wow 22% of the money that comes in is spent on research. That's not a charity that's a kleptocracy. As happens in old mature organizations, the bureaucracy metastasizes throughout the body and has now killed the host. It's basically a bureaucracy with a small token research wing for show. That organization should be stripped of charity status and shut down. It has outlived its usefulness.

Someone should do a study of the government education department to determine what percent of the budget is spent in the classrom vs. what is spent on administration and bureaucracy. Health care too, are are allowed to discuss how much is spent on overhead and administration? 

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I was in Moncton last weekend visiting a friend. It was a good road trip. I hadn't been up there in two years. The weather was good and we went to Parlee Beach. We also checked out the Moncton Casino which is a nice facility. Free parking, clean and new, well lit, staff and patrons were friendly. I'd go back.

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Update: I just sold the second sewing machine. The buyer was disappointed because she had wanted the other sewing machine I had posted first; it was nicer. She emailed Tuesday but wasn't able to come by until today Sunday. As it happened I had a buyer for the first machine who arrived Saturday. The thing about kijiji is you don't hold anything. If someone is willing to show up at your door with cash then the item is theirs. Unfortunately there's some bad behaviour on kijiji and people will no-show after saying they want to buy something. That's also why there's also generally on kijiji the buyer has to pick up; no delivery.

Verdict is in

Maybe Casey Anthony and Guy Turcotte can go partying together now.

The Turcotte verdict is a dangerous outcome. The precedent seems to be that if you are upset about something then you can kill and then not be responsible for what you did. Well the door is open now most murders can be couched in similar context.

It's shameful with Turcotte considering the innocent, defenceless victims. A bigger man would have killed some combination of the cheating wife, her new boyfriend, or himself. Or just sucked it up and accepted that men get cheated on and left every single day.

health care in Nova Scotia

I went to church yesterday for an occasional appearance. While there the minister's wife said she was going to do the sermon although her husband the minister was originally planned to.

It turns out he had been at the emergency the day before, July 2, and was still not feeling well. The emergency visit was telling. They sat there for around 6 hours Saturday evening, got no service, and left because they had church on Sunday morning.

Some might rationalize this as bad luck, the combination of staff taking vacation on Canada day weekend plus an increase in drinking this weekend with resultant extra ER visits. I wish that was the case. But on facebook I often see status of people who spent 5-6+ hours in ER waiting for service.

The minister is a good man, in good shape, around late 40s I'd guess. Doesn't smoke or drink. It sucks that after paying in all that money when he actually could use service he got stiffed. sigh, well that's the government for you. Two generations of government medicare now and the age threshold for "go home and die" is now apparently 50.

So what does it mean in Darwinistic terms. Who are the fittest that get to survive?

- those who can stay well and avoid having to rely on the health care system

- those like the minister who can survive going without service when they are ill
- those who have the contacts and political skills to get the inside access to jump the queue and get service
- those who will fight hard enough and make enough of a scene to jump the queue and get service ahead of those who quietly wait their turn. nice guys finish last. nice guys go home after 6 hours without service


Also in health care the Nova Scotia government is suing big tobacco over health care costs. No I don't smoke myself. This lawsuit is a joke and wrong on so many levels.

- cigarettes are already very heavily taxed so the health money has already been collected. this is just a shakedown
- smoking is a red herring. this is just a distraction to avoid having an honest discussion about the real issue: obesity
- it is wrong to attack a third party over the actions of individuals. you don't sue the used clothing store when a Vancouver rioter uses a gasoline soaked rag to torch a police cruiser. you sue the individuals who torched the car.

it's the same thing here. the public health system has always been susceptible to the tragedy of the commons. all this does is it tells individual adults they are not responsible for their actions. the only way this lawsuit can proceed will be if the government must also sue individual smokers. it cannot be otherwise. we cannot hold only the corporate tobacco responsible for the actions of individual free citizens

the problem with suing individual smokers is that it destroys the lifestyle neutral belief system the public health system is built on. once in place the overweight/drunks/etc will be next for extra fees to cover the shared cost of their lifestyle choices

American Beauty

I watched another movie that had been on my list recently. It was American Beauty. I had heard of it in the past then it comes now and again the last 2-3 years on the forums.

The hero is a 42 year old man whose sleepy life and sexless marriage is jolted awake by a series of events. His dreary but high paying office job is threatened by a corporate downsizing, high school daughter brings around an attractive and flirty cheerleader friend who he becomes smitten with, new neighbours move in and their mysterious son begins seeing his daughter while selling the father drugs.

His wife is a successful real estate agent but constantly yearns for more success. In her drive she begins meeting the top agent in town the "king" and he's interested in more than talking about selling houses. It's strange because she doesn't seen to realize how successful she already is. Driving around in a Mercedes wagon, $4,000 couch, big suburban house. Unfortunately she misses this and is consumed in material pursuits. In one remarkable scene she tells her daughter that when she was in high school they were "in a duplex. We didn't even have a house". That's pretty crazy like there's something terrible about being in a duplex.

And so on the contemporary commentary goes. In another scene his daughter chooses to walk home from school with the neighbours son. Her cheerleader friend is shocked and mentions that it's "nearly a mile" from the high school.

The 42 year old hero experiences some personal growth. He doesn't fight for his job and is let go. Then he spends his severance on a sports car of his youth and takes a minimum wage fry cook job which was also from his youth. He finds some happiness in this excursion but the forces of the present collide to an interesting conclusion.

It was a good movie. I think I grasp and appreciate it more now than I might have in 1999 or say 2005. It was a thinking movie it has stayed with me a bit these last few days.