With respect to the recent "protests" by Tamils in Toronto, I quote from today's Globe and Mail:
"Many Torontonians have long been puzzled by how, without any public discussion they remember, let alone any consensus, their city has become home to so many folks from around the world who periodically hold the rest of the place hostage while they make their voices heard about the very issues or crises that drove them here in the first place."
...and I add...
...and for which the rest of us could care less and know we can do nothing about. There is no Problems of the World Department at Toronto City Hall, at last check.
I am also puzzled by the fact that nearly every day I read what great progress India has made and how it is now a superpower. So why doesn't India, a nation a few kilometers from Sri Lanka with a near identical culture and language, have some responsibility for Sri Lanka.
Oh...yes....White Man's Burden.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Supporting Tamilians
U.N.C.L.E offices in Toronto were stormed today by angry Ceylonese-Sri Lankin refugees and their pet tigers who were demanding an end to civil war in Ceylon, sometimes called Sri Lanka, and often mistaken as Pakistan.
Fueled by anger, these "hot" Tamales had displaced the ubiquitous orange cones and "Road Under Construction" signs on Toronto freeways before making their way to Ontario Legislature where they brought the daily water cooler gossip to a standstill and invaded the gay cruising at Queen's Park.
We listened to their impassioned pleas, and U.N.C.L.E. is proud to announce the following:
1. U.N.C.L.E. will submit a strongly-worded, verbal request, in Latin, that the United Nations, consider, as part of its preliminary planning for the creation of its 2011 Strategic Vision Statement, a possible review of events in Sri Lanka.
2. U.N.C.L.E. will consider making an informal, verbal request, to the governments of Gabon and Madagascar, that they mobilize their forces and equip them with machetes and torches in order to train for a possible war game that would include the existing ruling party of Sri Lanka.
3. U.N.C.L.E. will review its funding priorities to determine if funds exist to build a bridge over the River of Tears that these Sri Lankans are crying.
We remain disappointed the both Toronto Mayor, David "What Me do Something" Miller, and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuilty remain entrenched in their positions. They have started that only City of Toronto public works employees, and the Province of Ontario Ministry of Transportation, have the authority to unnecessarily disrupt traffic. We encourage both the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario to organize Human Rights Conferences to "flesh out" solutions and invite delegates such as long-haired, crackpot, University types who are experts on Sri Lanka, but have never been there.
Fueled by anger, these "hot" Tamales had displaced the ubiquitous orange cones and "Road Under Construction" signs on Toronto freeways before making their way to Ontario Legislature where they brought the daily water cooler gossip to a standstill and invaded the gay cruising at Queen's Park.
We listened to their impassioned pleas, and U.N.C.L.E. is proud to announce the following:
1. U.N.C.L.E. will submit a strongly-worded, verbal request, in Latin, that the United Nations, consider, as part of its preliminary planning for the creation of its 2011 Strategic Vision Statement, a possible review of events in Sri Lanka.
2. U.N.C.L.E. will consider making an informal, verbal request, to the governments of Gabon and Madagascar, that they mobilize their forces and equip them with machetes and torches in order to train for a possible war game that would include the existing ruling party of Sri Lanka.
3. U.N.C.L.E. will review its funding priorities to determine if funds exist to build a bridge over the River of Tears that these Sri Lankans are crying.
We remain disappointed the both Toronto Mayor, David "What Me do Something" Miller, and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuilty remain entrenched in their positions. They have started that only City of Toronto public works employees, and the Province of Ontario Ministry of Transportation, have the authority to unnecessarily disrupt traffic. We encourage both the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario to organize Human Rights Conferences to "flesh out" solutions and invite delegates such as long-haired, crackpot, University types who are experts on Sri Lanka, but have never been there.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Warranties, Guarantees and Swampland in Florida
The government bailout of the auto makers requires that a trust be established and funded to the amount of 125% of the dollar amount of warranty work expected to be done on vehicles sold during the restructuring process.
If you have purchased a GM vehicle, which is still covered by warranty or are thinking of purchasing a GM vehicle, then your warranty is good...... right! Sorry but the answer is NO, your warranty is practically worthless.
Today I received a nice postcard from Ross Foss, a Toronto-area "family" of dealerships advising that they are closing their Saturn Saab store. They are no longer covering or performing any warranty work on vehicles, new or used, sold out of the Saturn Saab store. Its not like Roy Foss doesn't have the capacity to do the work. Roy's GM dealership, which sits beside the Saturn store, is one of the largest in the world. Roy also has several other dealerships within 500 metres of the Saturn store.
Now, it is possible to get warranty work done. You simply call GM and ask for the Saturn/Saab dealer closest to you. And you beg them to do the work. In Toronto, there are a number of such dealerships. But what if you live in a smaller town that has just one GM dealership and one Saturn dealership? Once the Saturn dealership is closed, you thought the GM dealership would cover the warranty since GM owns Saturn and Saab. Sorry, you are out of luck. There is no "store" left to perform the work. And the same thing will happen when that GM dealership closes. And GM is closing thousands of those in the next year. So, you might well have a warranty guarantee but no dealership to honour the warranty :-). And remember folks, even if you have a Buick with a warranty, and the dealership that is left in town sells Chevy, Cadillac and GMC, then the Buick warranty is worthless.
Funny how the auto makers and dealers neglected to explain this nuance when they asked for the bail out money.
If you have purchased a GM vehicle, which is still covered by warranty or are thinking of purchasing a GM vehicle, then your warranty is good...... right! Sorry but the answer is NO, your warranty is practically worthless.
Today I received a nice postcard from Ross Foss, a Toronto-area "family" of dealerships advising that they are closing their Saturn Saab store. They are no longer covering or performing any warranty work on vehicles, new or used, sold out of the Saturn Saab store. Its not like Roy Foss doesn't have the capacity to do the work. Roy's GM dealership, which sits beside the Saturn store, is one of the largest in the world. Roy also has several other dealerships within 500 metres of the Saturn store.
Now, it is possible to get warranty work done. You simply call GM and ask for the Saturn/Saab dealer closest to you. And you beg them to do the work. In Toronto, there are a number of such dealerships. But what if you live in a smaller town that has just one GM dealership and one Saturn dealership? Once the Saturn dealership is closed, you thought the GM dealership would cover the warranty since GM owns Saturn and Saab. Sorry, you are out of luck. There is no "store" left to perform the work. And the same thing will happen when that GM dealership closes. And GM is closing thousands of those in the next year. So, you might well have a warranty guarantee but no dealership to honour the warranty :-). And remember folks, even if you have a Buick with a warranty, and the dealership that is left in town sells Chevy, Cadillac and GMC, then the Buick warranty is worthless.
Funny how the auto makers and dealers neglected to explain this nuance when they asked for the bail out money.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Guess Who Ain't Making Loan Payments
Some months back, on my sister blog, I quoted from a friend who asked, about the government loans to the auto industry, "if the banks know they are not getting their money back from the car makers, why does the government think they are getting their money back."
Both the government and the car makers claimed loud and clear that the money would be used to stave off bankruptcy and that the government would be repaid. Well, last week Chrysler went bankrupt, and this week Chrysler and its government lenders admitted nothing will ever get paid back.
Oh my, que una suprisa!
What was that loan money used for? Hmmm...might it have been paid out as bonuses to executives, used to prop up health care plans so the union guys could get their Viagara. Might some of it been paid to the lobbyists who lobbied the government for loans, maybe paid in cash to those lobbyists who then maybe, just maybe, treated their government contacts to a trip to say.....Brazil. Nah...or ...well...what da ya think? Is there a chance, a snowball's chance in hell, that is was used for retraining, or paying suppliers that had 90 day invoices outstanding?
The little fiasco known as Chrysler will soon be repeated at GM. And you Ontario taxpayers best get your pockets sewn up tightly right now. 'Cause when GM and its union gets through fleecing the Ontario taxpayer your chequebook is going to be a whole lot lighter.
The good news is that, hopefully, when these two dinosaurs are restructured, we won't have to put up with their shenanigans any longer. But who knows, sometimes things in life have a habit of being resurrected in some other surreptitious form and eventually rise to bite us in the ass.
Both the government and the car makers claimed loud and clear that the money would be used to stave off bankruptcy and that the government would be repaid. Well, last week Chrysler went bankrupt, and this week Chrysler and its government lenders admitted nothing will ever get paid back.
Oh my, que una suprisa!
What was that loan money used for? Hmmm...might it have been paid out as bonuses to executives, used to prop up health care plans so the union guys could get their Viagara. Might some of it been paid to the lobbyists who lobbied the government for loans, maybe paid in cash to those lobbyists who then maybe, just maybe, treated their government contacts to a trip to say.....Brazil. Nah...or ...well...what da ya think? Is there a chance, a snowball's chance in hell, that is was used for retraining, or paying suppliers that had 90 day invoices outstanding?
The little fiasco known as Chrysler will soon be repeated at GM. And you Ontario taxpayers best get your pockets sewn up tightly right now. 'Cause when GM and its union gets through fleecing the Ontario taxpayer your chequebook is going to be a whole lot lighter.
The good news is that, hopefully, when these two dinosaurs are restructured, we won't have to put up with their shenanigans any longer. But who knows, sometimes things in life have a habit of being resurrected in some other surreptitious form and eventually rise to bite us in the ass.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Issue is Closed
After long months of silence, the Ontario government has now stated that it will not cover any shortfall in the pension plans for GM and Chrysler when they go bankrupt.
Both companies and especially GM have committed a form of fraud over the past generation, underfunding their pension plan while, at the same time claiming they were too big to fail and did not need to pay money in the trust fund maintained by the Ontario government to protect employees in the event a company goes bankrupt.
Many stakeholders, including U.N.C.L.E., made it clear that the Ontario taxpayer is not responsible for covering a private pension plan for which the taxpayer could not benefit from if it was over funded, and was never invited to the bargaining table.
The UAW and GM employees, especially, are livid with the decision. After decades of fleecing the car buyer and the taxpayer, the people in this industry formed a culture of entitlement which was not sustainable. When organizations like U.N.C.L.E. called for restructuring and change, we were told where to go.
We sympathize with the employees, many of them who put their trust in an incompetent union negotiators and equally dumb GM management. However, this is not a new issue. For at least 20 years, all industry stakeholders except for the union and management warned of the way the pension deficit was ballooning.
While the taxpayer is not required to foot the bill for the unfunded pension, the government should still act. Senior GM management as well as UAW management should be held under criminal arrest until it is determined whether a crime has been committed. All vehicle inventory plus factories need to be seized by the government and auctioned off to compensate the pension plan.
Both companies and especially GM have committed a form of fraud over the past generation, underfunding their pension plan while, at the same time claiming they were too big to fail and did not need to pay money in the trust fund maintained by the Ontario government to protect employees in the event a company goes bankrupt.
Many stakeholders, including U.N.C.L.E., made it clear that the Ontario taxpayer is not responsible for covering a private pension plan for which the taxpayer could not benefit from if it was over funded, and was never invited to the bargaining table.
The UAW and GM employees, especially, are livid with the decision. After decades of fleecing the car buyer and the taxpayer, the people in this industry formed a culture of entitlement which was not sustainable. When organizations like U.N.C.L.E. called for restructuring and change, we were told where to go.
We sympathize with the employees, many of them who put their trust in an incompetent union negotiators and equally dumb GM management. However, this is not a new issue. For at least 20 years, all industry stakeholders except for the union and management warned of the way the pension deficit was ballooning.
While the taxpayer is not required to foot the bill for the unfunded pension, the government should still act. Senior GM management as well as UAW management should be held under criminal arrest until it is determined whether a crime has been committed. All vehicle inventory plus factories need to be seized by the government and auctioned off to compensate the pension plan.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Pot Calling the Kettle Black
Canadian university professors are complaining that their first year students in Ontario are lazy, relying on Wikipedia to collect information for assignments rather than doing work.
Maybe assignments should be based on something more than simply gathering information, maybe analysis might matter LOL.
After living in Latin America for three years, I was astonished to see the university program highlights in B.C. that were outright lies about life in Latin America. You see, the professors who design these programs have NEVER been to Latin America. They design the programs based on elitist academic views which have no relationship to the on-the-ground truth. For example, here in B.C. there are programs that discuss how NAFTA has been to the disadvantage of Mexicans. But, in Mexico, the VAST majority of people think NAFTA has made them equal to Americans and Canadians.
The hubris of the typical North American professor-type is offensive.
And the qualifications of many of the high school "leaders" who are responsible for graduating some of these students are suspect. Tonight on CBC, they interviewed a typical high school principal in Ontario. His name is Tom Shultz. I know Tom, very well. He was a phys-ed teacher at Merivale High School when I attended there in 1975-1980. At risk of being sued for slander, I won't say much more about Shultzie.
Maybe assignments should be based on something more than simply gathering information, maybe analysis might matter LOL.
After living in Latin America for three years, I was astonished to see the university program highlights in B.C. that were outright lies about life in Latin America. You see, the professors who design these programs have NEVER been to Latin America. They design the programs based on elitist academic views which have no relationship to the on-the-ground truth. For example, here in B.C. there are programs that discuss how NAFTA has been to the disadvantage of Mexicans. But, in Mexico, the VAST majority of people think NAFTA has made them equal to Americans and Canadians.
The hubris of the typical North American professor-type is offensive.
And the qualifications of many of the high school "leaders" who are responsible for graduating some of these students are suspect. Tonight on CBC, they interviewed a typical high school principal in Ontario. His name is Tom Shultz. I know Tom, very well. He was a phys-ed teacher at Merivale High School when I attended there in 1975-1980. At risk of being sued for slander, I won't say much more about Shultzie.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
The White Man's Burden
It started as Imperialism, when the British ruled the world. But its beginnings started in Rome a couple of thousand years previous.
It is really just hubris after all; the belief that one is superior to another and can provide advice and counsel. And run the shop better than the shop owner.
Once the twentieth century arrived, Imperialism had a bad name. Sadly, it was replaced by other isms which have fared much worse. Fascism and communism are examples. Then, once we white folks were blamed for all the ills of the world by the very people who benefited from such ills (a.ka. fully tenured university professors), we decided to go about fixing those problems. Give us your starving children, your dying grandparents, your drunk Indians etc. etc. and we will nurse them back to life.
Along came the Red Cross and Oxfam, and the like.
This institutionalized, and almost, Jungian, unconscious guilt over the perceived mis-deeds of long-dead Caucasian generations has caused many Western nations along with their living, Caucasian, male leaders to do some of the darned things.
When Afghanistan, a nation of nothing more than a bunch of heroine exporting, ignorant dumb assess who live mainly in huts, herding goats, decided that it would harbour the Taliban and Al Queada, some of us decided we needed to fix the place. So we invested billions of dollars. Only to find out that some guy wearing a Shriner's hat has decided that its ok to rape women, and actually codified it into law. Wouldn't we have been better off to just close our borders to anyone holding an Afghan passport, or even anyone who had visited the place in the past 10 years?
I don't suffer from White Man's Burden. I don't blame myself nor my ancestors for the fact that people in Afghanistan just don't get it. My accountability and responsibility in life goes no further than my backyard. And my offer to help those who can't help themselves doesn't extend outside my neighborhood.
Its not that I am selfish or lazy, qualities which every human being shares, whether in Canada or Afghanistan. It's that I am not lost in my own hubris. I am no better than anyone else. I am just a simple fellow who knows I cannot help someone who doesn't realize that I have help to give.
So its time to exist Afghanistan quick as a fart in the wind. By staying there, we perpetuate the culture of guilt which takes resources away from the people who really need it - the people in our house, our backyard and our neighborhood.
It is really just hubris after all; the belief that one is superior to another and can provide advice and counsel. And run the shop better than the shop owner.
Once the twentieth century arrived, Imperialism had a bad name. Sadly, it was replaced by other isms which have fared much worse. Fascism and communism are examples. Then, once we white folks were blamed for all the ills of the world by the very people who benefited from such ills (a.ka. fully tenured university professors), we decided to go about fixing those problems. Give us your starving children, your dying grandparents, your drunk Indians etc. etc. and we will nurse them back to life.
Along came the Red Cross and Oxfam, and the like.
This institutionalized, and almost, Jungian, unconscious guilt over the perceived mis-deeds of long-dead Caucasian generations has caused many Western nations along with their living, Caucasian, male leaders to do some of the darned things.
When Afghanistan, a nation of nothing more than a bunch of heroine exporting, ignorant dumb assess who live mainly in huts, herding goats, decided that it would harbour the Taliban and Al Queada, some of us decided we needed to fix the place. So we invested billions of dollars. Only to find out that some guy wearing a Shriner's hat has decided that its ok to rape women, and actually codified it into law. Wouldn't we have been better off to just close our borders to anyone holding an Afghan passport, or even anyone who had visited the place in the past 10 years?
I don't suffer from White Man's Burden. I don't blame myself nor my ancestors for the fact that people in Afghanistan just don't get it. My accountability and responsibility in life goes no further than my backyard. And my offer to help those who can't help themselves doesn't extend outside my neighborhood.
Its not that I am selfish or lazy, qualities which every human being shares, whether in Canada or Afghanistan. It's that I am not lost in my own hubris. I am no better than anyone else. I am just a simple fellow who knows I cannot help someone who doesn't realize that I have help to give.
So its time to exist Afghanistan quick as a fart in the wind. By staying there, we perpetuate the culture of guilt which takes resources away from the people who really need it - the people in our house, our backyard and our neighborhood.
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