RickMcCharles.com

… this post for Canadians who want good internet service at a fair market price …

Atop my least trusted and most hated corporations list are the Telecos.

(There’s a special circle of Hell reserved for TELUS employees.)

An enemy of my enemy is my friend … these guys:
Stop The Meter On Your Internet Use

I like their strident hyperbole:

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are about to impose usage-based billing on YOU.

This means we’re looking at a future where ISPs will charge per byte, the way they do with smart phones. If we allow this to happen Canadians will have no choice but to pay MUCH more for less Internet. Big Telecom companies are obviously trying to gouge consumers, control the Internet market, and ensure that consumers continue to subscribe to their television services.

These Big Telecom companies are forcing small ISP competitors to adopt the same pricing scheme. So we have no choice but to pay these punitive fees.

This will crush innovative services, Canada’s digital competitiveness, and your wallet.

This will bring you up to speed.

Click PLAY or watch a CBC news summary on YouTube.

A National Geographic video welcomes #7 billion, arriving sometime this month.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via my buddy Kraig at the Adventure Blog)

I’m all for developing the Oil Sands. But it sounds like this is not the best way to sell it to China.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

… International League of Conservation photographers in the Great Bear Rainforest.

… now threatened by a proposal from Enbridge to bring an oil pipeline from the Tar Sands and supertankers to BC’s wild coast. …

related – The Adventure Blog – Update On Great Bear Rainforest Expedition

Narrated by Academy Award-winner Jeremy Irons, this “mockumentary” video, hammers home the stark reality of California’s plastic bag pollution situation.

Learn more at http://www.healthebay.org

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Thanks Kate.

Just a few days ago I was sweltering.

Why am I having to search out the fleece on September 1st … ??

My car is fixed, for now. About $500 total. The guys finished the repair just before closing.

____ original post:

I was half hoping my old Honda would break down in Vegas. … Have it towed to the auto wrecker. Fly home to Calgary. Simple.

For my $1600 initial cost, I didn’t expect it to last forever.

Worst case scenario → break down in the middle of nowhere.

From Livingston, I still need to get home to Calgary. How do I do that without the Honda?

I gambled. About $500 (so far) to replace the fuel pump and filter, same day.

Livingston, I presume.

I was a last minute volunteer at the Hayden View Triathlon. We arrived before dawn.

Jeni and I manned a “rescue kayak”.

One of the last swimmers to finish the half mile lake course looked to all the rescue boats to be disoriented. He waved off help, then tried to swim directly into another of the kayaks offering to assist.

60-year-old Leslie Chariton died in front of our eyes, it seems. He had a history of heart attacks. This was to be his last.

I was impressed with the medical. If I’m ever to have a heart attack, I hope it’s at the transition in a Triathlon. A dozen first responders were there instantly, including Jeni. The ambulance was standing by.

Jeni and I had talked about the surprisingly high number of Triathlon deaths in advance of the race. Read a NY Times article on the topic from 2008 – Deaths Draw Attention to Triathlon Swim

Rest in peace Leslie Chariton.

Man suffers heart attack during Hayden Triathlon

Eventually, certainly.

But will we go extinct in the next 100yrs?

Professor Frank Fenner thinks we will:

… in an interview with The Australian, the well-respected microbiologist expressed his pessimism for our future. “We’re going to become extinct,” he said. “Whatever we do now is too late.” …

I’m inclined to disagree. Even after reading The Road, a horror story of post-apocalyptic nuclear winter.

In the same article (forwarded me by Dave Adlard) …

In a paper published in the journal Futures last year, researchers approached the question: “Human Extinction: How Could It Happen?”

… “The human race is unlikely to become extinct without a combination of difficult, severe and catastrophic events,” Tobin Lopes, of the University of Colorado at Denver, said in an interview with Discovery News. He added that his team “were very surprised about how difficult it was to come up with plausible scenarios in which the entire human race would become extinct.” …

details on MSNBC – Will humans go extinct within 100 years?

The world might look like this “soon”. …

But some humans will survive.

The two times Quebec voted on separation from Canada, I had mixed feelings.

I could see the logic. And pondered whether, ultimately, both Quebec and R.O.C. (Rest Of Canada) might be better off.

Neither vote passed.

Today Quebec manages to convince the rest of Canada that they are a “have not” Province. That Québécois should be subsided by the rich Provinces.

How is that?

The Québécois friends in my industry are better off than Albertans, and have always been better off.

Here’s a brilliant article, I think, on the issue of Equalization payments.

As you’ve likely heard, Greece is “too big to fail”. The rest of the EU has decided to bail them out.

In Greece, citizens, on average, retire at the age of 58.

In Germany, the citizens expected to help bail out the bankrupt Greeks, work on average until until the age of 65. Naturally, German citizens are wondering how this can be considered fair. Why should they work seven years longer on average so Greek citizens can live a life of leisure and be less productive?

What’s more, in Germany, most working people pay taxes. In Greece, only 20 per cent pay taxes. Again, unfair. And yet equalization between “have” European Union states and “have not” European Union states continues, even though it’s not making things equal — it’s rewarding laziness, leisure and possibly even criminal tax evasion. Why pay taxes if some hard-working Germans will do it for you? Thus the riots in Greece. They believe they are entitled to those entitlements.

Dysfunctional? You bet. We Canadians would never stand for such a thing. Right? Think again.

Equalization in Canada was established to ensure that “have-not” regions could enjoy the same programs as “have” regions and most Canadians wouldn’t quibble with that. But that has not happened. In fact, the reverse has occurred. The have provinces have fewer services than the have-nots.

According to a Dec. 2009 report by the Institute of Statistics of Quebec, Quebecers average age of retirement is 62 whereas in the rest of Canada it is almost 65. While the Quebec Pension Plan and Canada Pension Plans are identical and carry the same penalties for collecting your pension earlier than 65, those who stop working earlier are less productive and contribute less to Canadian society in terms of income and taxes.

In light of the fact that Quebec received $8.6 billion in equalization payments in 2010-11 out of a total equalization pot of $14.4 billion, it’s safe to say that citizens in Canada’s “have” provinces — British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario — are paying for Quebecers’ early retirement, as theirs is the only province which has such a generous, early retirement benefit.

In other words, equalization is not very equal. …

Calgary Herald – Corbella: It’s all Greek to Quebec

Licia Corbella has worked for daily newspapers for more than 20 years and is currently the Calgary Herald’s Editorial Page Editor. …

What’s the solution?

Cancel equalization payments, Canada. Or separate from Quebec.

related – Equalization payments in Canada

Don’t jump to conclusions.

Women aren’t getting worse.

Women are less happy nowadays in the West, 40 years after the rise of feminism, a new study claims.

Despite having more opportunities than ever before, they have a lower sense of well-being and life satisfaction, it found.

The study, The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness, said the same was true for women of different ages and whether or not they were married or had children.

It said the results appeared surprising given that modern women had been liberated from their traditional 1950s role of housewife.

Instead, their earning power has soared, women are doing better than men in education and they are in control of decisions over whether to start a family.

The findings were released as Sir Stuart Rose, chairman of Marks & Spencer, claimed that women ‘have never had it so good’. …

read more – Women are more unhappy despite 40 years of feminism, claims study

related – The narcissism of consumer society has left women unhappier than ever