.. with hammers, Ann and Susie were doing some carpenter work on a Habitat for Humanity house.

Ann, who was nailing down house siding, would reach into her nail pouch, pull out a nail, and either toss it over her shoulder or nail it in.

Susie, figuring this was worth looking into, asked, “Why are you throwing those nails away?”

Ann explained, “When I pull a nail out of my pouch, about half of them have the head on the wrong end, and I throw them away.”

Susie got very upset and yelled, “You! moron! Those nails aren’t defective! They’re for the other side of the house.

I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest
Alexandre Dumas

There are moments in life when the presence of another makes it worth for us to go on living

It is said that the world is warming up. As it does, animals like the Polar Bear will disappear because their habitat will no longer exist. It is difficult to imagine a world without the North and South polar icecap. One can’t help but feel that something cataclysmic would happen along the path to total meltdown, something really BIG. If you think about it, the rising ocean levels swamping what are now coastal low lying areas is bad enough.

You may think that you are sitting pretty if you live on high ground, but you would soon lose that smug grin. Where do you think all of the people in coastal cities like Montreal, New York and London England are going to be displaced?

Who, exactly is going to pay for the removal of infrastructure away from the areas which will be hit hard? How and when will it be moved?

As the oceans rise, so does the level of water in estuaries, and what is attached to all estuaries? Yes, you guessed right. The small river not too far away from you is also going to rise. Today’s fields, farms, golf courses, business parks and domestic housing areas are going to be lakes.

Wild animals, their habitat fast receding, will come into conflict with the escaping hordes from the large coastal cities, whose only interests will be getting someplace to live, be it on a high ground farmers field, or vast tracts of previously forested land, all of the trees about to be cut down to allow for space and building materials.

Fishing fleets will have nowhere to bring back catches unless they fix wheels to the fish processing plants and centres, so no more Sole Meuniere at your favourite restaurant, or cod and chips out of the paper while watching the waves gently roll up the beach.

Meanwhile, up on the high ground, you can’t go out in the sun for longer than fifteen minutes unless you smother yourself in sunblock with a rating of ‘2000′, which is probably just as well because there are marauding bands of displaced city dwellers looking to take what you have got, and I don’t just mean the sunblock. Better to lock yourself in at night and maybe daytime too.

Living on what is left of the surface will be no cakewalk. Ecosystems contained under glass shields are still very much in the trial stages. Billions of dollars are being poured into space research, but space is a long way from here, and from pictures sent back of our sister planet Mars, unless we are in the market for red rocks and dust, there is not much hope coming out of the research at all.

In the meantime, billions of dollars are being spent on the war to decide whose god will ultimately save us. Salvation is in our own hands, yet we do not seem to have the mind set to realize it

I woke up this morning, still holding what I see a the glimmer of hope that life will improve, but as days pass, the glimmer is like the expectation of watching a forest burn in the belief that, when the flames are extinguished, it will immediately transform into the lush green that it was just before fire took a hold.

Scenario

A husband and wife are doing their grocery shopping.

The man picks up a case of beer and sticks in into the shopping cart.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ asks the wife.

‘They’re on sale, only $10.00 for 24 cans’, he says.

‘Put them back. We can’t afford it,’ says the wife and they carry on shopping…

A few aisles later the woman picks up a $20.00 jar of face cream and sticks it into the cart.

‘Whoa, what do you think you’re doing?’ asks the man.

‘It’s my face cream. It makes me look beautiful,’ she says.

The man replies…’SO DOES 24 CANS OF BEER, AND IT’S HALF THE PRICE!’

Lesson learned

The introductory letter from the lawyer handling the subsequent divorce costs way in excess of the beer AND face cream combined..

Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it!
Chinese proverb

North

Polar Bears are still in trouble as their world melts away. It is known that when the top predator disappears, the rest of the food chain goes West too.

The warmer temperatures have resulted in faster thawing, and some places have been in danger of washing away. In response to this, a whole town was evacuated South until their hometown conditions improved. The people were flown out in military Hercules transport planes and anything else that would fly. Two days later, the threat had subsided and the people are being flown back. The whole operation must have cost a great deal, emergency bedding and food supplies having been appropriated in the temporary housing. However, the Hercules transports will not be used for the trip back. They can only be used in emergencies, and getting these displaced people back is not considered an emergency.

So what the hell is it?

East

Some Quebecois seem intent on driving a wedge between their province and adjoining Canada. There has been tension between Quebec and Canada for a while, and now it has hit the Ottawa buses. The extremists say that bus drivers should be perfectly bi-lingual. When asked if they ever talk to bus drivers, they all say ‘no’. So does it make any difference if they can speak French, or English for that matter? As long as they know the route, stopping where they should and drive safely, who cares?

Further East, the Maritimes have flooding problems too but they are used to living under indifferent conditions. The most important item on the agenda is keeping the gains from mineral rights to themselves.

West

Highway 401 is being extended from Windsor, Ontario to the US border. It will take five years to complete, and will be the biggest road project Ontario has ever seen, as it involves tunnelling. The way gas prices are rising, it will be interesting to see who uses the completed section five years hence.

The oil producers in Alberta screwed up recently as a large flight of ducks landed on a toxic lake, quickly succumbing the to effects of waste from extracting oil from the oil sands. Apparently, the oil companies forgot to set up devices that would normally scare birds away. What has surprised people, I think, is the speed at which perfectly healthy ducks died. The oil sands industry has come under scrutiny re the effects on the environment lately, and I have a feeling that scrutiny will become a whole lot more intense now.

South

The people south of me are in all kinds of trouble. The country is in recession, the incumbent President is on his way out, but his legacy will live on for years. The pretenders to the ‘crown’ are slugging it out among themselves now, but one has to feel sorry for the one who gets elected. The worst is that whatever happens to the south will have huge repercussions in Canada.

Canadians have a tough enough time working together when everything is looking like a well oiled machine.

And Beyond..

Don’t expect sympathy from me. Now is not a good time..

The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goals, it lies in having no goals to reach – Benjamin Mays

The paper stuff or coins are not what is revered. It all comes down to the ‘over the top’ possibilities which the possession of money allows.

I have watched TV programs where..

• parents are paying out for plastic surgery on teenagers. Not reconstructive surgery either.
• people try to put back aging by as many years as they can through plastic surgery
• people go to huge lengths to plan weddings etc. In one case, almost an entire small castle was lit with candles.
• people buy up cheap properties ideal for those who do not have much cash, and then renovate them to the point where only somebody with huge money can afford to buy them.
• people trade currency as a commodity.

Reality TV? Good for sponsors maybe because they hope to get money from the constant advertising. How do they get it? Have you watched ‘Reality’ TV? How real do you think any of it is? Real or just sensationalist, it certainly panders to those who like to peep through the keyhole at what only the butler might otherwise have seen.

There was a time when, if you could see it, it was real. Do you remember those days?