Date

Well the last post was about a perfect day. After I wrote the post I was at Woody's for a beer. My friend had some women's issues (The Change) She did not want to stay at the Commercial. I didn't feel like being there alone.

So I went to Woody's for one, before I headed back home. It was 6 o'clock. I was in no rush to go home as I did nothing on Friday night and there did not appear to be anything to do on Saturday night. May as well do nothing where there is people.

I was sitting by myself, I kind of saw this guy sitting at computers. Could not make eye contact though - kind of like a guy on a slot machine. Warning, bars in Vegas are kind of useless for cruising.

Anyway, cards fell into place and I wound up talking to him. We talked for a long time. He basically said he was tired of one nighters and wanted to date a guy. Coo, this is sort of what I want. Anyway, he said he was Bi, which I take to be closeted. He lives in Athabasca, which is a Northern Community. He drives a TNT truck and also trains horses. Literally a cowboy, the driving is because there is not enough work in horse training. He made it sound like he was really closeted and inexperienced though. It's ok - he appeared to be sincere about meeting someone. His living arrangements will change come break up - when he doesn't have to drive TNT to the oil patch. He was going to work construction in Edmonton.

The guy is from Western Ontario, just North of Minnesota and East of Manitoba. He is staying at his sister's moved out West as there was no work.

I was working overtime Sunday so I was not going to stay out late. He had to do stuff on Sunday too. Anyway, he left something in his pickup, I walked him to it and then we went in an alley. He kissed me. Like really kissed me. I thought I definitely have to meet up with him again.

During the week I called him on Monday and we talked. He told me about a trip to West Edmonton Mall where he got conned into buying some Dead Sea products. I laughed at him, I said they work on guys like you. Anyway, he bought $150 worth of stuff. He liked the salesperson as she was nice and pretty. After she was done with him, she spoke a foreign language (I'll bet you can guess which one), then the guy at the next kiosk was trying to sell him something.

On Thursday he called me. Things were looking good for a date :)
He has a pay as you go cell phone, he was going to buy minutes and call me on Friday.

On Friday, I left for the city right after work. I went to Starbucks after getting a haircut. I am really happy with the haircut, I managed to get a different person and I finally got a cut that I wanted.

I was at Starbucks for 2 hours and no call. Now we never said where we would meet up on the phone. So I went to Woodys. I sat down at the bar, a really loud drag queen announced I was there - loudly. I looked around, did not see him. I sat down and ordered a beer.

I was playing Words with Friends when he walked by headed out of the bar. I ran to the top of stairs and called him. He turned around and came back.

He was obviously pre-occupied with something and in a bad mood. Apparently his sister was asking him to meet up with some financial guy in the city. He had called and the guy said he would call back. The place was closed now. I think he was nervous about what sister would say.

This was not the same guy as last week and on the phone. Anyway I asked if he still wanted to go out, he said yeah. He sounded like he really wanted to.

We left Woodys and went to Original Joe's to eat, it was crowded, he drove his pickup. I didn't think he would want to sit in a small car. Besides he's a professional driver.

At the restaurant the signs of the bad date started. We were standing as there was a line up, they had a long bench seat which was occupied. Soon some people were seated in the Restaurant, I i went and grabbed a seat, there was enough room for him (more than enough).

I tried to talk about various things, he didn't seem to want to talk. He was staring at how the place was built and asking questions. I said I thought it was a farmer's market before. It was an old building, it could have been a garage before that. He seemed upset that I took him to a tavern. I said there was a bar here, but it was not a tavern.

Some people to his left got up as they were being seated and he actually moved further away from me. Anyone who knows me knows I don't scream gay. I was just about to ask if he wanted to leave.

We get seated. We looked at the menu, it had a lot of sandwich type things. I decided on a Cajun Chicken sandwich, when I told him he said that was way too spicy. He stared at the menu for another 20 minutes, he got coffee to drink by the way. The coffee was well cooked, I asked if he wanted them to make some fresh stuff. He said no.

Finally he said he'd just get a Taco. They only had one taco on the menu, a fish one. Not my choice, when I read the full name he said. No I don't want fish. Another 10 minutes go buy.

The waitress came and I ordered then he said he'd have a BLT. I looked on the menu and did not see one. She said they didn't have BLT's. Then he said, just a burger. She started to ask questions about stuff and he said just a burger and fries.

We started to talk, I really had to fish for stuff to talk about. He didn't watch news as it was always the same, somebody got shot or stuff like that. Then he told me about his driving skills. We talked about Northern Ontario.

This is when the conversation started to get ugly. He thought Albertans were silly for settling on Perch for fish. Of course Northern Ontario is great for fishing, I acknowledged this. He talked about gay bars in Thunder Bay. He whipped out his first "All" statement, apparently all gays in the Bay have AIDS. I asked how he knew that. He told me about the bars being closed down because of this (the Bullshit Meter in my head spiked Red). But I have been reading lots of romance books lately, learn to accept differences.

His "ALL" statements progressed. He was not your average redneck though, he liked Natives and people from Central Africa. He seemed to hate everyone else.

I mentioned fishing in Quebec, I don't think he heard where as later on he went on a little tirade against French Canadians - actually it got pretty major. Apparently they were the reason he is unemployed in Ontario.

I wanted out, bad. I tried to ask about TV, he said he didn't watch it. I asked about books. He told me he read a book about a young Mormon guy who was gay....basically he told me the whole Latter Days movie, I didn't recall a book. But maybe there is one.

He told me about this guy he dated, who was married to a woman, they lived 500 miles apart. I told him i didn't do that anymore.

Anyway, in dating you are supposed to find out what you have in common. Lets see, he hates motorbikes, small cars, music, he had two cameras stolen so he doesn't appreciate art, no spicy food, no French people whatsoever. It was terminal.

Then the best started he started with Fox News stories as if they were true. I couldn't shoot them down fast enough.

I paid the bill, When we got back to where my car was parked I wanted gone. He said lets go back Woodys for a beer.

I thought maybe the little show was his internal homophobia, so I said yes. He sat far away from me. He got me a beer though :). When I saw he got a hair cut (he wears a baseball hat 24/7) I asked if he did it himself, he is bald on top - oh, he is 50. He just about freaked when I lifted his hat. Was looking around (in a gay bar) to see who was starring.

Oh he told me there his family, including the sister he lives with know he is into guys.

He walked me out, and we hugged. I don't know if I am going to hear from him again, but he better have a good explanation. He has honour in that he didn't stand me up...well not completely, he did try to sneak out. So he followed the cowboy code, if you say you are going to do something, do it. But he forgot all the other cowboy rules.

I can profile too, this is the second person I have gone out with from Northern Ontario. This is the second one that is so homophobic that they hate themselves. I know it is pretty hard there, the communities are few and far between and mainly blue collar families and hunters. I get it.

When I hear Easterners go on about how redneck Alberta is, I just chuckle, I have lived in both places and I can say they are about the same. But it is politically correct in Canada to say Alberta is redneck, not so about anywhere else, well maybe Saskatchewan.

Perfect Day

It has been awesome weather lately! Well the temperature anyway. We are hovering around 0C which is great, except when it snows. The fire department was a little busy due to icy roads. But other than that....

A lot of good stuff happened, all at once. Where to begin. First off, I didn't apply on Ottawa job. I figured it would just be a waste of time again. I really have a good job, no sense going to a place where policy changes as often as they change their underwear.

Wednesday I came home from work and there was a letter drop by TELUS. They were giving away free 40" Samsung TVs. Well not exactly free, you had to sign up to their cable for three years. I called them to figure out what it would cost, it was cheaper than what I was paying and you got a PVR and two other receivers, rent free.

I had to call my current provider, Shaw. They sent me to retentions and I negotiated with them. No free TV, but I got a better PVR for 1/3 off.

Today I came to the city, via Elk Island Park. I got lucky, the buffalo and caribou liked the warmer weather too. Pictures attached.

When I got to the city I went in to check on the bike. They have all the parts, I thought that it would be finished, it wasn't. I priced out the labour on the additional stuff I bought, it came to $350. They are charging me 25% less for labour than normal. Score.

I went to renew my registrations, car and bike. I was afraid this was going to cost more, due to a photo radar ticket I got in Sherwood Park last August, which I forgot to pay.

Sherwood Park dumped their photo radar last fall. They must have dumped my ticket with it too. Registries looked me up, no fines! Should I buy lottery tickets today?

I woke up thinking of some things this morning. Kind of serious. There was a big thing made about the cruise ship that lost all of its power and drifted for awhile. I guess the passengers were saying how awful it smelt as the washrooms didn't work. They had eventually closed them down. One story I read was how the person slept on the deck, well at least they could.

Imagine how the slaves felt, either going to Rome or from Africa to the 13 colonies. Well they probably had a bucket to go in. Maybe ships should have buckets, not sure why they don't, they are at the mercy of water. I wonder if Carnival Cruise lines (and all the others) learned from this and have a mechanism to fix whatever is wrong i.e. on call HVAC guys. All this has done is make the chances of my going on a cruise slimmer.

Way back when, a bunch of Cardinals got together in Nicea. I think they were cardinals, don't worry I am not going to wonder into the Pope controversy in this post. The pope is a symptom of a bigger problem.

The Council of Nicea compiled a Greatest Hits of Jesus Stories. They met for awhile and decided which stories to keep and which to toss. You'd think that there weren't that many people writing when Jesus was around. You'd be right, well if you looked at what the Council picked. They gravitated to stories written by guys with the same names as the apostles, but not alive when Jesus was.

There may have been stories written when Jesus was around, but they never made it to the book. A guy that never met Jesus was like the biggest star of the book. Anyway, they had a bunch of Cardinals around. They decided to pick a theme, as every good book needs a theme. They tossed all the books that didn't fit the theme.

They ended the book BIG. It was a drug induced story about Angels, Trumpets, Anti-Christs and the End of the World. Now this book was complied a long time after JC and a long time before you and I appeared.

Man has lived by this book for a long time, fear was the main reason to live by it. The churches that rely on this book make you want to stay obedient so that when that day comes, the one with the trumpets and angels standing in the sun, you'll be ready to ascend. The books says you will. One second there will be a whole pile of people standing there yelling 'Pick me!' and then the next second there will be a whole pile of lifeless bodies laying on the ground. The unlucky ones, the ones not picked would be left to pick up the mess. I am sure the chosen will have written rules as to how their lifeless bodies will be disposed of. Which would be dumb and no infrastructure could handle this mess.

So man has lived for centuries waiting for this day to come. It appears to be a finish line, one that everyone pines for. We have people standing on the corners of cities with prophecies. We have religious leaders selling cool-aid and matching track suits. We have drip dry souls, go out and be cruel to your fellow man during the week and wash up on Sunday or Saturday or Friday.

The stupid thing about this is that it was a one of the founding principles of capitalism. The whole book is about caring for your fellow man and examples of what not to do, but society and politicians and religious leaders seized on the whacky last book.

By doing so, they eliminated man's need to take care of his House. Adam Smith wrote a book which basically said that man should find a way to use ALL the Earth for his purposes. Look at the issues today, Alberta's Oil Sands, Fracking, China and really the rest of the third world too. Man is finding all kinds of ways to wreck the planet. When anyone says anything, they are nuts. Man uses religion to justify his actions. It says so in the bible....well God didn't write the bible, despite what religious people would have you believe, God's hand is not present there.

Looking back, this whole thing could be called Intelligent Design. If there was any intelligence in it. There have been conspiracy theories forever. But I really think that this was a continuation of the Roman Empire. The Romans had built a system. It was faulty, but it was a system that worked for a long time. Alexander was the previous incarnation of a big system, but his power was centralized. The Romans learned to spread it out.

The bible is old, it's stories do not apply anymore. People are starting to question it. This has lead to a rise of Atheism. The US holy rollers are screaming about this and throwing in the fear of anarchy too. There is almost an all or nothing attitude. There is no middle.

People that were not listened to at the Council of Nicea were agnostics. Religions tend to throw them in with atheists, because they are afraid of these guys. They have always been afraid of them.

Agnostic (noun) 1. a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably : broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence of God or a god. Websters - the definition is kind of messed up on the site :)

Basically, agnostics are searching and asking questions. The establishment doesn't like people searching and asking questions. The governments have this whole privacy game they are playing. It is funny to watch. In Canada the Harper Government is BIG on transparency, but when pushed, they throw the Privacy Act at everyone.

I had occasion to send an email with a question to Passport Canada. It was about the requirements for a person who lost their citizenship card. One department of the government thought you could use your old passport to apply for a new one, without the citizenship card. This didn't sound right to me as I have to send in my original birth certificate EVERYTIME. On the Passport Canada site it asked for my full name, address and phone number. These were mandatory fields. When I sent the email I asked the question 'Why do you need all my information?' - they said for privacy. I scratched my head. I asked a privacy expert and they said, that is not good enough. I have a right to know why they want it. When my passport expires the next time are they going to pull a Donald Trump? Ask to see my long form birth certificate. Because I asked a question for a friend? By the way this is public information, they have to give a person the requirements to apply for a passport whether the person gives their name or not.

I do not see it getting any better. Looking back on history it all fits in though. Government wants privacy to do what they want. The church wants privacy to elect a sexual predator as their shepherd and not to have the sheep question this (oops).

The new enemy is not the Islamists, the Communists etc. The new enemy is information. It is why Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, the Pope's butler and countless others are being persecuted. They represent the knowledge.....the word the Greek word for knowledge is 'gnostos'. Yeah the same route as agnostic - unknown, unknowable.

Anarchy free zone

After working my way through Anarchy, I am done with it. At least there is some substance and reasoned thought to Atheism and Vegetarianism. Anarchy is vapourware.

So today, I take the other rear light for my bike, the left rear signal light. I go to the store to have them order it's matching light, for the right side. The guy was on the phone, so I went looking at helmets. I have three, but I want one that is not full faced that you can wear on the highway. The shorty I have bounces up and down like a basketball. Yes it is the right size, it just as a limited amount of ability to tighten. I think it was not DOT tested, but it has the sticker.

So I am trying on helmets, I get to one that I sort of like. It isn't shiny white like Ponch's on CHIPS. I put it on and the lined moves independent of the helmet. The sales lady comes along and say it's because the helmet it too big. Well I can say that is not the issue, I have tried on more than one helmet and this did not appear to be right. She told me it was supposed to be that way...discussion closed. I stopped shopping for helmets there.

Helmets are mainly made in Asia now. I noticed that there is a sizing issue with clothes from those countries. They just stick labels willy nilly on the clothes. I bought an XXXL leather jacket in Pakistan, which fit like a large would in Canada. It was great comedy trying on the ones which normally would be my size. i.e. arms 12" long on an XXL

You could buy Leis there cheaper than Canada, if you could find your size. Tailor made stuff was a different issue, they were very good at that.

So I guess I stumbled into something. I think it was my last trip through Elk Island Park, the place with the hiding buffalo. I get a tingly kind of feeling there. So I was at the doc yesterday and guess what - that's where zero is. Elk Island Park and the Rockies, and Chicago. These places are my power zones. Basically these are go-to places when I am depressed or am feeling lost. Camera brought me there, and to the Rockies at Christmas.

A job came up in Ottawa again, after 4 cancelled boards I am not sure I want to go there again. Ottawa has a could of parks near it. But it has hellish Winters. I think I have decided to stay here. Besides my job is a great job and there are great opportunities after I retire.

I may be on to something....Anarchyland

So I got called 'Full of shit' when tweeting with an 'anarchist' on education in Canada. He had an issue with University's teaching anything but pre-approved state propaganda. I am not going to venture into Google and privacy again, no need to go there.

I looked up the definition of Anarchy on the net, used Google and it took me to the Wikipedia page. Now to the conspiracy guys out there, I could be faulted for using Google as it takes me to pre-approved places and using wikipedia, well, there is a whole other issue. The definitions could be 'state approved' as they could have been place there by state employees, in their spare time.

But that's where I am. Wikipedia has a lot of preabmble before it even gets to the definition, they include 'Schools of Thought', Theory - practice, People, Issues, History, Culture, Economics, Region, Lists...who knew they were so orgainized!

In the Region section it gives a person a perspective on Anarchy at work in your country. Canada has some stuff going on.

Anyway, back to the definition.

'Anarchy is generally defined as a political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, or harmful, or, alternatively, as opposing authority or hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Proponents of anarchism, known as anarchists, advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations.'

That is pretty much what I learned in University. Pretty simple eh? Well like vegetarianism, it is not that simple.

The next paragraph says there are many types and traditions of anarchism, not all of which are mutually exclusive. Anarchist schools of thought can differ fundamentally, supporting anything from extreme individualism to complete collectivism.

So when speaking to one of these guys, you have to find out what kind of anarchist they are.

I am totally confused by the concept of positive and negative liberty, Isaiah Berlin says: "It follows that a frontier must be drawn between the area of private life and that of public authority. Where it is to be drawn is a matter or argument =, indeed of haggling. Men are largely interdependent, and no man's activity is so completely private as to never obstruct the lives of others in any way. 'Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows'; the liberty of some must depend on the restraint of others."

So far I have not seen anything to show me that my Political Science 101 definition of Anarchy is wrong. From what I do know I have some questions on how the modern day Anarchist subsists.

The internet is free, but you need some mechanism to get onto it. A computer, most computers are built by large companies which assemble parts from other companies and put them in a package such as a Personal Computer, Laptop, iPad, iPhone etc. These devices can be built by a person if the were to scavenge the parts. I know some people who can do this, I would not consider them anarchists. This is a system.

Once you have the device, you have to connect to the internet. A lot of people pay a provider to supply them with internet in their homes, you can also pay a provider for a 3G or 4G connection for a mobile device. You can of course taken your device to a coffee shop like Starbucks, and connect to the net for free. This may involve buying something...from a system....although Starbucks would probably give you the benefit of doubt that you will buy something there. Being there multiple hours a day with your device plugged in (for the electricity - another system) to the internet may draw attention to yourself - especially if you never buy anything.

I am only speaking of the internet which some people don't really care about being on after they leave work. But apply the anarchists independence to everything.

A person need food and water to subsist. Not everyone can live beside the river with arable land. And in some case you wouldn't want to live beside the river on arable land - Mississippi for example (spring flooding).

Camping is fun, for some people. A lot of people are glad to get back to their home after a couple of weeks in a tent, or motorhome. But un Anarchyland, this would be your home. The motorhome may not move as it would rely on systems to help it relocate, fuel, roads, rules of the road. Of course after you relocated, you'd have to have a place to park it. If you like to use the electricity, there'd have to be a system to supply it. I guess you could have someone use a bicycle generator.

So basically in order for any anarchist system to work, you have to have a system established and then obliterate it. Of course there would have to be some system set up to maintain what was already created. I cannot see 6 billion people waking up to a new day with no systems.

Think of what it would be like on Day One. First off the day would have started at 00:01, so anyone that worked at that time could elect not to go to work. People that work at that time provide basic necessary services, police, fire, water, ambulance, power generation, oil refining, monitoring pipelines and gas distribution. So 1/3 of them decide to embrace their new found freedom from a system. That would impact a lot of people who may decide to wake up to go to their employment. Yes there would be people that would want to as they feel secure in a system.

So they get to work and there is no electricity, no work (burnt down, robbed), no heat, no water. Then they are sent home, maybe not immediately as they probably would want to cooperatively create a system of leader and fixers to work back up and running and then to notify the workers when to come back.

Things would get progressively worse until almost everything stopped working. Then people would become scared, hungry, cold etc

This is the part the state has keyed in on. This part makes people afraid of anarchism. And rightly so. Anarchism like communism is a complete change in the way society operates. I would think that in order to adopt it, there would have to be more than a majority of 50% + 1 of the people as the other 49% could prevent it from happening - and they would be motivated.

The only time I can see that an anarchy exists is right after the government is overthrown, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya being recent examples. But there can be be no power vacuum for very long and the people quickly adopted another system. I don't recall a big hew and cry from any group of disassociated individuals saying 'why do we need a government?' Well there was the Northern Anarchist Network with regards to Libya, NATO and the rebels.

http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/2011/11/27/the-northern-anarchist-network-nato-libya-and-utter-confusion/

You have to start from established systems for two reasons: almost all of the planet is governed by established systems and second, in order to get any buy in from people you'd have to assure them that there would be no impact on their standard of living (deflection of the truth to the max).

Personally speaking I am happy with the current system with it's checks and balances. I am not happy that so many people chose not to vote, as they feel their voice means nothing. Normally this is young people who are buying into the anarchist's logic. They talk about a pile of 'what if's' but they don't want to hear your questions. Why, because they have no answers, it's just an idea. One that is in no way practical.

Once upon a time there were no systems. Man lived as the anarchists would have you live. We evolved from those days. We have had various groups try the anarchist way, their system didn't last, nor did they.

Anarchy vs Reality

Elisabeth, Sylvie and I went to dinner at Taste of Vietnam in Sherwood Park. I had Lemon Grass Beef with rice and some Green Onion cakes. Very good. The girls had some other stuff (lol). Elisabeth had some seafood concoction with coconut curry. It was big, she could not finish it. Sylvie had spring rolls and a combo - they diced up the spring rolls in vermicelli. It had fish sauce, I didn't want that.

When we were finished eating we went to see James Hill at a small venue in Sherwood Park. The Park is a suburb of Edmonton, to the East. I hardly ever go there although it is on the way to where I live.

James Hill is a ukelele player, his girlfriend plays cello. It was entertaining, they played for about 1.5 hours mostly original material. They did cover a Michael Jackson song, it was entertaining. They ended the show with a singalong. We had a good time.

I stayed at Sylvie's last night, a good thing as I was beat. I woke up this morning and had coffee with the girls. They were speaking about books. They read a lot. An awful lot. I don't read that much!

I research for work, which involves a lot of web site reading. Having Kindle on my iPad has been great, I actually read a lot of books, that I probably would not have read. It is a lot easier to take your book(s) with you.

With all these books going to vapourware I wonder where we are going to be in 10 years. Everything stored online and then we have a massive power meltdown or rationing. Does that mean we will take a giant step backwards. I think that is what they are addressing in the TV show 'Revolution' I am not sure though.

Got into a discussion on Twitter this morning on the balance of state and person. The other person was an anarchist, I am not.

I believe that governments are tending to overreach their mandate or authority. That is why I think it is good to have organizations such as Anonymous and Wiki leaks. I am not that paranoid to think that the Government knows all we do or could ever.

In my job, I research stuff. I looked up an organization which is perceived to be a terrorist organization in the country where it is operating. Well I found the organization on Google.

A Google comment. I like it and I hate it. I hate it as it appears to be heading into your privacy, it can track what you are searching for and it records where you go to. So in my job, I go to a lot of places. If a think tank was tracking me they'd wonder what the hell I was doing. Way back when the internet was new, there were lots of search sites to use, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and some others. Now there are Ask, Bing and Google. The first two are useless for my job. I compare the information I get returned on a search and it is not even close to google. In fact some of the time I get one return and it is not even related. So I am on google.

Google of course is storing where I am going, even at work. This is kind of a dichotomy for governments at all levels. They can figure out who does what at IP addresses by the types of searches they are doing. I am sure you can apply this to your job, a Fire Safety officer for example would be searching for a lot of information related that job. The Google handler, if there is a such a thing, would become very knowledgeable on fire safety after checking his web history. They'd also know where he gets his jokes and possibly something about his personal interests. Depends on what searches the guy does at work.

This isn't for just the fire guy, or you, or me, this is for everyone. I realize you have to trade somethings to get some things. Google isn't charging for this service and they have massive data centres. They must be making money some how.

I think I have got you to the point of where anarchist guy is, but if not, just ponder, medicate on what your browser knows about you.

Anarchist guy is worried about the state, all states. His ideal is no government. People work together to achieve a goal. This is all well and good, but to me this is an ideal, Plato's definition of the perfect world. Unfortunately we are 6 billion people and we all have needs. We all cannot satisfy all of our needs. Man has learnt this over the years. They have built delivery systems. A lot of this was done by industry, some of it was done independent of government.

The Hudson's Bay Company and the railroads are business examples in Canada. They helped to explore the whole country and to unify it. Canada would not be what it is today without the major roles played by these companies. The government (state) came along later, first it was the British, then they sort of pushed us to independence. We built our own systems and living in a democracy the people assisted in their creation.

When I took Political Science and was studying different systems anarchy was examined. Other than communes there are really no examples of an anarchy in the world. The conservatives use the term negatively, to generate fear; to be fair, I think liberals and democrats use the word as a weapon as well.

First why is it negative? A lot of people are not explorers, I am figuring this is over 70% of people, but that is an arbitrary number, it could be closer to 90% or as lot as 55%. I really do not think that there are near 50% of the people on the planet who want no systems.

In my conversation with this guy I mentioned Andorra. This country, settled between Spain and France was believed to be as close to an anarchy as you could get. I guess I was taught wrong, it has some kind of parliamentary system. The country has existed since 928, but it has only had a constitution since 1993. Anyway, if it was an anarchy when I went to school, it isn't anymore.

What I learned in school. In an anarchy the people are responsible for themselves, Libertarianism on steroids. If Farmer A wanted a road to Farmer B's farm, he'd build it or he'd get together with Farmer B or a whole pile of other Farmers and build roads all over the place.

While I was typing this a horrible thought occurred, who the hell gave the Farmer's their land? Who owned it before hand? I sure hope to God Anarchists aren't Atheists or the whole 'we petitioned God for the land' goes up in smoke.

So if we disregard the minor issue of who owns the land.....let's accept the fact that there are independent entities known as farms, in Andorra's case it would be over 180.55 square miles and roughly about 90,000 people. Not very much land for all those people (and this is a small country). Canada is the opposite, 33 million people living on 3,854,085 square miles.

So you have no state, in either country. Farmer A and Farmer XYZ are best friends, but when the great land grab occurred they wound up living at opposite ends of the country. They tried to move next to each other but that wasn't happening.

This is a world with no state. There is no easement around the farms, no public thoroughfare, there is one farm touching another. Some farmers decided to build a road on their farms to trade their goods. Farmer B may allow Farmer A to cross his land to get to Farmer C and trade or Farmer B could say, no you sell it to me and buy my product, which I have bought from Farmer C. There is no state, so this would be 100% negotiation. If the price wasn't acceptable Farmer A would either do without or he'd find another Farmer to trade with. The problem would be how to get to the other Farmer's farm. Maybe the Farmers on the other sides of him would be more agreeable.

I could see this working in Andorra. Maybe the negotiation process involved Farmer A taking Farmer B behind the wood shed and beating the crap out of him or even worse, killing him and taking his land. I think the last method occurred has occurred in more than one country.

Take this system and apply it to Canada. This would be a gong show. Add in weather, geography, population densities and you get a mess. Try this in China, India or the United States and you have a disaster. This is the fear that the establishment is selling.

I think it is a reasonable fear. A lot of people like their houses, the fact it has water, they have healthcare for when they are sick, roads to drive on and a sense of security for themselves and their property. They are willing to give some of the money they earn to an organization to monitor all this. The fact that they have some control of that organization is a good thing.

Problems occur when that organization (the state) decides to over reach their authority. That is why checks and balances have been created. The US has made this a part of their system, they like to think theirs in the best in the world, but I believe a lot of the West has similar types of systems.

Anarchist guy was of the opinion that any state involvement was suspect. So the schools and universities only teach the party line. It gets better, all media and information released to the people is screened and edited. We only know what the state wants us to know.

I believe that the centre is the natural place for government, although we almost always never reside there. The pendulum swings left and right and then left again, never residing for too long on either side.

Looking at Canada the majority of governments have been Liberal throughout history. That changed about 8 years ago and we got a Conservative government. The Liberal party imploded after that, we may be stuck with the Conservatives longer than we want, but the nature of the party will violate the nature of the citizens. Eventually they will be booted and we will swing left.

Bring into this another pendulum, one with Anarchists on one side (little to no government) and lets call them Organizationists on the other side. The best example of these people are in the military, they do not want to do or organize things themselves, they want it done for them. They want to wake up in the morning and have their whole day planned, in fact they want their whole life planned. People in monasteries and convents would also be included.

I guess there is a centre for these ideologies and when the government starts to control people too much, then the pendulum goes the other way. But I strongly believe there are parameters on how far the pendulum will swing past centre; in either direction.

The Libertarians are the perfect example of this, sometimes what they say makes a lot of sense. It's great woot woot! Until you actually think about it.

Take the Paul's they want to repeal the US Civil Right Act (of 1964) in effect if a store owner or restaurant did not want to serve a group of people, they should not be forced to: It is their business. If it is a bad business model, their income would suffer and then they would change their policies to generate more income. A nice thought if there were no minorities or anything else to skew the marketplace.

We are due for a correction in rights of the person vs rights of the government. Maybe this is the tyranny that the gun nuts in the US are screaming about. But a lot of them are fuelled by bad thought. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are only dealing with their crews, they don't want these rights for everyone, just for whomever they pick. I think the picking is determined by how much they donate. Or show up at rallies with misspelt signs shouting that they want the Constitution back.

I have to think about this some more, maybe on a treadmill.

I wanted to leave you with one thing, the government may have a pile of information on all kinds of things, they don't have even the first inkling of a clue of what to do with it. They can't use it due to their own rules. They will try. They will recruit the Beck's and the Limbaugh's to help get the changes needed, but they will fail. There will always be an Anonymous and the pendulum will always swing back to centre. And there will always be public servants that start on time, go to break on time and don't venture outside the box and are beat down everytime they try. Add to this austerity programs and more data than you could ever imagine (increasing exponentially).

The world is safe for awhile. IMHO anyway

But maybe an Anarchy can exist, maybe it already does and it is a secret and the media/government/police are ensuring you do not know about it. When the secret is near to coming out, the powers that be organize an event like Newtown, Columbine, Aurora etc to keep the peeps down or even have planes........


Have a great day!

01 / 02 / 13

Well I actually had a blog in draft from Saturday....it was a woe is me one. I was typing away like a mad man at Boston Pizza.

The issue was the trip to Edmonton the night before. I was at Woodys and basically one of the barflies, got between me and a guy I was watching a game with and managed to push me out of the way. I was going to hang out in the city that night, being my B-day weekend. I wound up going home.

I was at Boston Pizza to watch hockey as I have no sports channels. I turn them off when there is no sports to watch. Since hockey was on strike, I didn't turn them back on. It's a difference of $35 a month on Shaw. I figure cable is high enough, and I am paying for a whole pile of channels I don't watch, so why should I have mir otta be a law, oh yeah there is. The CTRC just doesn't enforce it.Soon we will have the day when we can pick what we want to subscribe to.

So I am watching the game, Edmonton is playing Calgary....the bar is packed. I was all set up, typing away and I lose some bar area to a guy who had no place else to sit. He was wearing a Flyers jersey, I hoped he wasn't cheering for the Flames. He wasn't, but this guy was a hockey nut. We talked for about 5 hours about hockey. My son could have done that, I have a whole pile of straight friends that could have done that. Not too many gay guys would be able to do that, and most of my women friends - well except for the lesbians, they would have facts this guy would not have even considered.

He sells jerseys on the side, I am getting a New Orleans Saints one, it will probably have Brees on the back, but I was hoping for Gleason - but they are pre-made I don't think they have Gleason.

Super Bowl and Mardi Gras in New Orleans - there will be a lot of worn out people there come lent. I sort of wish I was there, but I think it would be better to go to a regular Mardi Gras or Jazz Fest.

The radio station I was supporting WWOZ is not very organized. I hope they work through this. I stopped supporting them when they forgot to send me stuff. The lady said she re-sent it, about the 15th of November. All the Christmas stuff is delivered and I never got anything. I told here I'd even start my monthly donations again. Canadian money must be defective.

They authorized a ton of overtime at work, I am pacing myself. I went into the bike shop today and ordered a pile of parts to install on the bike. It is getting fixed anyway. I will have saddle bags and a sissy bar. I already have the bags, just need the supports for the side. I also ordered all the parts to fix the bike from when it was stolen. They dropped it and broke a few things.

I could have lied and got my speedo cable fixed, it broke 10 kms after the guy did the estimate. It might have been related, but I wasn't going to push it, its only $80.

Got propositioned to be on a committee. I was actually recommended by two Directors, one from our region and the other from a Western Region (aka BC). Probably will not happen, the bureaucrats in Ottawa like to be involved in this type of stuff, even though they do not have a clue what my co-workers and I do. They like our reports though.....I guess that means they know.

Tonight supper at a Vietnamese place, also going is Elisabeth (from Calgary) and a friend from Edmonton. We all have birthdays within weeks of each other, so we celebrate together. I am staying at the lady in Edmonton's house tonight. Back to town tomorrow, overtime of course on Sunday.

No pictures this week, it was fricken cold out there. Wednesday night it was -30C which felt like -40C - it is now -2C out there. There was a blizzard on the highway, which i managed to get through ok. The buffalo in the park were sitting down munching, with snow all over them. I would have taken a picture but that would have meant stopping on the highway, the shoulder was a snow bank.