I just recieved the following letter from my dad. Reading stuff like this from my cubicle in downtown Toronto make me long for "Out West" AKA Alberta as the refer to it here:
Welcome to the Prairies!! Thank you for visiting our beautiful province. Here are a few things you ought to know to make your stay more pleasant:
1. That slope-shouldered farm boy you are snickering at did more work before breakfast than you will do all week at the gym.
2. It's called a "gravel road." No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your BMW. I have a 4-wheel drive because I need it. Now drive or get it out of the way.
3. We all started hunting and fishing when we were nine-years-old. Yeah, we saw Bambi die. We got over it.
4. Any references to "grain fed" when talking about our women will get your butt kicked . by our women.
5. Pull your pants up, and turn your hat around. You look like an idiot.
6. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of mallards are making their final approach, we will shoot it. You might hope you don't have it up to your ear at the time.
7. No, there's no "Vegetarian Special" on the menu. Order steak. Order it rare. Or, you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey.
8. Yeah, we have sweet tea. It comes unsweetened in a glass with two packets of sugar and a long spoon.
9. You bring "coke" into my house you better bring rye along, and some ice.
10. So you have a sixty-thousand-dollar car. We're real impressed. We have quarter-million-dollar combines that we use two weeks a year.
11. Let's get this straight. We may have one stoplight in town, but we stop when it's red. We may even stop when it's yellow.
12. Our women hunt, fish, and drive trucks - because they want to. So, you're a feminist. Isn't that cute.
13. Yeh, we eat trout, Northern, walleye, and pike, too. If you really want sushi and caviar, it's available at the bait shop.
14. They are pigs and cows. That's what they smell like. Get over it. Don't like it? Highways #1 and #16 go two ways - get on one of them.
15. The "Opener" refers to the first days of fishing and deer season. They are religious holidays. You can get breakfast at the church.
16. So what if every person in every pick-up waves? It's called being friendly. Understand the concept?
17. Yeah, we have golf courses. Don't hit into the water hazards. It spooks the fish. And stay out of the woods. It'll spook the deer.
Since "project deviant" kind off went off half-assed I decided to change in other ways. I will be starting Aikido as of next week three nights a week. I am familiar with Aiki concepts and techniques at fundamental level but I have never taken proper Aikido before.
The stuff I used to take was a very mixed martial art that took concepts mainly from aiki juijutsu, wing-chun, and philipino kali. It was a very practical combat system.
Studying Aikido is about a lot more than just self-defence:
This link provides a very detailed history of the Life of Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido by his son Kisshomaru Ueshiba. There is just a ton of information on the site about Aikido.
I have always had a laypersons interest in Zen. It is quite obvious Morihei Ueshiba really got to the root of the meaning of zen although he was not a zen monk per se. Budo or 'The Way Of the Warrior' is just another path to the same place. He just grasped "It". If there were an "It" to grasp. Hee Hee!
Big business and fascism have a long history of collusion togther. Those that are in power have always been lobbied by so called “Captains Of Industry”. Why? There is opportunity in tragedy and disaster. The far right wing has always been the true elite of society: The few that control the many. They do this purely because of profits, at any expense. Want some proof?
The simple fact is that the contract signed for lease of Hollerith machines was signed with IBM New York, NY. Not the German subsidiary. Included in the lease agreement was a monthly ONSITE maintenance agreement to service all machines whether in Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald or other concentration camps. They full well knew exactly what was happening.
How did they know? Well, in addition to the monthly visits by IBM technicians to the concentration camps all applications in those days were custom built. No “off the shelf” software like today’s stuff. No SQL databases that you can pirate directly off the non-existent internet. IBM representatives custom built the applications in direct association with the Third Reich.
This information has only come to light through German documentation from the Nazi era not through IBM documentation. How could that be? IBM will not release the documentation to scholarly research:
“Rather than destroy the documents, IBM said it was giving them to “an academic institution” for study. But where did these documents end up? Not the Holocaust Museum in Washington, not the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan, not the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati. An IBM PR man gave them to New York University, to a Biblical archaeologist. They gave them to professor Lawrence Schiffman, a Dead Sea Scrolls expert. He had six boxes in his closet, unaware of what was in them. But he was familiar with my prior Holocaust work and immediately arranged to let me see the materials. I also arranged to view documents in Stuttgart, and IBM blocked that and closed the facility the day I got there. When word got out about my book they transferred those Stuttgart documents to an archive in Germany, but they can’t be seen until some elaborate inventory is completed. IBM still refuses to open archives concerning France, Holland, Brazil, Poland, Italy and Spain, and other units. In other words, all their archives are still closed. As I told IBM corporate PR, “Make me work hard, make me work harder, I will get all this information.” - Edwin Black – Author of IBM and the Holocost”
So I guess the IBM technicians who couldn’t see the starving concentration camp victims couldn’t smell the burning bodies from the crematoriums either. For that matter nor could these mathematical geniuses put 2 and 2 together with row or column headings like the following codes:
For location:
1 Auschwitz 2 Buchenwald 3 Dachau
For “Type”:
2 Jehovah’s Witness 3 Homosexual 6 Communist 8 Jew
For status:
1 released 2 transferred 4 executed 5 suicide 6 special treatment AKA Gassed
Moreover, the punch cards used in these primitive computers were printed by IBM directly. They exclusively printed these cards directly for the Third Reich. One need not be a genius to figure out what was going on by the punch cards ALONE. The Thrid Reich only ever had a 2 to 6 week supply of these cards, meaning that IBM kept printing, and were paid for them, right up until the bitter end. Absolutely sickening.
I wish that I could tell you that this was an isolated incident but its not:
Ford Motor company did business with the Third Reich through it’s subsidiary throughout the war. Opel, a General Motors subsiduary, in fact built German warplanes:
I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration - Adolf Hitler
Coca Cola Co. developed “Fanta Orange” brand specifically for the Nazi Germany market as they could no longer market Coke after the war started. I don’t have web link for this yet but the evils of what “branding” is will be the focus of a subsequent part of this series.
The conclusion, big business is the root of the status quo in the western world. Massive corporations control the mainstream media and use its influence for its own purposes, namely profit and at any expense. Anyone who states that the “left” is the elite is either grossly misinformed or deluded. It is the far right that controls business and is attempting to control government through the insanity of the power of lobbyists. They will do business with the likes of Nazi Germany directly profiting off the German war machine and the holocaust. You tell me: who’s with who?
I have returned home from "The Niagara Excursion". A fascinating experience. First off, we never went to see the actual falls at all. It hadn't stopped snowing since Saturday morning. Fortunately, the casino was nice and warm, had an entourage of conveiniantly located floating Beer Girls, and was some really good fun. Blackjack style.
Our group had its own table which was helpful since if you had crap then you could attempt to draw out the right card for the person on your left, or hold, depending on what the card trend was. Plus the anchor, the last seat at the able) could help influence the dealer to bust. It was somewhere between a 6 and 8 hour run, nonstop. Overall our group came out ahead, raking in some good coin. Small potatoes. I personally lost about 250. not that bad. I was up for a long time. But after about beer #15 or so I started to bet kind of funny. Go figure. When you start playing 50 bones a hand and double down on hard 12's with the dealer showing 10, you tend to start losing. But it sure is fun!
My favorite was "the epic of the d00d". "The d00d" was my roomie for this excursion. An exceedingly cool guy is "the d00d". He is comparatively mild compared to the rest of us wildly extroverted types. He sat to my left.Anyways, after 5 hours or so at it "the d00d" started to get bored and attempted to lose the rest of his chips. At that point something magical happened. All of a sudden Jesus showed up at our table and was on the side of "the d00d". Apparently, the house pissed Jesus off good because after that "the d00d" just couldn't lose. Pretty soon He had quite a collection of 25 dollar chips and they just kept growing. By the end I was in awe of him. Royally smashed, I think He walked away quite pleased. Good stuff.
Almost as good was the story of my buddy "the big loser". Coincidentally, He is married to "the big winner". Even at the height of drunken betting I had to give my head a shake at the betting of "the big loser". This indivdual likes to split on really fantastic (and I mean that literally) hands like double threes with dealer showing 9 or 10. Fortunately, H e is married to "the big winner". Now "the big winner" didn't even play Blackjack. She spent most of the day at the quarter slots and unbeknownst to the rest of us the roullette table. Apparently , a few rolls after "the big winner" hit the table the ball spun out of the wheel and went straight down her top. Now this is a problem when that happens at a casino. The dealer freaks out, the pit bosses come out and check all this out [editor's note: if their is any question about the ball why not replace the thing?]. Anyway, "the big winner" correctly assumed this was a sign from the aforementioned Jesus. So she bet large and inside next hand, meaning on the individual numbers. They pay huge, 30 to 1 or something, I can't remember but the payout was pretty good. and the slots hit twice on quarters for her. Either way, she offset "the big loser" losses and then some. The rest of were playing blackjack and had no idea about this as we were all playing blackjack. "The big loser" was complaining that someone had stolen all his luck. Well, just then "the big winner" showed up to explain where it had gone. Definately, a poignant moment. We all laughed our asses off. :)
Note: "the big loser" is an awesome guy, He just really sucks at drinking and gambling at the same time, despite the big smile on his face.
The other notable was "the degenerate". He organized the whole trip as he is wont to do. This guy is the hub that this group of friends revolves around. He organizes stuff, and is especially good on the fly. Somehow, this guy knows all the good places to go, everywhere in Toronto, on any particular day. Want to smoke in a non-smoking and have cheap drinks downtown TO on a Wednesday? Call "the degenerate". He doesn't even have to think about it. He will give you 3 places, off the top of his head. "the degenerate" had to give up all access to cash before reaching Niagara, credit cards, bank cards, only god knows what else.
Saturday morning we had to take two minivans of us to go out. "The degererate" was directing us in cab 1. We in cab 2 thought we were going to "Ripley's Museum". It became apparent slighlty later on when we saw a suspcious amount of casino signs that we were going to the casino first.
Anyway, "the degenrate" coached us all on the rules of all the games, made sure everyone had what they needed, and was generally quite great. He may have ended up with something of a minimal loss but He had a good a time as everyone else.
The rest of the weekend was spent eating, drinking and partying. Despite the fact that we picked possibly the worst weekend weatherwise ever, everyone had a good time.
