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Sunday, October 26, 2014

Enough blogs on politics....

I brought my old Blackberry Bold 9900 to Mexico this year.  My plan was to sell it here and switch to iPhones when I got back to Canada next spring.  I decided against it, and instead found a site to unlock it so I can use it in Mexico.  I found a site called freemyblackberry.com and gave it a try.  My model was one of the lucky ones that could be unlocked free (in 48 hours) or if I wanted, I could pay a whopping $3.00 Cdn and unlock it immediately.

Because I'm retired and on a fixed income, I decided to try the free option.  As promised, today my phone was unlocked, I installed my Mexican SIM card from my Motorola, and voila; my phone is unlocked.  I now think I'll keep it as my permanent Mexican cell, and now have my Motorola as a spare for my daughter when she visits.  In Mexico, you can purchase a new SIM card for about 200 pesos to activate your phone and get a 200 peso credit to boot.  200 pesos will give you about 200 text messages, free incoming calls, and for local calls about 2 pesos a minute.  Almost free...

Not that many people have Blackberry's anymore, but still a very useful site if your phone is paid for and you travel to other countries.  Now to re-program all my Mexican contacts into my BB....

http://freemyblackberry.com/index.php

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Russell Brand and Stephen Harper.

Canada is now under attack from extremists, and are now just like the USA.  Why?  Why is Canada now a target?  It is pretty obvious.  Our Federal Leaders (run by Harper) declared war on ISIS by promising to send our planes to Iraq.  Now this in itself may not be a bad thing.  ISIS extremists are dangerous and murdering innocent people, and they must be stopped by someone.  But in the past, Canada has always sent peacekeepers and humanitarian aid, not warriors.  Why change now?

Canadians are not idiots, but I think they are currently being manipulated.  Harper knows full well that during the heat of the Iraq/Syrian, or any other conflict, if we sent soldiers to fight we would become a target.  It is just like George W. Bush knew that if America allowed bin Laden to continue his threats, it would only be a matter of time before the jihad was brought to America.  When the twin towers fell, this gave his government the power to go to war, and strengthen US homeland security laws.

Sad, but now Canada is following in the same footsteps.  It is unfortunate that politicians thirst for power forces us into situations like this, and it is the Canadian people and our soldiers that will suffer - not Harper or his associates.  I will fight for Canada to the end and support our military, but never on behalf of a corrupt government that is more concerned with power and re-elections than with doing what is right for Canadians.  I hope Harper's motives are honorable. What do you think his motives are with an election looming next year?  Here is a link to Russell Brand's video.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/10/24/russell-brand-canada-stephen-harper_n_6045210.html

In closing, it seems like the entire world is controlled by those with money and power - and to top it off, they all seem corrupt and above the law and are almost never held accountable for their actions.  I wonder if Democracy has a chance, but enough negative thoughts.  Russell Brand at least nails the sad truth, but makes it interesting at the same time.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Taliban, ISIS, Terrorists.

C'mon, don't tell us not to worry about between 80-130 or more potential terrorists living among us in Canada.  Aren't these the people that have been trained to despise Christians, and to infiltrate us and kill us whenever they get the chance.  They will lie and say anything they think we want to hear, to conceal themselves among us.

How our RCMP and CSIS actually think they can convert them from Islam is beyond my comprehension.  It's like convincing a serial rapist to live amongst his/her prey and to just please stop doing it.  I don't think so.  These people are so radicalized that nothing will bring them back.  Particularly since they truly believe heaven is waiting for them if they kill us.

The non-Canadian born potential terrorists that have now been trained in Syria, or wherever, and returned should have their passports revoked and shipped back to their home countries.  If they were born in Canada, that is a different matter.  Charge them with treason.  If they have been trained to make war on Canadian citizens, it is just that, an act of war and they should be treated as war criminals.

How can we allow people to leave our Country to be trained to kill us upon their return; and then let them come back.  Oh, I feel much safer now, we are watching them closely.  Yeah, watching them drive their cars into innocent Canadians.  Will we next see public be-headings from these people being watched?  What is wrong with our leaders?

I think I'll just stay in Mexico for a few more months, and upon my return to Canada, I'll watch carefully over my shoulder.  Don't tell me to feel safe with these fanatics living amongst us, and to have faith in our policing system to protect us.  To me, both have already proven their incompetence.  Do you feel safe?

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Ebola.

Here is a link to the WHO (World Health Organization) site that gives a very good history of the Ebola virus.  How it started, how it is transmitted and how to protect yourself from coming in contact with, and contracting it.

Ebola Virus Disease

As of today, October 11, 2014, Ebola has only surfaced in Dallas, Texas.  Canada has no reported cases, and the chances of an infected person arriving in Canada is relatively slim.  That being said, if high risk potential carriers of the disease arriving from West Africa are not discovered and stopped in the USA, they could potentially be able to carry on to Canada.  Hopefully the disease has been stopped in it's tracks in Dallas.

I have to travel through the USA over the next few months, and I will sure be careful what I touch and who I come in contact with at the airports.  Scary.  I think I'll stay away from West Africa for a while.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Mexican policing?

Police helicopters are flying over our neighborhood today supposedly looking for the Mayor of the City of Iguala, one hour south of Cuernavaca,where the recent disappearances/murders of college students took place.  I don`t know if they actually have information that he might be hiding in our area, but I suspect they are performing these searches (as I have seen them do many times) to try to prove to the public that they are actively searching for this criminal.

How, on earth, can they expect us to believe that the can fly over various areas in numerous cities and actually expect to flush this guy out of hiding.  As I stood out on our balcony watching this ineffective search being performed, I thought to myself, I sure do hope I don`t look like the Canadian version of the Mayor of Iguala.  We could have paratroopers sliding down ropes into our back yard.

This search would be laughable if it wasn`t for the fact that all these students have disappeared and are feared murdered.  It is indicative of the system here whereby known criminals are allowed to wander freely around the country, with everyone knowing that they are criminals, and no one seems to be able to catch them until they do something that lands them in the international news.  Then the search by helicopter begins.  Crazy county sometimes, but I do hope they catch the guy.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Deaths in Iguala, Mexico.

I bought land in Iguala a couple of years ago, about the time the violence there started getting worse.  A long time local family I know there were attacked by armed assailants, and ultimately had to leave their home and business and move.

Iguala, and numerous other towns/cities in Mexico, are infested with 'Narcos' (the term used for people dealing narcotics).  With the crackdown on drug movement in Mexico over the past few years, many of these Narcos have moved into other lucrative businesses;  like theft, kidnapping, extortion, murder, and the list goes on.

To the average Mexican citizen, Narcos are easy to identify and stay away from.  It is ironic that the Mexican Government cannot seem to catch these criminals that their public sees daily.  Gee, maybe the Government and Police are actually being paid off by these guys, or even worse, are related to them.

The feeling here from my Mexican friends is 'Thank God' something like this happened; even though it is too terrible to imagine.  Now, because the world's eyes are on Iguala, perhaps this will finally force the Government to actually do something about the problem there.

For me, it will finally be nice to go see my property there one day.  My prayers go out to the families of the victims recently discovered.  It seems pretty certain that these may be the missing students, or at least some of them.  If not, the Narcos in the Iguala area have been busier than we thought.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

What did we do before computers, cell phones and the internet?

I don't know about you, but I actually remember those days.  My first computer was a Commodore 64, and my family used it basically for playing games.  You know, the one called "Pong" or something like that.  You had a small paddle and tried to hit a small dot before it hit the bottom of the screen.  And yes, this computer had a whopping 64 kilobytes.  Computers today don't even burp on less than a megabyte.

With the introduction of the internet, computers really took off, and started growing to the mega, giga and terabytes of today.  They have become faster with more storage and RAM, but at the same time, have become smaller.  You can now buy a cell phone that has all the capabilities of a personal computer, and contain 128 gigabytes of storage.  Amazing.

Speaking of cell phones, what did people do before their invention?  Well, believe it or not, they used real telephones that were installed in their homes permanently.  You actually had to be at home, an office, or at a pay telephone booth to make a call.  How inconvenient is that?  If you couldn't reach the person by telephone, you actually had to physically try to find them by walking, biking, driving or bussing to the location you believed they may be at.

Letters were written, not on a PC, but on a thing called a typewriter.  When I first started working in an office, we used these things all the time.  I think it was sometime in 1982 that I was first introduced to the "Fax" machine.  Prior to that we used teletypes.  They were like a typewriter, but were connected to telephone lines, and you could type a message on one machine and it was received on another machine in a different location - instantly, almost.

I'll never forget the installation of the first fax I saw.  It was in the Government Agent's Office in Nelson, BC.  Once it was installed and set up, we started to receive a message from our Headquarters in Victoria, BC.  I watched as the light moved back and forth inside the machine, and paper started to slowly inch it's way out of the front of the machine.  This entire process of transferring maybe 100 words, took about 5 minutes.  We were in shock.

Anyway, my series of books "A Time Before Facebook" describes a time before all of these gadgets.  Book 2 in the series, "Ghosts and Skeletons" has just been published online, and both books can be purchased at Smashwords.com, Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and lastly, Amazon.  I am busy writing Book 3, "The Black Bridge", and will probably be working on this series for a few more years to come.  If you have an electronic book reader or a computer, please download a copy, and enjoy reading.

A Time Before Facebook

Ghosts and Skeletons