Dog On A Root

 

  - jim Young In the realm of expectation, disappointment is king.” - anon If someone promised to save you a substantial sum of money and was only able to produce less than 15% of half of what they originally promised… you likely wouldn’t afford them much credibility in their field, would you? In fact, in light of their failure, you would likely think they were pretty stupid. Either that or they were taking you for a ride all along. Musk is the richest man in the world. So if he’s stupid, he must be very, very lucky to get where he is. Yet this is what he has done “for”, or perhaps “to” the American people might be a better way to put it.  PROMISES AND EXPECTATIONS While campaigning for Trump, Musk bragged about cutting $2 trillion from government expenses. Once Trump was elected Musk reduced that promise to $1 trillion. As recently as last March, Musk bragged he was on schedule to reduce spending of $1 trillion by the end of May. Recently Musk has reduced that to just 15% or ...

- jim young “If you keep choosing the lesser of the evils, pretty soon all you have left is the evil of the evils.” – Dick Gregory, comedian and Presidential Candidate Just like almost every other election, I’m in a quandary with the upcoming federal election in Canada. Simply put, I’m not a big fan of any of the available choices.  That doesn’t mean I don’t care. But I don’t buy the “if you don’t vote you have no right to complain” bullshit that I often hear given as a reason why I should vote. That’s really a cop-out for those people that believe everyone should vote but they really don't have a good argument for why everyone should vote. Suggesting you have no right to complain just because you didn’t vote doesn’t even make sense. Those who vote for the party that gets elected are really the only ones who shouldn’t have a right to complain. They’re the ones that put the bastard in power! Everyone else should have the right to complain whether they voted or not. In fact, ev...

- jim Young “The Government cannot afford to have a country made up entirely of rich people, because rich people pay so little tax that the Government would quickly go bankrupt. This is why Government men always tell us that labour is man's noblest calling. Government needs labour to pay its upkeep.” - Russell Baker On Feb 2, Speaking about tariffs, Trump warned Americans, “We may have short term, some little pain and people understand that.” In addition to the “pain” the American people are expected to endure from the tariffs, Trump’s henchman, the richest man in the world, has fired or let go 30,000 government workers. I’m sure they will “understand” there might be some short term “pain” too. Trump on the other hand has been golfing 25% of his first 69 days in office (9 out of the 10 weekends) at a cost of over $26 million (estimated using 2017 costs) to the taxpayers, including the costs of security and the use of Air Force One. It doesn’t look like Trump is feeling any of th...

 

- jim Young DISCLAIMER: Be sure to read this article in its entirety before attempting this self-watering procedure. ”Now they show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you've got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn't your biggest problem. Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash.” - Jerry Seinfeld Facebook is filled with suggested hacks to cover everything from keeping mosquitoes out of your back yard to removing highlighter stains to getting gum out of your carpet with a baggie full of ice cubes. It would be nice if they all worked. In fact it would be nice if even half of them worked. Here’s a hack we got from Facebook that could have been a real life-saver for us. We recently planned a 2 week vacation to Cuba. Like everyone going away for a holiday, we had to make many preparations before we left.  Advise the post office to hold our mail - check Book our dog Myra into a Kennel...

 

 

- jim Young A lack of transparency results in a distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.” - Dalai Lama An election will soon be held here in Canada and to be 100% honest, I’m not sure at this time who I will or should be voting for.  The problem is, I don’t believe any of the people or parties that are my available options, best represent me and  ALL of the things that I believe will be the most important issues over the next few years. (Come to think of it, when rereading that last sentence, I just realized I could  have just as easily ended it at the second comma.) I feel like we are scraping the bottom of the barrel and may be left with the lesser of the evils as our choice for Prime Minister. That’s not a particularly good feeling. We deserve to have the luxury of deciding among the cream of the crop, not the lesser of the evils. I don’t believe in the adage that EVERYONE should vote. Mike Wolfe, an economics teacher I had in college once suggested, “Democracy is a gr...

 

School Days - jim Young "It wasn't just school to me, it was the chapter I never wanted to end." - anon Some of you probably know by now that I grew up in the small communities of Stroud and Painswick. Not unlike some of the local rural schools in the Argyle areas today, the schools were small and each classroom would be filled with 2 or 3 grades. It wasn't uncommon that we would find ourselves in the same class as an older sibling or cousin. In the first grade, the school I attended in Stroud was a two storey building that accommodated Grades 1 to 8. There were 2 entrances for grades 3 to 8 whose classrooms were on the main and upper level. One entrance was for the boys and the other for the girls who all had to line up and wait to enter the building before literally marching in upon the teacher’s command. Stroud School on the corner of Highway 11 and the 10th line in Stroud. Built in 1923. The lineups for Grades one and two however, weren’t segregated by sex. But it...