Pave Over Paradise, Put Up a Parking Lot

When it comes to making a buck, greenbacks come before greenspace. The City of Waterloo has approved selling space for advertising on a number of trails around the city. As it is, its been a disappointment in the past few years to see many natural trails dug up and paved over with asphalt in the first place, the only benefit really being to a small fraction of rollerbladers that I ever see on those trails.

Particularly astounding was when the City of Kitchener decided to tear up some perfectly adequate trail in the Huron Park area to make some 'Eco Learning Center' deal, and then went and paved half the trails with asphalt, obliterating a series of nice biking trails in the process.

But back to the City of Waterloo pimping itself out, and ruining the retreat aspect of the local trails. The question is appropriately asked by Councilor d'Ailly, at what point do we draw the line on advertising once its started? Every time a new proposal comes along, a higher price can be asked, and the income for the City will again be used as justification for tarnishing the already rapidly diminishing natural areas within the entire Region.

And then what happens when companies want small 'inconspicuous' sign spaces at a price? If the price is right does the City give in again? I have no problem with putting advertising around the trail map kiosks, and encouraging advertised sponsorship on those signs, but the trails themselves need to be left untouched.

Just yesterday I went for a walk along the RIM Park trail and caught a glimpse of a doe and its fawn just off the trail in an otherwise natural marsh environment. If Disney were to come along and want to advertise the newest remake of Bambi on a sign along that stretch of trail, does the City give in so that it has money to pay its councilors the next time they vote a pay raise for themselves? I'd like to think not, and clearly there are some of those councilors who agree that this is a very bad precedent to be setting.

Right to a Fair Trial, Whenever It Suits You

I suppose when you're an aging white woman who can cry on demand, you are afforded more privileges than an Arab-Canadian who has lived out his teenage years in captivity. Of course, like the schoolyard bully in gradeschool, Canada was in more of a position to throw its weight around, and move Brenda Martin out of the country where she was actually afforded a fair trial, bring her home, and bail her out. But when the other bully on the playground is bigger and older than you, you just sit back and do what they tell you so you can keep up your rep.

The U.S. is at the point now where they have to keep their war-criminals prisoners of war 'enemy combatants' (the first two terms would seem to have actually given those people rights on an international level) locked away just to keep those who used to in fact just go about their lives taking care of their families and livelihoods from going and perpetrating acts of revenge against a nation that has locked them away for years with no recourse of any kind. I know I'd lose some of my passivity if I were locked away for 6 years with no just cause, and no way of defending myself.

I'm not saying these people need to be handed get out of jail free cards, as some of them may have indeed had ties to terrorist organizations, but the President of the United States in January, whether it be Obama, Clinton, or even McCain need to stand behind some kind of policy to deal with the prisoners like those at Guantanamo to expedite the trial process, and come into line with signed international treaties on the treatment of prisoners of war, as well as the treatment of child soldiers, for argument's sake, like Omar Khadr.

A Novel Idea for Pet Owners

If you can't keep your animal, namely your poorly trained dog, quiet when it spots strangers, then don't leave the fucking thing roped up in your front yard all day, barking for 15 minutes at a time when someone happens to be outside talking to a neighbour across the street or something.

Missing Pages

A couple months back my buddy Como mentioned an add-on for Firefox called 'Foxmarks'. Basically, it keeps a copy of your bookmarks online so you can keep them the same on multiple computers and have a backup should you do something stupid and lose them all.

Fast forward to me doing something stupid and losing them all; I installed the newest beta of Firefox over the old one, found that it wasn't compatible with some things I already use, and removed it. But when I uninstalled, it took all the preferences, including my bookmarks from the old version with it.

I've remembered about half of the bookmarks and managed to find them again, I guess the other half weren't important enough to remember anyways.

Now I'm using Foxmarks.

Also, thanks to Christielli I found out that this weekend coming is apparently the May long weekend already. The May 2-4 being a full week before May 24th is about as logical as the placement of religious holidays. No idea what I'm gonna do. Well, some idea.

Uplifting News

Blisters the Size of....Well, They're Big

Three days helping my buddy Steve and his wife move from a third story apartment with no elevator to what is essentially a three storey house. By the end of the first day I had the cliched muscles I didn't know I had aching. After three, I'm pretty sure I had worn them away to nothing anyways.

I followed that up with two days of building a poorly designed and supplied shed from Home Hardware (let this be a warning). Holding a bottle of ketchup at dinner was a challenge with fatigued arms shaking. At least its been good to be productive, and I have been paid well with food and beer.

But somehow between yesterday and today, my cellphone decided to take a shit, and now won't start up, despite being on a fully charged battery. Infact, the charger itself won't even work, and I'm left trying to find a replacement battery or a replacement phone for at least less than the amount of airtime I have left on the plan. I guess its back to being incommunicado for me.