We coulda colonized Mars instead of Iraq

When the last soldier leaves Iraq and the world sees how easy it is to flush $4 Trillion down the toilet, it makes one wonder, what if George Bush had been a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson instead of Tom Clancy.


Could we establish colonies on Mars now? What if instead of invading Iraq those trillions had been targeted at establishing a colony on Mars? If it were a one way trip it would be very doable.  I doubt finding colonists would be a challenge. 

There have been many books written about colonies on Mars

I honestly can’t remember anything about this book, but Greg Bear is always 

terrific.

Poondyke of Mars is one of the first handful of Science Fiction that I read. Instead of all the crap movies out there I don’t understand why more Heinlein has not been adapted.  I relish the Philip K Dick adaptations but as an author Heinlein is better. I loved the first Starship Troopers, but like Poondyke it was one of his juvenile targeted novels, he has much better mature ones.

Top of class is Kim Stanley Robinson. Please HBO make it into a Game of Thrones like TV epic. IMHO one of the finest trilogies’s in SF.

Math Who Needs It

Miss America contestants answers to the question should math be taught in schools. Fear for the future.

Peg Hockey Wives Winnipeg Highlights

Former Peg Hockey wives have gathered some pictures and talking points to welcome the former Thrasher wives and girlfriends, I have copies of both.


Before you buy you can stay at our luxury hotel the Peg Oais, as you can see from the Antenna, there is AM in every room!

For sure on a daily basis you will meet everyone at the Supercenter!

For your intimate wear it does not get better than Victoria's Parkas!

Driving at first will seem impossible, but there is a great public transit system!

This is a typical luxury home, with two snowmobile garage(Leed Certified all natural materials) and guest tents. Oh course fully winterized.

Photo(Apcbg)

As reported in Vancouver Sun, attempts are being made to make Winnipeg seem livable to the former Thrashers. hockey wife who grew up in Winnipeg is collecting a list of highlights and sending it to all the new Peg Wives. I got a copy.

1)It has an airport
2)Airport mostly deserted you never have to wait in line, and your house will practicably be on the runway.
3)It’s a very walk able city, you could go end to end in a few minutes if not for the snowdrifts.
4)Airport offers flights 3 days a week.
5)They keep the road to the airport well plowed, it is closed down less than a week every year.
6)Peg rink very green, they don’t need artificial ice.
7) Biggest population of Icelanders outside Iceland live in Peg, they report back to Iceland, Peg like Florida.
8)Being totally shitfaced in public common in Peg, it stops blood from freezing. In fact its recommended to always keep blood alcohol level over .2. When you’re shitfaced all the time you will forget you are in Winnipeg.
9)No insects in Peg during NHL regular schedule, and likely Peg will not ever go far enough in playoffs to see June 1 outbreak of bird sized mosquito.
10) You will save thousands on wardrobe, really no choice of what to wear.

Think tank gap

Photo by (OpenMedia) please click and support

Think tank gaps cause Canadians to only get one side of the issues. Case in point: CD Howe Institute puts forward a 3 page, yes 3 page talking point memo about how to best regulate the future of telecom. The startling conclusion, no regulation, let market forces work their magic. There is no countervailing report, so the report is taken as gospel, the press owned by the vertical integrated near monopolies, puts this report on the front pages of their newspapers, and reports it on their radio and television stations. Effectively using industrial propaganda to shape the common wisdom.  This happens on a myriad of issues, and based upon the results it’s easy to see it’s very effective. There are no easy solutions, in the US Billionaires like George Soros have stepped forward to try and level the playing field, in Canada, not so much.

Connie gets big time

Photo( geograph.org.uk)

Conrad gets to 42 months, likely out in half that time. Can Conrad be considered Canada's financial equivilant of OJ? He faced no charges on Massey Ferguson and Dominion, but what goes around comes around. Looks good on you Lord Beaver of Crap Harbour.

Threat to Humanity

Photo: Office of Naval Research

I am a constant critic of military spending. The Euro and Japanese fix of 1% of GDP seems like plenty, and in the case of Japan more than needed.  Cuts to the Free Electron Laser and the railgun are definitely a threat to humanity. When the aliens come even though they may be advanced, we all know that its all about energy delivered to the target, and a missile is sure to be low tech to a civilization that can travel light years and still pack a punch.
http://gizmodo.com/5886846/rip-raygun-pentagons-laser-plane-laid-to-rest

Eating OPEC's CAKE

Picture (treehugger.com)

A huge flare has just been shot into the air. Thirty million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserves are going to be released over the next 30 days.  America consumes 21 million barrels of oil a day.  The last significant release was after hurricaneKatrina in 2005, and that was only 9.8 million barrels. Releasing oil is a big deal, never taken lightly.  So why now and why so much?  Has Obama come around to the correct conclusion that the SPR is a “buggy whip”.   An estimate of $200 Billion to transform America from an oil based economy to a hydrogen based economy is not a pipedream.  At current prices the SPR is worth $73 Billion. That is a pretty good down payment on the future. Furthermore when the world witnessed Obama abandoning his way back to oil, just like Cortez burning his ships the world would understood the US was serious, and the price of oil would drop dramatically. If the G20 agreed to keep the price to consumers at levels that currently exist in Europe and Japan, ie gas tax of $2 per gallon, the world could have its cake and eat it as well. The tax could pay down  the US debt, it would provide funds for modern infrastructure and the world economy would boom due to oil priced at going out of business prices.  I sure hope this is Obama’s secret agenda. If you know him please ask him if it’s true?

NDP puts Check on Senate Reform

Picture by  frankblacknoir

NDP is on the verge of politically pulling down the pants of the great strategizer. With his laser beam focused upon the economy Harper decided to wade into the Constitutional morass of Senate Reform. How much is this costing in legal fees and consultants etc etc?  Jack Layton reading the tea leaves brilliantly intends to introduce a bill to cut funding to the Senate, not eviscerating it but reducing the budget by 2/3. Brilliant, NDP creates a Senate that is all most affordable with no constitutional mess.  Of course Harper will not take the pork away from his acolytes, but it will be a big win for the NDP in the court of public opinion.

Case study Greece:The Shock Doctrine in action

Picture by Larry Tomlinson

But even after winning, he faces an even more difficult task: Getting parliament to back €28-billion ($40-billion U.S.) worth of spending cuts and tax hikes as well as an unpopular €50-billion ($71-billion U.S.) privatization program by the end of the month.”

Most of the privatizations are monopolies, and they always serve the customer so well. If you are thinking Greece is the canary in the coal mine, you are correct. There is no way they could agree to have just the spend and tax changes, after all two years later and you don’t need the privatizations! The good news is that if you live in the USA, well nothing will change. If you live in Canada, well welcome to the USA. The Shock Doctrine, followed by elites since the beginning of time, it’s been up, it’s been down but I am afraid it will always be around.


We can all hope the Shock Troopers never saw The 300?

Photo borrowed from Colonel Flick http://www.zerohedge.com/article/postcards-apocalypse

Tax Lemmings (Lemmings are Native to Norway how Ironic)

What happened to Canada, where are the people who forced Universal Health Care upon the elites?  That decision saved us from the disaster of US health care. Not only are 20% of Americans not covered, much of the coverage is only as good as your health, and the overall cost is 30% more per capita than other Nations.  Our greatest National mistake was abandoning Pierre Trudeau and his prescient National Energy Policy.  In 2009 Canada was producing 330 million barrels per day and Norway 235 million Barrels, Canada is trending up and Norway down. Norway after paying all the other bills in a pure socialist 6 week holiday, 36 hour work week, 3 years maternity leave country has accumulated a Heritage fund of $500 Billion. They have a NEP, if Canada had maintained its NEP we would be in even better shape, but instead we $550 Billion debt and get piddly Royalties of $9 Billion a year, less money than we make from the lottery, and less money EXXON pays Texas per barrel. On top of that we give tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the oil companies for the privilege of having them take our resources at cost and sell them for huge profits to America. Furthermore it wasMulroney who bankrupted the country not Trudeau.  In his defense Mulroney recognized the genius of the Value Added Tax.  Properly administered it is not regressive and it forces big spenders to support society more than those by choice or circumstance who spend less.  Tax what you want less of, consumption, and reward what you want more of income. Dion was totally on with his carbon tax.  Accepting taxes are part of civilization, and then why not adopt a tax policy that forces the nation into a best outcome. The amount of tax does not change, what does change is outcome. Get rid of pollution, provide a bully pulpit to bash the laggards on global warming, and make your nation the most efficient in the world. All squandered to follow Harper over a cliff of Drug Wars, Military Bases, F35 lead sleds, and climate denial.

Bigger than a Wiener

Photo (Daniel Tückmante)

While the world was transfixed by Mr. Wieners Wiener back in the real world Fukushima continues to fume.  Who decided this story had no legs, because it just keeps walking to the top of the pile of history. Engineers finally hooked up a filter to try and trap some of the radioactive material running free.  The filter was expected to have the capacity to capture a months’ worth of radioactive cesium, it was full in 4 hours, yes they underestimated the amount being released. OH MY GOD! If you live on the West Coast of the USA, take a Geiger counter to the air filter in your car, and ponder the question, does radioactive air help my gas mileage.

It is also puzzling that theFort Calhoun Nuclear reactor is not in the news, especially when the FAA has declared a no fly zone?

The Greenest Warriors

Of all the advances in warfare two are great victories for the planet, and the taxpayers pocketbook.  On and under the seas we have nuclear propulsion.  Burning through 700,000 barrels of oil or 2% of total consumption for the USA Military, the USS Kitty Hawk was a dirty dirty beast.  It retired in 2009 and at today’s prices its appetite was $70 million a year. Multiply that by the roughly 100 Nuclear Subs and the 38 surface ships and the world is burning some 70 million barrels less oil a year thanks to Nukes. That’s enough oil to run the USA for 3.5 days.

In the last four years the US air force has cut fuel consumption nearly 20%, a big part of that is the energy efficiency of drones vs. piloted planes.  Another nail in the coffin for the F35. Compare the operational cost of running a  fully loaded reaper drone  which burns  385 gallons per hour, to a F16 which uses a staggering 7,000 gallons per hour. Sure a reaper cannot do every mission the F35 might be assigned, but Drones are in their infancy, so why are we buying planes for 2020, when the future is already clear. What a fantastic illustration of how being green is not only about sustainability but also fiscal responsibility.

The official Kabuki theater

Photo by (http://www.flickr.com/photos/xiffy/)

A great take on the abdication of the opposition in Ottawa, hey it might shorten the summer, so why rock the boat. It is another look at how Depape matters.

Sinking and Climbing

Rim rockets rearward. I have a blackberry and it’s a perfectly good phone. The problem for Rim is that the Android and Apple phones are more Nintendo than Bell. The next problem for RIM is what I call the ski binding story.  Sometime in the 1980’s ski bindings reach perfection, there was really no way to provide a better binding (platforms still use same binding tech).  Smartphones have reached this plateau, so what can RIM do. If I was running the company I would build a huge for sale sign. My opinion is heavily influenced by the trashing I took on that orphans and widows champion Nortel. 

Airplanes always inspire, there is nothing more fascinating than defying gravity. IMHO the greatest aircraft designer is Burt Rutan and his Starship the most beautiful plane ever, until succeeded by the Italian Piaggio P180which was the best part of the Miami Vice Movie.

There are a couple of very special Canadian plane manufactures. Diamond Aircraft makes the Austrian designed birds in London.

The illustrious legendary Twin Otter has been reborn in Toronto.

Karmanic Adjustment Bureau

Boston wins the cup, Harper wins the election, and Hudak is in the driver’s seat, a trifecta of misery for Canada. Unfortunately it is very clear that Boston was the better team. Now if the refs were calling penalties and Rome had got two games instead of four, maybe the outcome would have been closer. What do you do if you are Vancouver? If the twins were not injured there is a huge question mark in front of the team’s direction. Luongo, he will be playing in the minors next season. No sane GM is going to put faith in him to go all the way ever again, and at $6 million a year, he is too expensive to sit on the bench. On the very bright side Montreal was a lucky bounce away from beating Boston, and next year if Montreal has a full team, the Cup should return to Canada. All in all the flood of good Karma created with the death of Bin Laden is in equilibrium from all the bad events of the last months.

Slow News Day

Right now history is taking a break, not much new happening.  Some great video right out of sci fi of Liberian rebels pimping wacky weapons.  Bilderberg assault on the internet continues, no one notices. I just wonder how many hacks are false flags. The great thing about cyber wars is you can spend hundreds of billions on hardware and only need generals to fight. I once worked for a rubber company; the dream of the board was to sell people a black cube of rubber, one size one formulation. Well for the military Cyber War is that perfect product. Enjoy the summer my fellow Canadians come Sept the Harper nightmare goes into full scream mode.

New Nihilism becomes meme

Thenew nihilism is becoming a meme.  See 18 signs verifying we are already heavily affected by new nihilism. Full scale civil unrest is only weeks away.

Gold Jerry pure Gold

There has been a huge inverse valuation between the price of gold and gold mining stocks. The reasons are all over the map, if I had to pick two it would be the large caps are tapping out and the small caps are risky. Without a price of gold around$1400 an ounce gold mining stocks are not going to rise much. Goldbugs are saying this is about to change, you could do worse, like buying Nortel. I have been thinking about gold juniors and made a list of promising penny stocks.  Asterisks indicate stocks that would have made my buy list.  Seven winners and 9 losers, but of course I was going to put most the money on Klondike Silver.

Stock Ticker	Name	Stock Value aft Jan 26	Stock Value Jun 14	Change
V: NTR **	Northern Tiger	$0.44	$0.48	9.09%
FOR -T	Frontier Gold	$9.29		-100.00%
AVR.TO**		$1.55	$1.64	5.81%
PTQ**		$1.20	$0.66	-45.00%
IPT.TO*	Impact Silver	$1.34	$1.72	28.36%
AMC.TO*	Alexis Minerals	$0.14	$0.09	-35.71%
KDX.TO*	Klondex Mines	$2.82	$2.54	-9.93%
KS.TO*	Klondike Silver	$0.04	$0.28	600.00%
TK	Tinka Resources*	$0.30	$0.43	43.33%
CFO	Clifton*	$4.05	$2.68	-33.83%
KDX	Klondex*	$2.82	$2.54	-9.93%
GLD	Augen Gold	$0.46	$0.22	-52.17%
PNP**	Pinetree Capital	$3.50	$1.97	-43.71%
AGQ	Arian Silver**	$0.74	$0.41	-44.59%
TSX.V:AVC**	American Vandium	$1.53	$1.59	3.92%
TSX.V: NFR**		$0.33	$0.31	-6.06%
SRD**	Strait Resources	$0.17	$0.07	-58.82%
APA**	apella Vandiam	$0.23	$0.17	-26.09%
ATC**	atec	$6.38	$6.75	5.80%
RMX	Rubicon	$4.99	$4.16	-16.63%
GPD	Golden Predators	$0.71	$0.95	33.80%
WLC	Western Lithium	$1.31	$0.77	-41.22%
AVL	Avalon Rare Metals	$5.52	$5.98	8.33%
LGO	Largo Rare Metals	$0.47	$0.41	-12.77%
AAB	Holding Gold	$0.70	$0.77	10.00%
FSH-X	fish farm	$0.42	$0.37	-11.90%
FEB-X	food additive	$0.67	$0.81	20.90%
INT-X	social media	$0.11	$0.35	218.18%
PKL-T	PC Gold	$0.73	$0.71	-2.74%
CSI	Canadian Solar		$9.57
	Rockgate Capital Corp		$1.24
MXY-T	Magma Energy
SGR-T	gold		$3.20