Jan. 11th, 2007; This morning we got dumped with a lot of fresh snow which will be good news for skiers and people who enjoy other outdoor fun activities. Once again I had to get the shovel and clear away the walkway of snow. It sure looks nice with all this fresh snow covering the landscape. We are now back to our normal winter weather. I see in the news that the former Indonesian dictator, Suharto is near death. Good, and good riddance to that monster! For 30 years, almost everything in Indonesia had revolved around Suharto. As a young general, Suharto, who like many of his fellow Indonesians used only one name, was one of the few military leaders to escape the attempted coup that in 1965 ousted Sukarno, the left-leaning strongman who was then president for life. As a wave of killing swept across the country, Suharto took control, although he left Sukarno in place as a figurehead before naming himself president in 1968. Ruling with a heavy iron hand, the country's economy grew strong, as did Suharto's personal fortune and those of his family members, who became billionaires many times over. He ruled the 200 million people of the world's most populous Muslim nation for 32 years after taking power in a military coup in 1965. His "new order" held the vast country together and brought economic development but his regime was marked by corruption and by gross abuses of human rights. At least half a million people, many of Chinese ethnic origin, have died in massacres which had accompanied his rise to power. Despite this dictator had stolen the Indonesian crown jewels, his atrocious history of terror during his reign in power, Suharto was viewed for decades as a reliable Cold War ally of the Americans, which allowed him to conquer East Timor. He had secret military pacts with Washington and shared intelligence data with them and had permitted US nuclear submarines to pass through vital sea lanes between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. By 1997, unrest grew as Suharto seemed unable to cope with the country's economic crisis. Mass protests against his regime gathered force as the Asian financial crisis revitalized the political opposition. One year later, Jakarta was in flames as rioting mobs ran throughout the country. Soldiers shot thousands of civilian protesters as the economy continued to collapsed. Suharto had spared the country of a potential civil war by stepping down and handing over power peacefully, once his army chief had pledged that Suharto and his family would be safe. He stepped down on May 21, 1998. He offered an apology to the nation but managed to avoid prosecution by claiming ill health. Well, his lies and atrocities has caught up with him. May he suffer in agony and has a hard agonizing death!

I see that a fellow artists has recovered some of her lost work. According to an NTV news report, a local artists in North Bay has managed to recover much of her work that went missing when a small store suddenly had shut down two months ago. The experience has these artists who had left their paintings on consignment, find new ways to market their pieces to help prevent this from happening again. The store that had closed suddenly. had accepted artwork fron these artists on consignment, an arrangement that allows the business to pocket a percentage of the sale. In the case of landscape artist Alice Orley Smith, she had several of her smaller paintings returned, but said she may not recover her two large Group of Seven inspired pieces in time for her Canada's Brilliance exhibition that will run for two weeks starting Jan. 29 at the WKP Kennedy Gallery. At least three artists lost their work when the store closed, and only Saile had entered into a written contract with the store before releasing her work. I had the same experience of loosing my painting when I had entered into contracts with various art galleries and had left my paintings on consignment, at art galleries in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Like the artists in North Bay, I had managed to recover some of my paintings, but others have never been recovered again. The art galleries had accepted my artwork on consignment, the same arrangement that allows the business to pocket a percentage of the sale of my paintings. After a while, I stopped leaving my paintings on consignment to art dealers because I felt no trust with whoever the dealer or art gallery may be. I sold my paintings on my own from then on. Once that trust is gone, it is hard to ever regain it.

Women are being left out in the cold when women are banned from competing in the ski jump competition in the Winter Olympics that is being held here in Canada. I think our modern 21st Century world still has some serious flaws in it. I had not even realized that women are being banned from competing in the ski jump competition in the winter Olympics which is being held in B.C. , before today. I am not a sports fan, but this kind of discrimination is totally ridiculous, and outrageous in this day and age. That kind of bigoted thinking goes back to the 4th century CE, if not the Stone Age, when women were banned from doing many things, for goodness sake! These are the same type of chauvinistic morons who insist to ban women from competing in the ski jump. What a ridiculous, bigoted ruling! Any Canadians with a sense of decency should ban or boycott the Winter Olympics because that kind of thing do not belong in Canada or in a modern society. Women like Catherine White of Brampton, Ont., scored a pair of goals to lead Canada to a 7-1 semifinal win over Sweden at the inaugural women's world under-18 hockey championship . Canada's Helen Upperton and Heather Moyse earned a silver medal in women's World Cup bobsleigh action in Cortina, yesterday. These women were not banned from competing in other sports activities. so why in the ski jump competition in the winter Olympics? Gian Franco Kasper, the presdient of the International Ski Federation, has banned women from ski jumping because, according to him, it's "too dangerous" for them. Get a load of this Cave Man's mentality! The International Ski Federation has ruled that ski jumping is too dangerous for women, making it the only winter Olympic sport that has male competitors and no female counterparts. The fight to get women's ski jumping on the Olympic agenda took a big leap forward yesterday as an important ally emerged from within the ranks of the International Olympic Committee. Beckie Scott, the cross-country gold medalist and nordic ski icon, threw her support behind the initiative spearheaded by Canada's team of teens to break the male-only barrier, calling the IOC's stance "unjust" and that she was sympathetic and supportive of the women ski jumpers and their efforts to gain entry in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The federal and provincial governments said they intend to express their concerns when IOC president Jacques Rogge visits Vancouver next month. Helena Guergis, federal secretary of state for sport, said she doesn't accept the IOC's position. "We will call our partners together to best explore how to approach the International Olympic Committee to ask them to reconsider their decision," she said. Colin Hansen, the provincial minister responsible for the Olympics, said he, too, will press home his concerns with Rogge. Ski jumping and Nordic combined are the last two male-only winter sports in the Olympics.

There is a new Anti-smoking campaign which makes the ridiculous claim that, get this!, that "Smoking Makes You Ugly And Unattractive". They claim that smoking has a bad effects on skin, and other parts of the human body, despite that there are many factors that determine the condiction of a persons skin, or how a person looks. I have seen smokers who still have good skin tone and a healthy appearance. At least until they reach 80-100 years of age. Frankly, on the rare occation when I look at myself in the nude in the mirror, my body do not look bad at all, for a smoker. No purplish blotches or wrinkly skin . It is still smooth and silky. I have seen many non-smokers, men and woman, in their 50s, who's faces are etched with a lot of wrinkles, some, their skin is shriveled up and looks like an old prune, some even have big purplish blotches on their skin. It do not take a brain surgeon to figure out something is amiss with these Anti-smoking claims. Boy, these people sure got that lying and deceiving tactic down pat. They must have learned that from a certain religion, which had lied to, and deceived pretty well the entire world at one point in time, and continue to do so today. I will not mention that perverted Baal religion at this time, because of the New Year resolution I had made. This new Anti-smoking campaign makes one more bogus claim, among a long, long list of false claims. What a bunch of deceiving morons they are!

During the past few days, I had been busy helping my friend, Sharen to gut out her basement because water had seeped into her basement from that thaw we had. Sharen had come over to my place and related to me that her mother and children were getting sick due to mold that had suddenly appear. I will not see her face her distress on her own, despite that it involved having to work through the weekend. Sharren is a single divorced mom who is looking after her two children and her 80 year old mother while still trying to hold a full time job. Once Sharen moved the children and mother out of the house and put them up in a motel, we started ripping out some of the walls and removed the soggy fiberglass insulation . We found a great deal of mold which had formed on the concrete foundation walls and under the sub floor. We had to move furniture and many items in order to rip the wall panels and get rid of the wet fiberglass insulation, and mold. We also had to rip out some of the sub floor. We also had to find another place for her mother because she coulkd no longer stay in her basement bedroom. We found a nice dry and heated sun room in another part of the house, which we had to renovate. All in all, it was a daunting chore and expence Sharen was facing. While we got the worst area stripped and aired out, Sharen will have to rip out the rest of the walls and sub floor to see where else water may be seeping into her basement. Water was seeping through the sound concrete blocks which the foundation walls was made of, they could not have been coated with a sealer or with tar on the exterior walls. The weeping tile must also be plugged up, if any weeping tile had been installed around the house. She will have to check that out. Sharen and her mother had bought the house last spring. No doubt Sharen will have to get a contractor to dig around the entire house to expose the foundation walls and do what must be done to stop this water seepage that is getting into her basement.

After U.S. President George W. Bush had spoken to his lap dog, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, he went to Saudi Arabia, which is one of the strictest regimes in the world under the rule of oil-rich King Abdullah from which many of Islam jihadis terrorists emanate from. They typically operate as insurgents in Iraq or Afghanistan to kill Americans and Canadians. This is the kind of company that U.S. President George W. Bush is rubbing elbows with. In 1986, Bush's father, then the vice-president under Ronald Reagan, went to Saudi Arabia to meet with his oil partner, the then-King Fahd. These Arab terrorists were greatly influenced by their religion of Islam, and by Islamic propaganda books and films which are readily available in Saudi Arabia. According to American authorities, they claim that about 40 per cent of the foreign fighters who went to Iraq and Afghanistan who join the insurgency over the past year are from Saudi Arabia. I also recall that 15 out of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia. This is the U.S. President who is pushing the "peace plan" which will bring Israel under UN control. Latest news is that eight people were killed and six other people were wounded at a luxury hotel frequented by foreigners in Kabul on Monday Jan. 14th, 2008. Norwegian journalist Carsten Thomassen, 38, died in the blast, along with an American whose identity hasn't been released. A spokesperson for the hotel said three hotel workers and two guards were killed. The Philippines Foreign Affairs Department said a Filipina spa supervisor wounded in the attack died on Tuesday. A Taliban spokesman said it was a co-ordinated Islamic suicide bomber and gun attack. According to a CBC report, Zabiullah Mujahid, a person claiming to speak for the Taliban, told the Associated Press that a suicide bomber blew himself up and three other militants with grenades and guns had attacked the Serena Hotel in central Kabul. Two officials from the U.S. State Department confirmed that eight people had died, but some of their identities remained unclear. There were at least three militants were carrying grenades and firing AK-47s. Another militant had blew himself up, killing people close to him. Hundreds of police converged on the hotel, as some of the attackers were still believed to be inside the building. Police kept journalists and onlookers far from the building, because it was a scene of utter chaos, the Associated Press reported. This is what Islam had brought to the world, death and destruction.

Jan. 17th, 2007; U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington that he has some doubts about the effectiveness of NATO countries that have sent large numbers of combat troops to fight in the south. He was worried that some European NATO military forces don't know how to do counterinsurgency operations because they have not been trained in counterinsurgency. Gates also lauded Canadian forces for their efforts in spearheading the fight in the southern regions. Liberal defense critic Denis Coderre Coderre said at the very least, the comments smack of insensitivity in light of the most recent death of another Canadian soldier that was killed by a roadside bomb, north of Kandahar on Wednesday. The report also had sparked an angry reaction from some British, Dutch and Canadian politicians. Especially when U.S. troops are not doing any better in their efforts to combat insurgents in Iraq. L.A. Times journalist Peter Spiegel stuck to the story he broke, that Gates was very clear in his criticisms and had doubts about the training that Afghan troops have received by the U.S.'s allies in the region. Gates' reported comments came to light the day after Washington authorized the deployment of 3,200 U.S. marines to Afghanistan in April,2008 after failing to convince European countries to provide reinforcements. Most of the U.S. troops will be deployed to the south to strengthen NATO forces there ahead of an expected increase of Taliban and insurgent activity with the spring thaw. The U.S. has 14,000 troops with the 42,000-strong NATO-led force, the rest are training Afghan forces and hunting al Qaeda terrorists. Canada has about 2,500 troops currently serving in the Afghan mission, most of them stationed in the southern province of Kandahar.

Seven more Canadian soldiers were injured in two incidents involving suspected roadside bombs in southern Afghanistan. The incidents occurred just hours apart on Wednesday in the same area where a Canadian soldier had been killed by a roadside bomb on Tuesday. This latest incedient happened during a patrol operation in the Panjwaii district, about 35 kilometres southwest of Kandahar City. The soldiers were evacuated by helicopter and sent to a multinational hospital where they were treated for their injuries. The six soldiers were released from hospital on Wednesday night. The attacks came on the same day as hundreds of soldiers lined the tarmac of Kandahar airfield to pay tribute to their fallen comrade, Richard Renaud had been killed by a roadside bomb on Tuesday when he was on a routine patrol in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province, about 10 kilometres north of the city of Kandahar, when that blast occurred. I can not help but wonder how much of that $300-million aid our Canadian government has given over to those Muslim Palestinian terrorists in Israel, has gone over to help the Talibans in Afghanistan.

A suspected suicide attacker detonated a bomb at a Shia mosque in the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar late Thursday, killing at least three people and injuring 20, police said. Shia Muslim men inspect damage at a mosque in Peshawar after a suicide attack. The blast comes as minority Shia Muslims prepare to mark the Ashoura festival, which in previous years has been marred by sectarian violence involving rival Sunnis.

Ottawa on Thursday announced plans to create "made-in-Canada" fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks, noting they would be at least as stringent as regulations recently introduced in the U.S. "We welcome the U.S. goal, but are committed to developing made-in-Canada standards that achieve, at minimum, that same target in Canada," Federal Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon said at a press conference at the Montreal International Auto Show. Cannon said by 2020, the average new vehicle sold in Canada will offer better fuel consumption than some hybrid cars on the road today. He also noted the cars will spew out fewer greenhouse gas emissions than about 93 per cent of all vehicles listed in the 2008 Fuel Consumption Guide. Environmental groups criticized the announcement, saying the regulations aren't being phased in quickly enough. The delay will cause both damage to the environment and cost consumers billions of dollars at the pumps. Here are a couple of cars at the Montreal International Auto Show.

The Avenger SE starts at $21.995,00 (the SXT model) has a starting price of $24,095.00 with pricing out to just over $27,370.00 for the 2.4L four cylinder engine, producing 173hp, coupled to a four speed automatic transmission in the 2008 Dodge Avenger. the 2.4L four cylinder in the Avenger averaged 8.6L/100km.

What will all this 2008 Honda Pilot mid-size SUV in SE trim, which replaces the EX model. cost you? The base Pilot starts at $36,820 for the LX-2WD model; choosing the SE causes the price to jump to $43,990. Standard for all Pilots is a 3.5liter V6 engine mated to a 5-speed automatic transmission. The engine produces 244hp and 240lb-ft of torque and runs on good old regular fuel. Towing capacity for all AWD equipped Pilots is rated at 2045kg (4500lbs). A large vehicle like the Pilot feels smaller and smaller the more you drive it. The fuel tank takes over 48 litres of fuel with an average of 13.9L/100km, which isn’t spectacular by any means.

The new cars at the Montreal International Auto Show can't compeat with the Nano. The basic model could sell for around $3,000.00 CA to cover taxes, delivery and other charges. The Nano has rear-wheel drive and a two-cylinder, 35-horsepower engine, and can reach speeds of 60 mph, and it meets all safety and environmental requirements, Baig said. It is 3.1 meters long. Instrument panel consist of speedometer with odometer and a fuel gage. It seats 4 adults. It's Cute as a Bug and average about 4.0 L/100 km. This could mean global disaster for the rest of the auto makers. Ratan Tata had long dreamed of giving middle-class Indian families a safer alternative to piling mom, dad and the kids onto the only motorized transportation they could afford, a motorcycle or a motor scooter. A family of four has to ride precariously on their motorcycle or motor scooter, which you see everywhere. He would give them four wheels, a roof, a steering wheel, and a sense of privilege, because that's what a car still means in India. Still, by putting distribution in the hands of its dealers, taking advantage of cheap Indian labor and using lower-cost materials, Tata Motors has driven the price of a car down to levels never seen before, which say's very little about the other automakers, and what they are trying to produce.