There's one born every minute

So I read the headline and thought uh oh this is serious, we could be in for trouble.

Beware the sophisticated style of spam to come
Unless new weapons are designed to keep junk mail at bay, spammers are about to get the upper hand in the war in cyberspace.

Then I read the article and realised, nope not me. I am not stupid.

"If you get a piece of email from someone you know, it's written the way they normally write their email and signed the way they sign their email [and] it says, 'Hey, click on this link,' what are you going to do? Well, you're probably going to click on the link," Aycock told CBC News. Spammers get increasingly sophisticated: Calgary study

That's why I use mail washer, to prescreen my email, and you should too, after all it's free.


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
spam, virus, trojan, zombie-computers, email, cyberspace, internet, WWW

Softwood Baseball Bat

Well the Harpocrites have given the American protectionists a big stick with which to beat us with.

US lumber producers may use softwood deal money to sue Canada

A stick bought and paid for by us with illegal tarrifs,ouch.

But the pain doesn't stop there.....

The agreement includes a cap on Canada's share of the U.S. lumber market and a sliding tax triggered when the North American price falls below $355 US for a thousand board feet. UBS Investment Research analyst Jaret Anderson said "the fact Canadian producers will pay a larger export tax in a weak lumber market may be problematic for Canadian producers."Good in good times, but . . .

ouch, ouch, ohh stop the pain.

But at least the Harpocrites made this guy happy.....which was all that mattered to them......U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins yesterday called the softwood lumber deal the proof that Canada matters in Washington, and the precursor of a new era of co-operation between the two countries.US hails new era after deal

That's just adding insult to injury. Stop already. Oh the pain, the pain.

More criticism of the Softwood Sellout


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
softwood, lumber-deal, NAFTA, Harper, Bush, Wilson, Wilkins, housing,

The Green Goddess

Absinthe, the word conjours up artistic dwarves, Can-Can, Degas, Ravachol, the tinny piano stylings of Erik Satie.

And now the Green Goddess ,or Green Fairy, as the drink was known has returned.

Over the past couple of years it has reappeared at clubs and amongst the student crowd. It has been mostly the name combined with overproof alcohol.

The only real Absinthe available for some time in Europe that actually contained wormwood, the active ingrident, came from the Czech Republic

Banned as a psuedo-narcotic, it is actually a sporific against narcotics and an antidote to the poision of the blowfish (used to create le Zombie). The hysteria around Absinthe causing madness and addiction is not unlike the establishments hysteria around drungs period.

Just Say No to Drugs hysteria didn't begin with the Reagan Era but earlier at the turn of last century around Absinthe, and of course then spread to Marijuana, morphine and opiates and cocaine. All mythologised as leading to either madness, or social debauchery, or gasp, the white slave trade, or all of the above. It was a moral crusade, the politics of social control, and had nothing to do with whether any of these drugs actually did the damage the anti-drug propagandists used as their excuse to ban them. Such was also the case with LSD.



Return of the Green Fairy: absinthe is back after chemist clones drink banned in 1915

By the turn of the century - the "Belle Epoque", when Paris was the artistic and literary centre of the world - the smell and taste of absinthe pervaded France but especially the bohemian world of artists and writers in Parisian cafés and dance halls such as Le Rat Mort and Le Chat Noir.

David Nathan-Maister is a British-based trader in antique and new absinthes and absinthe memorabilia, who runs the best absinthe site on the internet - the Virtual Absinthe Museum (www.oxygenee.com). He says that absinthe was the victim of a manipulation. "There never was anything dangerous about absinthe, so long as it was made properly and drunk sensibly," he said.

By the end of the 19th century, the French wine industry had recovered from the phylloxera infestation and wanted its market back.

An unholy alliance formed between the wine lobby, the temperance lobby and conservative politicians who associated absinthe with avant-garde bohemianism. There are now several makers of reasonably authentic absinthe, in France, Spain and Switzerland. However, David Nathan-Maister believes that Ted Breaux's "Jade" absinthes are the only ones to get close to the taste of the pre-1915 original.

To make absinthe, take an ounce of Wormwood, specifically Artemsia Absinthium (there are many forms of Wormwood so you need to use the Absinithium specifically) herb add it too two bottles of Pernod, soak for a week to ten days, strain, take the herbal residue and cook up as a tea, let tea sit for five days, mix the two extracts together, and let sit for a week to ten days. The longer it cures the stronger it gets. This is my personal recipe (c) Here are some others.

Most use sugar and vodka, or a combination of macicated herbs, using Pernod avoids the complication of using other herbs, as the wormwood is actually the missing ingrident from Pernod.

Absinthe is still illegal in the United States, so again most so called absinthe drinks are not, they are falvoured overproof alcohol.

Noxious Weed Information:
Artemisia absinthium L.

This plant is listed by the U.S. federal government or a state. Common names are from state and federal lists. Click on a place name to get a complete noxious weed list for that location.

Colorado:
absinth wormwood		B list (noxious weeds)
North Dakota:
absinth wormwood		Noxious weed
Washington:
absinth wormwood		Class C noxious weed

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
wormwood, absinthe, Green-Fairy, Green-Goddess, Pernod, liquor, France, Paris

Battle of Alberta

Will there be a battle of Alberta?

With both the Flames and Oilers tied with their respective opponents, after last nights games, who knows?

It's edge of your seat NHL hockey.

Yikes this actually makes the playoffs exciting.

For Albertans. Klein slip shows split allegiance: Oilers vs Flames

Rock-solid Roloson gives Oilers confidence

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
hockey, NHL, playoffs, Oilers, Flames, RedWings, Ducks, Alberta

Told Ya

Nice to be right about the Harprocrite.... Harper's staff behind media ban, sources say



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Harper, O'Connor, Flag-flap, politics, government, DND, CFB-Trenton, military, CF, repatriation, media

Boom Boom

It looks like David Dodge head of the Bank of Canada is stuck back in the eighties when thanks to constant high interest rates the Canadian economy flatened out. Now with the Loonie replacing the pound as the Petro Dollar our economy is booming, and once again Dodge is planning to raise interests rates. Which would be counter-productive.

David Dodge sounds alarm about inflation

The Bank of Canada issued its semi-annual report and solidified expectations another rate hike is pending, despite having raised rates six times since September.

The Canadian dollar closed at 89.04 cents, up from Wednesday's close of 88.61 cents -- the highest since November, 1991, and continuing a surge that started earlier in the week. Mr. Dodge's comments yesterday clearly exposed his fear that inflationary pressure, which has been negligible for more than two years, is no longer as benign as once thought.

"Given these divergent signals from the Bank of Canada and the Fed, look for the Canadian dollar to strengthen in the near term, trading decisively through 90 U.S. cents," said Craig Alexander, deputy chief economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Indeed, Peter Frank, a Chicago-based currency strategist for ABN Amro, wrote yesterday that the loonie would break through 95 cents by the end of this year, the strongest since May, 1977.

And Bank of Montreal economist Sal Guatieri sees the loonie at 92 cents by next year, assuming that commodities prices soften somewhat. If they strengthen, he sees the Canadian dollar moving up to 95 or even 96 cents -- a level not seen for nearly 30 years.

But a growing number of economists say the Bank of Canada should stop raising rates before that happens. Earlier this week, CIBC World Markets warned that the central bank risks overshooting by raising rates when there are few signs of inflationary pressure.

Yesterday, TD Bank added its voice, saying the central bank should hold off on further increases because there is no evidence higher energy prices are causing other prices to rise significantly.

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Canada, dollar, loonie, Dodge, Bank-of-Canada, inflation, economy, petro-dollar

Blogging Iraq

A great news aggregator blog on Iraq is Today in Iraq. And no there are no planted Pentagon stories.


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Iraq, news, USA, Bush, War

In Defense of Migration

Two thoughtful articles on migration and the current white whing wascist hysteria in the U.S. about 'illegal aliens' appear on the Thomas Paine's Corner blog. Well worth the read.

Your Huddled Masses are my Wretched Refuse:

African-Americans, Economic Well-Being, and Immigration



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
illegal-aliens, USA, Mexico, Border, minutemen, migration, latinos, African-Americans, emigration, immigration, free-labour, sans-papier

Bank Charges

Here is a good news story for banking customers for once; CIBC to refund $27M to clients who were overcharged

However one has to ask why we pay service charges period.

Especially when this happens;Citing more than 1,000 mistakes a day in preauthorized bank debits across Canada, a coalition of consumers' groups is calling on Ottawa for consumer protection legislation on electronic payments.

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Canada, Banks, service-charges, CIBC, preauthorized-chequing, debitcards, debit, ATM, Interac

Ashamed of Being A Tory

This nutbar is ashamed of being a blogging Tory....except he has also been a Liberal and a Green blogger.

Of course the Blogging Tories have never heard of him as he is not on their roll.Which is a shame since he tries so hard to be one of them.

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
werner, patels, Alberta, blog, bloggers, Tory, Blogging-Tories, Canada, politics