PC Non Smoking

The Calgary Conservative MLA who oversees the provincial agency on the attack against addictions, figures a new-look Alberta Tory government, complete with a fresh-out-of-the-box frontman, could nix nicotine in public places as early as spring next year. So the politicians ready for battle, once the Conservatives pick their general. As for the smokers who feel their rights are being denied, Dave doesn't blink. "They still have the right to smoke. They just can't smoke everywhere." Smoke ban battle heats up

We don't smoke everywhere, we can hardly smoke anywhere anymore, in fact we can't smoke in public period. And the draconian attacks on smokers go unabated, we are such whimps when it comes to standing up for our rights.

One of them is the right to smoke in a well ventilated, smoke free environment. But such an alternative is not enshrined in any of the anti-smoking laws in the province. A combination of electorstatic dispersion systems and effective air exhaust would be required, but such systems have not been an option in bylaws passed in Alberta.

Because the taxpayer funded lobby groups like ASH claim that even that is too much for them. They, like the vegan anti-hunting types who are opposed to all hunting period, want NO SMOKING period.

Oh did I mention they are taxpayer funded, with taxes made off cigarettes. We actually pay for these loon's to ban us from public. Did I mention smokers are whimps, we are so guilt ridden that we can barely put up a fight against these extremist laws. And they have only 300 members. 300!!! But they have the doctors monopoly on their side. And whimpy politicians, who have a moral agenda because they are opposed to smoking due to their belonging to a religious cult.

Yep the Alberta PC party is living up to its initials by being Politically Correct. Typical they continue beat up on the poor, the disabled and addicts.

Environmental Tobacco Smoke
in the Nonsmoking Section of a Restaurant:
A Case Study

This study tested the concentrations of environmental
tobacco smoke (ETS) components in a small
restaurant/pub with smoking and nonsmoking areas—
a facility outfitted with a heat-recovery ventilation
system and directional airflow. The ETS levels in the
nonsmoking area were compared with those in other
similar restaurants/pubs where indoor smoking is altogether
prohibited. The results indicate that ETS
component concentrations in the nonsmoking section
of the facility in question were not statistically different

See Smokers Rights



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Whyte Trash Avenue

Ah spring has sprung in Edmonton, how do I know, let me count the ways....broken windows up and down Whyte Avenue. The usual trash blowing down the street, and heck that was before the Oilers were in the playoffs. Now with the playoffs there are more cops on Whyte and we should see a reduction in trashing. Cops on Whyte


After the playoffs the trashing of Whyte will continue because the city still has not restricted the amount of bars opening, nor have they effectively developed a community based policing policy for Whtye.

One of those policies would be that bar, lounge, alcohol serving establishments would pay a head tax to the Old Scona Business Association, and the Strathcona Community league, a per person capacity charge. This tax would then pay for damages to stores along Whyte. Cause that damage is going to occur, Oilers or no.

The street from Mill Creek to 109th cannot handle the thousands of drunks and partiers that it attracts on weekends as soon as the weather warms up. And this year the warm weather means we had trashing all the way up and down Whyte between 99 St. and 109St. already even before the playoffs. And before the dreaded July 1 Canada party, which in 2001 resulted in a drunken riot.

And for those folks who live off Whyte, the funds could be used for community clean up of the broken bottles and trash that gets left around, and for propety damage.

Yep tax the bars who serve the booze that causes the probelms, oh and while we are at it, a bit of capacity enforcement by the beat cops would put the owners in line as well. Shut a few bars and lounges down and folks will enforce the laws on their own.

Unfortunate but true. Taxes and regulations work in making capitalists do 'the right thing'.

Old Strathcona: building character and commerce in a preservation district
Journal article by Karen L. Wall; Urban History Review, Vol. 30, 2002

Following civic celebrations for Canada Day 2001, Edmonton's Whyte Avenue in the Old Strathcona Historical Preservation District was the scene of the worst riot in the city's history. Hundreds of people headed to the area and more emerged from the bars as they closed. Violence was directed mainly toward property destruction, vandalism, and looting--and toward the police riot squad that responded to reports of disturbances. Analysis of the event attributed blame to several influences, including actions of the media in associating Canadian patriotism with beer and partying (hockey sticks were a favoured weapon), and the reportedly aggressive and confrontational attitude of the police. Most common contributing factor, though, was previous calls to City Council to finally act on the long-standing problems related to the fact that activity in the Old Strathcona area was not regulated. It's Edmonton's party street, a dense concentration of bars and dance clubs and coffee houses and restaurants, where people come to play ... the street is also packed with young people cruising in their cars. They head there, almost out of herd instinct, because Whyte Ave is 'the' place to go. (1) In thirty years, a community-driven heritage conservation program had evolved into a commercial leisure magnet for the entire city, raising questions about the definition of "successful development."

Old Strathcona's Challenge

Old Strathcona - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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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.


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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


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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

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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

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Told Ya

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



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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.

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Blogging Iraq

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


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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



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