The Invasion of Quebec

The tanks rolled into the Eastern Townships at roughly 3 Am to the surprise and shock of all of the people living along the borders of Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and Maine, not to mention to all of the people of Quebec. Most of the population along the borders heard the noise, the confusion and the rush of bombings and gunfire to finally realize that the United States had decided that enough was enough with the civil war raging to try and capitalize on the situation to invade and therefore claim Quebec as an extension of the States.

After the Sept. 4 elections, several things began to take shape and to change for the worse. Once in power, the Separatist Party of Quebec, which had won the elections, had decided that it was now or never to try to stage a last ditch effort at separation. With only a 52 per cent popular vote in Quebec, most had thought that a referendum was or would be impossible. What the experts hadn't figured was that in a referendum, over 80% of the people would come out and vote in favor of separation. Why was just a question for observers and the rest of Canada, where most had wanted to be rid of Quebec and their whining that they weren't being given a fair shake by the rest of Canada.

Solidarity leader, Paula Martin, had the desire to create a country out of Quebec her whole life. It was only after years of futile efforts, in a life of politics, that she would realize her dreams. Born into a poor family without even the luxury of indoor plumbing, her father was a farmer who did the best he could while trying to raise a family of 8 with just what he sold at market from his garden. She realized at a young age that she had nothing but her smarts and vision if she ever wanted to succeed at anything.

This is the first excerpt of the upcoming fictional novel that Tommy and I are collaborating on. We've put a lot of time and research into this project and when finished, we're hoping that this will be a very entertaining story for all. Remember that this is fiction, where we take advantage of all kinds of recent events!

Trading Up or Sort Of!!

One Man's Junk.

      Not Really. The fact is, I walked onto a used car lot one fine day after finally receiving my school loan with the idea of obtaining a reliable vehicle to get me from home to school and back. Without going into specifics, this dealership was known as one of the last places you would go to buy a car. Most of his cars were junks that had been left for dead by people who were in need of money and he'd have his mechanic fix them up to resell. No problem. I was pretty handy myself and enjoyed fixing cars as long as they weren't lost causes.

 What do we have here?

As I walked along the rows, I saw several that were in pretty good shape and just about every time I asked about one, he'd tell me the story of the vehicle and why the previous owner had parted with it. I'd been to this lot a few times and thought the owner seemed like a nice guy and he never tried to sell me anything. He even pointed some out, that even though they looked okay, they were basically finished and that they were headed to the crusher. Finally, I saw one that caught my eye. It was a 1987 Volkswagen Jetta that looked like it didn't belong there. Clean body and very clean interior. I asked about it and he told me that it ran well but that the brakes needed to be completely replaced. A little further down, I was blown away to see a very sharp looking grey car and only as I got closer did I realize that it was a 1988 Toyota Supra MK III.

Too much money and needs repairs.

I asked about it and he told me that the transmission was blown and that it was left on consignment for $1750. Since I was just a poor student, my budget didn't permit me to even think about it. I could only afford in the area of $1500 and that included repairs, if any, along with sales tax and insurance. I was still driving a 1984 Nissan 200sx that had way too many miles on it and I knew that it was on its way out. The dealer had quoted me a price of $300 for the Jetta and I left with a few ideas. At home, I called a neighbor, who had expressed interest in my Nissan. It didn't take long to sell my car for $800, two days later. I went back to the dealer and decided to buy the Jetta for $300. I bought 4 used calipers for $160 and took it to a friends garage and had him put new lines all over for $125. I drove out of the garage with four new tires as well for $130. My next stop was to pick up a "for sale" sign, which I promptly put on the car.

Sold and sold.

Within the week, I had several people interested in my Jetta. I sold it for $1200 to a young lady who wanted exactly what I wanted, a reliable car for the back and forth driving, to and from school. It now looked as well as it ran, which was pretty good and I had almost doubled my money in a little more than a week.
Thinking back to the Toyota, I wondered if my luck was holding out and decided to visit the dealership once again. The Supra's problem was that you could drive it but that it wouldn't shift into the cruising gear. So, driving 50 miles per hour was kind of the limit. It still looked great and only had 53,000 miles on it. I figured I would just do what I'd done with the Jetta and get it fixed. I lived in the city and I could deal with 50 miles per hour until I got it fixed. After a couple hours of making phone calls to used auto parts stores and salvage yards, I found a transmission for $300 that had come out of a Supra that was almost new that had been totaled. The guy I spoke to said the thing had been there for several years and that they would test it to make sure it worked and that they needed the space for newer stuff.

Now we're happy and styling!!

Now you may have done the math already, but I'll just put it down here just for fun. When I went car shopping, I had just under $1200 from my loan and had figured to sell my car for about $500. The way it worked out was that I sold my car for $800 and had the $1200 = $2000 total. I bought the Jetta for $300 and put $420 worth of repairs in it to finally sell it for $1200. So, $3200 minus the $720 which left me all of $2480 to spend on the Supra. It cost me $300 for the transmission and $150 to put it in which only took the mechanic around 3 hours. I dropped it off at 8am and when I went by at 11:30, it was already out in parking area. After all of that, I felt like it was a mission accomplished. I had finally gotten a car that had I wanted for a long time and never believed I could afford. It had cost a total of $2200 to purchase including repairs and a couple of weeks of wheeling and dealing. I had $280 left for transferring my plates which was about $26 and the sales tax was around $120. I didn't end up paying book value($6200) for the sales tax because the dealer had made out the papers for a salvaged title. I got lucky because the car had one owner who took care of it and had the money to spend because he had paid $32,000 for the car 8 years earlier. Now, I was the new owner of this car that only had 53,000 miles on the odometer, a near new transmission and looked like it had just come out of the showroom. I couldn't have been happier. Oh yea, the almost $150 I had left over after all was said and done enabled me to take the
young lady who bought the Jetta out to dinner, but thats another story!




In case you were wondering, the year was 1995.

What about the Constitution?

There you have it. The Constitution of the United States. Since that asshole George W. Bush became President of the United States, this document has not been worth the parchment it was written on. By signing the Patriot Act into law and the creation of Homeland Security, Bush has cleared the way for a military state to take form at the detriment of it's people. The way I understand the Patriot Act - it's creation was as a response to the attacks on the World Trade Center Twin Towers. It became law to insure that the U.S. was protected from any further terrorist attacks, such as bringing into the United States any bombs, bomb making materials and chemicals used in the creation of any kind of weapon. Got it. Great stuff. Protect your people from any and all who would hurt Americans again.

Since then, things have gotten way out of hand. After having have had to deal with Homeland Security and the US Customs and Border Protection on a regular basis myself, I'm not impressed. You would think that with all the money and resources at the disposal of Homeland Security, they would be able to come up with a screening process that doesn't take 3 hours or violate everybody's constitutional rights. Speaking mainly about the procedures in effect in Airports, the people in place with the responsibility and power just seem to have too much of it.

Recently, a man from San Diego, Ca., John Tyner, was at the airport to travel to South Dakota for a hunting trip with his father in law, who'd payed for the ticket. In line after the ID check and on his way to the metal detector, he was pulled out of the line to be made to go through the TSA's advanced imagery scan. Known as the backscatter x-ray machine, this particular piece of equipment has people opting out of its use for radiation reasons and the fact that they are very strong and seem to reveal your most intimate parts. For someone taking a domestic flight, this is obviously an exaggeration. This is just an American going to visit another state. He was then detained unlawfully, threatened with a $10,000 fine and finally let go without being able to board the plane for his refusal to submit to the newest Gestapo practices of the TSA. Opting out is a refusal to submit to screening and therefore disqualifies you from flying.



So, lets go back to the Constitution, more specifically- the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights as described by Wikipedia.

The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures. The amendment specifically also requires search and arrest warrants be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted as a response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, which is a type of general search warrant, in the American Revolution. Search and arrest should be limited in scope according to specific information supplied to the issuing court, usually by a law enforcement officer, who has sworn by it.

If this is supposed to be so, how then and why is the TSA getting away with unreasonable searches and is anybody doing anything about it?

The government is using a one time terrorist attack on an unsuspecting USA to justify all these changes, exceptions and extensions to further control its people. Big Brother is getting into your shit whether you agree, disagree, like it or not! It's kind of scary and resembles the third Reich and a few movies that have come out about dystopian social conditions. When the people have finally had enough and decide to rebel, it's going to be very interesting.

So many things are already in place that people are unaware of, don't care about or are just too stupid to even realize. Your brand new cell phones are all GPS equipped so that all your movements are recorded but you only like the fact that it can tell you to take a left turn at the next corner when you either already know or should if you looked at map and weren't so god damned lazy. People buy into all these gadgets with the latest technology even at the risk of being sent up a one way street. Buying a new car is great, you have the money or are ready to in-debt yourself into car poorness for the next 4, 5 or whatever years it takes. Weeee!! Look, this thing has ON STAR, the newest lazy asses toy for help in case of an accident. But wait!!! That's not all, now they can be used as a GPS, a tool to unlock your car, and a way to order Pizza if you are in unfamiliar territory if the commercial I recently saw is accurate. Realize that this great convenient tool is also monitoring you, knows where you are at all times and can listen to your conversations.

Are you really free? Or is it the illusion of freedom? In some countries, your movements are monitored and controlled by the state or government and the people accept this as they are not under the assumption and blind belief that they have any kind of rights other than the basic human rights to breathe and die. At least these people are not under any kind of false sense of security championed by their hypocritical governments.

Sooner or later, the masses will have enough of being controlled and lied to enough to do something about it. I wonder if that'll come about in my lifetime. The Boston Tea Party proves to Americans that once you've had enough, you'll fight back. They call it revolution. I'm still stuck on "taxation without representation" and since I know that even though we aren't controlled or taxed by the British, we are taxed from within by our own government without a choice or even a say about it. Though, that's a subject for another time.

Baby steps. Change comes about in many different ways and not without lots of hard work.

So, since I haven't been on a plane in quite a while and don't have any plans to fly anywhere anytime soon, I guess I'm safe from any unpleasant searches or detainment's. For those traveling on a regular basis, suck it up, endure it and get over it. Things are not going to get any better any time soon without some serious changes.

Until then, Americans will continue to have their supposed rights trampled on.

The King of Pop

When I was younger, music wasn't what it is today. There wasn't 50 different types of music. You had a choice between - pop, rock, soul, classical or opera. Now that list is so long with the evolution of music and the many different artists. I won't even begin to try to list all of the types available today. Starting at the age of 7 or 8, my favorite performers were the Jackson 5 and the Osmond Brothers. The Osmonds, more so for their Disney specials more than for their music and the Jackson 5 for their music. Songs like I'll be There, Ben, Never Can Say Goodbye and a whole slew of other tunes. I basically grew up listening to the Jackson 5 and Michael's solo music since there was only two or three years difference in our age. There was always some of his music playing somewhere. The reason for this is that last night, while watching TV for the first time in a couple weeks, I was watching HBO Canada and was surprised to see the Michael Jackson movie - This Is It. Now, say what you will about Michael, he was weird, gay, a pedophile or call him Wacko Jacko if you like, but sooner or later, you must admit that he was above all, an artist, entertainer and one of the best selling singer/songwriter/dancers of our time.

Over twenty years ago, sometime around 1987 or 88, myself and five friends had decided that we would go and see Michael perform his Thriller show on Halloween night in Seattle, Washington. I was living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada at the time. Now don't get me wrong, I was a die hard rock and roll fan and would never have let anyone think that I was even listening to his music. On the other hand, I have to admit that in the 80's, things were quite different and most of the clubs were playing big hair rock and there were many successful artists who were playing dance music. Anyway, the reason we all wanted to go see Michael was the fact that we knew his popularity was winding down and we may not get another chance to see this performance being that the Thriller album was already 5 years or so old. That and the fact that he'd started having the reported skin treatments and plastic surgery on his face which made many believe that he was losing it. So, we bought our tickets at 120 dollars each and we all pitched in to rent a limo to take us to Seattle. All together, this evening was costing us over 500 dollars each- not to mention the drugs we had decided on bringing. A week before the show, Michael was burned doing the Pepsi commercial and canceled the rest of his tour. We got our money back from the tickets and the deposit on the limo since it was still a week away. We lucked out, although none of us ever had a chance to see him again. I find this to be a disappointment because he didn't, to my knowledge, tour during the 90's- at least not in my neck of the woods. So, for his last shows, he wasn't even going to perform any of them in the US. The This Is It shows were all going to be performed in London. Sad for us and then his untimely death sealed the deal that we weren't going to see him ever again until this movie was made showing the rehearsals of his last shows. He still had it at 50 years of age. He still had his voice, his moves and his charisma. What a shame that it's all over. I didn't know him personally, so I couldn't venture an opinion about his private life other than it was a little bizarre. I don't really believe in the allegations of pedophilia since he was, by his actions and weird lifestyle, an easy target for people to try to get some money from him. I could be wrong, but it doesn't matter much anymore. All I can say is that he was one of the greatest entertainers of my time. I'm not afraid to admit that I liked most of his music and all of his moves. Who among us has never tried to MoonWalk? Yes, we are going to miss him, but his music will live on.

It seems like at least once a week, one of my childhood heroes passes away. Whether it's an athlete, movie star or just simply someone whos work I have admired. This morning, Dennis Hopper passed on at the age of 74. At least he was finally given his star on the Walk of Fame this past March. I realise that I am no longer a young man and that anybodys turn could be next. It has all gone by so quickly, my father is 87 and we just moved him into a seniors residence. Life sucks and then you die. The point I'm trying to make is that one day, you just wake up and see that life has run it's course. Yesterday, my father told my sister and I that he didn't know anybody at the residence. The reason being is that, at his age, he's outlived most of his friends and family. We are all back in our hometown- all of us, that's what is so scary. When I was younger, raising hell, treating my body like I'll be leaving here soon and not caring about much, I never figured getting old was in the equation. Now, reality sets in and everything looks so damn serious.

Loving the Olympics

That's right, after 5 solid days of the Vancouver Canada Games, we've been treated to some of the greatest performances by the finest winter athletes in the world. Canada has done a great job so far. After starting out in tragedy, with the death of one of the athletes, things have really heated up.
The Georgian Luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, came to a crashing halt on one of the steel support beams at almost 90 MPH when he was thrown from the track that many had said was too fast. A very sad moment in Olympic History. My heart goes out to the family of this 20 year old athlete who paid a very steep price for following his dream of an Olympic gold medal

Since then, the games have gone off without a hitch. The host country, my homeland, has only been able to come away with two gold medals. The first to ever capture a gold medal on home turf was Alexandre Bilodeau who took the gold in the Mens Freestyle Moguls. He was followed by the beautiful Maelle Ricker who won the gold medal in the Womens Snowboard Cross. I was able to watch all of this competition and was surprised at how nerve racking this sport is. My favorite in this event was Lindsey Jacobellis from the USA, but after her fall in the semi-final heat, it didn't take me too long to switch alliance to the crowd favorite, Maelle.
She ran away with the win right from the start, never looking behind her and finishing far ahead of the closest competitor. Great race.

The Canadian Womens Ice Hockey team seems to be on a mission as well. In their first two games they have outscored the competition 18-0(Slovakia) and 10-1 over Switzerland. The US Women are doing the same thing with blowouts of 12-1 over China followed by a 13-0 ravaging of Russia. All of these blowouts are cause for concern as the IOC is not impressed with the level of competition. At least these scores don't compare to the 83-0 thrashing that Slovakia served up to Bulgaria in the Olympic qualifications. If this is any consolation, the Mens Hockey Teams, again the US and Canada, are doing the same thing to their opponents. Personally, I don't believe its the lack of competition so much as the outright domination of these teams. Lets face it, if you put the best players on three teams- the two mentioned and add the Russian Men - you have the best of the best. There you have it. So far. Stay tuned for more.

The World shifts to Canada for the 2010 Winter Games

All Eyes on Vancouver


The 2010 Winter Olympics begin Friday as the world shifts to the Western Canadian city of Vancouver in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. This will be the second time that the winter games head to Canada after the Calgary games in 1988. With any luck, Canada hopes to come away with at least one Gold medal on it's home turf after being shutout in Calgary and in the 1976 Montreal Summer Games, the only other time the Olympic Games were held in Canada.
For those who don't know anything about Canada except the fact that only Eskimos live there and everyone plays hockey and says Ehyy, you are in for an education. As the second largest country in terms of land, you would think that it would have the the second largest population in the world. The truth is that more than half is unpopulated due to weather conditions and travel restrictions. This is why the site of the 2010 winter games makes sense since it's very close to the border of Washington state and just under 3 hours from Seattle. With a population of just under 4.5 million, with just about half of that in metro Vancouver, that makes Vancouver the third largest city in Canada behind Toronto and Montreal respectively. I had the privilege of being a resident of Vancouver and B.C. for 6 and 1/2 years in the 80's. I loved living there and was sorry to leave when I came back to the East Coast in 1989. In a city where the mountains are visible from downtown and the ocean just down the street, it's very hard not to be in awe on a daily basis. Stanley Park, to me is one of the most beautiful parks in the world. It is also one of the few in the world where you have to drive through the middle to get to the bridge that brings you to the Northern section of this beautiful city. The Lions Gate Bridge is the gateway to North Vancouver and Deep Cove, another well kept secret.

What looks like you are heading into the Mountains is really the drive over to North Vancouver and the way to Deep Cove. This area is easily one of the most beautiful spots, amongst many, in B.C. North Vancouver is one of the most exclusive residence areas in the Northern Hemisphere. Very expensive and secluded, many of the residents are those of the privileged few. North Vancouver is the place of choice for many artists and musicians. In fact, Little Mountain Sound is the place where Bon Jovi recorded their "Slippery When Wet" album way back in 1986. That album is just one of many recorded there.

One of the least talked about attributes to this beautiful city is the tolerance of the use of Marijuana. Although illegal, the use of weed in British Columbia is pretty much tolerated. There are several cannabis coffee shops in Vancouver, although I doubt that this will affect any of the performances coming from the winter games.

If you are planning a vacation to anywhere, you owe it to yourself to visit this great city and see for yourself. Don't take my word for it, go see for yourself. The nightlife is second to none and the people are some of the nicest on this continent. Not to mention that the Canadian Dollar makes it a very affordable destination for those of you who want a taste of Hollywood North as this area has been the destination and breeding ground for many of your favorite TV shows and movies- even if you are not aware of it. I know that these Olympic games are going to be a whole lot of fun. Although, you really just need to see for yourself!