DAILY NEWS - FEBRUARY 22, 2010

DAILY NEWS – February 22nd, 2010

DATELINE: FRANKFURT – Lufthansa pilots have gone on strike, an action that could result in 3000 flights being cancelled over the next 4 days. British Airways is also poised to strike. To be totally honest, I have no fucking idea who to be pissed off at about this. I am pissed off. I can’t imagine how it would feel in this economy to have saved and struggled for the money to take a honeymoon or a holiday, especially those who are not in a position to do so often, and to find out the day of your flight that you are going nowhere. At least Lufthansa is reimbursing the customers, or they claim they will be. I can totally understand the position of the airline workers at being concerned over deregulation and the very real fact that their jobs are on the line. This is one of those fucking situation where there are no winners... and this is another example of how the global economy has been totally fucked over by irresponsible governments who feel the need to get involved when they can’t even run their own fucking business. It’s another example too, of how the working person takes it on the fucking chin every time. I have no doubt that holiday plans for any fucking bank CEO will be just fine though.

DATELINE: WASHINGTON – Toyota – again. You would think that a company smart enough to save hundreds of millions of fucking dollars by deliberately delaying complying with safety requirements would at least be smart enough to not brag about it in a fucking 10-page internal report. A Toyota listing their ‘successes’ report lists things like slowing down on the process of complying with industry requirements regarding side air bags (saved the company $124M AND 50,000 manpower hours), delaying installing new standard door locks (saved them $11M), and avoiding investigations about rusted truck bodies and faulty floor mats. They even negotiated to limit a 2007 recall. Among other documents is an acknowledgement that they knew about the acceleration problems years before they did any recall. Yes, Toyota, you did good. Those are great fucking successes. So, lemme ask you this, although I know god damned well that the answer is ‘settle lawsuits... many, many, many lawsuits’ ... “What will YOU do with all the money you saved?”

DATELINE: LONDON – JK Rowling is being sued for copyright infringement... again. The estate of Adrian Jacobs claims that Rowling copies substantial parts of Jacobs’ book ‘The Adventuress of Willy the Wizard – No 1 Livid Land’. All writers of the world, here is my fucking advice. When you write, keep every single fucking scrap of paper that you doodle on while writing. To be realistic, something I know many people avoid like the fucking plague, there are in reality only so many stories out there to tell. What makes the difference is the way they are told. Keep your scraps so you can protect yourself from a potential $1B settlement like this one could, rightly or wrongly, result in.

DATELINE: WASHINGTON – President Obama is about to release his newest new plan for health care reform in the US. In the event you want advice from an interested observer from across the line, and who the hell doesn’t want that, the first thing you have to do is get the fucking pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies out of the equation. As long as they fucking fund both politics and medical offices, you are totally fucked no matter what you try to do.

DATELINE: VANCOUVER – Own The Podium. If there was ever a more arrogant fucking in-yer-face un-Canadian slogan, I have no idea what it could be. This plan was ill-conceived from the beginning, pissing off the competition with our smug fucking attitude that we could actually think we could buy the Olympic Athletic Accolades, but it also built huge stupid fucking expectations in the media and the public. Now, lemme ask you this. Does it really fucking matter how many medals we win in the grand scheme of things? Does it make us a better country? Not so far. Does it save lives? Does it matter if our athletes go out and do their fucking best and NOT make it onto the podium? Does that make them less than deserving of our admiration and appreciation? The whole plan is fucked. Our priorities are fucked. Maybe one day the Olympic Games will be able to be as it was intented... a competition between athletes – not fucking governments, corporations or media outlets. Too bad it will take even more global catastrophe to get us there.

DATELINE: OTTAWA – A report issued by six Liberal Senators, headed by Colin Kenny, has indicated that there is a drastic need for proper, strong oversight of the RCMP. It proposes that members of the national police force must face an outside agency that can independently review conduct, subpoena witnesses and lay charges when the need requires, as opposed to having the organization investigate itself. Well... DUH! We can see what happens when they fucking investigate themselves. They are a national institution that has gone the way of other big national institutions – like Banks, Insurance companies and Government. They have absolutely no fucking credibility, sweeping even murders and rapes under the carpet.