Canadian jobs...gone · Wednesday March 7, 2007 by colin newell
TORONTO — As many as 700 workers at Air Canada’s Vancouver maintenance facility will lose their jobs because of a decision by Delta Air Lines Inc. to move work on its jets to China to take advantage of cheaper labour costs.
Air Canada Technical Services (ACTS), a division of Air Canada parent ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. said today that Atlanta-based Delta, has decided to terminate its contract and relocate airframe work on about 100 wide-body Boeing 767 jets.
Cheaper labour costs huh?
My wife was in a series of meetings in Vancouver not too long ago that included neo-con guest-speakers from the likes of the Fraser Institute (Conservative think-tank run by rich old businessmen…), British Columbia Liberals and other high-rollers.
This was at a time when the Liberal government in B.C. just finished gutting the apprenticeship programs – figured we didn’t need apprenticeship programs anymore. Right.
Various neo-cons were getting up and rah-rahing the Liberal party for their right-thinking… no pun intended.
Then one of my wife’s bleeding-heart left-leaning fuzzy thinker friends stood up and said…
Sir. How did you get here today? By plane you say? Indeed. Now, as your jet is screaming down the runway… thousands of pounds of airplane and thousands of pound of thrust… defying the laws of gravity… Would you rather have a B.C. certified and Federally certified journeyman aviation mechanic maintaining that aircraft or some minimum wage hump from some third-world outsourced back-water? Well?
There was a modest round of applause for the fuzzy-thinker.
And it is my point exactly: We need to be careful that we do not give away too much…
before there is nothing left.
ATM - Banks: they get you with the fees · Tuesday March 6, 2007 by colin newell
At a time when the federal finance minister is asking Canada’s big banks to justify a raft of ATM banking fees, Canada’s second-largest bank is reporting its first quarterly profit of more than $1 billion.
Bank of Nova Scotia reported Tuesday morning a first quarter profit that smashed all expectations at $1.01 billion, or $1.01 a share, up almost 20 per cent from $844 million, or 84 cents a share, a year ago.
Ok. On a more personal note, I do not generally pay ATM fees.
How!? Why!?
Well. I never use ATMs other than the ones my native financial institution offers. Ever. Never, ever, ever.
I speak up for the millions of Canadians that are getting reamed up the wazoo by Canadian banks.
Make no mistake about it. Canadian (and American) banks are evil as Satan. They profit from you. They profit from your misery (read – hold your mortgages…)
Your money? It aint your money according to the banks.
The banks feel they are doing you a favor by handling your money.
It is more theirs than yours.
Or so the story goes. And ATM fees. Well. While they have you bent over the Maytag, it is just an extra reminder of who is in charge.
So like oil companies, banks rule. They always will.
They screw you today. And they will tomorrow.
How can you fight back? Stop using non-native ATMs.
When life gives you lemons... start baking · Sunday February 18, 2007 by colin newell
True confession. I have been lusting after this one kitchen item for years, for over a decade in fact. My first real kitchen appliance was a Champion Juicer that I bought in 1988 or 1989. It is still running like a top. Just not in my kitchen. In my Mom’s kitchen – she pinched it from me just before I got married and never gave it back. Of course, she says, I can have it back whenever I want it.
Right.
Anyway. I digress.
The KitchenAid Artisan mixer is going to make life a little easier for me. I do 100% of the baking around the house and 50% of the chef work. I am the Chef’s assistant in fact. More of a sous chef. A great stir-person. A dicer. A whisker. That’s me.
Anyway. I make all my own muffins, bars, cookies, biscotti, cakes and (lastly) breads. The breads are most definitely at the end of the list because they are the most labor intensive.
Not anymore. Now that I have the KitchenAid Arnold SchwarzenMixer life is going to be that much easier. The 7 watt hand blender will be relegated to omelette duty and my uber-cool Paderno hand-blender will just keep on doing what its doing.
Anyway. I have my mixer. Yipee. Stay tuned for recipes.
Who wants dinner?
Tickets to Police 2007 Tour in Vancouver? Dream on! · Saturday February 17, 2007 by colin newell
Ok. So it is no big deal… but come on!
Quite a few of us have been sucked into the 2007 Police reunion tour
hype.
And I was one.
For starters, I heard that by signing up for a free newsletter on BestBuy.CA that I would have access to pre-sale tickets.
Yea. Right. Those tickets were long gone within minutes of this promotion first being offered.
Yet they kept the hype up getting thousands to sign up to their retail shill with virtually zero hope of getting tickets for any Police concert anywhere.
So now I have to take the 3 seconds to sign off of the stupid BestBuy newsletter.
Then there is TicketMaster. How I have learned to loathe TicketMaster. Many acts and performers avoid them too.
My story.
Like a good consumer I showed up at the TicketMaster website with plenty of time to queue up for the 10AM sale of Police 2007 tickets.
Right on the money, I clicked in. I requested any ticket at any price… at 10:00:05 AM today. Within about 1 and one/half minutes of waiting the TicketMaster web site spat back there all tickets were gone.
Ok. Fine. So they sold X number of thousands of tickets in 1.5 minutes.
But did they? Did they really?
No. They did not. Let’s count the number of online ticket sales scams that are under way here.
Yesterday (Friday) I could have taken advantage of a Police Fan Club pre-sale for a paltry 120 dollars… 120 bones just to join the fan club and that is prior to actually getting a ticket.
That and all the other pre-sales, corporate sales, and coupons that (I imagine) the uber-wealthy get. And what’s left for the rest of us?
Nothing? Nope. Not quite.
Within minutes of todays TicketMaster sale being complete, a ticket-auction appeared on the TicketMaster website!
Yup. I could bid upwards of 600$+ on a ticket to see the concert.
But I thought there were no tickets left? What is ticketmaster now? Ebay? Well maybe.
I guess it is free enterprise – but for the love of pete, make it a little bit fair and a little more honest.
Thankfully, I only lost about 5 minutes of my life.
I will certainly listen to The Police in a slightly different way in the future.
this just in… a second show has just been added for Vancouver. Tickets go on sale on Feb 27 at 10AM. Of course they do… sign me up…
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