On October 16, a shopkeeper (Wasek Safrah) at a mini mall in Ossining, NY didn’t like the way an employee at another store parked. He punched the guy’s car causing a dent, then got a forklift and attempted to move the car. He also punched the driver in the mouth. He didn’t succeed in moving the car. The police officer in the article just sounds stupid. “We don’t know what his intention was” — Since the guy wasn’t going to move his car, he was going to move it for him; it makes perfect sense. This guy is a hero in many peoples eyes. How many times have you ever been angry with the way someone parked but didn’t do anything about it. It is too bad that he was arrested on charges of criminal mischief and assault. After hearing about he forklift, I wish the video was on youtube.
On Thursday, October 26, 2006 President Bush signed a bill that authorizes the construction of a 700 mile fence on the 2100 mile border with Mexico. Â The fence itself is to keep illegal Mexican immigrants from entering the USA. Â The United States for the longest time has had some pretty lax border control and only now are they starting to get tough. Â Mexico’s President does not support this idea of a fence at all, calling the whole thing “deplorable.” Â I would have to agree with him. Â There is not need for a fence to control borders. Â If people really want to get into the United States, all the fence is going to do is slow them down for a couple minutes. Â In the past there was also talk from some senators about a similar project for the Canadian border! Now that is ludicrous. Â If senators think that Canadians are going to try to sneak into the United States to steal jobs they are badly mistaken. If the United States ever decided to put up a wall with Canada, I think Canada should put up a second wall but build it faster and get it up first. Â Then Canada can control the wall. But, history has taught us a thing or two about putting up walls. Â They will separate people for a bit, but in the end the wall will come down or just become obsolete. Â Take for example the Berlin Wall or the Great Wall in China; one wall is destroyed the other is obsolete. Â The United States should focus its resources on building something useful like new schools for children caught up in their war on terror in the Middle East.
WestJet Airlines Ltd (TSE : WJA) has just recorded their best ever third quarter. They had a profit of $52.8 million up from $30.3 in the same period of 2005. They are attributing the increased profits to improved cost efficiency with things from more fuel efficient airplanes, self serve kiosks and web check-ins. The average age for their fleet is only 2.3 years. This alone will help reduce all sorts of costs because of the major expenses involved in the maintenance of airplanes. With newer airplanes also comes better service. All the new airplanes have lcd screens built into the seats for entertaining trips.
Everytime I hear about airlines in the news they are always in financial trouble, but then they release news like this. With news of huge profits, I become skeptical. Why if they are making so much money do they constantly increase the prices of fares? They also add on fuel surcharges when the costs go up but then seem to forget to remove them when the fuel goes back down. I suppose they are a business and their main goal is to make money, but sometimes they should cut the consumers a break… How about a seat sale!!
Rock Star Supernova appears to have hit a speedbump even before they finished playing their first concert. Jason Newstead, bass player for the group, has injured his shoulder while catching a 90 pound bass head that fell from his amp. He will have to undergo surgery and it could take up to 9 months for everything to be rehabilitated. It should be interesting to see what happens, because they should be releasing a CD in the next month. They will most likely keep the same music but will they change any of the promotional artwork? Also, if they do auditions for a bass player, will that affect any of their tour dates? Tommy Lee doesn’t think so, as he has said he knows a bunch of guys who could step up. The new bassist will have a couple months to work on the set, as the tour starts January 1st, 2007. In the meantime, Lukas Rossi and Gilby Clarke are expected to make an acoustic performance at the upcoming Gemini Awards show November 4th, on Global.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NYSE : AMD) completed its $5.4 billion acquisition of ATI today which was originally announced July 24, 2006. Now that the deal is done work can be done on building new projects. Thus it only makes sense to announce something. The first products to be released in 2008 are being called ‘Fusion’ technology. I imagine that this will basically be a combination of a CPU and a graphics card on one chip. Most likely, this new technology will find its way into a mobile solutions, although there is probably still a market for them with desktops similar to systems with onboard graphics cards. They have also mentioned that this new technology will in no way prevent users from using discrete high-end video cards, good news if you are an NVIDIA fan.
After the 112 days since the original announcement, I still don’t know if this deal is going to help AMD win the race against Intel. This kind of investment into a graphics card company will pay dividends in the short-term with the purchase of new technology and the acquisition of qualified technical staff. In the long term, I believe that this is just going to help AMD catch up to the level that Intel is already at. This deal will not be giving AMD any sort of competitive advantage as Intel can continue its development into their on-board graphics solutions. The big winner from everything is going to be NVIDIA, they will continue to control the graphics card market on Intel systems, with even less competition now.
In a landslide victory (who expected anything different), Mayor Pat Fiacco is back in office as mayor for another term. Even though the end result wasn’t even close I feel that this election will still go a long way in improving the city. Hopefully, Mayor Pat will take a look at the other candidates suggestions and possibly implement them if they are actually improvements. I would like to see the city increase not in size, but in population. Having more people in the city would go a long way at improving the tax base that has slowly been moving to Alberta. I’m not mayor so I don’t have any suggestions but hopefully Mayor Pat has a few cards up his sleeve.
As part of Honda Motor Co. Ltd’s (NYSE: HMC) strategy to meet consumer demand for fuel efficent vehicles, production of the Civic Sedan will be increased at its Plant 2 in Allison, Ontario. To accomdate this increased production, Honda is going to slowly move all production of its Pilot to Lincoln, Alabama plant. The rearranging of production is also being complimented with increased production. The new engine plant for Allison is scheduled to open in 2008 and will operate at 200,000 4-cylinder engines annually. In Canada, during the month of September, Civic sales were up 45%. I am interested in how the October numbers look so I can say that I helped to contribute.
This is just a reminder to anyone that SIRIUS Internet Radio has a free preview for the next couple days (Oct 25, 26). They are promoting it heavily by saying you can listen to Howard Stern. For anyone who is remotely interested in SIRIUS Satellite Radio (NASDAQ : SIRI), it is not a bad idea to hear what programming they have to offer, even if it isn’t their entire programming package. For the two day trial they are advertising 75 channels of 100% commercial free music and talk with CD quality sound. Myself, I enjoy using my subscription to listen online at work during the day, and then to listen in the car for the drive home.
SIRIUS Internet Radio is available seperately from the SIRIUS Satellite Radio although the Satellite Subscription should still allow you to listen online. It will cost $12.95/month for the internet radio. I also enjoy the sports aspects of Sirius. Sirius is the official provider of the NFL, NHL, NBA and Nascar (starting in 2007). There have been a number of times now that I was unable to be at home to watch a game so I listened in the car while I was driving. I recommend satellite radio to everyone who would like to listen to regular radio but don’t because of their poor local radio selection.
Today is the day people go to vote. I don’t live in Regina so I’m not actually going to vote. This is the time that people can decide whether they want to continue with whats going on now, or to make a change. I personally don’t really see anything wrong with what is going on right now, but that doesn’t mean I am not open to the new suggestions. So whichever mayor wins todays election, they should make sure to use what has been going right so far, and to make improvements and make the city a better place. I didn’t really follow the election at all but it seemed like some of the issues were the same things that we always hear around this city. The roads are terrible, and vandalism/small crime is way too frequent. It should be interesting to see if any developments will actually happen to these issues.
A half-mile section of China’s Yellow River turned “red and smelly” after an unknown discharge was poured into it from a sewage pipe. A photo from the local paper showed a stretch of the river – a drinking water source for millions – that was rose-colored instead of the usual milky brown. When I was in China I saw the yellow river once. Since I am was living in Jinan, the Yellow River flows almost through the city. When I saw it back then, it was a brown colored water and I thought there would be absolutely no chance I would ever drink it then. Now when I see pictures that the water in a section of the river is red, I know things are getting worse. China needs to wake up to the environmental damage that is going on and punish those that are responsible. You hate to see things like this but maybe this is what it takes to get some action.
