Helix: Canadian
“Rock You” (uncensored); ‘Walkin The Razor’s Edge‘ (1984)
There was a request… more like a dare, for more 80’s Hair Metal.
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The First Three News Stories On 07/23/07
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Yesterday’s News The Day After Tomorrow: It’s been months since I’ve heard the voice of Jim Lehrer, the anchor of “The News Hour” on PBS. The 400-foot transmission tower used by the PBS station available with my cable package collapsed back in the early spring. It won’t be fixed until mid-Fall. As much as I like watching American, Canadian and British network news, “The News Hour” is, without a doubt, the best hour long newscast in North America and probably the world. So I’m using their webcast as a source, because you deserve it.
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7pm PBS: The News Hour
1) GM Opens Negotiations With UAW: The American car industry has been faltering over the past decade, but the problems only manifested within the past year. But as bad as it may seem it really isn’t that bad. Ford has leveraged everything it has in order to give it some time to restructure, including their logo, but their future looks good. We were told by media outlets inexperienced in business and economics that General Motors becoming the number two automaker in the world meant something, but it really didn’t. Toyota, worldwide, has sold only 40,000 more vehicles than GM this year. But there is one thing, one sector of the car industry that could, possibly, destroy Ford and cripple GM. The large American carmakers, during the 1980’s and 1990’s, signed contracts with the United Auto Workers which, in effect, turned Ford, GM and Chrysler into Healthcare Providers. Everyone who has worked at the Big Three for the past twenty-seven years gets healthcare benefits until they die. Which means the American car industry is now responsible for the healthcare costs of hundreds of thousands of people. Basically this means an American car, right off the assembly line, costs $2000-$3000 more than one built by Toyota in the same town. So this round of negotiation, with GM and Ford’s sales rebounding for the first time in four years, is crucial for the industry. GM said today it’s looking for several concessions from the unions. The UAW, meanwhile, has said it hasn’t ruled out strikes. The UAW is also in talks with Ford and Chrysler, whichever one gives the UAW the sweetest deal will be the standard for the other two.
2) Fires, Floods Threatens South Western US: There’s a fire in Idaho which covers 900sq.miles. Another in central Utah, which caused five towns to be evacuated, that covers 29sq.miles. There are dozens more wild fires scattered across the American mid-West which are threatening several more towns and small cities. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, seventeen inches of rain fell in West Texas over the weekend. There were no immediate reports of plagues.
3) Continued Flooding In Britain: A solid month of heavy rainfall in Britain has left most of the middle of the country under flood waters. A water treatment plant in north Gloucestershire was swamped by flood water, contaminating the regions water supply and leaving at least 300,000 people without clean water for up to three or four days. Additional thousands have been forced to evacuate their homes as the rivers crest. At this point there’s nowhere for the water to be moved to, the towns and villages are flooded until the rain stops. There is an attempt being made to build steel dams around towns already flooded, then pump the water out, back into the river. The ITN report showed British PM Gordon Brown looking very civilized. Some lunatics have started blaming his government for not responding quicker, but the poor bastard can’t be expected to send out the troops every time it rains, expecting it to turn into a disaster. Things have to turn to shit before the government can rationalize getting involved.
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10pm CBC: The National
1) Violent Weekend Across Canada : A report was released last week showing crime rates, including violent crime, are dropping in Canada. The national crime rate, according to the study, dropped by aboot 30% since 1991, including a 10% drop in the murder rate over the past two years. In 2006 Police across Canada reported 605 murders, which was 58 fewer than in 2005 (yes, in 2006 there were only 605 people murdered — in total — across Canada). But even Canadian killers don’t read. Two weekends ago five people were stabbed, and in two separate incidents three suspects were shot by police in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where the body of the second sex-trade worker killed in the past three months was also found. This past weekend in Winnipeg five people were shot, in Toronto three people — including an 11-year old boy — were gunned down, and in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a man was shot multiple times and killed. Also, in Calgary, Alberta, a man was shot in the back. All of which, of course, has called for a total ban on handguns. The problem is most of this recent violence is gang on gang with the good people caught in the middle. Most, not all, gang guns are illegally smuggled in from America. The Canadian Government has been trying to get a crime bill passed with a provision which would make gun crime an automatic five or ten-year sentence. But, for political reasons, it has been held up for over a year in our Senate. There were also five people stabbed in Calgary three weeks ago during the Calgary Stampede, one woman was killed.
2) Pedophile Accepts Plea Agreement: Canadian Justice has no ‘life sentence’. Everyone gets what our legal system calls “A Faint Hope” clause which, if granted, can actually allow someone to go free who might otherwise have another ten-years to serve. Then there’s a guy, Clifford Olsen, who murdered at least eleven children. He gets a parole hearing aboot every five years or so. Several years ago the concept of “Dangerous Offender Status” was created. When someone is deemed to be unreformable and a constant threat to anyone and everyone they might meet, they’re classified as DOS and can be held in prison “indefinitely”, no matter what their original sentence was. Peter Whitmore, a convicted pedophile and sex offender with a violent past has been in and out of prison thanks to the bizarre soft-treatment kiddiephiles get in this country. Last summer he kidnapped, raped and sexually humiliated two children over a weekend. Everyone believes he’ll reoffend, just as he always has done in the past. In fact, previous parole boards have said Whitmore “was 100% likely to reoffend.” So, you’d think, the Saskatchewan Provincial Crown Attorney would seek a DOS on him… but you’d be wrong. In return for his guilty plea on all counts Whitmore will be sentenced to “life in prison”, which means he’ll be up for parole in seven years. No one, now, believes any parole board would allow him to be freed, but there’s that “Faint Hope Clause” hanging there. The idea was to protect the kids from testifying, but now every seven or five years, the whole event will be replayed in the media and someone will have to testify at the parole hearing. The current Federal Government is trying, in a crime bill that has been held up for political reasons by our Senate, to abolish the faint hope clause.
3) Bureaucrat Admits Fraud Over $100 Million: This is probably the most under-reported fraud story in Canadian history. Between 1993 and 2003 Paul Champagne, a mid-level bureaucrat working in the procurement section of the Department of National Defence, managed to funnel $100 million dollars into his own private bank accounts. Paul, on an annual salary of $60,000, owned mansions, traveled on personal jets and basically lived like a rock star. All while working in sensitive areas at the DND. On Monday, Paul pleaded guilty to fraud and breach of trust. In his duties Paul had access to the computer systems at the DND. Now, I’m just a dropout with high speed Internet access, a reasonable IQ and a wonky knee, so I don’t really know jackshit aboot shit… but, if I was in charge of a multi-billion dollar government agency which has in it all of the military secrets of NATO and NORAD and a whole lotta other Stuff, I’d be keeping an eye out for people living “beyond their means”. This guy owned mansions and was getting paid aboot what I did at my last job, and I was broke at the end of almost every pay period… granted, I was drinking a lot and Toronto is an expensive place to live, but still. Basically what I’m trying to say is, Dude Could Have Been Selling Secrets To Anyone With A Chequebook… What The Fuck? Ten fucking years he was in there… fuck off. Honestly, this is what happens when a government forgets they have a military. During this same time period our government was cutting the military’s budget to nothing, and neglected the military to the point where just a few years ago it was basically aboot to collapse.
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11pm CTV National News
1) Man Rapes Boys, Parole In Seven Years: More aboot Whitmore… but first, once again Sarah Galashan, CTV’s Alberta Bureau Chief, is the best part of this whole evening. There was a really interesting piece where CTV dug up an old interview Whitmore did on Canada AM, a semi-newsy national morning show. Whitmore repeatedly told the interviewer “I promise I will never reoffend”. Which, of course, was a cruel hoax. Thing was, everyone knew Whitmore was full of shit. Everyone knew he would rape more children. And, of course, everyone was right. This is a straight lift from the National Post regarding the case Whitmore just plead guilty to: “He kept one of the kidnapped boys on a leash. He made both of his victims call him “master” for days while he repeatedly raped and taunted them. The tale of depravity was revealed Monday in a packed Regina courtroom as notorious child molester Peter Robert Whitmore accepted a controversial plea bargain that could see him paroled in as few as six years. Whitmore pleaded guilty to a dozen charges in last summer’s kidnapping and sexual assault of two boys — a teenager from Winnipeg and a 10-year-old boy from Saskatchewan.”
2) Weekend Gun Violence Across Canada: More aboot the shootings across Canada over the weekend, with a focus on Ephraim Brown, the 11-year old boy gunned down at a birthday party in Toronto. Police had arrested two suspects, one with a leg wound from a gunshot. Both have been charged with first degree murder.
3) NFL QB Banned For Dog Fighting: Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, a complete fucking moron, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to illegal dogfighting. The NFL, one of the most image conscious organizations in the world, has banned Vick, a complete fucking moron, from preseason training camp, and will probably do the same for the regular season. Eventually someone from the NFL, when asked aboot a man not convicted of any crime being punished by his employer, will say this: “We are doing this in order to give Michael Vick, a complete fucking moron, the opportunity to concentrate on his defence.” Vick, a complete fucking moron, is looking at US$350,000 in fines and six years in Real Prison if convicted of the charges. What a total fucking idiot.
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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
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0_o
cultural sn:afu 