Thanks to Jerry, one of our loyal readers who lives in Texas (and grew up in Mississippi), we downloaded an app called Red alert. It allows one to know when missiles are being fired into Israel in real time. One can also choose which sound the alert will have. We chose the siren that the Israelis hear. We can only tell you that the 36 times we heard that siren today, we jumped a mile. Unsettling is the operative word here. One can only imagine what it is like to live under that constant barrage, day and night.
Ashkelon is getting battered as are many other towns in the south and the Golan Heights in the north. As hamas rejected the ‘peace plan’ put forth by Egypt today, Israel’s options have opened up. We would still like to see them shut down Gaza – no water, electricity, transportation etc.
Tragically, the first causality of a rocket attack occurred today when a 37 year old man, who was distributing food to the soldiers was mortally wounded. An elderly woman died last week of a heart attack while running to the shelter.
The simplest task like going to the store has now become dangerous. Camps are closed and children are stuck at home as playing outside, especially in the south is just too dangerous. Working must be very difficult and taking public transportation almost impossible. From here all we can do is pray for the safety of our people and the soldiers protecting them.
Edward Snowden is back. He leaked a fresh set of documents that show how the UK intelligence agency can manipulate online polls and debates, spread messages, snoop on YouTube and track Facebook users. Some of the most interesting capabilities of the tools include the ability to seed the web with false information — such as tweaking the results of online polls — inflating page view counts, censoring video content deemed “extremist”.
Here’s a small sampling (note that they all have names): BIRDSTRIKE: Twitter monitoring and profile collection SPRING-BISHOP: Finding private photos of targets on Facebook BOMB BAY: The capacity to increase website hits, rankings SCRAPHEAP CHALLENGE: Perfect spoofing of emails from Blackberry targets
Had enough? Nothing is private out there. Stay on your landline.
Don’t you love self-righteous people? You know the ones who invoke the ‘don’t you know who I am’ clause? Jean Francois Lisee, the ex minister for Montreal for the Parti Quebecois smugly stood in front of the cameras today. He is accused of flying back and forth to Paris no less than 11 times while he was minister. Why you ask? To have some yummy french bread and butter? Mais non Blanche. To visit his wife who was working there at the time.
Christine St-Pierre, who took over his position following the election in April, called him on this. Last week, she questioned whether he had dipped into the public purse to take all those trips. She asked the obvious question: Had he planned personal trips and then tacked on business meetings to justify the cost?
Lisee can be as mad as he wants to. Unless he can prove that those trips were not taken using OPM – other people’s money – aka our money, he better have a very good plan b.
You’re gonna love this one. Bud Seligson, the baseball commissioner, says Montreal has a good chance of regaining their baseball team. He was impressed at how many people showed up for the exhibition games. What he neglected to say is that we won’t get one until a new venue for this team is built somewhere downtown. No one is going back to the biggest white elephant known to man, aka the Big O. And who exactly is going to foot the bill for a new stadium? Ya don’t have to be a rocket scientist. It’s the old OPM trick again (where’s Get Smart when you need him?).
We suggest yet again that they set up thousands of chairs around the big O and charge $100 per chair to watch it blow up. That money could go towards the new stadium. Or it could go to pay off all the people that need to be paid off to build it.
Tonight there’s a mayoral debate in Toronto. We watched a bit of it live via the internet. Believe it or not, when Rob Ford spoke, quite well actually, he got a huge ovation. He definitely sounds mayoral.
The next candidate David Soknacki, looked like an overdone wet noodle and sounded like he was talking with helium in his throat. His suit was hanging on him and he forgot his tie in his car. John Tory looks and sounds like a mayor. He may have nothing to say, but at least he has hair and knows how to dress.
Stintz is the women Ford made lewd remarks about. Her mode of dress tonight was not very good – at least in Blanche’s eyes. Sleeveless dresses belong either in Michelle Obama’s closet or in a bar. Not on someone running for mayor. Olivia Chow, the late Jack Layton’s wife may have what to say but she’s hard to understand and has a weak voice. We are very happy we are not voting in that election.
We’ll talk…
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