THE SYSTEM IS BADLY BROKEN

Environmental system, judicial system, political system, educational system, health care; you name it they are all broken. They do not serve the taxpayers who pay the freight. They serve the vested interests who spend their time working there. I am quite confident in regards to the five systems I have listed with the exception of the health care system. That system I simply do not have enough information about. The others I've either been directly involved with or I have done considerable research into them. The health care system upon second thought has given me some data to go on. That would be a new hip nearly four and a half years ago. They also advised me at the time that the second hip was also in need albeit not as badly as the first one. Hmm. Based upon my symptoms now it could be another four and half years before I get it done. Or longer. What if it is longer? What if in ten to fifteen years from now I still don't see the need to get my second hip done? Can I reasonably assume that the whole thing was a scam? That whatever my issues were they certainly weren't my hips? My symptoms thank you are beginning to dissipate. While not perfect, remedial walking seems to be relieving the pain I had in my knees and shins. I was told that the hip surgery would help that pain. It didn't do a goddamn thing. WTF!

I think that I will comment further regarding the other systems in later posts. I've been doing that for the last five years plus and we'll just call today a foray into Ontario's health care system.

"YOUR KIDS ARE SAFE" SAYS LOCAL SCHOOL BOARDS

Well that certainly is a relief. After all they would never lie to us now would they? Think about it, this includes the Waterloo Region District School Board. They've never lied to parents before about anything, now have they? An abusive teacher, it's all the parents fault. An abusive teacher, well that teacher has never had a complaint before. An abusive teacher well we'll transfer them to a new school. At the new school the teacher is introduced as having a spectacular teaching record and career at the previous eight schools they've taught at in the past twenty years.

Poor education results, it must be the parents again. They don't speak English at home or they don't help their kids with their homework. Weak or poor teachers, oh no we only employ the best and brightest at this school all with unblemished records.

So now that unsafe levels of lead in drinking water were found in 16 local schools and two local daycares including the worst result in Ontario, why wouldn't be trust our educational authorities? We study history in order to avoid repeating the bad things all over again. I'm sure that it's coincidence that my children and future grandchildren will never rely on the promises of at least one of our local school boards. The article in the Waterloo Region Record is titled ""Your kids are safe", schools say after failed lead tests".

ONTARIO'S CORRECTIONAL SERVICES

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following story titled "Adviser recommends overhauling Ontario's jails". Howard Sapers is a well known and respected expert on correctional services, jails and inmates. His report advises that 2/3 of people incarcerated in Ontario are on remand. This means that they have been charged with an offence but not convicted. Therefore 2/3 of our prisoners have not had their day in court and therefore are presumed innocent. It seems ridiculous that they are held in facilities with inmates with long term criminal records and sentences.

Ontario it turns out is one of the only provinces in Canada which does not have a law curbing strip searches in jail. In fact government policy in Ontario is to have strip searches on a bi-weekly basis for all inmates and daily strip searches for inmates in segregation. To say that is punitive, bizarre and unneccessary when compared to all other jurisdictions in Canada is an understatement.

Corrections Minister Marie-France Lalonde has indicated that the Ontario government will act upon Mr. Saper's report and will introduce new corrections legislation this fall. How many decades behind the times is that?

FURTHER TO CORRUPT MUNICIPAL RESPONSE TO EXPLOSIVE METHANE

Back on September 15/17 I posted here about the status of two Delegations I had presented to Woolwich Council regarding explosive levels of methane gas in the sub-surface of the Bolender Park Landfill in Elmira, Ontario . The two Delegations were August 1 and August 22/17. I had been advised that on September 19 there would be a "Review" of my second Delegation (Aug. 22/17) presented to Woolwich Council. GHD the new owners of Conestoga Rovers (CRA), who wrote the original ten reports, indeed presented their ten page report to Council. It was a crock. They basically had nothing but deflections, irrelevancies and stickhandling in an attempt to undermine my comments and criticism of the ten CRA landfill reports written between 1983 and 2016.

Think about this carefully. I believe that Woolwich Council indicated that they had spent $6,000 of taxpayers money on a "Review" of my critique of ten CRA reports, by the new owners of CRA. Exactly how likely is that they would either criticize their new colleagues from CRA or criticize their clients (Woolwich Township) for their negligence in not following a couple of very serious recommendations that they made. You guessed it, they did not. They simply huffed and puffed and blew a lot of smoke.

Since then I've had a third and a fourth Delegation and the third listed several published scientific reports in regards to landfill gas methodologies and procedures, all of which CRA appeared unfamiliar with. The fourth was a critique of GHD's "Review" and I focused on their false statements that the gas collection system had been running from 1984 until 2015. This I debunked via direct quotes from CRA reports in 1998 and 2007. Council for whatever reason are in full coverup and denial mode. Let's see if we can discover the reasons why.

SECRET REPORT ABOUT TRUSTEE INFIGHTING

It'a all music to my ears. It tells me that the Waterloo Region District School Board still haven't got their act together. This article was in the K-W Record way back at the start of this month, namely September 2, 2017. It was written by Jeff Outhit and is titled "Secret report exposes trustee feuding". Well I suggest it exposes a lot more than that. Trustee Cindy Watson, from Cambridge and one of the good ones decided to send a little message. She had been kangaroo courted by her fellow trustees back in 2012. her "crime" was in failing to automatically defend a staff member who had been criticized by a parent. Oh boo hoo our overpaid and under accountable teachers need and expect to be defended by their union, their colleagues, trustees and anyone else just because a parent criticizes them? While trustees can't assume anything off the bat they are not there just to be cheerleaders for Board staff. They are there to look at the facts and if criticism is unwarranted to say so and if clearly warranted to try and do something about the problem. Any ridiculous Code of Conduct demanding Trustees automatically back staff needs to be turfed along with each and every idiot who backed that self-serving drivel disguised as a Code of Conduct.

THE VIETNAM WAR DOCUMENTARY CURRENTLY ON PBS

Mass lying and deception by American federal politicians of U.S. citizens. That is a huge part of the takeaway I've gotten while following this lengthy series on Channel 61 (PBS). Another aspect is the propaganda. The propaganda was that the war was all about U.S. values of freedom and democracy versus those dirty, left-wing, anti-democratic, anti-freedom Communist expansionists. Wow! hard to disagree with that if it had been true. The reality is that expansionists is just another word for colonial powers and which countries do you think historically have been the biggest and baddest colonial powers? let's see, how about Britain, France, Spain and you've got it the United States of America. U.S. interventionism has included forays into Cuba, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Nicaurogua, Canada (1812-14), Mexico, Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan ... ahh hell you get the picture.

The French vacated Vietnam under duress from Ho Chi Minh and supporters. At first the U.S. and Ho Chi Minh appeared to be of like mind. The Vietnamese had overthrown both the Japanese and the French and all they wanted was to rule thier own country. Democratic elections had been scheduled after a temporary split only of the north from the south. Despite the corruption of the Diem regieme in South Vietnam, the U.S. backed them and went along with cancelling the elections because it was apparent that Ho Chi Minh would win any fair election in Vietnam due to his stature and history of fighting both the Japanese and the French. The U.S. once again backed the wrong horse in so many different ways.

Back in the U.S. it became all about ego and face saving for U.S. presidents and politicians. Yes the "kill ratio" may have been ten to one in favour of the U.S. over the Viet Cong in South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese regular army. That said the north were fighting to preserve and unite their country while the south were fighting for a corrupt, self -serving regieme. Both groups however were cruel and brutal both against their internal opponents and against their own citizens.

It was a mess that never needed nor was improved by the U.S. propping up the South Vietnam government. Rough estimates had 50,000 U.S. soldiers killed, 100,000 South Vietnamese army killed and possibly 200,000-400,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong killed. Then there was the "collateral" damage. The civilians on both sides of the border bore the brunt of bombing, strafing and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Last evening's (Wed. Sept. 27/17) 8th part of the series stated that in total 2,000,000 Vietnamese died, presumably north and south, civilians and fighters.

Throughout it all U.S. politicians never stopped lying to their own citizens. How exactly that preserved American ideals of peace, justice, freedom and democracy is beyond me.

OTHER THAN FOR LEGITIMATE NATIONAL SECURITY REASONS SHOULD POLITICIANS BE PROSCRIBED BY LAW FROM LYING?

For me the answer to the question is obvious. While we might think that lying politicians get found out it's amazing how seldom it actually occurs. There are probably strategies and workshops if not books on how to get away with lying, from little things to billion dollar lies. The only reason our politicians at all levels do it is because they are confident they won't be found out and if they are then simply more lies can be told to put a different spin on things. Finally if there is no getting away from it then a heartfelt or heart wrenching public mea culpa usually puts things to rest. After that it's back to business but just don't repeat the same lies that you did get caught on.

Our municipal Council here in Elmira, Ontario and probably most others have no compunctions against the most brazen lies. The more they tell and get away with, the bolder they get. Even if they get called on them they seem willing to keep pushing the envelope. Part of it is the attitude that truth or falsehood isn't the issue. The issue is whether the majority of citizens believe the liars (the politicians) or whether they believe the whistleblowers. Hence even if 10 to 20 percent of the people believe the whistleblower, most politicians believe they've scored another victory.

Logic and commonsense aren't enough to bring down a lying politician. Neither are facts. For that matter neither is a smoking gun unless some other authority examines the smoking gun and pronounces the guilt of the lying politicians. The other alternative is if the facts do not require scientific or other professional corroboration. The reason is that the bad guys can and do employ their own hired guns. Then you end up with one expert saying this and another saying that.

These above comments are specifically in relation to Woolwich Council's stance on methane problems at the Bolender Park Landfill here in Elmira, Ontario. They are lying and deceiving the general public as well as the residents in close proximity to the landfill. They believe that holding a united front is the best defence against the truth. Often it works that way. We will see.