In a report published by the Global Humanitarian Forum on May 29th, Kofi Annan (yes, him) warns the world that hundreds of thousands of people are currently dying from Climate Change, and by 2030 that could be 500,000.

Highlights of the report:

Report projects that by 2030, worldwide deaths will reach almost 500,000 per year; people affected by climate change annually expected to rise to over 600 million and the total annual economic cost increase to around $300 billion

To avert worst possible outcomes, climate change adaptation efforts need to be scaled up by a factor of 100 in developing countries, which account for 99% of casualties due to climate change

Of course, the report is short on facts, long on fear-mongering:

The report estimates that climate change today accounts for over 300,000 deaths throughout the world each year, the equivalent of an Indian Ocean Tsunami every single year.

And this is my favourite quote from Kofi:

We need an international agreement to contain climate change

Good luck with that.

My five random questions to which I need answers:

1. Why do BBQ chips no longer taste like BBQ, but are just plain sweet?
2. Why is a hot day proof of Global Warming, and yet a cold day is “just weather”?
3. Why do the tax dollars of someone who does not have a pension plan (me) go to pay the pensions of retired GM (a private company) workers?
4. Does Dalton like the look of weeds all over the city?
5. Does ANYBODY watch “I’m a celebrity–get me out of here!” ?

Discuss.

Ever wonder why the girl in the Baileys commercial (“Gotta Have Coffee…”) doesn’t show her whole face? You know which one I am talking about:

Here it is:

We have the guys on video.  They brought a gun and a sword. They eviscerated the victim, live on video, cut off his fingers and then killed the guy. Five guys got off (I suppose hanging around a guy with a gun and sword who ends up killing someone just isn’t a crime in this country), the sixth, Mr. Man (Wahab Dadshani), who defended HIMSELF against the full might of the Canadian prosecution, got convicted for MANSLAUGHTER. Murder just wasn’t proven. We’ve got a dead guy. A murder weapon. The act on video. (Lenny would say: I love it when they make our job so easy). But murder wasn’t proven. Bringing a gun and sword and someone ends up dead at the end, just isn’t premeditated. For manslaughter, Mr. Man will get up to six years, with time served he’ll probably be out next week.

What a joke.

…I am YEARS ahead of everybody else…

At a speech at an Ottawa Rotary Club, Ontario’s Municipal Affairs Minister Jim Watson told the members that the Ontario Government now mistrusts the City of Ottawa after they used money designated for infrastructure for snow removal instead.

I suppose the irony is lost on Mr. Watson: he works for the least trustworthy government since Bob Rae had his day(s):

We will not raise your taxes

Right.

Does anybody know how to spell anymore? Does anybody care? I know several people, grown-up people, with degrees, and double degrees, and high paying jobs, who don’t know the difference between “their”, “there” or “they’re”.

The worst cases can be observed on Facebook: I’m board (or better yet: bord), could of (as in: I could of passed this test if only my brain was functioning) and the one I saw this evening that put the icing on the cake: I am happy because my friends graced me with there presents. Instead of playing Facebook games all day long, maybe you should invest a couple of minutes brushing up on your spelling?

Look, I can understand young people: they’re trying to save their thumbs by minimizing everything while texting from a cellphone the size of a postage stamp, but I do not understand someone with an Master’s Degree writing: “There dogs we’re lose”. How did they get through school? And “I can wate” is not any shorter than “I can wait”, so why do it? Are you trying to be cool, or do you just not know how to spell?

And don’t get me started on the abuse the apostrophe has to take in our daily lives: “the cat lick’s it’s coat”? Are you just throwing those apostrophes in there because it looks cool? Do you have any living braincell?

Does anybody use the word “whom” anymore? Is it just too hard to put your brain to work, so you just use “who”, who’s to know? (you’re thinking:  isn’t that “whose”? No, it’s not.)

I am not saying I am perfect, and I am sure that, in my Dutchness, I slip in a few weird sentences and misspellings once in a while, as I am sure there are a few typos in this post, but eventhough English is my second language, I am proud to say that I know where the apostrophe goes, and you will never catch me putting down “there” instead of “their”.

So there.

As I was standing at 7 am, with about 200 other people, in a dingy and poorly lit hallway, waiting for the doors to open to give us access to the glorious Ontario healthcare a la 2009, I was thinking to myself: I just forked out another $900 last year to make our healthcare system better and faster, shorten wait times and whatever else was promised to us, and here we are, herded like cattle in a small hallway waiting for “the system” to serve us better. We were out at about 10:30. Just to do some bloodwork. Three and a half hours! Some of us have to get back to work, you know. That’s three and a half hours of waiting, staring at walls and feeling sorry for little old ladies with canes and walkers who also have to stand around for three and a half hours, because there are about 20 seats for the 200 people arriving every day.

And I was left wondering: does Dalton McGuinty stand in a hallway like this when he has to do some bloodwork? Does he get up at 6 am and arrive at work at around 11? Doesn’t he get sick and need some bloodwork done once in a while?

So I guess Twitter has gotten too big for its own good–the web site’s down half the time due to traffic, and I am now getting about 200 notifications a day of various vague people following me with such names as: Susan, Allison, Alyssa, Melody, James, Kristen, Erma, Jodie and Alexis: it’s like the cast of Melrose Place wants to be my friend! As a result, I now have 20 spammers listed as followers and the fun has been taken away. Much like Facebook, which was a good tool at first to keep in touch with people, but is now not much more than a glorified soapbox for narcissistic people who want show off what they have, and let us know about every fart they pass. That, and having to install sixty-five applications to watch a video. No thanks.

I think it’s time to quit Twitter, before it gets REALLY annoying: when Viagra wants to follow me, or worse yet, Elizabeth May.

Enjoy.