Montreal Jazz

I Hate List (part II)

Some time ago I publish a “I Hate List” a list of annoyances we urbanites face on a daily basis. There are days I miss living in a small town.

This weeks I hate list;

Drivers that believe that aggressive driving is confident driving and as a so called “confident driver” they are a better driver. Okay I do a lot of things that so called confident drivers would not do, I stop at amber lights if I can, I don’t do rolling stops, I generally don’t drive more than 20 KPH above the speed limit and I have never been in a reportable accident. My buddy DA (for dumb ass) was raised in Montreal were they drive like freakin lunatics and claim to be the best drivers in the world (RIGHT!) claims to be a better driver. He rarely stops for stop signs, he doesn’t signal, he drives 140 Kph as he says “everyone does” and dodges in and out of lanes like an Indy car driver on acid. His insurance is over $1100 a month, and he thinks this is normal? He has had his license suspended twice, and he rarely pays his parking tickets. He INSISTS he is an excellent driver.

I hate old people that think because they are old they are due respect. Okay yes if you are old and have learned much, and seen much you can be due respect, but if you are still the obnoxious jerk you were in the 1940’s you are due the same lack of respect you were due then. I had surgery on my foot some time ago and was on crutches for almost two months. One day I am struggling with my crutches to get on the bus and some old “entitled” senior tries to push past me, which didn’t work as I am no little guy and the crutches just exaggerated that fact. Then I sit down in the courtesy seat and this old bag looks at me and asks for the seat. I ignored her but in retrospect I should have said Okay Madam I will get up risk reopening my stitches and bleed copious amounts of blood into my shoe, while risking infection and suffering a whole lot of pain just so you can sit your corpulent butt down for the measly two blocks that you’re traveling.

I hate people in those scooters designed for sidewalks that insist on using the road even when the side walk is as flat as a billiard table. If you have ever been to Ottawa you know Montreal Road is about the busiest road in Canada. One day I followed this guy in an electric scooter for five blocks as he went down the middle of the road at 5 Kph. No big deal I wasn’t in that much of a hurry but this guy got irate as people kept honking at him (he went red in the face). In reality I think honking at him was just rude and useless but what the hell was this guy thinking? It’s like stepping off a curb as the light turns amber in Montreal and expecting not to get hit by a car.

I hate idiots that think you’re supposed to ride your bike facing traffic (you’re a pedestrian don’t you know). No you’re a freakin vehicle you ride with traffic on the road not facing traffic not on the damn side walk not on walking paths etc… These types of ignorant idiots even teach this to their kids. When I was in school I remember some dork teacher telling us to ride facing traffic, when I complained I was told I was wrong. A few weeks late the school had an assembly were they told us all rules of the road and highlight the fact that as a bike you ride with traffic not facing it (unless you’re 7 or younger). I think some parents complained.

I hate smokers that think its okay to smoke where ever they like. Don’t you know that all this second hand smoke stuff is just BS (sarcasm intended). I was at the Ottawa Jazz Fest the other day and this dork decides to light up in the crowd. Hey buddy how am I going to escape your noxious fumes in this crowd? That said some raving antismoker 150 feet away decided to holler insults at the smoker, then the smoker hollered insults on the antismoker’s weight right back at him. Not being known to be quiet I added my 2 cents worth and told them both to shut the fk up so everyone else could listen to the music.

I hate pushy store clerks that try to sell you crap you don’t want. If I am looking for a pair of pants don’t bring me jackets or belts or shoes. The other day I went into a store looking for jeans, and this guy brings me a pair of “German made” designer jeans. I tell him I am not looking for designer jeans I am looking for casual jeans. He insists I try them on. I am about to but before I do I ask how much they are, and he say “I’m not going to tell you, I want you to try them on first.” My wife being the conciliatory type lowers my blood pressure by whispering “just humour him,” as I was already trying on a few other items anyway. First of all I say the jeans don’t fit and this dork says they do, then I say I don’t like jeans with only one back pocket and this guy insists no one wears jeans with two back pockets anymore. Then he tells me the price and I almost fall over laughing. $260 If the dork had told me the price originally he could have saved us both a lot of time. GRRRRRRR..

Okay I feel better now !

Spoiled Brat

The other day I was in a corner store and there was this kid ahead of me. He must have been eight or nine years old no more. He was wearing really cool clothes and had at least three strings of bling around his neck. It was obvious that his tan was store bought and he walked with a saunter that would make a pimp blush. He had a permanently etched sneer on his face and stunk like half a bottle of CK one. He wasn’t carrying anything his sole target was the bottles of energy boost shots (NHP) on the counter. He grabbed three and shoved a twenty dollar bill across the counter. I’m not sure if it was out of concern for this kid’s health or the fact that this kid needed to be told that he wasn’t the center of the world, but I looked over the counter at the clerk and said “those things aren’t really for kids.” I don’t know if it was because I was still wearing my work pass or that I looked annoyed but the clerk said “sorry kid can’t sell you those.” The kid looked like he was going to explode, walked out of the store banging the door as he left. Now in reality the energy drinks may have done him little harm but they are really not meant for kids, but I think the fact that he was refused something did him more good.

I’m so Not Proud of Our Prime Minister

Harper is going to visit the Pope this week and after all the protocol Faux Pas’s this embarrassment of a PM has made this week the general public is nervous. Understandably most of the comments submitted on the  CTV news article on this have been derogatory and critical of his tardiness and lack of protocol in regards to the Catholic faith.  That said there are always the Conservative pundits,  the ones that would defend him if he pissed on the Pope’s shoes and burned the Canadian Flag on Canada Day. One such commenter is “bunny” yes this person goes by the name of bunny and expects to be taken seriously.  She(or he) wrote:

bunny
I am so proud of our PM.At least we are being seen on the world stage as taking part.I remember creepy chretien, and how he made Canada look so mickey mouse.Great news, god bless. (pardon the Grammar – this is cut and pasted as written)

Okay yes she is right God would have to bless this Bozo with some political intelligence before he would be called a statesman.   Showing up is not enough, and he could at least do that on time.  Protocol is vital to a statesman. Harper can’t even get through a church service without screwing it up. Some one should have told our PM he was supposed to eat the damn wafer.  And for those that believe he did eat the wafer watch the video and tell me just when he ate it? Probably saved it for a late night snack?  I suspect that next time Harper invites Benjamin Netanyahu to dinner he will serve pork.

Another Conservative Pundit noted that the first four posts were on Harper’s mistake of not consuming the Eucharist at Romeo LeBlanc’s funeral calling these comments “cheap and petty.”   I guess conservatives calling Ignatief an “opportunist … just visiting”  Canada was not cheap and petty.  Gotta love those classy Conservative attack ads nothing petty about them (sarcasm intended).  Then Mr Harper goes on the G8 stage to criticises Ignatief for things he did not even say,  that couldn’t be described as cheap and petty either?  Well at least he apologised, and blamed it all on his aide,  the very conservative thing to do, remember Ms Rait’s aide that kept leaving this everywhere.  I will never understand the Conservative habit of forgiving even the dumbest acts of their leaders.  As a liberal I think Trudeau’s pirouette behind the Queen was asinine, but if Harper had done this, types like Bunny would be saying oh what wonderful dancing.

GET A LIFE !

Canada Day – Not Dominion Day

David Warren in an editorial in the Ottawa Citizen entitled “My Canada includes Canada” Warren makes a valid point that “the Canada into which I was born does not much resemble the Canada of today.” Up to this point I agree with Warren, but it is at this point we diverge in opinions. Warren states he will never call it “’Canada Day’ without inverted commas” preferring the old moniker Dominion Day. He also objects to the Idea of Changing the motto to the more concise and less religious, “From Sea to Sea.” Warren points out that “our flag our heraldic arms, even the words of our national anthem have been replaced or tampered with . . . [and] in every case, something was quietly deleted from our actual heritage.” Warren thinks that we are loosing what makes us Canada. This is my take on the changes and a defence of my assertion that I live in Canada and Mr Warren does not. I Call Canada Day, Canada Day, not because I want to take God out of our country’s history. If you strongly believe that there is a conspiracy to do this you are wrong. The main reason for the change was because Dominion Day was never really celebrated. Although Governor General Viscount Monck proclaimed it on the 20 June 1868 there were few or no celebrations until 1958. Why because Canadians saw themselves as British subjects more than Canadians. Canada used to celebrate Victoria Day more vehemently than Dominion Day. It wasn’t until after the passing of the Canada Act in 1982 that Canada severed all remaining dependence on the United Kingdom and within 7 months Dominion Day was changed to Canada Day. We were no longer a prisoner of our past but a people with an independent future. For the same reason I support the change to Canada Day, I also support changing the Motto to “From Sea to Sea.” In this case it talks about the nation rather than the presence of God. Don’t get me wrong I am a Christian and believe that God is above all, but what of all our non-Christian brothers and sisters is this not their country too? If we embrace just the Christian perspective we leave out the thousands of Japanese and Chinese that built the railways, the thousands of Jews that made Montréal a world class city the millions of Indians that lived thrived and worshiped their own Gods before we arrived. Canada is all of us not just Christians. Rather than loosing what it is to be Canadian we have expanded the definition, we have apologize for the head tax, and the mistreatment of Indians in residential schools. We no longer try to make Canadians into European images of those that came in the 17th century. We have not “quietly deleted [anything] from our actual heritage,” rather we have added to it and made Canada really Canadian. If Mr Warren would like to live in British North America he is so welcome to do so but I would rather live in the Canada of today then the Canada of yesteryear.

I wrote this article as a letter to the editor in response to Warren’s note but the citizen chose not to print it thus I am publishing it here.

Warren in my books is up there with those dinasuars that want to return the Flag to the red ensign take the French out of the anthem, bring back corporal punishment in schools , and the death penalty etc…. you do that and what do you have ? The 1940’s !

Mea Culpa

 

Robert S. McNamara June 9, 1916 — July 6, 2009

Vietnam – Mea Culpa

 

“We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of our country. But we were wrong. We were terribly wrong,”   Robert S. McNamara

Coming Soon the Canadian Oil Scam

One of my email addresses seems to have been made the target of Nigerian Oil scams and UK lotto notices which as we know are as Kosher as Ham.

Each time they ask for a reply including name address phone number etc…

Luckily the email address they have targeted is anonymous remailer so I have taken to responding with the following.

1.Full Name I. P. Knightly
2.Address Rustibed Springs
Ontario Canada
3.Age Legal drinking age in Kazakhstan
4.Sex Not enough
5.Telephone ..-. ..- -.-. -.- / — ..-. ..-.
(Sorry the phone is broken – using Morse code at the moment)

My question is if you were a con artist knowing that The Nigerian oil scam is so well known why wouldn’t you use another nation as you base of BS?

An open Letter to CTV

For many years I have watched CTV and read the articles on the website. I have watched as you went from a balanced news broadcaster with up to the minute news to a platform for the right. As a dyed in the wool socialist Liberal supporter I have finally come to the conclusion that you’re no longer worth watching.

One thing you might want to learn from the CBC is that the most vocal are often the most conservative.  CBC allows readers to not only comment, but to react to comments by agreeing or disagreeing with them.  Look at the way people respond to the comments on CBC the most agreed with, are almost 100% the most socialist or left wing, and the most disagreed with are the most right-wing. Most of the comments however come from the rightwingnuts. Who is the silent majority now?

The answer is beyond obvious, or don’t you bother reading your competition?

Who are you pandering to? Your advertisers?

Fire Trucks & Fridge Magnets

The Toronto Star reported the results of their investigation this morning in the paper.  The investigation took a look at the high response times of Toronto firefighters to fires within the city of Toronto.  Of course the City of Toronto officials weren’t that helpful in the investigation.   Toronto Fire chief, Bill Stewart, did provide some documentation and some statistical analysis.  But when the Star reporter asked a few more questions (i.e. the call time starts in the reports when the dispatcher first saved the call to the computer system, but what is the actual time when the call came in?) Stewart’s reply was “You as a reporter should not be looking at this information.”  That obviously smells that something is being covered up for either a purposeful reason (i.e. Toronto Fire has something to hide) or to avoid possible legal issues.  The only people to know this reside within the Toronto Fire department.   But this isn’t the only worrisome issue.

Further along in the same article the process of dispatching trucks is mentioned.  The average response time in North American standards is six minutes from when the call first comes in.  The standard breaks down that the 911 dispatcher takes and dispatches the call (1 minute), the firefighters get to their truck and onto the street (1 minute) and the time the truck has to get to the fire or emergency scene (4 minutes).   In terms of Toronto’s most recent largest fire, the fire at Sunrise Propane, Toronto fire took way longer than 6 minutes to arrive at the explosive fire scene. 

The breakdown of the sequence of events at Toronto Fire during the Sunrise Propane fire scene just boggles the mind.  The times provided by the City of Toronto and reported by the The Toronto Star makes a Toronto resident’s heart skip a beat.   The first dispatch time recorded by the Toronto Fire dispatcher’s computer is 3:49 A.M.  “It took close to two minutes for dispatch to notify and contact fire crews in several stations, all about 2.5 kilometres away.” (Toronto Star Article).  At the fire hall it took the crew of Pumper 145 two and half minutes to get onto the road to the fire.  Pumper 145 was the first on the scene 10 minutes after the first original call was recorded.  Let’s also keep in mind the travel time in Toronto of Pumper 145 wasn’t hampered by traffic on the way to the fire as fire occurred overnight on a Saturday to Sunday when traffic is virtually non-existant.   Which the Star reported: ” none of the these vehicles were more than a few minutes’ drive away.”

Perhaps one of the largest issues the Star found is the antiquated dispatch system Toronto Fire uses to dispatch their equipment to emergencies.  The equipment is tracked using magnets on a magnetic map of Toronto.  Each fire is recorded on the map and then the magnet of a dispatched piece of equipment is moved to it.  Apparently this is the system that has been in use since the amalgamation of Toronto in 1998.  So basically, Toronto Fire dispatchers keep track of location of their equipment with fridge magnets at all times.   Meanwhile over at the the city’s public transit department (TTC) each surface vehicle (e.g. streetcar, bus, etc.) is tracked by GPS units so that transit control knows exactly where each unit is.   Surely th Toronto Fire Department can create a dispatch system that uses this already in use GPS technology to track its vehicles, location of fire halls and situations on the go.  But there is no promise from the Toronto Star investigation that this is the case.

The City of Toronto needs to wake up and improved it’s dispatching system.  The evidence the Toronto Star uncovered may only be the the tip of the iceberg of issues at the fire department.  A complete review of the dispatch system first needs to be undertaken.  First an audit of the existing system needs to be completed to find  the deficiencies.  Second a review of other municipal fire systems in North American cities and suburbs should be looked at for best practices that could be included in a new Toronto Fire dispatch system.  Finally a plan needs to be put together for a new Toronto dispatch system from when the 911 call comes in to when the first fire truck is on the scene.    

But Fire Chief Bill Stewart needs to be told empatically by the Mayor and the citizens of Toronto that this statement will not suffice in terms of this new system (as the Toronto Star reported): “[Bill Stewart] As president of the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association, he is backing a move to change the standard to allow firefighters longer to get out the door to a blaze [by 20 seconds].”   This is unacceptable as the current standard is one minute for the firefighters to get to their trucks and out the door.  When, as has been espoused to youngsters across Canada over and over by firefighters, ‘in a fire every second counts’ a request of just give them an extra twenty seconds is strictly unacceptable.   But then again, if the city of Toronto continues to a five year old’s fridge magnets to track their million dollar pieces of equipment then perhaps it will take firefighters that much longer to get to a fire.   What a sad state of affairs it is at Toronto fire when the City’s own transit system has a better dispatch and location program in place than the Toronto fire department does.

The Newfoundland Version of a Parrot

Munch Munch

But just what is this hog eating?

New Look

EnViSiOn Formerly the Art of the Rant.

In order to incorporate both opinion and images, I have retitled the Blog EnViSiOn.

How to be an Armchair Critic and Not Look Like a Total Idiot (It is possible).

Lesson # 1 – Don’t use the phrase “So-called Experts”

One of the most over used phrases in an arm chair critics vocabulary is the Phrase “So-Called Experts.”

So-called
adj : doubtful or suspect; “these so-called experts are no help”
[syn: alleged, supposed]

Expert
adj 1: having or showing knowledge and skill and aptitude; “adept
in handicrafts”; “an adept juggler”; “an expert job”;
“a good mechanic”; “a practiced marksman”; “a
proficient engineer”; “a lesser-known but no less
skillful composer”; “the effect was achieved by
skillful retouching” [syn: adept, good, practiced,
proficient, skillful, skilful]
2: having or showing great skill or knowledge or special
training as expected of a professional; “an expert
opinion”
n : a person with special knowledge or ability who performs
skillfully

The problem is one of arrogance. Applying the term So-called Expert to someone infers that you know better. I did not go to university until I was 37 and was far from an expert on anything. However, even in my opinionated and less expert years, not that I am an expert now, I read and wrote and spouted off on things I was and still am far from an expert on. The one thing I always did however was respect those that were called experts. I did not assume they were always right as even an expert has the potential to be wrong. I have no doubt that, much as I dislike the opinions of Stephen Harper and think that he makes some less than expert comments on items, when he talks about conservative opinions he is accurate. He is an expert. It is true however that anyone can dispute what an expert says. To assume a person with knowledge will form the best conclusions and advice is a fallacy, but to assume someone is not an expert just because you don’t agree with them is CRAP ! It is an insult and has no bearing on an argument unless there is basis for it. If someone has no knowledge and is calling themselves and expert then to say he / she is a “so-called expert” is legitimate but if they have the knowledge have it on their CV or have worked in the field for years then, they trump you, and you are setting yourself up as an expert. What would you have these so called experts do? I have heard it many times, “I wish these So-called experts would shut up.” So now we have determined who the so-called experts truly are, they are the ones making the accusation and, we hope you will take your own advice.

New Camera

My wife gave me an aniversary present (three months early) a Nikon D60. These are just a few shots I took to try it out.

 

Of Patriots and Pornographers: The CPC Promo Manual at work.

The New Conservative attack site against Ignatief is is www.Ignatieff.me The .me Internet domain name is registered in Montenegro, and the web administrator often used to by pornographic sites is based in Arizona.

Even if as the conservatives claim he is just visiting (BS) at least he has the courtesy to buy Canadian, and stays away from dealings with the less than moral types. But aren’t the Conservatives used to dealing with these folks. Hey Mr Harper, did Karl H Schrieber give the site administrator a good reference?

Pistol Packin Parisheners

I have to thank Jonathan Turley for this article, and for proving to me that Arkansas is a creepy place.

Guns and God: Arkansas Legislators Move to Armed the Faithful in Church

Legislators in Arkansas do no want to have to chose between god and guns. They are pushing legislation to allow citizens to pack heat in the house of God. Grant Exton is a gun owner and president of the state’s Concealed Carry Association insists that they are simply trying to give all churches the right have armed congregationalists. Gun owners can then lock and load for Jesus.

This does not go over well with Little Rock pastor John Phillips for good reason. In 1986, he explained: “A gentleman came into the church. He was mentally deranged, and at the end of the sermon, pulled out a gun and shouted something about baptism and proceeded to shoot me in the back a couple of times. I still carry one of the bullets embedded in my spine.”

This week is the 23rd anniversary of the shooting.

This could pose a difficult choice for gun owners of what weapon is best suited for a particular sermon. A Glock might be suitable for a New Testament sermon, but the Old Testament is strictly non-automatic weapons only. Easter might call for something cute like a derringer while Christmas deserves a MAC-10.

Thought for the Day

“Democratic progress requires the ready availability of true and complete information. In this way people can objectively evaluate their government’s policy. To act otherwise is to give way to despotic secrecy.”

Pierre E. Trudeau

Mr Harper are you listening?

Dear Canada

The Following article was published on CBC website’s Citizen Bytes page http://www.cbc.ca/news/citizenbytes/2009/05/dear_canada_an_open_letter_fro.html. It is the best defense against the Tory Attack ads I have seen so far. Not that any thinking person would take the ads seriously they look like they were made by a developmentally chalenged 5 year old. (sorry to all five year olds)

Dear Canada: An open letter from abroad
Thursday, May 21, 2009
by JanaLee Cherneski

I’m a Rhodes Scholar completing my doctorate in Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford.
I write with sadness to confess I have been unfaithful to you, my home and native land. It seems I lack national sentiment, or so I have been told by your governing party’s most recent advertising campaigns.

Why am I anti-nationalist and unfaithful? Sporting not one, but three Canadian flags lovingly stitched by my mother onto my backpack, I have abandoned you to travel and study outside your borders. I am unfaithful because, like Michael Ignatieff, I have left you to study in England. Because on Canada Day, I, alongside other Canadians working and studying overseas, unfurled my Canadian flag with pride in London’s Trafalgar Square instead of back home in Saskatchewan.

We Canadians abroad who wave our flags from afar on July 1st, who carry our Tim Horton’s mugs, who search out specialty stores that sell maple syrup and Molson beer, clearly must be less patriotic than our peers who stay at home.

For we, like Michael Ignatieff, are now of the world: we have become ‘cosmopolitan.’

Dear Canada: you are one country, but are you not cosmopolitan too? As John Ralston Saul tells us in his most recent book, you are a Metis civilization, historically formed out of aboriginals and the arrivals of newcomers over the centuries. You are composed of not one (or even three) languages or cultures, but rather many.

You house people of many views and experiences and professions; and you are connected to even more outside your borders. You consume coffee from Colombia, bananas from Ecuador, chocolate from Switzerland and movies from Hollywood; use computer chips from Japan, phones fabricated in China, wear clothes made in India and shoes made in Spain.

Like it or not, Canada, you are a member of a global community: you yourself are a cosmopolitan global citizen.

You need the world beyond your borders and you need the people beyond your borders and that world also needs you. Which means you need your people to have experiences outside your borders. And you need them to cooperate with people on the outside, as well as people on the inside, because both are equally important. You need to appreciate the talents of all your people all the time, regardless of where they are in the world or where they have come from.

We, the immigrants from other countries who chose to come to you, we are yours. And we, who are born in your borders but leave you for a time, we remain yours. None of us are citizens of the world who come from nowhere: we are all Canadians living in one global village.

Our cosmopolitan identity doesn’t stop with our people: our national livelihood is global too. International exports account for more than 40 per cent of our GDP. International trade, especially of our commodities, is the fastest-growing area of the Canadian economy and our country relies on B.C. lumber, Alberta oil, Arctic oil, prairie crops, hydro from Quebec and Manitoba, mining from all over, steel and the auto industry in Ontario, and oil and gas and fisheries from the East Coast. A recent study says one in three Canadians is in some way dependent on exported goods or services for their income.

What this means for Canada is not just that we are dependent on our resources and international trading partners but that we are dependent on our own people who work in these industries: our commodities workers are vital to our prosperity. In turn, their livelihoods — like the livelihoods of all Canadian citizens — depends on our ability to understand the international community and befriend it. Thus, as we harvest the profits of our industrial workers, we must also harvest the international experience of some of our other citizens.

We are interdependent — we need each other. In this international world we need our workers and our politicians and our ‘elite’ intellectuals. Most importantly, we need them to communicate and to cooperate. Especially as we face this current financial crisis.

Why, then, are our current leaders talking about spending money on advertising campaigns to attack each other? Why would we even think about spending money to attack one of our citizens instead of to provide tools for the people of our country to learn and to communicate with each other?

We need people who can cooperate across difference. We must empower leaders who foster community rather than conflict: leaders who succeed for society through a politics of unity rather than succeed for themselves through politics of division.

I am worried, Canada. I am partly worried for myself: when I come back to serve you with the knowledge and experience I have gained from afar, will you call me opportunistic and turn on me too? But I worry more for you: once you start rejecting the skills and knowledge of your own citizens where will that leave you, dear Canada?

All Those That Will Lie for Their Ideals Have None.

The most honest thing I have heard in a long time was a comment posted on the CTV website in regards to the Brian Mulroney, Karlheinz Schreiber affair.

david
Sadly the reason no one cares about this is that we have come to a point in our society when we have all accepted a simple truth… when a politician opens his mouth, lies fall out. And politicians aren’t to blame because business people are the same…. we are SWIMMING in lies 24/7. Simply we can’t believe ANYONE any more… so it comes to this… why bother to ask when all you’ll get is fabrication, fantsy and bulls##t?

The unfortunate things is that as well as honest it is entirely depressing. Even those politicians we support for exigent reasons will lie in the belief it is for the betterment of the country. Growing up I was always told a man of Character does not lie. Now I am sick of the accusation that unless you accept a world that functions on deceit we are naive.

I hope and pray that somewhere out there, there is a politician that has the testicular courage to be honest. All those that will lie for their ideals have none.

Tolerance? or Ignorance?

CTV seems to lack historical reference at times, or is being overly tolerant. Over the past few weeks I have noticed that one of the people that comments, and has not been moderated is a person that has taken on the moniker of Nathan Forest. I seriously suspect that Mr Forest has taken this name for a reason, as his comments walk the edge of intolerance at times, but at other times seem tolerant.

My question is why would anyone take on this name? Or at least if it was a real name why not change it? Historically Nathan Bedford Forrest was a crude man who had made his fortune as a slave trader, and was noted for his violence. During the American civil war he was accused of leading Confederate soldiers in a massacre of unarmed black Union Army prisoners,After the war Forrest opposed Reconstruction policies and federal occupation by serving as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

One might wonder what CTV would do if someone commented under the name of Adolf Hitler?