Reflections of an Old Man

Kenney is playing a dangerous game. Do nothing, let 'er rip until there are enough critically ill and dying people to wake up a fractured political base, seems to be the strategy adopted by our Premier and his cabinet in Alberta. Kenney is scared of a revolt in his own base if he takes more proactive steps to slow down virus spread. UCP cabinet members have convinced themselves that they have found just the right balance between restrictive measures and freedoms to survive as a government through the third wave. And are escaping into the fantasy that vaccines will save the day while variant infections are on a rapid rise throughout Alberta. Meanwhile the world, and notably the financial world, is looking at Alberta, and guess what those folks are thinking? "That's the last place in the world I would invest. Those guys can't get their act together for life, nor money". So don't expect any downstream financial boom in Alberta, folks. We are relegated to the bac...

The passing of Mike Collins brings back memories of the 1960ies: Shortly after arriving in Sydney, Australia as an immigrant on April 25, 1966, I had an interview for a job with an Australian company called Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) with the possibility of working as a technician on one of the Australian space tracking stations used in the Apollo program. That in light of having served on a NATO early warning tracking station in Northern Norway as a technician prior to emigrating to Australia. AWA had been contracted to supply equipment for the Tidbinbilla tracking station that was to relay information through to Houston from the Apollo astronauts when stations on the other side of the globe lost contact due to the Earth's rotation. The hurdle proved to be a security clearance, as the Americans were rather paranoid about possible leaks to the Russians during that cold war time. The engineer who interviewed me told me that during his training stage in the US, he had a guard...

In the early morning mists of this day, April 25, in 1966, after five weeks at sea, the Sydney heads rose out of the sea, as the T/S Flavia was about to complete her voyage to a new land for over one thousand immigrants to Australia. I was one of those people, and most of us were on deck with our eyes glued to what was to become our new homeland. Over the course of the journey tensions had developed between the two main groups of people on the ship, Germans and Englishmen, who just over 20 years ago had been mortal enemies. That was all forgotten on this morning 55 years ago as the Flavia, an old Italian troop carrier converted to the migration trade, slowly made her way through the passage between the Sydney heads into the beautiful and well protected Sydney Harbour. Ours was an experience shared with thousands of people for over 150 years beginning with a British penal colony in 1788. And, as we were to learn, the life of an immigrant is a hard one, as over half of the marriages of ...

Because it enables him to weasel inside our heads. Let me explain: Each and every human being has a 'footprint', both physically and mentally. We are shaped by many forces, all the way from the womb to the grave and Big Brother really likes the idea of being able to mould us into what He wants us to be, rather than finding our own way and marginalizing His power over us. And then there are a lot of Little Brothers who, like Big Brother, use us as feedstock for their human mind moulding business as well. To this end, the internet has proven itself to be a valuable tool for the power players. Ever wondered why there are so many 'free' services out there? Data collection on behaviors is the answer. A highly marketable and valuable commodity in today's world. Now, it so happens that 5G networks hugely expand the ability to collect detailed information on each and every one of us from the embedded little 'spies' in consumer devices we use every day. That informat...

There is a popular belief that increasing use of technology means fewer jobs. That belief took hold way back at the beginning if the industrial revolution with Luddite activism: "The Luddites were a secret oath-based organisation of English textile workers in the 19th century, a radical faction which destroyed textile machinery as a form of protest. The group are believed to have taken their name from Ned Ludd, a weaver from Anstey, near Leicester." So, there are some 200 years worth of predictions that have not come to pass, otherwise we should have massive unemployment by now. The prediction seems intuitively correct, so what has actually happened? As usual, the 'devil' is in the details: Let's take a car as an example and compare Henry Ford's Model T to the average family car today. Apart from having four wheels, an engine and brakes in common, the complexity of content in the modern vehicle is an order of magnitude higher than the Model T's. So, in eff...

It behoves us here in Canada to really take note if what is happening in India at this time, in regards to COVID. Why? "In 2019, there were 1,008,955 registered Indians in Canada. Between 2000 and 2019, the number of registered Indians in Canada experienced an increase, going from some 670 thousand to over one million. Mar. 15, 2021" That means a lot of travel back and forth between India and Canada and we all know that the Canadian border is more like a sieve than a barrier to travel. So, with the pandemic surging in India, it is just a matter if time before the same happens here, again; a fourth wave in the fall being most likely. As long as our borders are open to international travel, the virus will merrily move around the globe, to the most vulnerable spots, one of which is Canada.

On the morning of April 9, 1940, Norwegians woke up to a changed world: German troops were landing, by air and ship in Norway's major port cities, early in the morning, without any warning. German 'cargo' ships, already tied up alongside port facilities, ready to unload their 'cargoes', spewed forth armed troops and weaponry to facilitate occupation. It all happened within a few morning hours, and only spurious resistance was encountered by the German occupiers initially. Leading up to this point, Norwegian society was a divided one, between two opposed ideologies, communism from the east in Soviet Russia and National Socialism from the south in Germany. Europe was divided into two camps brought about by the ravages of the Great Depression during the 1930ies. The outcome of the invasion for Norwegians was a 280,000 strong German occupation force, the presence of which had to be endured for five long years that seemed like an eternity to most. I am personally a chil...