AKIC Randoms

• David Warren on the Canadian and American elections. He laments that even if the Conservatives get a majority in Canada, it won't do any good. In was in a Canada with a Conservative government that idiotic institutions like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Human Rights Commissions were not eliminated. Canada has gone leftwards and the Conservatives are too scared to do anything about it. At least the American election is nasty in comparison, Warren says. Although, it would be nice, I think, if one of the two political solitudes that exist now in America was represented by someone who wasn't trying to straddle them both like a man screwing a dog.
• Message to John McCain. You won't win the election by trying to out-stupid stupid. It may be good politics in theory, but in this election, John, your stupid policy pronouncements like buying bad mortgages and jumping on the global warming hysteria wagon is making you look old and senile.
• I think I have found the best and fastest route home on my electric bike. I have come to the conclusion that something going the wrong way on some bicycle paths is a good thing if the paths aren't busy and you can avoid make left turns at busy intersections. The fast route I have found cuts five minutes off my commute home. It takes me past some factories and under an elevated highway. It is dark in some spots so I put my lights on but I can see everything that is coming.
• Today, Tony pointed at something he wanted for the first time, at least for me anyway. There was a drink box on the table that he wanted. I gladly gave it to him because he, with his sore mouth, he has been eating or drinking much.
• Tony will give you things he has in his hand if you ask him, as well.
• I didn't realize till today how hard it is to get a tourist visa to China. A new teacher I have hired told me that you need to get a hotel reservation and prove you have enough money to stay in China for the length of your visa (at 6000 Aussie dollars must be in your bank account if you want a sixty day visa). When I got my two tourist visas, it was simple the case of filling out a form and giving them the cash. I got my first tourist visa on the day I took the application form to the Chinese consulate in Vancouver.
• Near the factory I ride by, (see photo in a recent previous entry), there are countless rows of what must be slum tenements. I should take a photo and publish it in this entry. The area these people live in must be so polluted.
• There were hundreds of centipedes crawling in part of my apartment complex, thankfully not anywhere near my apartment. I couldn't determine why they would be there. Was it that they were in a shady area? Was it where they always hung out before the land was taken for development?
• I always have to remind the trainers that they are living in a dictatorship when things happen that make no sense.
• Real disgusting places to walk by are the temporary living areas for the construction workers of our apartment complex. Some of them throw their garbage out their windows onto the street.
• I saw a bicyclist have a real close call as I was being driven from a company class tonight. The bicyclist going through a red light just missed being hit by a bus by a foot. Having had to accelerate to get out of the bus's way, the bicyclist then just narrowly avoided hitting a scooter that was in the right as far the lights went. Some cyclists seem to assume that they can dodge anything, even the busiest of traffic. I know my dodging skills have improved a lot in the time I have ridden the scooter to work and I have taken some chances. I have even run red lights myself knowing cars will slow down for me. But some riders I seen are insane or blind.