From the BBC World News website comes the news that a swab test of keyboards in the office of a consumer watch magazine showed keyboards covered in bacteria, some of them dirtier than toilet seats, covered with things like E-Coli or Staphloccus Aureus.
Cleaning up the keyboard is one solution, but if you share a keyboard in your office, you never know.
So Shaun McMahon came up with the solution and here it is: The Roll Up Keyboard from the website known as Think Geek, that would be www.thinkgeek.com.
This is a short blog, but an important one. After listening to Mikey Weinstein from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and his contention that the US military has been all but taken over by fundamentalist evangelical Christians, I had to put up his link to his website so you could judge for yourself. Here is the site: www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org
This morning I confessed to two things on the show: One is that I have an accountant who does my taxes, and, two, that I still file by mail on paper.
Turns out, according to Revenue Canada, about 25 to 30 per cent of all Canadians still do file by paper.
However, if you want to join the majority, Fred Pye, of Capital Wellington West, had a recommendation for us.
There are lots of income tax preparation programs on sale or on the web, but Fred Pye recommended ufile.ca which you can find easily on the web. Fred says the program is well done, with plenty of help for each field to be filled in.
I looked it up myself on the web and it turns out you have a choice right from the start: you can download the program and use it on your computer--for a price--OR you can do use the program on the web and fill it in right there for a lower price.
All that is at www.ufile.ca. Happy filing.
Air Canada has done exactly as I predicted, that is started charging us poor economy--steerage--passengers for a second piece of luggage.
In my Blog on April 11, I predicted that Air Canada would soon follow the lead of its Star Alliance partner United Airlines and start charging for the second bag. Sure enough. last week, Air Canada dropped the other shoe.
Some interesting reaction to that too. A number of letter writers suggest airlines charge by the pound, that is the pounds that you weigh and the pounds your luggage weighs. Can that be far behind. If you are over a certain average weight, will you pay more?
If I gave you 10 years to get something done, would you still be asking for a little more time after 10 years?
Worse yet, would you be asking for another 10 years?
The City of Montreal would. Quebec gave Montreal 10 years to reach 60 per cent recycling or composting of our household waste--also known as GARBAGE!
And Garbage is what we got form the city.
Now, ten years on, the city has not met the target, won't meet the target another 10 or 18 YEARS, and claims they don't have all the money they need to get there.
Give me a break.
Arguably, after clean water, sewage and roads, Garbage should be the top priority of any city government,
Lord knows they do pick it up, most of the time. But ten years notice, for a recycle, reduce, reuse and compost program should be enough.
And as i read back what I have written I realize that water, sewage and roads are all problem areas in Montreal even though they should be priorities.
So what are they doing down at city hall with our $4 billion dollars.
One thing is sure, when it comes to the environment and recycling, they are pulling the wool over their eyes. They don't really believe in reducing and recycling, even though the evidence is that citizens and
people buy into these programs in almost unanimous numbers.
No, they , the poltiicans in city hall, the Alan Da Sousa's and the Marcel Tremblay's talk a good line.
If they really believed, the ten year deadline would have been plenty.
Andre Pratte, chief editor of La Presse, was one of the people who signed the "LUCID" manifesto in Quebec a couple of years ago, so it is no surprise to me that Pratte, in his editorial on Saturday, gave pretty unqualified support to the report from a committee recommending higher fees for all kinds of government services and permits. plus higher Hydro Quebec rates.
I don't intend to belabour the issue, because it is a question of ideology more than anything else.
But Pratte described public service pricing policies in his editorial, and I immediately thought of the pricing policies of gasoline--the ultimate PRIVATE pricing policy.
Pratte described those public pricing policies as "illogical, arbitrary and opaque"--or non transparent. (My translation.)
Illogical, arbitrary and opaque: now does that not sound to you like the pricing policies of the gasoline and oil giants in our market? Or should I say pricing POLICY, since all the integrated oil and gas companies
tend to follow the SAME pricing policy. And oh no, it is not a result of collusion or anti-competition behaviour.
You've become used to paying for meals or bringing your own lunch when you fly domestic economy with Air Canada. You've become used to renting a blanket and a pillow on Air Canada domestic economy flights.
So what could be next?
Geoff Green, explorer and environmentalist, wants you to stop using bottled water and bottle your own at home. He wants me to do it too. Am I up to the challenge?
As for you, for more on Green's campaign, go to www.filterforgood.ca , his website for more.
Nick Auf der Maur, reporter, columnist, politician, boulevardier, drinker, smoker, hat wearer and exceptional storyteller, died 10 years ago this week.
His funeral at the time was an event at St Patrick's Basilica filled to overflowing followed by a New Orleans Basin Street style march through the streets with his coffin behind a jazz bandd.
Nick never did anything boring or just like everyone else. That was part of his charm, and he has yet to be replaced in Montreal by anyone anywhere near so colourful.
If you remember Nick, as councillor, columnist, or boulevardier patron of Crescent street bars--and that includes a lot of people--you will be welcome at Ziggy's on Crescent street tonight after five o'clock.
Along with a chance to reminisce about Nick and see his and your old friends, this will be a chance to help
cancer patients who need taxi fare to get to the Montreal General for their treatment.
Ziggy provides the vodka, Schwarz's provides the smoked meat and you can provide the tall tales of Nick's adventures. See you there. And share your Nick stories here with me on the comments.
My own favorite memory is when I managed to interview Nick and Melissa Auf der Maur together as a surprise to Melissa on my old interview show Sunday Night with Dennis Trudeau.
