David Suzuki: Televangelist Fraud Artist

A less than bright idea brought to you by the Law of Unintended (but occasionally foreseen) Consequences.





We've all been preached to about getting rid of our light bulbs. The David Suzuki Foundation with others managed to convince the Ontario government to legislate against the little devils. I recall my father, who after thinking over the matter for but an instant realized what took everyone else a couple years: the furnace will have to work harder to make up for less heat in the new bulbs so its all the same except now you have a ton of mercury in the water table from discarded compact fluorescence. When I saw this article about the utility companies confirming this I searched my mental archive of Dad Rants ( meatworld://kitchen table/forums/obvious to me+when will they learn)

Curiously, a spokesdroid for the foundation demonstrates the kind of blind dogma they usually accuse everyone else of having. In addition the foundation zealously and successfully pushed these bulbs into legally mandated occupancy in the marketplace in spite of being a menace to groundwater with their mercury content. After getting a list of who works at the Suzuki Foundation, I learned that the Climate Change department consists of communications people except for 1 research analyst who has no academic credentials. Nice.

These are televangelists.
Who need to think.
Even just a little.
Before they tell everyone else what to do.

And screw everything up more than it already is.

Bush Visits Calgary

Today, on traditional QNY, I went to protest George W Bush's visit to Calgary. Bush was speaking at the Telus Convention center for $400 per person. The scene at noon was of a thousand identically well dressed business elites lined up in a large "U" one block long in the Stephen Ave. pedestrian mall outside the convention centre. In the middle was the organized protest shouting various slogans from the profound to the inane. Intent on surveying the scene, I walked past the line of patrons and when I stopped to talk a picture, I noticed a understandable sheepish look on the people I photographed. Who wouldn't be a little off put by a stranger talking their picture? but in that expression was a pang of guilt. Next I noticed 3 young, ambitious looking suits snickering at the protest going on in the middle. They oozed superiority that would infuriate even the mildest person. I walked up to them and took their picture as a statement to them that their support for Bush is not happening in a vacuum. Their expressions changed instantly.
I staked out some geography at the entrance to the center behind 4 calm but serious police officers and waited for people to start filing in. The expression on the faces of the men waiting to get in was fear mixed with a little guilt but masked over with faux confidence and nervous laughter. The more I studied these faces, the more I realized that these were mostly wealthy businessmen who were really just there to be seen and mix with other business elites on their lunch hour. My alderman was there looking for people he recognized.




-this man ignores my querys while his buddy pretends I'm not there. They imagined their support for a tyrant would have no negative consequences to themselves.

I suppose there were plenty of businessmen who actually were there to politically support Bush but the networking fascists were really getting under my skin. It really started to bother me that these men would reward Bush with thousands of dollars in exchange for the privilege of being seen at a must attend social event. To reward someone who undeniably violates international law that Canada is a signatory to. To support such a villain and purveyor of injustice for their own personal networking and career advancement was a cowardly and banal kind of evil.
And so I looked each person in the eye as they passed and challenged them to explain why they were giving money to a torturer. Why were they giving money to a war criminal. "Why aren't you outraged?" I casually asked a suit who looked me in the eye. He smirked dismissively. I told him he was a coward as I shook my head with very real disappointment. "How can you pay money to someone who ignored every freedom he claimed to defend?" I ask another smug businessman. He laughs a nervous laugh and I tell him that you would have to have no soul to laugh at such blatant injustices. I found that the most effective scolding came in the form of making eye contact (I'm standing about 3 feet from these people) and just shaking my head and saying "shame" as I look them dead in the eye.

Shame on these cowards. Shame on these wealthy businessmen for divorcing themselves from their actions. Shame for putting their own networking above the cause of justice. Shame for their cowardice.


Traditionally on QNY, "getting told" often represents the exercise of one's freedom. Well, after "telling" a thousand people today, I feel as though I've accomplished in a very small way, the same thing.

Another Businessman robs the people blind with Government help

News Item: Peter Pocklington arrested for Bankruptcy Fraud

With all the attention down south on American Captains of Industry stealing money whilst authorities followed the lead of the Absent President and did nothing, I thought it would be quaint to remember just one of Alberta's own high profile robbers. Back in the 80s as a car dealer(perfect) he would divert money from the Ford Financing wing into his own pet projects. Kind of Fargo-esque. But when things started going south, he secured a 10 million dollar loan to his worthless Fidelity Trust shell company. His buddy buddy relationship with Alberta's public held bank, ATB, in concert with showering its highest employees with skiing and golf holidays managed to run up a never ending line of credit totaling over 100 million of Alberta's dollars by the 1990s. Not to mention the 12 million dollar loan guarantee he secured for his failed meat packing plant that he never re-payed. When Fidelity Trust finally failed, it secured another 300 million from the public purse.
A useful quote from his personal website:

• If you can't win, change the rules!
• If you can't change the rules, ignore them

These quotes were intended to brand him as a leader with a creative business acumen who wasn't afraid to think outside the box. His main page notes his 3 divisions are food, sports, and "other." We now know that "other" means stealing public money abetted by public officials.
Anyway, added to his list of business laws is the following, when authorities are hot on your heels, flee the country. Which he did. To California. But after telling bankruptcy officials that he only had 2900 dollars in assets, (really? did that include the 800 dollar suit he was wearing at the time?) he was later seen repaying a local debt with $80,000 worth of art he retrieved from a storage locker. Oh yeah, and he drew cheques from 2 different bank accounts he forgot to mention to bankruptcy court! Meanwhile the Alberta government, or more accurately, those who weren't paid off by Pocklington in the 80s and 90s, are down in California trying to get some of the peoples' money back.

Here's a picture of Pocklington's tax lawyer Mike Lusby, who looks every inch the scumbag parasite. Photo courtesy his own website.



Pocklington's tax lawyer Mike Lusby (who makes $1000/hour except from clients who obviously only have $2900 to their name and therefore couldn't possibly afford such rates???!!!) defended Pocklington by claiming that it was a witch hunt.
He's right, it is a witch hunt. And this witch owes us millions of dollars.

In the media's newest story arc, the business tycoon gone bad, I hope it can find the time to expose the regulators and the bankers and the public officeholders who handed these robber barons their fortunes.

Dusting off the Key for QNY 19

Thanks for eroding freedom, Lou Dobbs.

The letter I got today from the Lou Dobbs show really was a nice touch. Of course if they had actually read my letter I'm sure they would have sent me their Haters form letter instead. The other day Lou was heroically defending the right to bear arms from the Liberal Menace. "Freedom Under Fire" the segment read. Normally I wouldn't give Lou's show the time of day but instead I watched and wrote a short letter inviting the show to contemplate the 100 billion dollars a year that gun deaths and injuries cause every year in America.
I thought if senseless death doesn't cause one to rethink "freedom under fire," then money might. But just to be sure, I sent some gun stats:

Since 1962, more than one million Americans have died in firearm homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings. Handguns were used in more than 650,000 of these fatal shootings.

In homes with guns, a member of the household is almost three times as likely to be the victim of a homicide compared to gun-free homes.
-from VPC

Why write a letter to the show? Well to celebrate QNY19 this week I thought I would either dig a hole to China or bring reason to the internet.