Checkered Lounge Pants

Went to Bangkok on Monday and saw the folks at visa application center that EMBASSY recommended for visitor visa for Ning. That went much much much better than expected. Navigated my way through Bangkok public transit system and found the VAC on the 28tj floor of sky scraping office tower. They had a specific canAda office and provided missing forms And polished up my pile of documents with Ning and filed the application to Canadian embassy Fly to Hanoi on Saturday. Got hotel booked for two nights then bus up to Sapa. Rent motorcycles and ride to China. Should be a gas.

‘Refrigerators, Towels, Whatever You Want,’ Residents Say DETROIT—Emphasizing that its workforce and facilities were just waiting for the go-ahead to start up production, the city of Detroit pleaded with the American people Tuesday to just give it something—anything at all, really—to manufacture. Mayor Mike Duggan, addressing reporters on behalf of a municipality where the unemployment rate remains above 10 percent, repeatedly asserted Detroit’s willingness to turn raw materials into finished products of any kind, be they plastic goods, textiles, electrical equipment, industrial supplies, metal products, paper, chemicals, heavy machinery, biomaterials, processed foods, or something else entirely. “The city of Detroit is eager to build anything and everything for the American people—seriously, whatever you guys want,” said Duggan, who recently sent a press release to thousands of CEOs nationwide explaining that tens of thousands of employees and many millions of square ...

Hello there....this marks 10 years with CLP. I have taken great care to launch a monthly, bi-monthly or multi-monthly post over the last 10 years. I have met, rekindled, resurrected many valued and treasured friendships, acquaintances and loves and linked the CLN to cover the last decade of my monthly thoughts, pleasures, joys, passions and peeves to share with friends and foes alike. I have resided in, the last 10 years, Winnipeg, Windsor, the Erie Shores (alongside the wineries-hic), Montreal, Thailand, and visited China,Vancouver, Boston, South Bend, Burma, Laos and Vietnam. I take great pride in being entrusted with the voice and privilege of presiding the Canadian rail workers' elected choice and voice, nationally for the best part of the decade until I was allowed and granted their permission to retire my services and watch from afar. Colleagues and adversaries were always a vibrant and challenging measure to achieving the will and pleasure during that time in my career. ...

New Windsor-Detroit bridge may cost $3.5B more due to low loonie Documents show that Trudeau has been told of the new costs for the bridge, which the federal government agreed last year to pay for all constructiion costs. DAVE CHIDLEY / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO The new Windsor-Detroit bridge, which will be named after hockey great Gordie Howe, may need $3.5 billion than originally expected in construction costs. By:   Jordan Press   The Canadian Press,   Published on Mon Jan 04 2016 OTTAWA—The federal Liberal government will need to find $3.5 billion more to pay for a new bridge at the bustling border crossing between Canada and the United States. Documents show Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been warned that the cost of building the new Windsor-Detroit bridge has likely gone up by at least $2 billion, thanks to the declining value of the Canadian dollar. Government officials told Trudeau the project would also need an extra $1....

Hi you all....Im not drudging down to a southern drawl today. Those US southern conservative backwater politics just abhor me. My sweet lord, they are so out of touch with the American electorate they keep shooting their face off to spite their nose. Repeal affordable care, destroy planned parenthood, bury your head on climate change....like the New Yorker proclaimed, "climate change will only lose the second seaside homes of the rich but it will destroy the only coastal home of the poor". Dumb as a bag of hammers those Conservatives...dumb as a bag of hammers. I got an email forwarded to me the other day demonstrating how they suspect a conspiracy by the Obama democrats to assassinate Trump because he is a threat politically. The only threat the GOP have to worry about is Trump winning the GOP presidential nomination and his racist supremacist phobically toxic diatribe will whip up every center and center left and left of center and right leaning center left American to vote...

Texas-based ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, is the present day result of the long and winding history of the oil industry. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, which, after being ruled an illegal monopoly way back in 1911, was broken up into Exxon, Mobil, Chevron and a couple other offshoots. Exxon and Mobil merged in 1999 to form ExxonMobil. As an oil company, Exxon naturally has another long and convoluted history, one that hinges on its relationship with climate change; a phenomenon primarily driven by the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the burning of the very fossil fuels that make Exxon go “cha-ching.” In recent weeks, a new investigation from  InsideClimate News  and  the Los Angeles Times  has shed unwanted light on just how much Exxon knew about climate change, for how long, and what the company did, didn’t do, and tried to stop from happening. This newfound attention ...

Canadian elections finished this morning (Canadas yesterday evening). The right wing conservatives were soundly defeated.  No surprises there except the blue-out in Atlantic Canada and the third place thumping they suffered in Quebec and British Columbia. Good old Danny Williams out of "Windy Harbour" really did a number on Harper, (out there eh) profiling the PM as a backstabbing two-faced liar from his dealings as Newfoundlands conservative Premier with the conservative federal ministries.  Harper was a goner long ago. The wall writings were visible when the 3 wise men (in conservative terms)  Prentice Baird and MacKay  bailed on Harper. Prentice mistakenly stayed in politics but the other two were wisely and prosperously sequestered corporately. I initially thought their quiet unheralded departures were, perhaps, scandal management but quickly realized, after the PR hacks from Australia were contracted in (another fatal choice), that it w...

I have to do a blog post on this Saturday night to keep my 9 year monthly string from breaking. I don't know what to write. Let's see....I bought some new golf clubs but my game continues to wallow in substandard regard. I continue to run 5k thrice weekly and slowly witness my lackadaisical dwindling body mass that is periodically hindered by a spiking appetite. My year long Asian hiatus has decidedly stretched to 18 months but the next 6 months are strictly mitigating my ever increasing homesickness to see my family by avoiding the Canadian winter. There...post complete. I'll be in touch.

"Is anybody out there".....remember that song. Sweet Jesus... it took about 6 hits on Google before Pink Floyd came up. Typical in todays trash video world. They have 3 video channels here in Thailand and the prerequisite seems to be more skimpy undies than musical talent..but I do favour Niki Minaj and her bootie videos. DMM...just getting old but still uhmmm.. never mind. LOL. I am the lone ranger out here for the time being in Asia. All the  ex-pat buddy's go home for the low-season and my initial travel buddy went home for the fall colours. I don't hang much with having different interests. I got into golf and running and never really got into the ...well I like golf and running. I finished dentist work.....man that took almost a year. I just reluctantly trotted my way through the procedures for repairs. I hate dentists and you know....the guy here and his staff cater to cowards but I still hate dentists. Gym is addictive. I run 5k three times a week an...

Hey ....yup birthday all done. 62 is in the books. Woke up this morning to song. "Happy birday to u. Happy birday to u. Happy birday happy birday happy birday to u". I thought why is Ning singing to the birds. Ha ha ha.  I bribed my way out of having bday party at shop. Birthdays are abig deal here. However, They don't drink at the shop unless my good friend Sister2 is in from the Isan village. Then she sucks on a bottle of thai whiskey while I drink beers. No Sister no drunk so I was not fukkin sitting at the shop with all those girls sober. I dropped Ning to work with a $20 bag of vittles  for her to cook for shop girls and I went and had faranges brekky and stocked up on beers. I watched sports and drank beers  and youtubed some skanky videos by Flo Rida and Pitbull and even danced some while I  cooked pork chops and potatoes for my birthday supper. I passed out shortly after I ate. Lol.  I woke up just in time to greet Ning from work bearing me pres...

How 16 years of debunking right-wing lies exhausted the last honest man Stewart is stepping aside because he's exhausted by our petty, dangerous politics. Now we're really screwed SOPHIA A. MCCLENNEN Post AP/Reuters/Comedy Central/Salon If you are feeling withdrawal after the first week of Jon Stewart’s two-week break from “The Daily Show,” then consider how you will feel after his run ends on Aug. 6. As he explained on July 2 before vacation, he is off for two weeks only to come back for a three-week sprint to the finish.  Ever since he announced in February that he was stepping down, many of us have wondered how our dysfunctional political and media culture will operate without the hard-hitting satire he has offered us for over 16 years.  There is little doubt that Stewart has not just played a role as a powerful public intellectual able to critique the media and politicians when we need it most; he has also redefined satire in an era when most ...