And now it is the Greenback's turn...

Beware of The Strong Canadian Dollar

I have been saying for years that Canada is far too dependent on United States as a trading partner and we are about get hit hard because of this. The U.S economy is tanking and Canada will not be able to take the hit.

Nation	November 05 2007 value over November 5 2006 Value	November 05 2007 value over November 5 2006 Value expressed as a percentage
US	1.07010/.88540	120.86%
Japan	122.8070/104.5360	117.48%
China	7.9890/6.97870	114.48%
European Union	0.73740/0.69650	105.87%

That 20.86% increase in value scares me. There is no way the Canadian GDP has increased that much over the last 12 months and i fear that even the 17.48% and 14.48% increases are related to the tanking U.S. economy. Both China and Japan, like Canada, are net exporters to the United States and as the values of our currencies rise so do the prices of our exports in the American market. Unless the value of our dollar falls to the $1.03 range before Christmas Canada is in for some serious economic hardship in the new year because if it rises to $1.10 (a 27% rise in 12 months) by Christmas I expect stagflation to occur, which could result in mass lay-offs starting as early as March due to surplus inventory because Canadian goods will have been priced out of the market in the United States.

Meanwhile our dollar may continue to rise on world markets as a haven currency but because of the unemployment only a handful of Canadians will be able to take advantage of the falling import prices.

Internet Radio

Clicking on title will take you to the news article.

Ever since I first discovered internet radio I have been in despair need of a 12 step program. I have discovered blues, jazz and radio drama stations that listen to on a daily basis, none of which are genres that exist in my home market and I might even gladly pay for continued access, if I could get access to them in my car and a portable player too.

I am so happy to see that the hearings have begun. The recording industry has no right to be demanding royalties for much of what is on these stations. Any person is free to start a station and play their original music and thousands of artists that could not get world wide exposure any other way have taken advantage of this, artists that the big record companies have no interest in until the artists begin siphoning off money from the companies formulated 'artists'. In the words of Fred Eaglesmith, "bring back steel belted radio", which is exactly what net radio has done.

I agree that Shania Twain, Hillary Duff, and thousands of others on the big labels should get something for the air play of their music. But what business does EMI, Sony and Virgin have demanding money from artists such as The New Jacobin Club, Kelly Wiens, By Design, Agriculture Club, Enter the Haggis, Propaghandi or any other independent artist? None! If they won't touch it or have let the copyright go, in the case if classic radio drama, they have no right to demand a pound of flesh just because someone might choose to play something on an amateur radio station that anyone can set-up - rack it up to free advertising and comb the original music for the next big thing.

Artists need to be able to create and should not be hindered by some record company executive who is afraid of losing market share. The executives should be adapting and listening, they will always have the upper hand on making stars, which is what they do.

And because they have the upper hand demanding greater royalties is not good business, it will hinder the distribution of new music over the internet. What independent artist is going to want to set up a website or radio station to share their music if they have to pay some multi-national company, who currently has no interest in them, thousands of dollars a year?

Let artists be artist and let the recording industry adapt and evolve.

Calgary passes public behaviour bylaw

Calgary City Council voted Monday night to pass a public behaviour bylaw despite the protestations of dozens who gathered outside City Hall.

The bylaw, which takes effect immediately, makes it illegal to spit, fight, carry a sheath knife, urinate or defecate in public or put one's feet up on public property.

Fines would range from $50 to $300.

The protesters, mostly from Calgary's anti-poverty community, said the bylaw is discriminatory and unfair. They believe the bylaw targets the homeless while ignoring the root cause of the problems — a lack of affordable housing in Calgary.

"First, before passing a bylaw, is to ensure that people have a choice — that they have shelters or housing so that they wouldn't have to [go to] the bathroom outside," said Laurie Fuhr, one of the protest organizers.

Calgary high school student Blaine Kingcott told CBC News the bylaw should be scrapped because it violates everyone's rights.

"I think its forced people into an unfair social justice situation where they can't even sleep on a bench," he said. "That's unfair even to [people like] myself — that I can't sleep on my public bench."

At least two aldermen had favoured a delay until next year so that implications of the bylaw could be considered.

Although I can understand the desire to have clean streets and am in full agreement with outlawing public urination and defecation, or at least defecation anyway, this law also can be used to outlaw one of the great pleasures of a Canadian summer, falling asleep in a park. The other problem this law does not address is access to public washrooms, business owners do not take kindly to letting non-patrons use their facilities and as for the public toilets, at least in places such as Bankers Hall and Eaton Centre "societal refuse" can be harassed by security and refused access.

Being poor should not be a crime and nor should needing to heed nature's call be, however increasingly both of these things are becoming crimes and that is something that should be outlawed.

Easy-Bake Oven, Lionel train earn place in Toy Hall of Fame

The Associated Press

The U.S. Toy Hall of Fame is paying homage to the electric age.

The Easy-Bake Oven and Lionel model trains have joined Mr. Potato Head, the Frisbee and 32 other classic, but watt-free toys, in the Strong-National Museum of Play's eight-year-old hall of fame in Rochester, N.Y.

Longevity is a key criterion for getting into the all-star lineup. Each toy must not only be widely recognized and foster learning, creativity or discovery through play, but endure in popularity over several generations.

"This is the year of the plug-in toy and a sign of things to come," said Christopher Bensch, the museum's chief curator, noting that the 12 nominees in 2006 included the iconic Atari video game system.

"Will it be time someday for the GameBoy or the PlayStation or the Xbox? I think so. Those are the toys people are going to have nostalgia for and maybe pass on in their latest forms to their kids and grandkids."

The latest, still pre-computer child favourites to be honoured have been around for awhile: The first Easy-Bake Oven showed up in stores in 1964, and Lionel trains have been chugging along for more than a century.
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Engineer Joshua Lionel Cowen built his first electric toy train as a store-window attraction around 1900. When a customer bought the train instead of other advertised toys, he launched the Lionel Manufacturing Co. Its sales peaked at $32.9 million US in 1953.

Pretzel vendors in New York City gave toymakers at Kenner the idea of a child-suitable gizmo that actually heated food in a small working oven. Kenner, now a division of Hasbro Inc., has since sold 23 million Easy-Bake Ovens and more than 140 million mixes.

"It's safe, it works and the best part is that the play makes its own reward," said museum curator Patricia Hogan. "Fifteen minutes in the oven and a slurpy, gooey, doughy concoction becomes a delicious — OK, edible — confection."

The museum, which boasts the world's largest collection of toys and dolls, acquired the hall in 2002 from A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village in Salem, Ore. So far, 36 classic toys have been enshrined, from Barbie to Jack-in-the-Box, Legos to Lincoln Logs, Slinky to Play-Doh, and Crayola crayons to marbles.

The corrugated cardboard box — a universal plaything or recreational backdrop since the 1890s — was inducted into the hall last November.

Sex, Porn and Marketing

It has been said that had it not been for the porn industry we would still be groping around trying to figure out how to make money on the internet. I have also read that it was the porn industry that made VCRs viable, suddenly a person could purchase the movies through the mail and watch them at home rather than risk being seen going into a blue movie house. Further back, the reason that Barbie dolls have impossible proportions is because the mold was originally used to make a sex doll; Mattel did not believe in the toy enough to give it the funding it deserved - what would a woman know about what little girls want to play with??

Now we have an extremely realisitic robot that is used to teach health care professionals how to assist a mother in giving birth. There is little doubt that the genitalia on this robot is also derived from the porn industry, where they manufacture battery operated vaginas and sex dolls that are intended to respond like the real thing. And actually when you think about it it is only natural that this would occur, no sex, no babys.

I suppose what I am finding interesting is that our most primal desires and needs are driving technological innovation. For all our brilliance we still force our greatness to submit to our bodies animal instincts and desires. That really is the driving philosophy behind marketing, "how can I make my product appeal to people's basest desires"?

Currently I am marketing a product from ThermoFlow, wearable pain relief. This is a reasonably high-tech product, it contains ceramic fibers that hold far-infrared light, or heat, in the tissues, which increases blood flow and eases pain. It has a Health Canada number and has been found effective in a double blind study. However what I am doing is selling a product that appeals to people's base desire to be relieved of pain.

We all know sex sells and that is the real question, how do we made a product sexy in order to sell it. In fact that may be one of the issues I need to address, how do I make pain relief sexy? Danni Ashe has shown us how to make the internet sexy, before that pornographic movies made VCRs sexy and it has been stated that the front bumper on a 1953 Cadillac was intended to be 38DD sexy.

So how do I make ThermoFlow sexy so that I can make some money?