James Shearer

It is quite amazing that the USA claims to be the land of the free yet have so many restrictive laws they could be construed as totalitarian!

Recently, Washington State has made it illegal to gamble online. It is even illegal to run a website which mentions online gambling! It is so serious that offenders are likely to be treated the same as if they commited a violent assault or robbery. One guy who lives in Bellingham set up a guide to online casinos and although you can’t play on his website, because it mentions online gambling the Great State of Washington, in all their wisdom, decided to take criminal action against the poor guy!

Amazing!

The Internet may be a lawless land and could do with some tightening of laws and enforcement of others but this type of law does nothing to help anyone. I really fail to see the logic behind it.

So much for free speech, and all those other freedoms American’s ‘have’…

Yesterday Stephen Harper lowered GST (The Canada-wide goods and services tax) from 7% to 6%. Because I am not yet a Canadian resident, this is about the only thing in a budget tax adjustment which would have any effect on me. Although, I can’t really see it saving me more than $100 in a year.

Lower income tax has been increased from 15% to 15.5% for the first income bracket. If you combine that with the GST reduction it seems that someone with low earnings wouldn’t see any change because their savings on GST would be absorbed into a higher income tax bill. People in the highest tax bracket stand to save the most (if they spend the most - which they probably do)…

Once immigration is sorted it is going to be interesting seeing the huge differences between the Canadian tax system and the UK one. The Canadian tax and benefits system is incredibly conservative in its design, especially compared with the UK. Anyway, we shall see!

After some computer problems I have neglected to put any photos on my photo blog for the past 2 weeks. All my photos are on discs so I haven’t had a chance to copy any onto my computer to upload onto my photo blog nor have I had the time to go shoot some new material.

This afternoon I had to make a quick stop in Gastown and given that it was still light out for about another hour I took my camera with me just in case! And just as well! I saw Stephen Harper the leader of Canada’s Conservative party hastily heading for a car. I was able to get a few photos but nothing great.

My photography skills are quite lacking when it comes to spontanious flash photography. If it is inside, staged then no problem. Outside and ‘argh, quick something’s happening’ snap snap - ain’t gunna be a pretty sight afterwards.

Anyway, I did manage to get a few shots of Stevey boy and I will be updating my photo blog more regularly from now on… well, I’ll try!

– added
In the process of adding a link for this post I went to the Conservative Party webpage and Stephen Harper’s image is right at the top with the Canadian flag in the background. That is not a good photo! If that is what he looks like when he smiles, he shouldn’t smile. Not a good look Steve!

Taking the post-9/11 religious sympathy a bit further than expected, the US government has effectively banned Christmas and all symbols relating to it in public places.

See this BBC News article for more info

So I guess it is Happy Holidays from me and not Happy C*******s for legal reasons.

If you can’t get your customers to buy your products, sue them (RIAA technique). If you can’t make a good product in the first place, sue your competitors (Real Media technique).