Very Interesting

I was cleaning out my inbox today (now there's a joke!) and came across this little tidbit from late last year.

Thought it was interesting.

A physics teacher in high school, once told the students that while one grasshopper on the railroad tracks wouldn't slow a train very much, a billion of them would.

With that thought in mind, read the following, obviously written by a good Canadian:

Shopping in Lowe's the other day for some reason and just for the fun of it I was looking at the hose attachments. They were all made in China. The next day I was in Home Hardware and just for the fun of it I checked the hose attachments there. They were made in Canada!

Start looking........

In our current economic situation, every little thing we buy or do affects someone else - even their job.

A quote from a consumer:...my grandson likes Hershey's candy. I noticed, though, that it is marked made in Mexico now. I do not buy it any more. My favourite toothpaste, Colgate, is made in Mexico now. I have switched to Crest. You have to read the labels on everything.

This past weekend I was at Wal-Mart. I needed 60W Light bulbs. I was in the light bulb aisle and right next to the GE brand I normally buy was an off-brand labelled, "Everyday Value". I picked up both types of bulbs and compared the stats - they were the same except for the Price. The GE bulbs were more money than the Everyday Value brand but the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that GE was made in MEXICO and the Everyday Value brand was made in - get ready for this - Canada at a company in Ontario . Their Equate Products are also made in Canada, and are very good.

Just to add my own experience on buying Made In Canada , I was looking for canned mushrooms that were made in Canada and could never find any, so I would buy fresh. But a miracle happened, when in our Foodland store I found Ravine mushrooms - made in Canada with a little red maple leaf on can. A little more money but when I opened the can I looked at mushrooms that look like real mushrooms, not a mushroom that looks like it was cleaned in bleach.

Another product I no longer buy is Del Monte or Dole canned Fruit. Del Monte is packaged in Taiwan and Dole is now a product of China. Why should we pay for their fruit when our growers are left with fruit rotting on the trees?. E.D. Smith is still made in Canada - buy theirs, at least you will know what is in it and have some quality control.

So throw out the myth that you can not find products you use every day that are made right here .

My challenge to you is to start reading the labels when you shop for everyday things and see what you can find that is made in Canada . The job you save may be your own or your neighbour's!(Your children's & grandchildren's, also)

If you accept this challenge, pass it on to others in your address book so we can all start buying Canadian, one light bulb at a time! Stop buying from overseas companies! (We should have awakened two decades ago.)

Let's get with the program. Help our fellow Canadians keep their jobs and create more jobs here in Canada.

BUY CANADIAN! Read the labels. Support Canadian jobs.

Do with it what you will. Or not.

Out of the Loop

Which, it would appear, is what I've most decidedly been as of late.

Not that I don't have my reasons, of course [like working flat out within the window of a six-month funding opportunity to develop my new business, while, of course, still keeping the old business (to say nothing of life) afloat] but that does nothing to change the fact that I'm often feeling a week day late and a hundred dollar short when it comes to keeping up with current events lately.

Such as, for example, when I came across reference to President Obama's proposed plan to protect the unemployed against a hiring bias by prohibiting employers from discriminating against job applicants because they are ... well ... unemployed.

Say what? Is this for real? Apparently so.

Under the proposal, it would be “an unlawful employment practice” if a business with 15 or more employees refused to hire a person “because of the individual’s status as unemployed.”

Unsuccessful job applicants could sue and recover damages for violations, just as when an employer discriminates on the basis of a person’s race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

First of all, I had no clue that this was even an issue, even occurring at all. Although I suppose that's what tends to happen when you cocoon yourself in your own little world, no?

Still, putting aside the cracks about this simply being a make-work project for trial lawyers who don't have enough work, this makes me shake my head on oh so many levels.

First things first, I have to ask, just how stupid are employers? 

Why would any employer intentionally risk shooting itself in the foot by basing hiring decisions simply on the fact that a person is unemployed or has been unemployed for a certain amount of time? 

Skills are skills and you either have them or you don't.  Just because you haven't been working for a while, whether from being laid off due to a sluggish economy or voluntarily removing yourself from the workplace for some period for personal/family reasons (to care for a sick relative, for example) doesn't change the fact that you're either qualified for a particular position or you're not.

I can certainly see the argument that someone who is currently employed will most likely have more up-to-date skills than someone who has been out of the workplace for an extended period (for whatever reason). That's a valid consideration.  But the relevance of that would seem to me to depend on how long a particular person has been unemployed. Not simply the fact that they are unemployed.  So is this actually an issue? For real?

Moving beyond that disconnect, I come to the legitimacy validity sensibleness of President Obama's proposed legislation.  Sorry, but kind of another WTF moment...

I'm pretty confident in saying that most industrialized countries (including the US) already offer protection in some form from discriminatory employment practices that have a disparate impact on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin unless an employer can show that the particular practice is  what we in Canada like to refer to as a BFOR (bona fide occupational requirement).

But we tend to protect potential employees on the basis of what are generally considered "inalienable characteristics" , in other words, characteristics that an individual has no choice or control over, such as their gender, their race, whether or not they have a disability...

Are they now proposing to create a new “protected class” ... the unemployed? Really?

That seems out of whack enough on its own, without even considering the potential consequences of such a move.  I mean, let's face it, American society (in particular) is simply just not litigious enough, right?/sarcasm off.

Quite the message that - "if you’re unemployed and you go to apply for a job, and you’re not hired for that job, see a lawyer".

Well, like I said, always good news for the litigation bar, I suppose.

Then, this evening, checking out what was new at Lex's (something I seem to do far too rarely these days), I came across this - protesters have been occupying the financial district in New York in opposition of "corporate greed? For the past three weeks?

And they have their own website?

And, and, and ... they could be like the Tea Party of the Left?

Wow... I mean, who knew?! Well, obviously not me ...

Left. Right. Is there actually a Centre? 

My apologies to my American friends but, say what you will, you have to admit that they're always entertaining, if nothing else... 

Although I must say, this commentary on their Declaration of Grievances Demands does strike a chord with me. (The commentary, that is. More so than the Declaration.)

For what that's worth.  Which I imagine is not that much, seeing as how woefully uninformed I appear to be at the moment.

Forget keeping up with the Jones'. This girl is struggling to keep up with The World.

Budget 2010

So our relatively newly minted NDP government brought down its first budget this past Tuesday.

And I tried to figure it out. I really did.

Wednesday at lunch time I saw down with the paper. And read. And read.

And ultimately decided that she is probably right. Or, more accurately, I think I agree with her end result but not necessarily her reasoning.

The HST goes back up from 13% to 15%.

And yet I find it hard to get too upset about that, given that was it feels like it was 15% forever and it doesn't seem all that long ago that it slowly made its way down to 13% over the last few months.
[Yeah, sorry about that music. My bad.]

I still think of it at 15% now anyway ...

So, yeah, what she said.

ADMIT IT: You don’t even know how much HST is anyway.

You keep forgetting whether it’s 13 per cent, which is the current rate, or 15 per cent, which is what it’ll hit July 1, thanks to a two percentage point bump announced Tuesday as part of the NDP budget.

Yeah, yeah, you think about HST constantly. Because every time you pay for something there’s this amorphous little blob of money added to the total. But you don’t have a sweet clue whether you’re paying an extra 39 cents or an extra 45 cents on a $3 pair of socks.

Hold on. Do we even pay HST on socks?

Taxes up. That's not so good.

But wait - there is a rebate for "low income" earners.

And new point-of-sale rebates on diapers, children's clothing, children's footwear, and feminine hygiene products. Okay. TMI there, perhaps.

But I think it's good that we're finally removing the provincial sales tax from kids' clothing and such.. I just wish my children still qualified as kids, you know? No more diaper purchases here (thank goodness!).

And then there's something about provincial income tax going down.

The poverty reduction credit of $200 per year will go to about 15,000 people with total annual income of $12,000 or less. It’s available to individuals or couples with no children whose main source of income is welfare.

And about 18,000 seniors who receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement will no longer pay provincial income tax.

And up.

People at the other end of the income scale — those making more than $150,000 — will see a new marginal tax rate of 21 per cent. The increase is expected to generate $59 million for provincial coffers this year.

The current top rate is 17.5 per cent on taxable income of more than $93,000. The 17.5 per cent bracket will now apply to incomes from $93,001 to $150,000.

Both at the same time, apparently.

But higher-income earners will also get a tax break. The province is eliminating the high-income surtax for people making about $83,000 or more, a move that will save 30,000 Nova Scotians about $27 million.

The surtax saving will range from $56 for people making up to $90,000, to $849 for those in the $125,000 to $150,000 range.

Depending on who you are.

So. See why I'm confused?

But the more I ponder it, the more I think the NDP would have been panned no matter what they did.

After all, they are characterized as tax and spenders, right?

Tax the rich. Tax the middle class. Tax the corporations out of business. While letting program spending run rampant.

So if they followed that scenario, they would have been panned as being "true to form". (Never mind the little technicality that we've never had a NDP government in Nova Scotia so I am not quite sure how there can actually be any "form". To be "true" to.)

In fact, if they increased taxes (anywhere, at all) they would be in trouble.

But if they didn't do something about that ever-growing debt and deficit they would be "fiscally irresponsible".

So what's a poor government (cough, hack, choke) to do?

Why, a little bit of everything, of course. Cue the music ...

Increase the tax. While you simultaneously decrease the tax. Stick it to business. But make sure you give them some tax breaks at the same time.

And yet, at the end of the day, when I think about the US and the size of their budget deficit ... well, it was all spend, spend, spend and stimulus time, wasn't it?

After all, it's all good fun until someone gets an eye poked out ...

Which leaves me thinking that, maybe, in the grand scheme of things, just maybe we are doing will be okay.

But I'm not really sure. I'm much too confused.

An Open Letter to Mr. Harper

Dear Mr. Harper,

Please find below my suggestion for fixing Canada's economy. Instead of giving billions of dollars to banks and car companies, that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan:

There are about 20 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Twenty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new Canadian CAR. Twenty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

4) They must send their kids to school / college /university - Crime rate fixed

5) Buy $50 of alcohol / tobacco / petrol a week... there's your money back in duty / tax etc

It can't get any easier than that!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members of parliament pay back their falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances.

H/T to Kathleen

Politics At Its Best Worst

Or perhaps that should read ... Politics As Usual.

Nova Scotians will be going to the polls again. June 9th being the predicted date.

A scheduled, mandated date, you ask?

No. No, not at all. Rather a totally political decision taken for totally political reasons. Which wouldn't be so far out of the realm. After all, it is politics, right?

Right, but here's the thing. Do we really need to be doing this now? Right now? In the midst of a global economic recession crisis?

Talk about fiddling while Rome burns ...

This is the government that sat for seventeen (count 'em, 17) days during the last sitting of the House. And for a whole twenty days in 2006. For which it claimed the record for fewest days sitting of any Legislature in the country.

Of course, that was when the "cooperative nature of minority government [makes] for shorter debates" and "there's no sense being in the house just for the sake of having endless debates". Right on, that.

But wait, it's been all of one week and a few days this time around. Alas, this time around, with all the talk of "shovel ready" projects to stimulate the economy (or not), now, I guess we have lost some of that "cooperative nature". Pity, that.

There's this little piece of legislation, you see. It's called the Finance Act. Faced by decades and decades of growing debt, a previous Conservative government, touting fiscal responsibility, introduced legislation which demanded balanced budgets.

And now?

But MacDonald took a big chance in trying to do a little fast fiscal footwork of his own on Monday, bringing in a budget that needed to drain money that by law must go to debt reduction — Hamm’s law, by the way — in order to balance his books in an economy of shrinking revenues.

All tolled, the government needed to switch in $84 million to balance the books for the year that just ended, plus another $180 million for the coming year.

In effect, the plan would divert $260 million to revenues, just so the Tories could insist that they had balanced the books. But they needed at least one of the two opposition parties to support the plan.

Which, how did that work for you? Apparently not so well, eh.

So what's wrong with those opposition parties anyway? After all, don't they know it's spend, spend, spend? That that's the only way to save the day?

Well, it's a mite bit more complicated than that, you see. Apparently the opposition parties would have agreed to a deficit going forward, just not retroactively. To clear the past budget deficit.

As things stood, both last year’s and this year’s budget would have been in deficit – under the law, though not under GAAP – unless one opposition party had agreed to an 11th-hour repeal of 2005 legislation that requires the province to treat offshore-offset revenues ($105.9 million last year and $180.1 million this year) as a minimum surplus to reduce net direct debt. The opposition didn’t bite. So the budget then ran afoul of another law restricting deficits. Mr. Muir’s (law-defined) $84-million 2008-09 deficit would have had to be recovered (again, by law) as a first charge on the 2009-10 budget. Covering this, plus $180.1 million in offset revenue he wouldn’t be able to use, would have swamped Mr. Muir’s micro-surplus and put this year’s budget in deficit, too. But the law also says he can’t table a deficit budget. So this year’s budget would have had to be withdrawn.

The muddle was further complicated by the move in March to re-do a funding deal with universities, so $256 million in cash flowed to them in the last fiscal year instead of this one. Why? We were headed for a $278-million accounting surplus in 2008-09 (with $172 million in uncommitted revenue on top of the $105.9-million offshore offset). But by eating into the offset payment, the government made the budget hostage to an unlikely change in the law and an impractical restriction on deficits in a recession.

Ironically, no current cash is associated with the offshore-offset accounting revenue. Nova Scotia received the cash and used it to pay down market debt five years ago. The $180.1 million could only pay bills this year if we borrowed back cash. The budget papers acknowledge "this amount will be included in the borrowing program for the upcoming year."

The budget passed GAAP and tackled recession, but defending it was, and is, akin to explaining string-theory physics, with too many strings.

So we’re into an election campaign whose cost will by itself easily wipe out Mr. Muir’s projected $4-million surplus. It would have been a lot simpler and wiser just to come to grips with running a recession deficit – something whoever wins is likely to do.

And as for the proposed budget, itself ... good, bad, indifferent? Who knows?

So, yeah, politics as usual.

Who knows, maybe someday we will even get to use our piece of the federal government's economic stimulus plan.

She They Should Know Better

Like it wasn't bad enough when Janet Napolitano, the U.S. homeland security secretary, came out with those same tired comments that some of the 9/11 perpetrators crossed the border from Canada to the US.

But then to complete the picture, John McCain defends her take because it was, like, true. After all, everybody knows that, right?

I well remember when that story first surfaced. Because the way the tale was told would have had the scum traveling from the Halifax airport to the Yarmouth ferry. Meaning they would have traveled my highway. Which, quite frankly, was a scary, sickening and despicable thought. It provoked both anger and fear in equal measures.

But guess what people. That myth was supposedly busted years ago. Back in 2001. In fact, back in September of 2001, if I recall correctly.

But then again, I suppose we shouldn't be that surprised that some of the most prominent American politicians can't seem to get it right. After all, we all remember this story, right?

So what else is new?

The fact that none of the hijackers crossed the border from Canada to the U.S. was repeated frequently by Prime Minister Jean Chretien and members of his cabinet. But the damage of those first incorrect news stories lingered. In the weeks following September 11, many stories in the U.S. media continued to depict Canada as a terrorist haven. An article in the Christian Science Monitor said that "Canadian and U.S. terrorism experts alike say the giant, genial nation---known for its crimson-clad Mounties and great comedians---has also become an entry point and staging ground for Osama bin Laden's terrorist ‘sleeper cells,' as well as for other terrorist groups."

A story in The Seattle Times declared: "While thousands of U.S. soldiers are being shipped halfway across the globe to fight terrorism, little manpower has been focused on a problem much closer to home: Canada. Experts on both sides of the 4,000-mile border say the nation to the north is a haven for terrorists, and that the U.S.-Canada line is little more barrier than ink on a map."

Hillary Clinton who was then a U.S. Senator from New York said that the U.S. should
lobby Canada to tighten border security: "We need to look to our friends in the north to crack down on some of these false documents and illegals getting in."

Perhaps the most damaging of all the U.S. sources in reinforcing the image of Canada as a safe haven for terrorists was the highly popular television show, The West Wing. After September 11, the writers and cast of the show quickly put together a new season opener in which a middle eastern terrorist crossed the border from Canada to the U.S. The writers showed themselves to be geographically challenged when they had their suspect crossing the border from Ontario to Vermont.

No need to let a little thing like the facts get in the way.

So here's the thing. Frankly, although I think some of this guy's comments where he goes on (and on) are a bit much. rather harsh, in fact, I believe he does have a point. No matter how deeply it might be buried in hyperbole.

How many of you have run smack into American Exceptionalism? If you haven't yet, God bless you, but chances are pretty good that at some point you will.

No, not all Americans are like that. I've met, both in person and online, those that are not. Or at least can control it in conversation. Seriously, there are many Americans I admire and respect. And in return, yes, Canadian diplomats [using the term loosely] and politicians have also made incredibly stupid public remarks about the US at times. So tit for tat there, I suppose.

But there is a real reason that we, as Canadians, should care. Beyond our wounded national pride, that is.

She [Ed. Janet Napolitano] later said she had misunderstood a question asked during the interview and was well aware there had been no Canadian 9-11 connection, but added that the Canada-U.S. border had, in the past, posed a security risk to Americans.

The next day, Napolitano appeared at a border conference and suggested Canada was more lax in its immigration policies than the U.S., alleging Canadian authorities allow people into the country that would not pass muster south of the border.

Napolitano has also ruffled diplomatic feathers with her insistence that the Canadian border must not be treated any differently than the U.S.-Mexican boundary, where a drug war rages and countless illegal immigrants flood into America every year.

Dig a little further and you will find this, once again speaking of Ms. Napolitano.

At various points during her exchange with Mr. Macdonald, she spoke about how "the pattern at the Canadian border has been informality," and how important it was to get the word out that "the borders are going to be enabled with greater technology, but it’s not going to be going back and forth as if there’s no border anymore."

Ms. Napolitano has never crossed the Canada-U.S. border and it shows. Her clichés, if they were ever true, are 10 years out of date. Anyone who has crossed into the U.S. recently realizes you can’t breeze through with a friendly wave at the toll booth.

On June 1, the border will be further thickened by new measures requiring both Canadians and Americans to be armed with a passport or a souped-up ID card if they are entering or re-entering the U.S. by land or sea. It appears Canada is more ready for this brave new world than its neighbour, given that half of our citizens already have a passport, compared to one-quarter of Americans. There are concerns, not only that the more onerous requirements will snarl cross-border trade, but that they will further damage tourism here because a trip up north won’t be worth the hassle for Americans without proper documents.

As time goes by, these problems will probably iron themselves out. But there seems to be little hope that the mindset that sees Canada as the soft underbelly of the United States will improve any time soon.

It is this mentality in Congress that has produced an American policy, which Ms. Napolitano is now duty-bound to enforce, that the U.S.’s northern and southern borders should be treated the same.

To make matters worse, Ms. Napolitano is adding bad politics to bad policy by presenting a hardened Canadian border as a peace offering to Mexico, which is irate about the U.S. clampdown on its end. One border is calm and the other is in the throes of a drug war and massive illegal immigration, but let’s not allow facts to get in the way of appeasement and politically correct "parity." It’s like pretending Canada is as serious a threat as Russia and planning accordingly.

The equivalent of $1.5 billion a day in goods is involved in our bilateral trade relationship with the US. The largest bilateral trade relationship in the world. And about 300,000 people cross our shared border every day.

But remember this, although Canada is the US's largest single trade partner, the relationship is even more important for us, with the US being our dominant trading partner. You can read more about that here, if you so desire.

My point is this.

The myth about the Canadian border may never die. And our grandchildren may well still be refuting it decades from now. But if so, it is imperative that they do. Because (like it or not) the economic relationship (to say nothing of the rest of it) is to important to shattered by fallacies.

It looks like it's up to us to stay on toes on this one, people.

Value

For those who think I may have gotten a little too conservative in my old age (and you know who you are), it's time to put down the government-bashing hammer and all the talk of tea parties for a moment or two and take a look at this.

A new study just published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, titled Canada's Quiet Bargain: The Benefits of Public Spending [PDF link],has sought to quantify just how much value Canadian citizens get from the taxes they pay.

Overturning received wisdom, the study concludes that the public services Canadians receive would be far more expensive if they had to pay out of pocket.

A family earning the median family income in Canada receives a public benefit that would amount to $41,000 if they had to pay for it - an amount equal to 63 percent of their total income and far higher than the total cost of the taxes the family pays.

Apparently even income earners in the $80-90,000 range receive a public benefit equal to half their income, again higher than the taxes they pay. And if we had to pay out of pocket for education, health care, infrastructure, etc., we would receive less value and have less disposable income than we enjoy today.

Of course, not everyone agrees. Just see the comments here.

I particularly enjoyed this one, from Capitlalist.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is a very left wing organization, so what do you expect? Of course taxes are a good bargain if you are some low income loser who uses a lot of services and pays zero in taxes. But if you are middle class (or higher income) and pay tax out your ass to fund everybody else how is that a bargain? Usually people who agree with these studies are people with low incomes and have a disdain for money.

So I was thinking, it's always good to know be reminded that I am a low income loser. And have a disdain for money. Because, otherwise, I just might forget.

And before someone tries arguing that these figures are skewed because Americans have higher incomes than Canadians, I offer this.

US Census results for 2006 show the median household income as $46,326. And the great Wikepedia gods tell us that in 2007, the median annual household income In the United States was $50,233.00. While the median Canadian household income in 2006 was $53, 634. Or $66,000 in a 2.6 person household according to the 2009 study.

Well you know what they say about statistics ... one of my favourites being that they can be made to prove anything - even the truth.

Still, I'm just saying. I thought it was interesting.

Gratitude

On the long commute home from work this evening last night, I caught a portion of the IWK Radiothon.

The IWK is our regional children's hospital and for any who have had the pleasure and misfortune (for it is often both) like our family to make use of it, it is muchly appreciated. Although I've made the occasional passing reference to the IWK on the blog, it's a part of my life that I've far from freely shared here.

But listening to the snippets and the stories on the drive home sure brought back a lot of memories. That hospital was the Blue Jay's (and hence our) second home for many, many years when she was little. So this evening it was memories of many a sleepless night, worry, tears and yes, strangely enough, even laughter. Although the latter was in small doses, indeed, as for many hours you watched your baby's body wracked by seizure after seizure, despairing that they would ever stop. Memories of a time which felt like it would never end.

But somehow, for now at least, it has. I'm not so optimistic as to believe that time in our lives is all over. Gone and finished forever. Because I know the seizure monsters all too well. I know how they lie in wait, hiding, waiting for you to let your guard down. I know they may well be back. In a month, a year or even five years from now.

And yet, for now, we have peace. At least from the seizures. And for that I will always be eternally grateful.

But if and when and should the seizures return, at least I know that the IWK will always be there. That the Blue Jay will get good care. And that somehow the rest of will survive. Just as we always have.

So tonight last night I was happy to see the radiothon go so well. An annual telethon is held every June and each and every year I am amazed by how much money that hospital can raise. But over the past three days, the radiothon, by itself raised $368, 803.21. And in the eight years that C100 has held the radiothon, it's raised $2.5 million for the IWK.

Now that's money well-spent in my books.

Welfare Queens or Desperate Times?

Ain't the internets grand?

I really have no idea how I got there (although that happens more often than I would like to admit when I surf), but I came across an interesting article this morning in Mother Jones, an obviously left-leaning online magazine, which I believe I have stumbled across before.

Now before anyone reacts to the name of the publication, please hear me out.

I have many American friends who tell me how awful the welfare system is in the United States. How so many people abuse it and live high on the hog while ordinary, working people can't seem to do half as well for themselves. And since I don't live there and don't have any particular knowledge about their system, I basically accept what they tell me.

Then, as I said, I stumbled across this article this morning. It's about the welfare system (or perhaps, some might say, the lack of a welfare system) in some of the southern states, like Georgia.

So here is your mission, if you choose to accept it.
Go ye forth, read the article and come back and tell me what you think.

Yes, the article is lengthy but I found it a good read. And yes, the following comments admittedly tend to be the usual political crap so I just ignored them.

But please, just read the article. And tell me.

Pretty please.

And You Think You Have It Bad?

Interesting piece in today's Chronicle Herald on the price of gasoline, worldwide. I hear lots of American friends complain about the price of gas - $4 a gallon doesn't sound pretty. But when you convert that to litres, it works out to around $1.05 a litre. Gas here today is $1.36 a litre ... that's roughly $5.44 a gallon for my American friends.

But that, as they say, is nothing. Check out these prices.

In France, petrol runs about C$2.60 a litre ... that's $10.90 a gallon. In Turkey, it's even worse - over C$2.89. You might want to sit down now ... that's a whipping $11.56 a gallon. Filling up the tank of a mid-size car there can reach nearly $200.

But hey, it's all just a matter of supply and demand, right?

Then figure this. Russia is the world’s second-leading producer of oil, what do you think they pay? About 92 cents a litre ... or $3.68 a gallon. Which, to add insult to injury, although that's roughly the same as in the United States, workers in the US earn about six times as much money at those in Russia.

So why is it that even large oil producers (like Canada) take the hit?

Much of the Russian cost comes from taxes, which run between 60 and 70 per cent. Limited refining capacity and the costs of transporting gasoline across the country’s vast expanse also push up prices.

Okay, that might help explain it a bit. I know, for example, that here in Nova Scotia, combined federal and provincial taxes make up roughly 1/3 of the hit.

Not that those prices (taxes or not) are having that supposedly desirous effect of making people drive less. Nope, the world is driving more than ever. There are 887 million vehicles in the world, up from 553 million just 15 years ago, and it is estimated that the figure will be one billion four years from now. Impressive, no?

Want to hear something that will really make your blood boil? Wait, you best sit down first. No, trust me. Really. Ready?

They say Venezuela is a "veritable wonderland for gas guzzlers". No wonder, when gas is only 12 cents a gallon. Yep, that would be approximately 3 cents a litre!

Yeah, I know. Suddenly I don't feel much like bothering with supper tonight either. The stomach's a little queasy. Apparently, sales of SUVs are doing quite well there. Uh huh.

Don't look at me. I don't have the answers, other than to tell you that "it could be worse". But I do have to wonder if besides intermittent e-mails finding their way to your inbox recommending boycotts of certain companies, we will start to hear more like this.

Increasingly, people around the world are reaching the boiling point — and it’s not just drivers.

Fishermen in Spain and Portugal began countrywide strikes Friday, keeping their trawlers and commercial boats docked at ports.

In Madrid, demonstrators handed out 20 tonnes of fish in a bid to win support from
the public.

In Spain, the European Union’s most important producer of fish, the fishing confederation estimates fuel prices have gone up 320 per cent in the past five years — so high that many fishermen can no longer afford to take their boats out.

French fishermen and farmers, who need fuel for trawlers and tractors, say their livelihoods are threatened by soaring prices. They have blocked oil terminals around France and shipping traffic on the English Channel to demand government help.

British and Bulgarian truckers are staging fuel protests, too.

Indonesians are staging their own protests against shrinking gasoline subsidies in a country where nearly half the population of 235 million lives on less than $2 a day.

And I think you might just want to forget any idea that ethanol made from sugar cane might be the answer to the world's woes. Although four of every five new cars sold in Brazil are flex-fuel models that run on pure ethanol, gas or any combination of the two and ethanol in Sao Paulo is running about half the price of gas ... the "price of gas" there is $5.67 per gallon.