Author’s Note: The following is Chapter 8 of the my online book "Excited Delirium". Please post comments. Please tell your friends about this story. If you’ve missed a chapter, please click here for Chapter 1 (Prelude) or here for the full index .

Kite was asked recently about when he stopped taking the corporate world seriously. At one point in his life, not too many years ago, he still tried to maintain his level of integration with the rest of society and made an effort to get, keep and hold a regular job. Oddly enough, it wasn’t his last job that did it for him, although he did experience significant torture while working with one of the world’s largest marketing organizations. Instead, it was his meeting with Chip Mackenzie, the Scottish-Canadian owner of CapGuard Personnel Management.

He was "in between jobs", the politically correct and less embarrassing term for "out of work and desperately seeking reintegration with society" when he sent a resume to Chip’s firm, thinking it might increase his exposure to some of the opportunities they purported to have on a job-seeking web-site. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Elections Issues and Media Coverage

We know that Elections Canada has raided the Conservative Party HQ and offices, looking for files related to the last election and the level of spend that was allowed or possibly not allowed. I’m sure all that will net out over the course of the next few weeks.

What’s of great concern is the ‘two tier’ attitude that’s being taken by the Conservative government as they formulate a response. CTV and The Toronto Star were attending a private consultation (I’m not sure what else you’d call it), while other mainstream publishers like the CBC, Maclean’s, Canwest and others were blocked out.

Here’s a link that might be of interest.

Why is it that they first to go under a fascist government is the media? Why has it been left to the Harper government to decide who gets the news and how that news will be told? Or have we missed something that’s part of the spin?

The Great Catch All Phrase

Al-Qaeda seems to have become the great catch all phrase used to goad people into voting / buying / transaction / doing what they’re told.

Here’s a couple of stories.

Story 1 from Salon.

Story 2 from a blog.

“Analysts” that shouldn’t be trusted

Original NYT Story Here.

Additional Story Here.

The New York Times has caught up to the rest of the planet by exposing the level of deceit that Americans are subject to on a daily basis. This time, it turns out that they’ve exposed a wide array of ‘analysts’ that were paid off by the Pentagon to make statements in favour of military actions in the Middle East and elsewhere.

… But even uglier, if that is possible, is the revelation that these corrupted military analysts were personally involved in helping companies win military contracts. Several of these ‘honorable’ soldiers held senior positions with contractors that gave them direct responsibility for winning new Pentagon business. Others held board positions with military firms and had responsibilities involving government business, while several of the ‘analysts’ were defense industry lobbyists.

Stories like this make you wonder just how much of the information delivered by mainstream media is legit.

Stories like this also help confirm my staunch support for Net Neutrality becuase it reminds us all that without a reasonable dialogue between reasonable, unbiased people, we aren’t living in a democracy.

Toronto’s Transit Commission to Investigate the Use of Tasers

Full Story Here.

Of course they are. And of course, a 6-figure study is being commissioned before hand. If you pay me $100,000, I’ll give you my answer (hint: it’s the reverse of ‘on’).