Tallest Building

Monday, July 4, 2011

Canada Map on The World Pictures

Canada Map on The World Area images

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Canada City Night

Toronto is Canada's largest city and is home to over five million residents. Toronto is Canada's financial centre, and continues to be the first choice among new Canadian immigrants.

Once known as "Toronto the Good", this city was once a very religious, uptight place that even banned Sunday shopping. The city became somewhat boring & the only time to have fun was a weekend drive to Buffalo New York. Fortunately, over the last 20 or so years, Toronto has been remolded into a sophisticated & multicultural city.

Toronto is not particulary blessed in terms of physical geography, hence the name HogTown. The reason for this nickname is that Toronto (formerly known as York) was once a muddy swamp. The streets used to flood with mud all the time & pigs from the nearby farms would run around & cause a stir. The living situation was not pleasent back then, especially to the Loyalist migrants from the UK.

Everywhere in this city is flatland, as if the pairies have continued East into this region. It looks kind of like Chicago. The only place with more attractive scenary would be the ravines & valleys, but there is nothing really special about them. The waterfront is a wonderful place to explore, especially the Toronto Islands & streches of it that has parks.

Read more: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/5d6ef/dc8fa/#ixzz1R26a6eZG

Canada City

The City Council approved street improvements for 2011 at the improvement hearings held on January 10, pending the bid prices received from contractors. The City anticipates receiving favorable pricing once again this year as contractors continue to look for work while the economy slowly recovers. The savings might not be quite as significant due to the dramatic rise in fuel prices, but would still be a benefit for all residents of the City as well as residents of the proposed project streets.

Dianna Lane will be fully reconstructed from Reidmond Avenue to the end of the road. The hill from County Road B2 to Reidmond Avenue was reconstructed in 1999 when County Road B2 was improved. Curb and gutter will be added on both sides, but the road will remain intact on the hill. The rest of the road will be reconstructed with curb, gutter, and storm sewer improvements including rain gardens.

The streets scheduled for mill and overlays are Jessica Court, Ontario Road from County Road D south to the cul-de-sac, and Payne Avenue. Those streets will have approximately one to two inches of asphalt milled off of the existing surface and then will receive an asphalt overlay that will restore the crown to the road to improve drainage and provide a smoother driving surface. Sections of concrete curb will be replaced if they have failed.

Canada Hotels

A new report by Hotwire.com, a discount travel website, lists the top 10 Canadian cities with the largest reduction in hotel prices.

Windsor placed eighth, with a 10 per cent drop in prices over last year. It doesn’t match the 21 per cent drop in Quebec City and Victoria, but it still indicates tourism is hurting.

“From the perspective of profitability, it’s not a great list to be on,” Lynnette Bain, general manager of the Holiday Inn Select on Huron Church Road, said Thursday. “As far as creating a bit of exposure for the city, I guess any press is a good thing.

“But what I’ve really seen is rates being driven down in the city and the occupancy staying flat or below last year.”

The Canadian Hotwire Hotel Rate Report, indicates that booking a three-star hotel online for a night in Windsor now starts at $84.

Gord Orr, managing director for the local convention and visitors bureau, sees the Hotwire report as generally positive.

“It’s not a bad top 10 list to be on because it helps raise awareness and the profile of the city of Windsor,” Orr said. “From the standpoint that we’re more affordable, it is not a bad thing.”

Orr said average room prices in July were about $100 compared to $105 in July 2008.

Worse, however, is the occupancy rate which he said fell about nine per cent from last year.

Canada HotelCanada is the world's second largest country by area and covers most of northern North America. It extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward to the Arctic Ocean, Canada shares land borders with the United States to the south and to the northwest.

The country was inhabited first by Aboriginal people with the present country being a union of British colonies, some of which were former French colonies. Canada gained full independence from the United Kingdom in 1982.

Canada is a constitutional monarchy with Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, as head of state. It is a parliamentary democracy with a federal system of parliamentary government and strong democratic traditions.Canada - Toronto - Accommodation - Hotels - Information

Canada has a close relationship with the United States. It shares the world's longest undefended border and have joint military exercises and they are each other's largest trading partners.

Canada is composed of ten provinces and three territories. The provinces are: Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan

The three territories are: The Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the Yukon Territory.

The Provinces have a large degree of autonomy from the federal government, the territories somewhat less. Each has its own provincial or territorial symbols.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

New York City Time Lapse

NYC - Mindrelic Timelapse from Mindrelic on Vimeo.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Obama: A Promise Breaker up for re-election

When evaluating President Obama’s dismally unpopular first term in office, historians and political scientists alike will undoubtedly cite the same issues. We have heard it all before. Time after time, Obama has failed America with a far more aggressive than promised, Bush-esk military budget and a seemingly endless inability to close America’s detention camp in Guantanamo Bay. Many will continue to bring up his Post-Katrina-like, historically delayed and vacation-filled removal from the catastrophic BP oil spill. The right will continue to shell the president with charges of wasteful spending and never-ending mentions that Obama has out-spent Bush with earmark and pork-laden bailouts and ineffective stimulus bills.

Still our debts, our wars and of course, our lack of Universal Health Care, will not be the issues most likely to hurt Obama in his re-election attempts. For the U.S.A, as it has been for half a decade now it’s jobs, jobs and jobs. People will bring this mindset with them to the ballot box.

The unemployment rate, while disturbingly high is deeply misleading. It does not account for those who have given up looking for work, a total that, every month, far exceeds the amount of people who gain jobs. It also does not include the homeless or those who have been without a job for more than 27 months- a number now over 7 million.

So, with Gallup’s “real” unemployment rate of 19.3% as of June 2011, we must ask ourselves the big question- why such a dramatic spike? America's jobless rate has been soaring for the last 3 years.

Well, liberal economists will tell you it's because the stimulus packages were too small and job creation has yet to be prioritized in practice as it has been in rhetoric. Conservatives will argues that taxes are still too high on small businesses and corporations that remain America's central job engines. Moderates have argued that the enormous bank and auto bailouts devalued the dollar so dramatically that the American public simply can't afford to live on their minimum wages with the price for gas and groceries on the rise. Most economists advocate for greater regulation of the financial institutions that created our recession.

Well, there may be truth to each one of these arguments. I'm no expert and certainly no Harvard economist. But, lets look at the facts here. Grades are improving and a college degree is more necessary than ever to get a job. There is no greater key to employment than education. This simply cannot be denied. The year I was born 46% of Americans graduated college. The number in 2011 is 27%. This figure continues to decline rapidly.

So, excuse me for having a theory, but it appears that if college is not made cheaper by way of a federal mandate, jobless rates will continue to spike dramatically.

Well, minor tax credits and lots of fancy speeches on the matter have solved nothing. The president won’t step up and deliver on the price of college. At this point, there is no surprise to this.

Barack Obama’s record of disappointment, or as Jon Stewart likes to call it, “lack of audacity”, is defined by his curiously dull inability to step up and support ‘morally righteous’ policy. He does not have Clinton-like fire, Carter-like compassion or Reagan-like popularity. He is a great speaker. But when actions speak louder than words, can rhetoric win a re-election campaign built around a record of broken promises?

Obama’s lack of support of ‘morally righteous’ policies extends far beyond the price of college issue. The president has yet to show the support he promised for the construction of emission-reducing and job-creating high-speed rail, leaving America dependent on cars and planes as the rest of the developed world zips across borders with public transit. The president promised corporate accountability, big-time finance reform, a repeal of the Patriot Act and an end to illegal wiretapping and domestic spying. The president promised gays would not be treated like second-class citizens by a federal government that continue to deny them employment or marriage equality. The president promised to allow workers to claim more in unpaid wages and benefits in bankruptcy court. The president promised to form international group to help Iraqi refugees. The president promised to change federal rules so small businesses owned by people with disabilities could get preferential treatment for federal contracts. The president promised to direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to conduct a comprehensive study of federal cancer initiatives. The president promised to mandate insurance coverage of autism treatment. The president promised to sign the Employee Free Choice Act, making it easier for workers to unionize. The president has broken too many promises to count.

Maybe it’s about time we stopped asking the president to fulfill his promises and started demanding he stop making so many promises in the first place.

Thanks to the President’s wretched economic policies that continue to prioritize Wall Street bonuses and tax cuts for millionaires, our country’s scarily tanking economy continues to produce more and more jobless Americans While its hard to fathom a way the GOP would ever do a better job running the country, it seems we are faced with a problem typical of nations throughout the world- the lesser of two evils. An article as small and meaningless as this simply cannot inspire a strong third party. It just can’t.

Hopelessness has taken over.

Of Lightsabers, Awards And Other Miscellaneous Stuff

Hey, everyone! How's it going? Does anyone have any houses I can clean? No, seriously. I've spent the last two days cleaning houses (one due to renovations, the other because some friends of ours were moving -- and that meant we had to clean both of their houses. At least our house is clean.

Barriss on her blog Opine of Mine has awarded me with... *checks stats* The Jedi Master Award! Thanks, Barriss! To accept it, I must answer seven questions.

1. Who is your Jedi Master?

Hmmm. Well, I would like to say Ferus Olin, but since he never made it to Knight, I'll go with Galen Marek.

*receives suspicious stares* What?

2. What is your Jedi name?

*laughs* My real name (not my screen name) is actually used at least three times in the Star Wars Universe, and, yes, one time, it's for a Jedi. (I'm also a Queen, and I can't remember where I read the third one.)

I seem to be in quite the pickle here, as I'm not going to give out my real name. Let's just say my name is Scarlett -- like my Master, I live under code names.

3. What's your lightsaber color?

Blue.

4. What is your home planet?

Onderon. (hinthint)

5. What is the name of your ship?

Well, it's technically not my ship, as Galen refuses to let me fly after that "incident" near the black hole, but I practically live in the Rogue Shadow.

6. Which war do you fight in?

*facepalm* I'm so embarrassed to be saying this, but I can't remember what the war is that takes place in the Original Trilogy. A little help here? I think I'm thinking of the Galactic Civil War...?

7. Who is your worst enemy?

Darth Sidious.

8. Will you stay loyal to the Jedi?

*roguish grin* Look at my Master. I'm no Jedi. Of course I'm not loyal to them.

Now I must award five people.

Leauphaun gets the Jedi Padawan Award, since she'll be accepting this award on her Day In The Life Of An Artist blog, which is much younger than her other blogs. *shouts* You hear me, Leauphaun??

I don't know if Ley Firewalker has been awarded this yet, but I'm giving it to her anyway.

And anyone else who wants to take this, since not all of my follows are into Star Wars.

Here are the guidelines for the award:

In order to win the Jedi Padawan Award, your blog must be 3 months old.

In order to win the Jedi Knight Award, your blog must be at least 8 months old.

In order to win the Jedi Master Award, your blog must be at least a year old.

In order to win the Dark Jedi (Sith) Award, your blog must be at least 7 months old.