Took the family to the Picture Butte Parade today. I cannot believe they had a Separatist float in the parade. Thought Picture Butte would be above this. Fuck that town.
One of the biggest rebuttals I get to the churches money hoarding of hundreds of billions (yes, with a B) of dollars, is that they do so much charity work. There is no third party audit from an accounting firm that verifies that....we have to take the churches word from a short statement at General Conference. There are no line items, no break down of who got what, no specifics, just...."take our word on it". Their annual report reads like a promotional brochure it isn't legally binding or verified by anyone. Zero accountablity to anyone. They literally take 10% of people's income, which isn't even Christian or Bibical no matter how they twist scripture, and POOF.....gone....just trust us. So many people give up years of their labours to this money sucking group....I used to know seniors who paid the church before rent and food and sometimes gave up needed medicines to pay into this scam. It is a scam....isn't it? A money making racket. The Creator of the universe does not need one penny from you and did fine for the last millions of years without a dollar. The Gospel of Jesus was written without tithes. He didn't need 10% of your income to die for your sins, either. It is time to call out the church for what it is. If it was honest, it would be 100% honest and have a third party show line by line where every penny is going. They are just as dirty and filthy as every prosperity gospel criminal preacher out there.
I have been to dozens of cities and used dozens of transit systems in several countries around the world. No where is it worse than in Lethbridge. Once again today, the app led me astray. The app tells me to catch a bus downtown at 11:35. That bus arrives with the right number. I board the bus....it then proceeds to completely ignore the route on the app and go to another destination (North Walmart). Well the app screws up again. Then I get to the North Walmart station and the driver tells me I can jump onto the bus ahead of us to take me where I want to go. As we pull up to the station, it drives off....so much for transfering. This happens often. A 20 min trip turns into 1.5 hours, and it happens way too often. This time I just had my spouse drive to pick me up. But it goes beyond just a messed up app. The routes and numbers make zero sense. They do not serve us well. I think they depend on "data" over actual common sense. The service is so unreliable that people just don't use it. The city planners, council and transit planners do not use this system on a regular basis because if they did they would fix it. Tourists must have a fun time. All our transit stops have a sign with a number. No indication of what bus routes stop there. No schedule on the poll to say where it is going with a full week and weekend schedule and map (Winnipeg does a great job at this). Nothing. Just a number, like 14006. What does that even mean for the average tourist? If its telebus to phone and find out when the bus is going to come, there is no number to call that is posted. Tourists don't know about the app, and if they did they would find it doesn't work right half the time.
The transit system needs to go old school in every way. Paper schedule, posted routes and schedules and bus routes that are straight forward. I also heard from drivers that the latest adjustment makes it hard to have breaks and that they no longer interact as often with other drivers, making it lonely on the job. Our city is SMALL. For the love of God, figure it out.
I am wondering if anyone on Income support got their energy rebate with their payment last month? My income support ended on June 30th, and while I am not longer on it, when I logged in to apply for the rebate it said I didn't have to do it. I have not gotten any email about applying or got any payment, I am wondering if I am in limbo land
We went to visit a sick relative in the hospital yesterday who is very much in the church. We have left the church but don't really tell anyone about it. Having not seen them in a few years, I asked where they lived and they lived RIGHT BESIDE a church building in our city. I said that it is great they can walk to church. NOPE. He explained to me that the church has this great computer program to ensure the right amount of Priesthood holders, families, etc in each ward. So they have to drive across the City to attend church. He defended this like crazy that the church is always right. We are in Lethbridge Alberta, big time Mormon country here in Canada. The rest of the family was doing Moroni's Quest stuff recently and they sent some photos..... the costumes I would not be caught dead in. The more and more I get away from the church, the more I see it is a straight up CULT. Many people would defend this church to the death, I am sure.
I mean, the referendum is just a ploy to distract and divide, you would think they could harness the rebate to get everyone to vote at the same time and be done with it.
I do not know what is happening but the North Side has seen massive increases of homelessness and drug use in the last couple weeks. The parking lots of London Drugs, Canadian Tire and businesses south of 5th ave North have been covered in people, many openly using drugs. I am sick and tired of seeing this in our city and I am sick and tired of us not helping these people off the streets and risking their lives with drugs that are killing them. I seen a guy in the middle of 13th St N with a plastic car bumper going crazy blocking traffic the other day, I mean we just can't have this in our city. Today downtown was a total gong show as well. I feel like we don't want to "force" people to actually behave in our society, and we don't want to throw people in hospital to get help, but what level of insane are we willing to take? People do not want to go downtown, we have people DYING on our streets. Something has to start giving in soon. At this point if we aren't going to do anything we might as well just open up city hall and let them take it over.
Considering Ralph Klein gave $200 back 20 years ago, this $100 rebate is a kick in the teeth considering what they have done to AISH. EDIT - Klein paid out $400.
So I have been in Alberta for 4 years (Lethbridge) and today I went up to Calgary to visit a friends in the hospital. As I drove up, it was an older looking complex, which is fine, but when I went inside I felt like I stepped into a hospital in a 3rd world country. Old, things in disrepair and public washrooms with no working toilets. My friends room was old, and outdated with brown paint, the TV was from the 80's and it was just so substandard from what I expected from Calgary. It makes the Lethbridge hospital look like the Marriott in Dubai. Are they planning to demolish the Foothills hospital building anytime soon? Is there a plan to replace it? I can not believe in a province with all this oil money selling record amounts of oil this hospital would even exist in its current condition. Where is the oil money????
I am a regular user of lettermail and I want to know if I am the only one that is seeing major delays. Recent examples are a letter mailed in Calgary last Tuesday at the post office...got it today. 5 business days between Calgary and Lethbridge. Another letter from Oshawa to Lethbridge was 3 weeks that I got last week. Another from Rural Saskatchewan that took over 3 weeks, another from Montreal that took 10 business days. And numerous others. Sent a parcel to Vancouver and it took 3 weeks recently as well. I am curious to know if anyone out there is experiencing this. It gets here eventually, but service is sloooooow. I would say 50% of what I get is a day or two past normal Canada post guidelines, and the rest of really late.
I changed banks so my direct deposit went to cheque and my income tax was mailed by cheque over 2 weeks ago. No idea where they print them, but it was mailed two weeks ago and still not arrived in Lethbridge. Also had a oversized letter that took 3 week from Oshawa the other day. Is the mail still behind or slow?
I am told they are going to open the mormon temple to the public for some sort of open house. When is it due to be finished? Would be great if they had the mormon tabernacle choir come to lethbridge and perform a concert in it. It really looks like a landmark.