Terrorism Fears – Even Obama Can’t Save You

After the horrible events of the World Trade Center bombings, most countries beefed up their security and politicians boasted about how the world is a safer place.

But just last week, a nobody drove a common SUV truck into New York’s Times Square, with enough explosive force to kill thousands of innocent people, out for a night on the town.

American President Barack Obama told reporters at a news conference shortly after the event that his administration will do whatever is necessary to keep American’s safe.

Bull.

Where was Homeland Security – the American federal department responsible for monitoring and preventing terrorist acts on American soil – when Faisal Shahzad drove his SUV full of explosive materials right into the heart of New York’s Times Square?

The only reason Shahzad didn’t succeed in his bombing attempt, was because of a hot dog vendor’s concerned call to police, about a man acting oddly.

That’s right – for all the billions of dollars the American government has spent on anti-terrorism, a humble merchant peddling hot dogs and sausages from his hot dog cart on the street prevented the latest terrorist threat to the most powerful nation on Earth.

Yet President Obama tells his citizens not to worry, he’s got their back.
Yeah right.

He didn’t have their back last week – although Shahzad was on a no-fly list, he was able to purchase and board an airplane bound for Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Had authorities arrived just moments later, the terrorist would have been soaring about 30,000 feet in the sky towards the safety of home.

If American President Obama really did have his finger on the pulse of potential terrorist attacks, then Shahzad and his co-conspirators would have been captured long before he posed any real threat. Or at least, long before he had the opportunity to drive a bomb into a very busy Times Square.

President Obama’s administration dropped the ball on this – and who knows on how many other possible attacks which may be to come. The only reason no one got hurt was pure luck.

I don’t know about you, but relying on luck doesn’t exactly make me feel all the safer traveling through the States.

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Have We Lost that Caring Feeling?

In both Canada and America’s largest cities, on two separate incidents over the weekend, innocent people were left struggling for their lives in public, yet passersby didn’t bother to help. One even took a cell phone photo, and just kept walking.

Last Saturday, a 79-year-old man was robbed by two young men on a busy subway car in Toronto, Canada. He says he called out to those around him on the half-full car for help, but everyone simply ignored him. All he wanted was for someone to press the emergency yellow alarm tape which would have alerted authorities that there was trouble in that subway car, but instead everyone just sat and watched as he struggled with two younger men.

The senior citizen chased after the two thugs, but they got away with his wallet. All the man had to show for his efforts, was a small cut on his nose.

Then the next day in New York City, USA a man went to help a person who was getting mugged. The Good Samaritan was stabbed, and fell to the ground bleeding. Security video shows at least 25 people passing by – one even stopped to take a picture with his cell phone – but no one called 9-1-1 or offered to help the man.

About 30-minutes later, firefighters arrived only to pronounce the man dead – when all he did was try to help a now long gone victim.

If you saw someone in trouble, would you stop to render assistance?
It is easy to say “yes” when asked, but would you really do so if actually facing a life and death situation?

Or would you just stop to watch, snap a few photos for YouTube, and then go about your own business?

It’s a tough call to make – by offering assistance, you could put your own life on the line. But by ignoring the situation completely, you are being heartless, cold and uncaring.

Not to even call 9-1-1 or your local emergency number is ruthless – in most places calling 9-1-1 doesn’t cost anything, so you won’t use up valuable air time.

Perhaps we have become too desensitized to everything, thanks in part to movies and television where violence just happens to be routine? Or maybe we’ve become too fearful of being sued if the aid we render isn’t perfect, in our sue-happy society? Or maybe, we’ve just lost that caring feeling?

You know that feeling you get when you see someone in need, and you feel compelled to stop and help?

Or, maybe you don’t.

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Once Upon a Time, the Automakers Actually Cared About You and Me

If Henry Ford were alive today, he’d be shaking his head in disgust.

As if last week’s appearance in front of an American courtroom for Toyota’s president to answer questions about his company’s overabundance of safety recalls wasn’t enough bad press for the auto industry, General Motors issued a recall of its own affecting 1.3 million vehicles sold around the world.

Recalls affecting millions of vehicles from automotive manufacturers are becoming an all too common occurrence. It wasn’t all that long ago when a recall only affected a few thousand vehicles from one plant in one country.

Toyota has recalled over 8.5 million vehicles from around the world – that’s the equivalent of about one vehicle for every man, woman and child in New York City.
Wasn’t it Ford’s slogan a few years back “Quality is Job 1?”

Quality has gone the way of the Dodo bird – or at least it appears to be extinct as we witness these continuous streams of recalls from the auto giants.

Perhaps during the recent economic recession, the automakers cut costs by shopping for the best prices on the bits and pieces to put their products together, instead of basing their decisions on the quality we have come to depend upon?

It wouldn’t be the first time a major company has cut corners to save a buck. We consumers have been known to shop for the best deals too – just look at the line-ups at your local store which sells everything for a dollar.

Ever get a light bulb or set of batteries to power your portable radio at the local Dollar Store? Sure you may have got a steal of a deal, only paying a dollar, but chances are within a few hours, that light bulb or set of batteries won’t be working anymore.

That’s the price you pay when you go on the cheap. Quality goes by the wayside, and soon you’re sitting in the dark without any radio.

Though when the automakers cut corners, and their quality dips, people get scared, hurt or even die in motor vehicle accidents.

General Motors recent recall is based on 1,100 customer complaints, which include 14 crashes and one reported injury. Though those numbers may be higher, as many people don’t report minor accidents or injuries to their insurance companies, fearing their insurance rates will go up.

Toyota’s larger recall has resulted in the deaths of at least five people so far, but as many of the cars and trucks are still on the road with these problems, that number too may climb.

Yes, in an economy as brutal as we’ve seen of late, people aren’t as quick to go out and purchase big ticket items like houses and cars. So automakers suffer in a slumping economy. But then again – at least in General Motors case – they secured government bail-out funds to see them through the rough economy.

What it really comes down to is corporate culture. General Motors has grown mega-large, and as with many mega-large companies, after a while they don’t care about quality, because they don’t have too. What are a few thousand accidents or injuries when you have millions of other customers to count on?

On the surface, these big companies put on their game face, telling us all about their innovations in safety, security and customer care. They tell us how they will do whatever it takes to get and keep our business.

But all these companies really are interested in is your money.

In both the Toyota and General Motors recalls, it took thousands of customer complaints before either company even considered there was anything wrong with their products. That’s one of the allegations against Toyota which the American government is investigating – the amount of time it took them to recognize problems with their vehicles and to act on those problems, based on the number of complaints, injuries and deaths.

Companies that truly care about their customers don’t wait until thousands of their customers complain – they act immediately.

If Toyota and General Motors had shown the least bit of concern for their customers by acting immediately on complaints, neither would be facing the public relations disaster they are now both in the midst of.

But maybe a little dirt on their squeaky clean images is in order – because now at least, we know just how little value they place on you and me.

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We’re All Environmentalists – When It Costs Money

Sure you use your office’s blue boxes for recycling paper at work, and you probably separate your trash, recyclables and in some municipalities, even your compost materials at home.

These are things we do because we have too – most offices and municipalities have strict policies on what can and can’t be put out for garbage, often with consequences.

Municipal governments can fine and in some cases jail you for failing to recycle. Some offices have environmental cops, which leave nasty Post-It Notes on your desk if you’re caught trashing that stash of old papers, instead of recycling them.
One office I worked at, if you got three or more notices from the environmental cops, you had to wear a giant green witch’s hat for an entire day, as punishment for your green sin. The idea is that you’re so embarrassed by being singled with the giant green hat out as the one who doesn’t recycle, you’ll start too.

But nothing can make us more green for the planet, than money. When it simply costs more to do the non-environmentally-friendly thing, suddenly we’ll go green.

Take one of the most common New Year’s Resolutions in North America – to lose weight –and combine it with this winter’s brutal El Nino cold spell circulating the globe. Many parts of the world are experiencing unusually brisk temperatures, affecting regional growing crops.

In Mexico City, kids played in the snow for the first time ever, while Florida farmers have been watering their fruit crops non-stop to prevent them from freezing over due to below freezing temperatures.

This means one of the world’s staple food crops – sugar – is suffering. Mother Nature just didn’t design the sugar cane for a cold climate.

So all those people that made a promise to themselves to drop some excess weight this year are in luck – foods with sugar are starting to cost more at the store, thanks to a global shortage of sugar, brought about by an environmental mess.

Though fresh fruit – especially world famous Florida oranges – are also costing us more at the grocery store. And fresh fruit is good for you – an apple a day keeps the doctor away, or so the saying goes.

But too much of a good thing can harm you. If you drink too much fruit juice, or even if you eat too many fresh fruits in a day, you can increase your triglycerides by consuming all that natural fruit sugar, which can lead to diabetes, or even stroke and heart disease.

Still, the most influential factor in making us see green is in many cases green.
Major metropolitan areas such as New York City, U.S.A or Toronto, Canada report a direct correlation between increased ridership on their public transit systems when gas prices climb, and a similar reduction in ridership when gas prices decrease. So when it costs more to fill up your gas tank, you are more likely to take public transit.

Public transit, although not the best environmental solution, is better for the environment, as most of us drive all alone to work and back in our personal vehicles. But when you hop on a streetcar, bus or subway train, suddenly you are doing a very environmentally-friendly thing, as you’re taking your single occupant vehicle off the road, and replacing it with one multi-occupant vehicle. So instead of having thousands of single occupant vehicles on the road, you end up with one big vehicle with many occupants.

But the greatest cause for the fluctuations in public transit passenger load are money-based.

Kind of sad when you think about it. Although we all know being environmental citizens is good for all of us that call this planet home, it still takes money to make most of us be those good environmental citizens.

Be it a fine from your local town or city, or the cost at the pumps to fuel your car, money makes anyone an instant environmentalist.

Watch, as sugar prices rise, causing a jump in sugary food costs, more of us will be on diets . And those diets won’t necessarily be due to a New Year’s Resolution.

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Canada’s Largest City Among the Least Public Transit-Friendly Worldwide

Major urban centers always have traffic problems – that is just part of life in a big city. Traffic jams are regular fixtures in the urban landscape in New York City, Los Angeles, London, Montreal, and Toronto.

Though the last city mentioned is the worst when it comes to doing anything to reduce the strain traffic jams have on our environment, our transportation networks, or the economy. According to a recent study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the loss in productivity in Canada due to traffic costs the country $3.3 billion every year.

The OECD says Toronto’s public transit system has failed to keep up with the constant increases in the city’s population, resulting in 70 percent of the city’s residents depending on their personal vehicles to get to work – that is the highest rate among the OECD’s member nations.

Image via Wikipedia

The OECD is composed of 30 countries from across the globe -- with an additional 25-non-member countries which participate in OECD activities and initiatives. Member countries including Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Spain, Sweden, Japan, Germany, Iceland, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and The United States.

Who’s to blame for all of this?

Politicians which decide the fate of bike lanes, toll-highways, traffic calming devices, public transit fares and expansion, the location of new neighborhoods and commercial developments, and pretty much everything else making up urban sprawl are the primary culprits.

They have failed to plan, and in turn have planned to fail.

By not thinking through the locations of major attractions, and the way traffic will come and go from those major attractions, politicians have created more traffic headaches.

Image via Wikipedia

Sure, it is great having the Air Canada Centre, The Rogers Centre (formerly The SkyDome), The CNTower, the Hockey Hall of Fame, and pretty much any other major sporting center and tourist attraction within walking distance of the downtown core. But most are sold out with events, and everyone is sitting in traffic to get to those events, we tend to think differently. Although these buildings attract thousands of people (the Rogers Centre can hold upwards of 60,000 people), no new major thoroughfares were built for the added vehicular traffic in these areas.

Local radio and television stations always encourage people to take public transit when there are crowd drawing events in the downtown core – but have you taken public transit recently?

The city’s public transit system – the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) – does an adequate job of moving people around the city. Remember, it hasn’t kept pace with the demands of the growing population, so allow yourself at least twice as long as you would normally take if you were driving, and don’t be surprised if you have to wait for an empty bus, streetcar or subway to get on – especially during the rush hour.

Image via Wikipedia

During the rush hours in the morning and the afternoon it is pretty much standing room only, unless you happen to get on at the very first stop. In the afternoon rush, coming up from the downtown, people are literally squished right against the sides, frozen in place because even the slightest movement will put you nose-to-nose with a complete stranger.

There have been many plans to expand Toronto’s subway system, and in the past twenty-years, a whole new subway line did open up. It cost a billion dollars, has only five stops, and the one-way trip from start to finish is less than 15-minutes, but at least it shows effort.

Toronto’s politicians have been too wimpy to really create policies which encourage public transit use, which is where the real problems are. If more people took the city’s antiquated and underfunded TTC, then there would be a greater pool of funds to maintain it, expand it, and keep it in line with population increases.

This is typical of most urban centers around the world – the best ones are in the cities where taking public transit isn’t seen as being cheap, poor, or an inconvenience, as it is in Toronto. In other places, such as New York City, Chicago, even Vancouver, taking public transit is more socially acceptable, and as such, more people take it, so there is a greater amount of available funds to maintain and constantly improve it. And as it is socially acceptable to take transit in these cities, politicians feel compelled to fund these systems better.

But in Canada’s largest city, the politicians talk a lot about public transit, but because 70 percent of the city’s population don’t use it (including quite a few of those very same city politicians), funding is always taken from transit, and funneled into other projects.

What happens when you have a city with a constantly growing population, but little to no growth in terms of public transit?

More traffic – lots more. Current studies say it takes the average Toronto resident an hour-and-half to get to work during the morning commute. Taking growth models and the other estimates, within the next five to ten-years that morning commute will more than double, having Torontonians sitting in traffic for over three-hours just to get to work from the suburbs to the downtown core. And then there is the afternoon commute back home later in the day to look forward too.

Toronto’s city politicians are masters of making the transit system look good on the outside, while hiding the decaying rot on the inside. They have invested in new buses, streetcars, and subway cars over the past 20-years – new streetcars and subway cars are expected to hit current transit routes in next couple of years.

Though they don’t plan these transit purchases well. Back in the 1990s, they spent millions on natural gas powered buses. These buses turned out to c

Image via Wikipedia

ost more to maintain, and so the project got the axe, but what a waste of funds.
Around the same time, they also spent millions on double-length buses, which turned out to be dangerous – studies found they could split apart, crunch passengers in the center as they turned, or even flip right over and crush nearby cars. Although some are still in use, they don’t purchase these anymore.

Most recently, the TTC has invested in gas-electric hybrid buses, which although safe, have had battery issues early on. The TTC has complained to the manufacturers that the batteries don’t last as long as the manufacturer claims, meaning they have to be replaced sooner. The manufacturer says it isn’t the batteries, it is the long routes which the TTC has which are to blame.

More money wasted, while our traffic jams continue to grow.

The new transit vehicles coming onboard the TTC system in the next few years will cost less to maintain, are more fuel efficient, and have nice and shinny seats. Too bad most won’t get to enjoy them much – thanks to the standing room only of today’s and tomorrow’s TTC system.

Most of these new transit vehicles will replace older ones which are becoming too costly to keep repairing. They should have been purchased years ago, to build the fleet, instead of just maintaining it at current levels forever.

But hey, if you visit Canada’s largest city, at least you know you better get yourself a car – then you’ll be able to get around without standing, poking and pushing your way through the city’s faltering public transit system.

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