Cole's Notes - The Sunday Journalist

If it’s not for me, it’s gone — no forwarding, no replies Once upon a time, I thought I’d struck digital gold, scoring my actual name as my Gmail address back when Google’s email service was shiny and new. I was the early bird who caught the worm. Unfortunately, that worm has been a constant stream of other people’s mistakes, and I’m finally cutting the line. For years, I’ve been the accidental pen pal of countless strangers. Football fans, insurance companies, schools, medical clinics, and even Marvel enthusiasts — all happily sending me messages meant for some other Cole Cooper. I’ve received everything from heartfelt personal notes to confidential login instructions. And because I’m apparently nicer than I should be, I’ve spent years forwarding, replying, or politely explaining, “Sorry, wrong Cole.” That stops today. The volume of misdirected email has reached the point where I’m no longer a free customer service agent for the world’s sloppy data entry. Going forward, I will no...

Not what I expected Cole's Note: I've missed the last couple of Sundays because of relocating to a new apartment and working for Elections Canada.  My hope was to announce the return of my blogging and Substack.  But I need to vent a bit. What started it off On May 9, I moved into a new apartment, and TELUS came to install the landline and fibre for Internet and TELUS TV. When the technician arrived on May 9, he installed a landline, the TELUS TV hookup, and the Fibre Internet. Still, he had not switched the telephone number over from my old location at that time; he said that he had placed an order to have it switched over on May 14.  On that day, May 10, the network technicians at TELUS were unable to switch the landline to my new location because they discovered an error in the address and cancelled the order. They then left a message on the voicemail of my old telephone number, telling me that the move had been postponed until the 14th, when I called.  I called T...

Moving into new digs I haven't posted for the last two weeks since I moved house. As part of the process, all my machines have been boxed and are waiting for the move. I have temporarily set up my one desktop unit, running Windows 11, to post this, and I hope to have the entire system back up and running soon.  On another thought I'm really enjoying not having to be connected online all the time. My new place is great, and there is a wonderful walking and biking park literally out my back window. Less time online and more time for me.  A possibility. -30-  

Canadians will soon realize they had secured a pyrrhic victory by voting for Mark Carney and the Liberals out of sheer panic.  “You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.” Robert Heinlein Mark Carney, who replaced Justin Trudeau as prime minister on March 14, has now been elected in his own right in Canada's recent election. A Conservative victory which had appeared so inevitable that political commentators speculated not on "if," but "when Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre would take the role of prime minister, following ten years of Trudeau's far-left governance. If American leftists exhibit Trump Derangement Syndrome, Canadians appear to have surpassed them. By opting for the path of national decline and self-destruction that has marked the past, Canadians seemingly acted spitefully toward Donald Trump. Trump, meanwhile, relished mocking the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, dubbing hi...

 Nothing this week - 

 Cole's Note - Facebook is Censoring this post as being from a US news source.  I find it an excellent Column and would recommend it as a column of the day: The 51st State or the 14th Colony—or Something Else? Photo: PJ Media.com by David Solway - PJ Media  | 8:17 PM on March 12, 2025 So much fuss and bother has been made on both sides of the border over Donald Trump’s presumed intention to annex Canada as the 51st state that people seem to have forgotten that the issue goes back at least as far as an October 21, 1774 Congressional “Address to the Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec.” So much fuss and bother has been made on both sides of the border over Donald Trump’s presumed intention to annex Canada as the 51st state that people seem to have forgotten that the issue goes back at least as far as an October 21, 1774 Congressional “Address to the Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec.”  As Mark Anderson in his archival "The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony: Americ...