I've lived in Brampton for 12 years. During that time, it has grown from 200,000 residents to well over 500,000 residents.

At first my attention was drawn by the cheap housing and easy access to the "Greater Toronto Area". Generally, houses are cheaper in Brampton than the rest of the GTA because there's an ample supply of new and old houses in the community.

As well as the afforable housing, the main attractions are the many beautiful parks like the one above and the Rose Theatre where I've seen the Rankin Sisters, Tommy Hunter, John McDermott and Lesley Gore.

Brampton is basically a family and mutlicultural city. The facts below back this up:

Brampton is the first city in the GTA and one of 10 in North America to be designated an International Safe Community by the World Health Organization in 2007. Home to more than 8,000 businesses, the city enjoys a Triple A credit rating by Standard & Poor, reflecting its debt-free position, exceptional liquidity levels and excellent economy.

The city celebrates its diverse population that represents more than 175 different ethnic backgrounds who speak over 70 different languages.

With more than 4,000 acres of parkland, Brampton takes pride in being "The Flower City" and the "Best Blooming Community in Canada".

Enjoy "Everything Is Beautiful" by Ray Stevens. 

I was astounded to find out that it's right here in Ontario, near the town of "Oil Springs" precisely.

The person above is Charlie Fairbanks and his great grandfather, John Henry Fairbanks, started pumping oil from this location in 1861.

Oil was discovered in 1858, so 2008 marks the 150th anniversary of this operation. It actually beats another discovery of oil in the U.S. by a year.

There is very little oil that is produced in Ontario. Most of it comes from Alberta and "The Alberta Oil Sands".

Charlie looks happy and laid back. It helps when oil is over $124.00 a barrel.

I always like putting good news into this blog and this news is very good.

Brenda Martin was held for two years in a Mexican jail without a trial. Many Canadian protested her treatment including myself and demanded her release. After much political wheeling and dealing which included getting Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, involved, she was released to a Canadian prison a couple of weeks ago.

Yesterday, she was released on parole.

The Mexican political and judical system saved face by declaring Martin guilty despite evidence to the contrary.

You're never alone in this world as long as you have friends and Brenda has many of them. In other countries, as well as Canada.

The song below says it all.

I Shall Be Released/Joan Baez

The movie starts off like a documentary on early oil drilling. No character development, no plot development, not even dialogue.

The main character, Daniel Plain View, has few if any redeeming qualities. He seems to delight in taking petty revenge against anyone who crosses him including "his son".

The religious character in all this, Eli Sunday, is made of the same phoney stuff. Eli manipulates people to sell religion. Daniel manipulates people to sell oil.

The critics raved about this film on Rotten Tomatoes, but I found it hard to get entertained by some foul tempered lying devil who wants to share his personal hell with you. One Star.

There were tears in my eyes when Brooke White was voted off of American Idol tonight. There were other singers better than her on the show, but she brought real emotions to songs like "I am I said" and "Let It Be".

When she smiled it was like a ray of sunshine in my life, and when she cried it was like a storm in my soul.

While Carly Smithson was my first choice for American Idol, Brooke was actually my third choice behind David Archuleta. David, probably, gets as many votes for his cuteness as he does for his singing.

At this stage of the competition, it should have been Jason Castro who got voted off.  Jason's voice is too weak and montonous to compete with the others.

Syesha Mercado has a fine R & B voice and she delivered "Thank The Lord For The Nightime", very well. However, her appeal may be lacking with young female voters who are coming out in droves to vote for their favourite "cutie and/or hotie" guy.

David Cook has his moments as a power rock singer, but he doesn't have the range or the depth of the other Idols. 

American Idol has become a popularity contest for whoever is watching at the time. The biggest win is making it to the top ten. Brooke finished fifth. Without a doubt, she will have a performing career ahead of her and one of her songs will be "Let It Be".

1. The rising cost of food and food shortages like rice
2. The rising cost of oil and fossil fuels
3. The after effects of the subprime crisis which includes worthless ABCP paper and a deteriorating housing market
4. Rampant stockmarket speculation from hedge fund managers and others who want to make a quick buck on the backs of ordinary investors and consumers who are being squeezed to the limit.
5. Excessively tight loan conditions for some potential home owners with a good credit rating
6. The spreading of "doom and gloom" scenerios from senior economists and banking executives to the general public

As concerned stewards of the Earth, we want to turn around the negativity that has surrounded the above issues. We feel that with the help of God, we can produce positive changes for the peoples of Earth. This includes:

1. Opening up more land for the cultivation of crops like wheat, rice and corn
2. Creating tough fast growing hyrid crops that need less water and maintenance
3. Making the necessary alternate energy breakthroughs like improved nanosolar systems that will create cheap power for electric automobiles and homes
4. Producing financial institutions that promote and give low interest rate mortgages to credit worthy customers
5. Bringing about massive losses to hedge fund managers who cause harm to the poor through high risk stockmarket speculation 
6. Finding inspirational financial leaders like Suze Orman who will come to the aid of confused investors 
7. Developing positive innovative ideas that will inspire change like in the song: Put a Little Love in Your Heart 

Sure she's been around for awhile. She even won a singing contest in Ireland and made an album (It failed.).

Like Michael John, there was a great deal controversy over her amateur status and music history. This whole thing reminds me of the old Olympics Games and how good athletes were denied entry because they accepted money for participating in their sport. 

Carly, of course, didn't sound like an American. She spoke with an Irish accent and had a biker tatoo on her right shoulder. Added to the above, she sang "Jesus Christ Superstar" in a land full of fundamentalist Christians.

No doubt,  many of these factors took away from the fan base that she needed to stay in the competition.

However, rock and roll has always thrived on a bad boy or bad girl image, and what may not go over with middle of the road Idol fans will probably be just fine with hard rock fanatics.

Rock on Carly just like Gene Vincent in the 1950s:

"Enchanted" is a mishmash of different Disney fairy tales from Cinderella to Snow White to Sleeping Beauty, etc. Changing the location of these fairy tales from cartoon fantasy land to New York City was an interesting idea at first, but the whole cold reality of planet Earth quickly changed into the exciting two dimensional world of witches, spells, dragons and princes.

The conflict between the "real world" and the "fantasy world" never really happened which was a shame.

Of course, the special effects and music numbers were great, especially, the musical number done in Central Park, but the story never went beyond its sources in Disneyland and childhood mythology. Fantasy in Cartoonland and fantasy in New York Land seemed to amount to the same thing.

The cartoon characters were never challenged about the reality of their existence in the Big Apple and I found that lack of obvious conflict disappointing. I give the movie two and half stars, but most critics were generous in their praise of the film.

It's been warming up in Canada and the U.S. over the last week. These warm winds not only influenced the environment, but the stock markets of North America as well. The Canadian TSX and the U.S. Dow  Exchanges were up over 4% at the end of the week. 

While the TSX benefited from higher energy prices, the Dow had good earning reports from some of its biggest companies, IBM, Coca Cola and Caterpiller.

While the U.S. financial system is suspect in many ways, it still has the best multinationals in the world.

The U.S. also offers some of the best housing bargains in the world. With the Fed lowering interest rates and creating controls over the "Wild West Lending System", things could be booming in the States in less time than we think.