Canadian Personal Finance Blog

No, no, no I am not some right wing wacko about to espouse the return of hanging of criminals in Canada (except for maybe those who take advantage of seniors, they should be horse whipped as well), no our friends at the NDP have come up with an OLD/NEW idea for saving energy. Bring back the clothes line!

I actually like this idea, saving some electricity by allowing folks to use clothes lines. Right now in a lot of communities there are by-laws or constructor rules that state you cannot use a clothes line in the community (in a lot of areas of Ottawa especially). Allowing folks to hang up their clothes to dry them, could save some energy use, and will allow folks that want to, to hang their clothes out to dry! My mother does this still, and what is wrong with it? Clothes dryers are a new thing comparatively, why not allow mother nature to dry our clothing, and better still, why not expunge ludicrous laws that ban this tradition.

Wow, these guys better stop having great ideas or I am going to be forced to think about maybe voting for them (maybe)!

So I mentioned yesterday that CERN in Switzerland had a Big Bang (of the wrong kind) in their particle accelerator, which caused damage, due to miscalculations by Fermi Labs. The Fermi folks are the ones paying the price, since their Big Bang experiments are now off line, due to a 20-tonnes magnet being disrupted by this explosion. Just goes to show that in Science as in Finances, always double check your calculations or you’ll end up like me with a HUGE interest charge on your credit card bill, or worse still have a dozen 20-ton magnets disrupted, like the folks at CERN! Apologies for reposting this one but I liked it so much and it was SO topical for me, I just felt so inclined.

On another interesting note, another one of my “flyer” investments Nortel Networks (stop laughing, they might come back), disclosed that it’s largest investor is Wellington Management a large Boston, Mass based investment firm. These guys own over a 10% stake in Nortel,wonder why? My guess is these guys view Nortel’s “pieces” as being valuable, even if the company as it stands now may not be as attractive to some folks. Interesting to watch this.

Now remember this is not an investment blog, so don’t be taking my advice or statements as gospel, go out and figure things out for yourselves, this is only supplied as an “I do this” exhibition. I view this as more along the lines of something out of Wingfield Farms. I liked that whenever old Walt had a GREAT idea that he thought would revolutionize farming, the local folks response was usually, “You COULD do it that way“, which really meant, you really shouldn’t do it that way! Now I expect an onslaught of comments about my investing, using that catch phrase, oh well, have at it!