Terry Chenier

I've been hearing rumours lately that Ted Turner

is thinking about taking control of CNN.

He says he's fed up with listening

to panels of "talking heads"

waxing on and on endlessly

about "stories" that should have

been an item and forgotten but get

debated among "experts" in their field.

CNN claims to be WORLD'S NEWS LEADER.

Me, I'm fed up with listening to stories about

"The Balloon Boy" and whether it was a hoax or not.

So far, I've been treated to this story and all its variations for over a week.

Time to move on and report on some real news.

If anyone's interested, you can get the Globe and Mail on line.

This paper has news from around the world.

Bob & I went on a listing appointment the other day;

it was a FSBO I had been chasing for some time.

He was actually ready to list and then he asked what

we would be doing. We explained that we would have an

open house for the realtors, and be marketing his home on

the internet and holding open houses for the public.

He didn't want any of it. He didn't want people in his house,

expecially a bunch of realtors!

What I got out of that is that we supposed to somehow

find a buyer, bring them through, but not show them anything,

and then they should buy. All the time this conversation was going on,

(some 30 minutes), he never once looked at us. Most of the time he had his

back to us. I was the most bizarre situation I had ever experienced. Finally, he

pointed to the door and said he would think on it for a few days. Good Lord!

Only in Canada can you swim with the polar bears.

In the town of Cochrane, Ontario, you can swim with the bears.

This is pretty snuggly; who will blink first?

Here he comes.

Du-dum, Da-dum, Da-dum.

What big teeth those are!

I can see you.

Nice doggy.

When this place opened, it attracted 11,000 visitors

the first six months. It's probably a good thing that the

bears are separated from the humans with 9 centimeter thick

bullet-proof glass. Bullet-proof glass?

Are some of the bears packing?

Waky News is a weekly feature from the BLOGGING GUY.

The local zoo in Gaza lost its two zebras due to Israeli shelling,

and because of the expense of replacing them, decided to cut corners

a teeny-tad and paint a couple of donkeys using masking tape and hair dye.

A neighbouring Israeli mayor upon hearing this. has offered

to replace the two bogus animals with the real McCoys.

I thought that was kinda' nice.

This is a true story from THE BLOGGING GUY.

When you go into a casino, the house issues you with

a "players card". Every time you enter the casino, they swipe this card

and that allows them to keep track of your losses and gambling habits.

This is useful information for the casinos.

If you lose enough money, the casinos will give you

what is called "comps". "Free" gifts to keep you coming back.

Lose enough, and you'll be receiving Rolex and Tag Heuer watches,

theatre tickets, limo rides, hockey tickets, cruises and meeting celebrities.

The list is endless. The point of this exercise is to keep you coming back.

Instead of trying to restrain

problem gamblers, the casinos reward them, fueling

a $13.67 Billion dollar business.

The government of Ontario last year spent $39 million

on treatment for problem gamblers and in the same year

spent $585 million on "comps". Tells you where their priorities are;

problem gamblers account for about a third of their revenues.

You don't want to win too much though-you aren't supposed to.

Do that, and you'll be accused of cheating. It's a stacked deck.