A Crumby Deal for Canada

The Bob Loblaw Law Blog. Comic genius! I love "Arrested Development." The show that also brought us one of the best boat names ever, the Seaward (C-word). Is there a better name for a lawyer than Bob Loblaw? I guess perhaps Blah Blah Blah would be better, but only just.

I've been thinking of Bob recently reading about one of Canada's largest companies. And I don't even know if it's Loblaw or Loblaw's. I rarely saw either being from the west where we got the Real Canadian Superstore, which is owned by Loblaw(s). The reading I've been doing has got me wondering if Loblaw(s) is really Canadian or if that's just a lot of blah blah blah.

Galen Weston is the owner and he's worth a reported (and we all know this means he actually has a lot more in offshore tax shelters in the Cayman Islands or somewhere like that) $13.55 billion dollars making him the second richest Canadian. Loblaw(s) made a reported (ditto) 754 million in profit last year. That seems modest given their reported (ditto) 11 billion dollar revenues per QUARTER year, but it's probably just the number they want us to believe. That's all.

I've been reading about Loblaw(s) lately because they seem to be a really good example of the kind of corporate greed and scumbaggery I've been railing on and on about in this blog, but using mostly American examples. If you think I'm exaggerating about the Cayman Islands comment above, they are, if I'm not mistaken, still embroiled in a 400 million dollar tax fraud case. But that was not the issue that has been bugging me most about Loblaw(s) recently. Hell, it's EXPECTED! I've stated more than once on this blog that in Canada, if you're rich, you just DO this. I admit to possibly only mild overstatement on that account.

Then there's the scandal over Loblaw(s) (or come to think of it, is it "Loblaw's? Who cares?) receiving 12 million loonies of taxpayer money to install some more environmentally friendly refrigeration units in its more than 2300 locations across Canada. The Liberal government has been under fire for throwing money at large corporations and this looks like a good example. Why were they even allowed to apply for this help? Why not give the help to smaller grocery stores? It's what Liberal opponents call "corporate welfare," but as I've explained, my definition differs a bit. I consider corporate welfare to be not just giving corporations money, but allowing them to raise prices so they never have to pay ANY expenses. We'll get to that later.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has been defending the decision by saying they got the free dough (ar ar (you'll see why that is almost Arrested Development hilarious a little later)) by basically saying they're big. Getting more efficient refrigeration in Loblawses (?) across Canada would be, she says, the equivalent of removing 50,000 cars from the roads. She also says it only pays 1/4 of the price of the new units and that Low Blows will be paying 36 million out of its own cavernously deep pockets. Well isn't THAT nice? Paying to improve its own stores? A lot of people are upset that the government is paying ANY of the cost at all. Doesn't seem right using our tax dollars to support a crooked corporation, does it? But since Canada is warming at double the global average (she says) there is a need to think big right now.

Then there's the story of Loblaw(s) crying the blues about minimum wage increases, which they SAY will cost them 190 million bucks next year, but we KNOW if we understand simple economics that just the extra money spent by the employees in their 2300 locations across Canada AT Loblaw(s) now that they are earning more, will ease the expense a great deal. Loblaw(s) employees will have more money to spend at Loblaw(s). To say nothing of the snowball effect it would have on the economy. Loblaw(s) would most likely make more money by raising their workers' salaries. And I'm not even going to mention (well I guess I am) the same old question: why the hell aren't they paying their workers more? They can't afford it? Bullshit! Stop your pussyaching and pay your workers for making you filthy rich! Nope. The board voted against it.

But even if a government with balls forces them to pay their workers a living wage, they will do what I have exhaustively explained EVERY corporation does in thoughtless reaction to any perceived expense (and remember, this will more than likely NOT be an expense but a profit for Low Blows) they will raise prices, cut jobs and they're even stating that they will need to resort to automation. Really this will likely just be a convenient excuse for it.

But that's not what's been giving me agita about this corporation lately either. It's bread. A very basic staple of Canada throughout our history. I remember when I was about 11 years old going down about a thousand stairs from our house on 6th Ave. in Nelson (a beautiful city built in the mountains of B.C.) to Super Value and buying loaves of freshly baked, uncut bread 4 for a dollar. That's a quarter a loaf! 25 cents for white or brown. Bread. (same price for everybody) And then I had to walk back UP those thousand stairs smelling one of the best smells in life - freshly baked bread - without gnawing on one of the corners as I walked.

Well times have changed. I don't even know if Super Value exists any more in Canada. No doubt Low Blows took it over or forced it out of business. Part of making the supermarket business more concentrated and less diversified in Canada, which enables the price fixing I'm going to get into now.

Bread rose in price from $1.42 to $3.04 between 2001 and 2015. I was in Canada for only a short time during that period and even I noticed that. Well this was beyond the general inflation of most food products in Canada by about a dollar. So it should have only gone up to $2.04. This doesn't sound very significant, but given the importance of bread, it's downright un-Canadian! In this article they say the cost to a loaf a week consumer would have been $400. I go through about 3 a week and given the dollar extra over 14 years, I calculate it to be more like $2,184 to me. This is not including hamburger or hot dog buns I'm assuming?

Now over 14 years even a couple grand is not noticeable. Even to a struggling Canadian like me! But when you figure it out over 2600 stores with thousands of customers a day, most buying bread, that is a hefty profit! On an important, nay SACRED part of Canadian culture!

Canada began as a Christian culture and Christianity is still the main religion today. To Christians, Jesus is the bread of life. Bread is used in the Bible to mean "food," or "spiritual sustenance" at times. Jesus broke bread with his disciples at the Last Supper, he fed the 5000 with it, the Israelites got manna (bread from heaven) when they were wandering through the wilderness and starving. The Lord's prayer includes daily bread and, of course, bread represents the body of Christ when eaten during the sacrament. It is a major part of Christian, and Canadian culture.

Bread, lechem in Jewish, was synonymous with food in general. In Korea they have a greeting which means, "Did you eat rice today?" Here, rice is as important as bread. It just means, "Are you prospering? Do you have enough money to eat?" That is how bread is in Jewish custom. When baking large amounts of bread still today a portion of it is set aside and burned or buried as a sacrifice to God just as the ancient Jews made in the Temple.

In Islam too "bread" is synonymous with "food." Wasting food or destroying places where it is produced, including oceans and farms, is forbidden. If bread is dropped on the floor, eat it if it is still clean, but if not, feed it to the birds. Don't throw it in the garbage. Muslims try to eat sparingly like Muhammed. Unlike the Chinese, they eat all of their food and try not to leave any leftovers.

Food is central to all cultures and religions and bread is sacred to almost everyone in Canada. It was a low blow for Loblaw(s) to screw the people of Canada by overpricing their bread. Jesus would whip Galen Weston like a Temple money changer if he met him. I have no doubt. But what did the government of Canada do when they found out about this treasonous behaviour? Under the Competition Act, penalties for price-fixing include fines of up to $25 million and imprisonment to a maximum term of 14 years, or both. Nope. They received immunity from criminal prosecution because they admitted guilt. REALLY????

Oh, they're giving out $25 dollar gift cards, but even THEY come with flimflammery. Many think it's nothing compared to the money they got screwed out of over the years. And they're right. Also, you have to register for them, giving address, telephone number, probably email address, information that CAN be sold. AAAANNNNDDDD ( I think you might know what's coming) there's absolutely no doubt, though this article doesn't say it, fucking Lowblows will just offset this card expense with higher prices.

When it comes to the corporations screwing Canadians, and the government just doing nothing about it, we really need to fight our own battles. It'll be easy for me being in Korea, but I'll never shop at Loblaw(s) again. You shouldn't either. I've already boycotted Nestle, which is VERY difficult to do. They're everywhere! And I've heard they're teaming up with Starbucks. Their overpriced coffee won't be too hard to cut out of my life. I guess I'll chuck this Starbucks (or is it Starbuck's? Starbuck?) gift card I got from my employer for my birthday in the garbage. This is the way we need to start fighting this corporate bullshit in Canada! Some people are launching class action lawsuits against Loblaw(s) for the bread thing, but they won't get much, it'll take years and they won't hurt such a rich company. Boycotting them CAN.

Or you can be like those dumbasses who got their cards and said, "Oh goodie! Free groceries!"

sigh...

Canadian Carbon Corruption

There is still a lot of confusion as a result of misinformation and misdirection surrounding the proposed Canadian carbon tax. Having more leisure/research time than the average Canadian, I thought I'd clear that up. Consider it expat patriotism for the country that made me an expat.

Here are some examples of things I'm seeing posted by Canadian friends:

I shudder to have this puss spewing ass boil sully the clean confines of my blog, but here's the right dishonourable former PM Harper lying about it:

This is from an interview about a book he wrote. We're supposed to trust this forked-tongue paleface now because he wrote a book? I'm not gonna get into the laughable comment about how his government "protected" (as he says) the environment, hoping Canadians have forgotten about his environmental protection act axing bill C-38 that was actually nicknamed the "Environmental Destruction Act." I will concentrate on the main lie, and a catch phrase conservatives are trying really hard to make happen: "tax grab."

As always when this corporate whore opens his mouth I am infuriated on multiples levels. He's astoundingly adept at constructing compound lies! 9 years of fucking up my country probably honed that skill. So let's peel this onion of a lie one layer at a time.

First of all notice how smoothly he avoids the major distinction of who is going to be taxed for carbon output. When he says, "tax grab," overtaxed Canadians instinctively become defensive and think this will be more of THEIR taxes the government grabs. This is the intention of the phrase. But who will be paying the carbon tax has been a piece of information that has been terribly well covered up in Canadian politics. Some Canadians are talking like the government is going to personally tax them. Well this is not the case. If you read this article, you will see that the expense regular Joe Canuck fears from the carbon tax is price hikes in things like home heating and gassing up their vehicles. These are essential things to almost all Canadians and they are understandably angry that they will become more expensive.

But it will be large polluters, namely large corporations who will be taxed, i.e. charged for polluting. I especially draw your attention to this part: A $20/ton carbon tax translates into a 16.6 cent per gallon surcharge on gasoline. So, in 2022, the $50/ton carbon tax will increase Canadian gasoline prices by about 42 cents per gallon (11 cents per liter). For comparison, the average price of gasoline in Canada is $1.43 per liter, so that would be about an 8% gasoline price increase in 2022.
The price of coal would more than double, with a carbon tax surcharge of about $100 per ton in 2022. Natural gas prices will rise by about 10 cents per cubic meter in 2022 compared to current prices of around 13 cents per cubic meter – about a 75% increase. This will increase demand for cheaper carbon-free electricity.

No matter what political party in Canada, NONE of them will properly express what is actually happening here. If you look at the above cartoon on the left, "libtards" are seen as stupid for supporting the carbon tax while the intellectually superior conservatards KNOW that the carbon tax raises the price of gas. Prices don't just magically rise! Taxes don't just "translate into" price hikes. The corporations just automatically raise prices. This is the corporate welfare tax of Canada. It's our largest and it is what has transformed Canada from an imminently liveable country to one that is tax weary to the point of exhaustion. This is something the very same people who love this cartoon AND the ones who hate it, unanimously complain about all the while completely oblivious to the source of their suffering. And conservatives and liberals will fight about things like this even though they are nothing much more than distractions from the major hidden issues that should concern them both.

The major issue that seems to be either ignored or accepted is the endlessly tax-free existences our major corporations enjoy. New tax - price hike. Higher minimum wage - price hike. Higher cost of raw materials - price hike. Tariff - price hike. Every expense they encounter is passed on to the consumer/taxpayer without thought. And without thought, the dutiful Canadian taxpayer pays those expenses. Is it because we have grown to accept the sand-in-the-eyes business bogus that "well it is the fiduciary responsibility of the corporations to the shareholders blah blah fucking blah..."? Or is it the equally bogus but pithy little axioms spouted by the brainwashed like "If you don't vote/pay your taxes, you have no right to complain about government." I think it's partially those things but more so the fact that no political party in our lifetime has done anything about it. The infuriating idea that if corporations didn't automatically raise prices to offset expenses, they would make more money and Canadians would have more money just makes this lie that much more despicable.

And no matter what party you support, not only have they consistently downplayed the free rides for corporations they support, they have systematically defunded and destroyed all government agencies that could force these filthy rich companies to PAY their taxes and freeze their prices to stop them transferring their expenses to the poor taxpayers. Why have they done this? What else? Money! Campaign contributions and corporate lobbying to government officials is only the tip of the iceberg.

This carbon tax is a great example! While Canadians are working hard to recycle, use less fuel and lower their carbon footprint at the encouragement of our government, it's almost futile. Trudeau's Paris Agreement goals won't be met. Carbon tax or no. No matter what the citizens of Canada do. Why not? Because industry will obliterate the goal. WITH THE FULL SUPPORT OF THE GOVERNMENT. So in one way, that corporate dick duster Canadian Trump is right: the carbon tax won't help. But again he doesn't point out that the reason for that is industry. He also doesn't point out that one industry all by itself will pollute Canada well beyond our Paris Agreement goals, and... ahem... oh geez guess what, it's HIS fault!

Expansion of the Alberta oil sands all by itself will put us past the Paris Promise. That's right, Trudeau's pursuit of a pipeline through the most beautiful country of Canada and maybe the world, not his idea. The deal with the Chinese for the bitumen piped through that pipeline, not his baby. These were all things that happened during Harper's term as PM. Read this if you want support.

And when this 2014 deal was struck between Harper and China, and it locked us in for something like 39 years giving China a Foreign Investor Protection Agreement that allowed them to sue Canadian taxpayers if the oil didn't flow, at that time Harper was quoted as saying, "I know this is a very, very unpopular deal, but we're going to do it anyway." Or something to that effect.

Now I ask you, how much do you think Harper has in an untraceable Cayman Islands account (probably in RMB) for brokering THIS ass rape of a deal? He's a god in China! Even has food named after him. And evidently he has the leisure time to write a book. Hmmm...

A carbon tax is something that is designed to make polluters pay for polluting. Ideally they pollute less. The proceeds of the tax, if handled by an uncorrupted government, will go directly to regular people as a rebate and will partially fund other things the majority of people want. The refunds will cover the price hikes for most and maybe pollution will go down. What is evil about this? Why do so many Canadians hate this? Because their blame is misguided. The oil companies and coal companies and natural gas companies are lighting Canadians on fire and some of us are blaming the government for not regulating their use of matches.

Smarten up Canada! You're too educated a country to be acting foolish like this. This is not Trudeau's fault. Although he's not blameless, Harper is FAR more to blame. And even Harper is not the main culprit! It's the true powers that be in Canada. Corporations raping our country for personal gain and distracting you by creating discord over secondary issues.

If we don't check this runaway corporate inflation of prices, the government will just start printing more money  (they already have) and we'll end up like Venezuela. Today a banana costs as much as a house did there 10 years ago. Merchants don't count money any more, they weigh it. The government there MIGHT be more corrupt than in Canada, but 10 years. That's all it takes.

Finally, in response to the meme above on the right about putting the carbon tax up Trudeau's ass, I would submit to you that it is not the carbon tax but the puppet hands of corporate Canada up the PM pooper and this is no different from any Canadian PM since I've been alive.

Go Forth And Multiply, Add, Subtract and Divide

I stumbled across this character in both my research and work lately. Do you recognize him?

He's an Indian dude who is suing his parents for giving birth to him. His name is Rafael Samuel, which doesn't sound very Indian, but his YouTube persona, Nihil Anand does. I've known a few Indians named Anand actually, and the Nihil might be because he's a nihilist and believes in nothing? Just guessing that one.

Nobody knows if China or India has the world's largest population. Most think China, but it's impossible to believe any statistics (or in my experience, much of anything at all) that comes out of China. As early as 2017, Time Magazine suggested that because of years of the One Child Policy in China, and nothing of the sort in India, China may have fallen to 2nd place back then. It's a victory that the above maniac, and I, believe should not be celebrated, but grieved.

He's definitely a troll using extreme comments like, "marriage is blackmail," "your parents had you instead of a toy or a dog," "your parents should support you your entire life," "you owe your parents nothing," "infertility is sexy," "blame the factory, not the product," "history keeps repeating because idiots keep reproducing," "parents are brainwashed into having children," and his stunt of suing his parents for giving birth to him, to get people arguing, fighting, and thinking. He's from Mumbai, a hugely overpopulated city, and maybe at 27, he's experiencing friends and family pressuring him into marriage and having children, but I wonder which is more responsible for his above statements.

I've lived in overcrowded cities like Beijing and Jakarta and the deluge of humanity is unrelenting day after day and one cannot remain unaffected by it. I don't know how many times I was stuck in traffic even after having left early for work in Jakarta, knowing I'd be late and knowing it would harm work relationships there. Can you imagine having a 1 or 2 hour period of work but knowing that included as much time as that or MORE in transit, virtually cutting your earnings in half? That's immeasurable stress. And while in the taxi, you have lots of time to think, nay fantasize, about just snapping your fingers and eliminating half of the people in the overpopulated country where you are. How glorious it would be! More jobs for everybody! Cleaner air, happier people, common courtesy, and lanes on the highway would just start opening up like magic! It sucks waiting in lineups for exactly everything, having little to no hope of actually SITTING on the sardine trains they call subways, glacially slow internet lines, more pollution, more poverty, more selfishness, more competition for E VRE THING... it's total misery. And that's exactly what Raphael believes. So his premise of, "what kind of parent would bring an innocent child into this kind of suffering?" may not be so crazy.

Now I know every time I broach this topic people consider the source and call bullshit or sour grapes and accuse me in their heads or to my face of just trying to justify my situation being unmarried and childless. But I've often thought about, and talked about reasons for childbirth. There are a few that have a tiny bit of merit, but maybe, in a world in which 4 kids are born every second, maybe it's time to start recalibrating some highly outdated thinking on this issue. Maybe it's getting a little bit irresponsible to be having kids for the many, MANY bad reasons that we do. And in a world where we are all very good at justifying our life choices, could it be the people who are having children who are the ones we should be calling bullshit on? Here's an intellectual clip on the topic (jump ahead to about the 1 minute mark):

Hahahaha! One of my all time favourite quotes from the Simpsons: "I've noticed your country is dangerously underpopulated." But the better quote for our purposes was, "The decision to have children is not to be made lightly. On the other hand, monkey see - monkey do." And later, Apu says he needs someone to float his body down the Ganges. Is Raphael right? Are the reasons Indians have for reproducing really dumb? Did 2.8 billion Indian parents have 1.4 billion kids for their pleasure?

I don't know about India, but here's a good graphic about why people want and don't want to have children. Presumably this is people all over the world, and as we know, countries vary in every category, and a lot of these categories have "it depends" qualifiers but it looks about right to me.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against having kids. And I think some of the reasons against them are about as misguided as reasons FOR them. For instance, overpopulation. To be honest, the WORLD isn't really overpopulated. People are just gravitating to the cities and overpopulating those areas. So if you live in the country on a farm and you need some free labour, get busy makin' babies! You are not being irresponsible. Frankly, if you go down the list, the country is the best place to fulfill the majority of the common reasons for having kids. Start a family? Better and less lonely for country living but more inconvenient and expensive for city living. Give your kids a chance to enjoy existence? In my opinion, the country is also better. Give meaning to your life; mold another life; fix the mistakes of your parents; carry on the family name and values; social pressure... I'd say the country is best if these are your reasons. You get more freedom and less social pressure to do all of these things in the relative privacy of the country. But nobody lives in the country any more. So we're left with babies are cute; unconditional love; and nature. The first reason is the pet or toy reasoning. Grow the hell up! Your baby will! The second also could (and let's be honest, probably WILL) end as the kid grows up. Right about middle school in most cases love becomes conditional. The only really solid reason I see on the list is human biology. We ARE predisposed to multiply. So just look at the other side of the list and use a condom. Or move to the country. That's my feeling.

However, this was not my purpose for the blogpost. I was intrigued by some of the smaller details. Mostly, the religious, cultural and political aspects of having children and some of the other things to be considered that don't appear on that list. Let's tackle religion first. India is a great place to start. Generally Hindu but also the origin of Buddhist thinking. Hindus make up the majority of India and I think they are the targets for a lot of the shocking statements our friend Raphael made. Their purpose is to go forth and ADD people to the earth. Hindus actually have a prayer they call the Garbhadana that they say to encourage conception and fulfill their "parental OBLIGATIONS!" They are obligated to marry and have kids. Hence, the population problem. Raphael actually says that Indian people are hypocritical saying they need to do something about the problem and continuing with this religious tradition. I agree. But then again, I'm not a Hindu. Politically, I'm sure the businesses in India are doing all they can to encourage this religious observation since, like China, with such a huge market, it makes business super easy. And with the large workforce comes massive competition that makes business owners omnipotent and workers vulnerable to shit wages and treatment. Again like China.

Buddhists agree with Raphael that life is suffering. But they advocate the almost impossible life purpose of finding joy in your suffering. This makes me think of parents who all like to say, "Oh having kids is SO rewarding!" They too are trying to find joy in their suffering. Practicing Dhamma or Dharma or Tao or Dao is the goal of every Buddhist. It's the way of nature or the truth. When you reach a point of full understanding, you attain enlightenment. Then you don't have to come back to earth any more. The human realm is the best to practice Dhamma and obtain enlightenment. So in a way they are encouraging humans to go forth and SUBTRACT population from earth.

In the Bible after the flood, Noah told the animals to go forth and MULTIPLY. All but two snakes obeyed. Noah asked the snakes what was up and they said, "We can't multiply, we're adders." Christians believe they too, like the animals, are commanded by God to multiply. This is why businessmen and politicians who see babies as customers or consumers, very often pretend to be Christians. Jesus spoke more about the evils of greed and the lust for money than any other topic, yet it is seen as a virtue even amongst Christian businessmen/women and politicians. This has always baffled me.

Muhammed said, "Marry those who are loving and fertile, for I will be proud of your great numbers before the other nations." Muslims definitely favour numbers as a defence against enemies and are wary of "specious arguments" like overpopulation or birth control that try to reduce fertility. But if you think it's any more because they are trying to take over the world than, say, the Mormons, I'd have doubts about that.

I want to refer you back to the part of the Simpsons clip in which Apu states that he wants kids so that he'll have someone to float him down the Ganges. In many cultures there is a similar ethic, often non-religious, that requires parents to care for their children when they are too young to fend for themselves and children to care for their parents when they are too old to fend for themselves. I think that is beautiful. It's one of the only other reasons that I feel is partially legitimate for having children. This, our friend Raphael Samuel does NOT agree with. He suggests parents should care for their kids and PAY for them forever since it was the decision of the parents to bring the children into the world. There are actually some cultures, and I'm living in one, in which the exact opposite is practiced. Children are often held responsible, when they grow up, for expenses and suffering the parents endured while bringing them up. This I DON'T necessarily consider beautiful.

Here's a story about a dude from Myanmar who walked 7 days barefoot to escape into Bangladesh while carrying his parents in baskets! Beautiful! IF he did it out of love and gratitude. But if he did it out of social pressure and obligation, not so much.

"Nuoi con de nho," in Vietnamese means "raise your children to rely on them." In Korea it's customary to give your parents your first paycheck. Often parents have a sort of Keeping-up-with-the-Kims type of pressure they use comparing other family's kids and how much money they give their parents or how expensive the gifts other parents receive. I guess it's not much different than kids saying, "Well Tommy's Mom lets HIM play hockey," or "Tammy's Dad bought her an X-Box for Christmas." But then again, these are things said by kids. The parents should know better. If you have kids who are helping you, don't calculate what percentage of their paychecks they give you. This is something an adult should understand.

One last thing: As you know, I believe the powers that be in our world are doing everything they can to DIVIDE and conquer us regular people. Social inequalities are at their highest. The concentration of the majority of wealth, resources and power is in fewer hands than ever before in history. Things like caste, status, race, religion, culture, nationality, political party, overpopulation, lack of employment, business monopolies, private education, taxation and many other things are being used to keep people more individual and less unified. We are in increased competition and we are fast approaching, if not, in the midst of the age of automation in which we will lose jobs and money to machines. We need to unite as a global unit to make sure industry and politicians do what is right and adjust our cultures accordingly. This will require them to act counter-intuitively. The business mind rebels at the idea of giving. It rebels at the concept of paying higher wages for less work. After centuries of paying lower wages for more work and charging higher prices for the same product, the captains of industry will not automate at their expense, but at ours. In the new global value system "success" boils down to the capacity for manipulation. They will keep us placated through manipulation to enable themselves to extract the maximum profit from the maximum population until they are forced to change the business culture or there is global disaster. Having more children, whatever your reasons, will only make automation more difficult and global disaster more likely.

I'm just saying let's be smart about this.

In case you think Raphael is very different from you and his situation in India doesn't compare with your life at all, I think the most interesting thing about his story is that his parents are BOTH lawyers. That would likely put him in an upper caste in India, but I think his family might be less different than they are supposed to appear. His mother proved that she's probably a very good lawyer by winning the lawsuit in one sentence. She said, "I admire my son's temerity... and if Raphael could come up with a rational explanation as to how we could have sought his consent to be born, I will accept my fault." Probably followed by, "Oh that boy...tsk tsk tsk."

On camera when interviewed by the BBC News Kavita Karnad Samuel said she was proud of her son, but Raphael says she told him that if she had met him beforehand, she wouldn't have had him. LMAO! Like every Mother in the world! And here's a pic of young Raphael:

He DOES say a lot of bizarre things that make him sound like a looney, but he gets hits for his YouTube site. Enough hits to make money! So maybe he's crazy like a fox. Plus he IS drawing attention to a very real problem in India. And that is a good thing. I don't know about you but I'd bet the farm he's just a spoiled only child. Eh? He was probably a handful for his parents, but he can't be all that bad, he plays hockey!