Prime Minister To Meet With The Dalai Lama

The Gaden Tangka Of Tibet ( Coinage And History Series)

This is part of an ongoing series about coinage and history. I thought since the 14Th Dalai Lama will be visiting Canada soon it might be interesting to see a Coin from Tibet.

The coin pictured above is from 1880-1894 the following below is a description for this coin type.

Gaden Tanka Circa 1880-1894 All Classes Have the following types:

Obverse: Stylised Lotus design within circle surrounded by the eight Buddhist lucky symbols in radiating petals.

Reverse: Eight petalled flower within star surrounded by inscription broken up into eight oval frames. Inscription in Tibetan reads as: "Ga-den Pho-dang chhog-le rnam-gyal" The Golden Palace Victorious on all sides.

This Gaden Tangka I believe to be a Class B Type IV using Rhodes Classification system.

This coin is from the time of the 13Th Dali Lama a brief biography follows below in an attempt to put the coin into an historical perspective.

Thubten Gyatso (born February 12, 1876; died December 17, 1933) was the 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet. He was an intelligent reformer who proved himself a skillful politician when Tibet became a pawn in the great game between Imperial Russia, China, and the British Empire. He was responsible for countering the British expedition to Tibet, restoring discipline in monastic life, and increasing the number of lay officials to avoid excessive power being placed in the hands of the monks.

Legislation was introduced to counter corruption among officials, a national taxation system was established, and a police force was created. As a result of his contacts with foreign powers and their representatives (e.g., Pyotr Kozlov and Gustaf Mannerheim), the Dalai Lama showed an interest in world affairs and introduced electricity, the telephone and the first motor car to Tibet. Nonetheless, at the end of his life in 1933, he saw that Tibet was about to enter a dark age.

The 13th Dalai Lama predicted before dying:

"Very soon in this land (with a harmonious blend of religion and politics) deceptive acts may occur from without and within. At that time, if we do not dare to protect our territory, our spiritual personalities including the Victorious Father and Son (Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama) may be exterminated without trace, the property and authority of our Lakangs (residences of reincarnated lamas) and monks may be taken away. Moreover, our political system, developed by the Three Great Dharma Kings (Tri Songtsen Gampo, Tri Songdetsen and Tri Ralpachen) will vanish without anything remaining. The property of all people, high and low, will be seized and the people forced to become slaves. All living beings will have to endure endless days of suffering and will be stricken with fear. Such a time will come."

Furthermore, the 13th Dalai Lama went on to predict the invasion of Tibet and announced that he would die early, in order that his successor would be old enough to act as a leader for the Tibetan people at the time of this invasion. He died several months later.

I hope you find this interesting please let me know what you think any feedback would be great.

Microsoft addresses new reports of forced Windows updates and reboots

This seems to be an ongoing story that keeps changing as Microsoft seems to be trying to spin it it, maybe I'm just dense, but what part of no does Microsoft not understand? To make it plain and simple no means no and whatever way Microsoft wants to spin it people still have the right to choose what they want updated or not updated. Microsoft can spin it any way they want, either way they have broken peoples trust, and I think most people will see that. Microsoft spin away, how stupid do you really think people are?

Microsoft has posted a long and complex explanation to its Windows Software Update Services (WSUS) blog, explaining the latest case of why software updates are being pushed to users who believe they've turned automatic updating off. Here's the abridged version of what the Redmondians said.

read more | digg story

The Ontario Election The Day After The Vote

Well the official count is in and the Liberals won a majority government the first one back to back in over seventy years. This gives the government a clear mandate to start working on the issues like health care, taxes, infrastructure and education.

It should be interesting though as those issues were overshadowed in the election because of the debate on faith based schools. John Tory really put his foot in his mouth on that one and killed any chance of seeing a minority government or even a Conservative majority.

I suspect John Tory will not be around for long, as he did not even win a seat in Parliament, that's not a good thing when you are the leader of a party. This though I think will open up the doors for the more extreme member's of his party. So we will probably see an surge for new leadership from the neo-conservatives in the party, and a an attempt by them to move back to those policy's that were so popular under The Harris regime. This is not a good thing.

Dalton McGuinty's majority government has it's work cut out for it as voters have either forgotten all his broken promises from the last election or they have become so cynical that they no longer care. Thias could be a possibility as we saw the lowest turnout for an election ever at only Fifty Percent of eligible voters.

The Liberals this time around though will have no one to blame for their woes, this time they can't claim they did not know what the debt is or use all the other excuses they made to explain away why they could not keep their promises. This time around it's all on their heads, remember everyone you get the government you deserve in the end.

The Ontario Election

Hmm, what to say it looks like the Liberals won a majority government with probably at least 70 seats in Provincial Parliment Giving them a strong majority. I'm completly disgusted, it seems like everyone forgot all the broken promises and lies, I guess in the end you get the government you deserve and if voters are that stupid, well they are going to get what they deserve for at least four more years, hope you enjoy it.