2008-03-31

Discontinuing the Penny

To the Hon. Pat Martin, MP for Winnipeg Centre

Dear Mr. Martin,

In regard to your private member's bill to discontinue the penny, thank you. This measure is about 5 or 10 years late and should have been entered into
consideration around the time the $2 coin, what I call the doubloon, was introduced. The cost of all that copper to Canada should give it all the impetus it requires. That force is only strengthened by the moral dubiousness of hoarding copper this way when there is not enough of it in the world for everyone in the world to enjoy our lifestyle. What should it matter that the bill comes from an opposition bench? Wisdom should be commended regardless of the source.

Retaining the $0.01-precision for wire transactions and rounding up or down to the nearest multiple of 5 cents on cash ones is at least a partial return to the common sense that BC exhibited before confederation. Back in the day, political rhetoric here said that BCers were not so niggling as to figure things out to the nearest 100th of a dollar and pennies were routinely discarded in the Rockies by BCers on their way home from the money-grubbing east. That such an attitude has taken this long to even begin to resurface is a sad commentary on the rarity of common sense.

I wish your bill safe and swift passage.

Sincerely,

Arthur N. Klassen etc. etc.

cc: Hon. xxxxx xxxxxx, MP for my home riding

I had a nightmare last night

I turned on the TV briefly last night to watch the beginnings of The Trojan Horse on the CBC and the sight of the Stars and Stripes over Ottawa's Peace Tower, even in a piece of fiction, felt like a knife through my heart. It got too violent for my taste in evening family viewing pretty quickly, but I confess I am both attracted and repelled by the idea of watching it. I'd like to see how the whole story plays out but if I do see it, I'm going to dread every view like that one, not to mention grieve its possibility in advance, even when the reality is still so very unlikely..

2008-03-26

Headline Puzzle from January answers...

Maybe I should just give up. Oh well... here are the answers from January 5. The headlines were

OUR BAD MICROSOFT COMPENSATE FOR XBOX LIVE HOLIDAY PROBLEMS
HUCKABEE OBAMA CARRY MOMENTUM INTO NEW HAMPSHIRE
CALGARY MAN SUCCUMBS TO CARBON MONOXIDE POISONING
DEFENCE APPEAL IN PICKTON CASE A NO BRAINER
CANADAS WORLD JUNIOR TEAM GOES FOR GOLD AFTER BEATING US

The key was "STORAGE", the setting was "CDROM" and the hat was "RETRIEVE".

Peut-ĂȘtre je suis mais un poseur...ank


2008-03-25

"The mercury in one CFL bulb can contaminate 1000 gallons of water"
Recently, in an internal company bulletin board, someone posted this link, citing the title and asking "Is it true?"

My answer was, let's do the math.

How much mercury is in a bulb? According to wikipedia, anywhere between 1 and 12 mg. The best models seem to have limited it to 1mg but there is a limit in place of no more than 6 mg, so let's assume that we're talking about 6mg.

1000 US Gallons of water is 3890 L, 1000 Imperial Gallons of water is 4540L. Typically gallons nowadays refers to US gallons, but let's make it 4000, just in case (makes the later math easier, even if it's not a fair mid-point).

4000L has a mass of 4000kg. 6mg in 4000kg is 1.5 parts per billion by mass.
According to this link, the American FDA's "Maximum Contaminant Level Goal" for mercury, a cumulative neurotoxin, in drinking water is 2 parts per billion.

So, as usual, this kind of a headline looks like a little late-breaking hysteria. Mind you, if enough of the bulbs have 12 mg, that would be 3ppb which would fail the (arbitrary?) MCLG. Where the "safety line" actually is is probably a matter for debate that gets very political very quickly. Like, did you know that crematoria are a prime source of airborne mercury pollution? Years of dental fillings, all going up in smoke...

All that said, ever since the fad of CFL bulbs started taking hold, aside from my complaint that they don't emit enough light and what light they emit tends to be too cold, I have wondered aloud quite often where the infrastructure for safe disposal of expired bulbs was. A rhetorical question, I know. But then, such infrastructure must grow fast enough to take up the slack. Given the likelihood that "incorrect recycling" of CFLs is going to mean concentrations of mercury in landfills, I wonder how the neighbours of the various dumps in the western world are going to feel about those dumps becoming mercury magnets, alongside all the other wonderful things they've taken in over the years?

This stuff has all got to be solved a different way. Wish I knew what that way was...