Oh, it felt good. To listen to NPR interview Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonnell of the RCMP regarding the 17 people arrested this weekend was refreshing and proud-making. Lines of note follow.
Q: Why move now?
A: It got to the point where for public safety... It got to the point where we could no longer control the risk.
...
Q: How does it add to the challenges that you face that you need not only monitor recent immigrants but people who are actually citizens if you're worried about this kind of thing?
A: Well, actually, we don't monitor recent immigrants. We don't monitor citizens. But we're always looking for indications of criminality and pursue that. This is not a police state. ... I've never worked in a community that didn't exhibit some level of criminality... We practice community policing. The community is the eyes and ears of the police force.
And he signed off with a typical Canadian phrase... "take care" which I hadn't realized was so Canadian.
Okay, so this is a bit disingenuous with the existence of Echelon but still... The difference in tone was obvious. Painfully obvious. Another up-tick of exiting Americans coming to Canada? Perhaps.
2006-06-05
2006-05-30
And when I'm sick...
I go home and learn some more.
Today something has shaken me again but before I mention that, there are a couple of other things worth sharing with you all...
A friend of mine recommended the Kite Runner. I got up to a certain point and stalled but then read through to the end. For anyone who wonders what anybody ever saw in Kabul as a place to live, read this book and weep for a land that got strapped onto the rack when I was in High School and has only had the rope tightened since. This is not an easy read, but I think I understand Afghanistan a little better than I did.
Some time ago, I came across a link to Alexander Mayer's site -- I don't remember where. At that time, I viewed his introductory presentation and downloaded the two longer lectures as well. And there they sat. They're heavy on the math -- not so much so that I couldn't follow them, I just needed a bit more time and attention than I could give to them at that time. Friday I was off sick and went through them. I think he's on to something... I wonder what a "real" astronomer / cosmologist thinks, but I'm inclined to believe he's solved the Red Shift problem in an acceptable way. (I also liked the Michael Crichton speech it linked to -- not because I doubt that global warming is happening, but warnings against all kinds of junk science are always worthwhile.)
By the way, Mr. Crichton, I would link to the version on your site, except that your webmaster added some really stinky javascript to the page which I don't want to inflict on my readers -- resizing the browser window in the a way appropriate only when accessing things from your website's speeches page.
Today, I was struck by an interview with James Carroll on NPR regarding his book House of War. What touched me the deepest was the story of his father assigning him to take his mother and brothers far away in case he was kept inside at the Pentagon. Next to that was his father's assertion that if we didn't, as a race, find new ways to resolve disputes, that he felt we would not survive to the end of the 20th Century. That guess has proven wrong but it shows that we've all been living with war for far too long.
Today something has shaken me again but before I mention that, there are a couple of other things worth sharing with you all...
A friend of mine recommended the Kite Runner. I got up to a certain point and stalled but then read through to the end. For anyone who wonders what anybody ever saw in Kabul as a place to live, read this book and weep for a land that got strapped onto the rack when I was in High School and has only had the rope tightened since. This is not an easy read, but I think I understand Afghanistan a little better than I did.
Some time ago, I came across a link to Alexander Mayer's site -- I don't remember where. At that time, I viewed his introductory presentation and downloaded the two longer lectures as well. And there they sat. They're heavy on the math -- not so much so that I couldn't follow them, I just needed a bit more time and attention than I could give to them at that time. Friday I was off sick and went through them. I think he's on to something... I wonder what a "real" astronomer / cosmologist thinks, but I'm inclined to believe he's solved the Red Shift problem in an acceptable way. (I also liked the Michael Crichton speech it linked to -- not because I doubt that global warming is happening, but warnings against all kinds of junk science are always worthwhile.)
By the way, Mr. Crichton, I would link to the version on your site, except that your webmaster added some really stinky javascript to the page which I don't want to inflict on my readers -- resizing the browser window in the a way appropriate only when accessing things from your website's speeches page.
Today, I was struck by an interview with James Carroll on NPR regarding his book House of War. What touched me the deepest was the story of his father assigning him to take his mother and brothers far away in case he was kept inside at the Pentagon. Next to that was his father's assertion that if we didn't, as a race, find new ways to resolve disputes, that he felt we would not survive to the end of the 20th Century. That guess has proven wrong but it shows that we've all been living with war for far too long.
2006-05-16
Real Canadian #4
If you see a Canadian in a Tim Horton's taking a pull on a double-double and sighing, "Just like back home...", why not turn around and ask what sport the founder, "Tim Horton", played. If he or she doesn't know, or calls it "ice hockey", as opposed to just plain, "hockey", you may not be talking to a Canadian. On the other hand, the younger generations may not remember #2 and his contributions, especially to the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Buffalo Sabres.
Canada vs. Kyoto: Both win?
Canada is getting a bad rap these days for the current government spurning the Kyoto Accord -- when in actual fact it was the last government's abundant rhetoric and sparse action that have brought us to the current pass of appearing as a US-style Kyoto scofflaw. In the midst of all this, a Canadian company, Iogen, may be showing a creative way forward with a neutral-or-better carbon footprint: using a combination of waste-straw and fancy enzymes to produce ethanol. Couple that with hybrid-fuel cars that can burn 80% eth and we may have another way out of the crunch that's surely coming whenever we pass the peak of oil production.
2006-05-15
Never in the US but at America's behest? You bet...
An alarming story on the Register about widespread collection of employees' biometrics in a centralized database. So many warning whistles here: in India, you can't work in a certain class of job without being in the registry; it includes biometrics -- to guarantee the identity of the workers (how soon will chipping be mandatory, too?); it's "Self Regulatory" which gives the collective of American Überemployers plausible deniability (reminds me of chilling effects, self-censorship and the Chinese baidupedia); there is no privacy, no shield from failed relationships with former employers for the workers in future. How would we like the same things to happen here in Canada (or other countries of the wealthy west)?
This is obviously a response to Western consumers' unease with service orgs in the developing world having access to our personal details. Coupled with a bit more apathy and there's nothing preventing this from becoming widespread everywhere, for any and every possible job with even minimal responsibility. I know... it's going to come anyway, eventually, but I'd rather it didn't happen at all and not any time soon: not even in my kids' generation.
This is obviously a response to Western consumers' unease with service orgs in the developing world having access to our personal details. Coupled with a bit more apathy and there's nothing preventing this from becoming widespread everywhere, for any and every possible job with even minimal responsibility. I know... it's going to come anyway, eventually, but I'd rather it didn't happen at all and not any time soon: not even in my kids' generation.
Skype Out competing harder
I just went past skype.com looking at my balance (less than €1 for the second time since I started) and I was surprised to see that they're offering free calling to all numbers in the US and Canada until the end of the year. Probably, they're feeling the pressure of the various VoIP offerings here and they're trying to fight back. Sometimes the customers win...
2006-05-12
Mistaken, amused -- and a thinner razor than I thought
So, I went back to Neil Young's website and he is still playing the album. He must have been getting slashdotted on the week-end. And speaking of slashdot, it's interesting to hear the micro-kernel vs. macro-kernel debate being rehashed. At least it would be if (a) someone had mirrored all parts of the conversation or (b) realworldtech.com hadn't gone down in the first place. Finally, it comes out today that a single juror was enough to prevent Moussaoui's execution. Unless this individual is sought out and assiassinated, we'll probably never know who it was, but whoever you are, thank you.
2006-05-09
Living With War -- Online No More
I tried to listen again on the week-end and Neil's taken the album down. Good advert, though. I'm more likely to buy a new album by any artist today than I have been for a long time.
Won't need no shadow man to run the government
Won't need no stinkin' war...
Won't need no shadow man to run the government
Won't need no stinkin' war...
Moussaoui: The real flip-flopper
Didn't I say Moussaoui might change his mind over time? It's all so sudden that the immediate explanation is "I don't like my sentence -- I wanted to be a martyr." But perhaps, just perhaps, the contents of his memo asking for a new trial is evidence of exactly how non-acculturated to the west communities of Africans are in Paris. It might even be a measure of the justice gap between the French system and the British one (together with its logical descendants, including that of the US).
We in the west get pretty cynical about our governments, our courts system. We've seen, often enough, things that feel like travesties, legislated injustices, people who get let off that shouldn't, people who are punished that shouldn't. But at the end of the day, the system we have in Canada, the systems in Britain, the US, Australia and other post-British countries allows for the most credible attempts anywhere on the planet for real justice to be done. We should appreciate it more than we do.
It's too bad Moussaoui didn't know what to expect. But perhaps if he had, he wouldn't have been available for recruitment by al-Qaeda in the first place.
Note to Zac: take more than your Qu`ran with you into the supermax. You'll need more than one kind of thought to keep you from going utterly nuts in there.
We in the west get pretty cynical about our governments, our courts system. We've seen, often enough, things that feel like travesties, legislated injustices, people who get let off that shouldn't, people who are punished that shouldn't. But at the end of the day, the system we have in Canada, the systems in Britain, the US, Australia and other post-British countries allows for the most credible attempts anywhere on the planet for real justice to be done. We should appreciate it more than we do.
It's too bad Moussaoui didn't know what to expect. But perhaps if he had, he wouldn't have been available for recruitment by al-Qaeda in the first place.
Note to Zac: take more than your Qu`ran with you into the supermax. You'll need more than one kind of thought to keep you from going utterly nuts in there.
2006-05-05
I've never been a fan...
But I have to applaud fellow Canadian, though expatriate, Neil Young. In the first place, thanks for leaving Canada in such a way as to give my favourite Canadian poet/guitarist a platform. But today, thanks for giving voice to a paradoxical rage that's being felt by many: how do you vent something that makes you want to stop the killing? Neil's given us a way. Thanks, Neil. You may be crazy but at least you're human -- and Canadian to boot!
I wear my shadows
Where they're harder to see
But they follow me everywhere--
I gues that should tell me I'm travelling toward light
I guess something you sang made me remember that
I guess I'm saying thanks for that...
I wear my shadows
Where they're harder to see
But they follow me everywhere--
I gues that should tell me I'm travelling toward light
I guess something you sang made me remember that
I guess I'm saying thanks for that...
2006-05-04
Real Canadian #3
If you see a "Canadian" skiing somewhere (or doing some other winter activity) and he or she is wearing a particularly chic woollen hat, if you say, "Nice touque you're wearing," and you get a blank stare, you've bumped into another impostor. Incidentally, "touque" is pronounced to rhyme with "Luke", as in "Use the force, Luke".
Two Near Misses
The world dodged two bullets yesterday. I was amazed to see mention of this earthquake here no more than 20 minutes after it occurred. But I was relieved to see the associated tsunami warning called off within after a 60 cm wave showed up at the nearest shores. Perhaps the Boxing Day tsunami of the other year has at least resulted in some kinds of co-ordinated tracking Next Time; as in yesterday. Good job, folks.
In the evening, I was on my way to a taping of a locally-produced television program when I heard that the Moussaoui verdict had been published: Life with no parole. I was relieved to see that 12 ordinary men and women decided that justice would not be served by making Moussaoui a martyr. Perhaps, just perhaps, twenty years from now Moussaoui will have a different view of the events he wanted to be involved in (but wasn't competent or reliable enough to be). I'll admit, it's unlikely, but you must admit that it's not impossible. And now he won't be a martyr, something that could only have resulted in more bloodshed, if it had occurred: "Blood calls out for blood", so a little less blood shed is probably a good thing, by default.
I grieve for his Mom back in France -- any way this works out (Moussaoui stays in US and she moves there, just visits or not; Moussaoui is transferred to France) she's lost almost all the comfort a son could be to her. But at least she won't have to deal with a picture of her executed son used to recruit more jihadis. Time to go back and read the play Twelve Angry Men again, maybe, and speculate what it might have been like in that jury room.
In the evening, I was on my way to a taping of a locally-produced television program when I heard that the Moussaoui verdict had been published: Life with no parole. I was relieved to see that 12 ordinary men and women decided that justice would not be served by making Moussaoui a martyr. Perhaps, just perhaps, twenty years from now Moussaoui will have a different view of the events he wanted to be involved in (but wasn't competent or reliable enough to be). I'll admit, it's unlikely, but you must admit that it's not impossible. And now he won't be a martyr, something that could only have resulted in more bloodshed, if it had occurred: "Blood calls out for blood", so a little less blood shed is probably a good thing, by default.
I grieve for his Mom back in France -- any way this works out (Moussaoui stays in US and she moves there, just visits or not; Moussaoui is transferred to France) she's lost almost all the comfort a son could be to her. But at least she won't have to deal with a picture of her executed son used to recruit more jihadis. Time to go back and read the play Twelve Angry Men again, maybe, and speculate what it might have been like in that jury room.
2006-05-02
Real Canadian #2
Canada has a senate. Some Canadians don't even realize that becuase unlike Senates in other countries, it's not (yet) elected. It works more like the House of Lords in the UK although appointments to it are more like political patronage than the way the Lords typically functions. If you ask Canadians how they voted in the last Senate elections, unless they're from Alberta (where they've experimented with recommendation-by-election), there's only one right answer: "What Senate elections?" Any other kind of answer means you've got an impostor on your hands.
Iran and Sanctions?
According to CNN, "the US is confident of Iran sanctions". I wonder if that confidence extends outside the Bush Administration and those who serve "at the pleasure of the President"? What ace in the hole can they have with regard to Russia and China?
I've said before regarding India and Pakistan that their acquisition of nuclear weapons was what earned them respect on the world stage, which led to a cessation of hostilities in Jammu & Kashmir. Now Idon't want any nuclear weapons, let alone more of them in more people's hands but the results were there for all of us to see.
So now, Iran wants respect -- not to mention another source of energy. And China and Russia desperately want a way to look like they're a counter-balance to what is perceived as American bullying without themselves looking belligerent. And they're going to fail to veto Security Council sanctions against Iran? Somebody's dreaming here.
I have only one thing to mention to the US: what happens when you attack a tyrant? He becomes a hero in the eyes of his people. Then you have to destroy his country to depose him. Remember Saddam and Milosevic and find some other way to "deal" with Ahmadenijad than finding another "coalition of the bought" and sending in your invincible military machine. This is not a game of Risk. People's lives and the longterm habitability of large pieces of the planet are at stake.
I've said before regarding India and Pakistan that their acquisition of nuclear weapons was what earned them respect on the world stage, which led to a cessation of hostilities in Jammu & Kashmir. Now Idon't want any nuclear weapons, let alone more of them in more people's hands but the results were there for all of us to see.
So now, Iran wants respect -- not to mention another source of energy. And China and Russia desperately want a way to look like they're a counter-balance to what is perceived as American bullying without themselves looking belligerent. And they're going to fail to veto Security Council sanctions against Iran? Somebody's dreaming here.
I have only one thing to mention to the US: what happens when you attack a tyrant? He becomes a hero in the eyes of his people. Then you have to destroy his country to depose him. Remember Saddam and Milosevic and find some other way to "deal" with Ahmadenijad than finding another "coalition of the bought" and sending in your invincible military machine. This is not a game of Risk. People's lives and the longterm habitability of large pieces of the planet are at stake.
Budget Eve in Canada
(written yesterday)
Tomorrow the Canadian Federal Government is issuing a new budget. The various spins before the fact are amusing. In the run-up to the last federal election, the Conservatives tried to cast themselves as a different breed of politician in so many ways: floor-crossing is slimey (David Emerson is now International Trade Minister), we need more accountability in parliament (the new accountability act apparently gives civil servants whole new ways of evading "Freedom of Information Act" requests), we'll start rolling back the GST (small retailers are asking that it not be done immediately because the change will be so expensive).
And in the middle of it all, the Softwood Lumber trade war is probably over and the loonie is higher than it's been since I left high school -- will that affect my job (negatively)? And America gets a dry run of life without (illegal) immigrants. What a time it's turning out to be.
And in the middle of it all, the Softwood Lumber trade war is probably over and the loonie is higher than it's been since I left high school -- will that affect my job (negatively)? And America gets a dry run of life without (illegal) immigrants. What a time it's turning out to be.
Trying to get back to regular posting
I have not found it easy to keep posting to this blog, despite the fact that all kinds of interesting things have happened since my post on stupid constitutional tricks. Things like the Canadian Election, the joint declaration of Ahearn and Blair on the future of Northern Ireland, the turmoil in Nepal, the Iran nuclear controversy, revolving doors in the the US Presidential staff roster, the exit of the Vancouver Canucks from the Stanley Cup Playoffs before they start (and Marc Crawford's dismissal), the advance of the Vancouver Giants to the WHL finals, and now a final end to the Canada-US softwood dispute and the Canadian dollar is as high as it was before I got my driver's license.
I'm going to try again. There's all kinds of interesting stuff happening, in every corner of the world and sometimes I feel the need to get up and say some'at about it. Like Sam Sullivan, Vancouver's mayor travelling to Ottawa this last week; and giving harm-reduction (in an approach I'm not entirely comfortable with) a further chance. I heard him quote (un-footnoted) a study in Switzerland showed that when you give people the drugs they're addicted to, 10% wind up quitting outright really soon thereafter? I wouldn't have believed it but if it's true, that kind of result is worth at least a little bit of a try. And if you do it, primarily for prostitutes who are walking scared after the Pickton story came out... The weak and relatively defenseless need something. Maybe this isn't the best answer, but if it's better than the one they've got now, I wonder.
Oh well, enough for now. Gotta get back to other things...
I'm going to try again. There's all kinds of interesting stuff happening, in every corner of the world and sometimes I feel the need to get up and say some'at about it. Like Sam Sullivan, Vancouver's mayor travelling to Ottawa this last week; and giving harm-reduction (in an approach I'm not entirely comfortable with) a further chance. I heard him quote (un-footnoted) a study in Switzerland showed that when you give people the drugs they're addicted to, 10% wind up quitting outright really soon thereafter? I wouldn't have believed it but if it's true, that kind of result is worth at least a little bit of a try. And if you do it, primarily for prostitutes who are walking scared after the Pickton story came out... The weak and relatively defenseless need something. Maybe this isn't the best answer, but if it's better than the one they've got now, I wonder.
Oh well, enough for now. Gotta get back to other things...
2005-11-14
Stupid Constituional Tricks
Jack Layton's cute little motion to force the government to call an election for February sounds pragmatic and reasonable -- and clearly no politician wants to be on the campaign trail during the Christmas Holidays. Various other groups don't want it then either, and it's often painted that the Canadian public in general doesn't either, but I wonder. It might be good for the politicians to feel the pain of their retail employee-constituents who find the last 50 days the most hectic of the whole year.
Constitutional Monarchy's like Canada are governed by a combination of written and traditional rules and one of these for minority governments (as Canada currently has) is that government can dissolve parliament for specific dates and/or hand specific dates to the opposition at which the opposition can pull the trigger. But the opposition can not dissolve parliament at a particular date, much though it might like to do.
Jack Layton, whose stellar record as a city councillor in Toronto speaks for itself, still needs to go back to elementary school when it comes to running national politics. His scheme is the kind of pragmatic, creative one that there is room for at the civic level. But a country can't go changing these procedures at the whim of an albeit intelligent, creative group of people. A federal government, even one that does not have a parliamentary majority, is still about stability and the one power that the governing party in the minority has is this: choosing when a the next possible election date will be. It's a game of "I aim, you fire", but the neophyte leader of the NDP will just have to get used to it.
Jack Layton's cute little motion to force the government to call an election for February sounds pragmatic and reasonable -- and clearly no politician wants to be on the campaign trail during the Christmas Holidays. Various other groups don't want it then either, and it's often painted that the Canadian public in general doesn't either, but I wonder. It might be good for the politicians to feel the pain of their retail employee-constituents who find the last 50 days the most hectic of the whole year.
Constitutional Monarchy's like Canada are governed by a combination of written and traditional rules and one of these for minority governments (as Canada currently has) is that government can dissolve parliament for specific dates and/or hand specific dates to the opposition at which the opposition can pull the trigger. But the opposition can not dissolve parliament at a particular date, much though it might like to do.
Jack Layton, whose stellar record as a city councillor in Toronto speaks for itself, still needs to go back to elementary school when it comes to running national politics. His scheme is the kind of pragmatic, creative one that there is room for at the civic level. But a country can't go changing these procedures at the whim of an albeit intelligent, creative group of people. A federal government, even one that does not have a parliamentary majority, is still about stability and the one power that the governing party in the minority has is this: choosing when a the next possible election date will be. It's a game of "I aim, you fire", but the neophyte leader of the NDP will just have to get used to it.
Will "King George" be content to be "Prince George"?
Or, more importantly, will his followers, in loyalty to the idea of a civil society in Liberia allow their allegations of fraud and pressuring to be investigated and adjudicated, be content with the result and move on? Now, after the election is the moment of truth. What does Liberia want? More civil war or rebuilding?
Western democratic institutions took a long time to build and included civil wars like those that have happened in the 20th and 21st centuries in lands where democracy has not yet taken root. The English story is held to have begun with the Magna Carta in 1215 and can be said to have become almost impossible to reverse after the reign of Queen Anne, five centuries later: She was the last monarch to over-rule the English Parliament. Subsequent monarchs had the titular right to do so but did not. If Elizabeth II or her successors were to do so, it would spark a constitutional crisis.
I applaud the restrained and conciliatory tone I have heard Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf extend to Mr. Weah and his supporters. Winners do not usually share much power with losers, but in view of Mr. Weah's first round polling numbers and the energy of Mr Weah's supporters on the street, pragmatism and commitment to a peaceful future for Liberia will drive her to seek Mr. Weah's support in rebuilding that shattered country. Now the test of the maturity of Mr. Weah and his supporters come: will they bury their differences until the next election and reciprocate?
Show yourselves adults on this score please, for your own sakes and for those of your children.
Or, more importantly, will his followers, in loyalty to the idea of a civil society in Liberia allow their allegations of fraud and pressuring to be investigated and adjudicated, be content with the result and move on? Now, after the election is the moment of truth. What does Liberia want? More civil war or rebuilding?
Western democratic institutions took a long time to build and included civil wars like those that have happened in the 20th and 21st centuries in lands where democracy has not yet taken root. The English story is held to have begun with the Magna Carta in 1215 and can be said to have become almost impossible to reverse after the reign of Queen Anne, five centuries later: She was the last monarch to over-rule the English Parliament. Subsequent monarchs had the titular right to do so but did not. If Elizabeth II or her successors were to do so, it would spark a constitutional crisis.
I applaud the restrained and conciliatory tone I have heard Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf extend to Mr. Weah and his supporters. Winners do not usually share much power with losers, but in view of Mr. Weah's first round polling numbers and the energy of Mr Weah's supporters on the street, pragmatism and commitment to a peaceful future for Liberia will drive her to seek Mr. Weah's support in rebuilding that shattered country. Now the test of the maturity of Mr. Weah and his supporters come: will they bury their differences until the next election and reciprocate?
Show yourselves adults on this score please, for your own sakes and for those of your children.
2005-11-10
Ah, Bliss but not yet Heaven
A local co-op radio station is rebroadcasting the BBC world service in the mornings. Ah the sweet sound of news that's not just from my country, my province, my valley, or worst of all my neighbours' favourite celebrities. <ugh>
And it was there that I heard the news that with 75% of the ballots counted, Mrs. Johnston-Sirleaf is leading 58% to 42% in the vote counting in Liberia. Unfortunately Mr. Weah's party is filing a complaint that the Electoral Commission prejudiced the process against him. I hope Mr. Dyer's thoughts that it would take the soccer star to keep the poor masses from revolting in the painful period of reconstruction Liberia needs to undergo prove false but from my own friends' opinions and those of Mr. Peabody now of Pennsylvania, I have reason to hope that this will be for the best.
Peace be to those streets as well.
One of the listener comments I heard on the BBC this morning made me stop and think. Some chap was objecting to the war in Iraq on the grounds that there is no cause worth dying for. I think it would be more advisable to object on the grounds that there is no cause worth killing for. Since killing only breeds more killing (ask the residents of any war zone, from Northern Ireland to the WestBank/Gaza to Darfur), the less often we insist on resorting to killing in settling disputes and differences, the less often others will have us in the crosshairs -- and if they've already taken aim, we would die with clearer consciences.
Do you want to make your part of the earth a little more paradisical? (and who does not?) Start by looking at the things in your hands. If you are using them as instruments of violence against other people, lay them down and do not take them up again until you can be clear on what their appropriate targets and uses are.
A local co-op radio station is rebroadcasting the BBC world service in the mornings. Ah the sweet sound of news that's not just from my country, my province, my valley, or worst of all my neighbours' favourite celebrities. <ugh>
And it was there that I heard the news that with 75% of the ballots counted, Mrs. Johnston-Sirleaf is leading 58% to 42% in the vote counting in Liberia. Unfortunately Mr. Weah's party is filing a complaint that the Electoral Commission prejudiced the process against him. I hope Mr. Dyer's thoughts that it would take the soccer star to keep the poor masses from revolting in the painful period of reconstruction Liberia needs to undergo prove false but from my own friends' opinions and those of Mr. Peabody now of Pennsylvania, I have reason to hope that this will be for the best.
Peace be to those streets as well.
One of the listener comments I heard on the BBC this morning made me stop and think. Some chap was objecting to the war in Iraq on the grounds that there is no cause worth dying for. I think it would be more advisable to object on the grounds that there is no cause worth killing for. Since killing only breeds more killing (ask the residents of any war zone, from Northern Ireland to the WestBank/Gaza to Darfur), the less often we insist on resorting to killing in settling disputes and differences, the less often others will have us in the crosshairs -- and if they've already taken aim, we would die with clearer consciences.
Do you want to make your part of the earth a little more paradisical? (and who does not?) Start by looking at the things in your hands. If you are using them as instruments of violence against other people, lay them down and do not take them up again until you can be clear on what their appropriate targets and uses are.
2005-11-07
Things changing...
Well, telus and the union have reached a second tentative agreement. It's not clear what's changed -- it sounds like there's more money, but not more job security, so will it pass? Is it enough sweeter to convince 24 more people to change to "yes" than will have changed to "no" since the 30th of October? The results will be in via mail-in vote by November 16th. The contract is for five years from November 17th.
And then there's federal politics. I honestly didn't believe that the NDP would bring down the government this fall, but it looks like the last day sitting for this government will be late next week.
Both of these stories are visible right now, here.
Tomorrow, Liberia votes. So do a bunch of places in the US, too, right?
Well, telus and the union have reached a second tentative agreement. It's not clear what's changed -- it sounds like there's more money, but not more job security, so will it pass? Is it enough sweeter to convince 24 more people to change to "yes" than will have changed to "no" since the 30th of October? The results will be in via mail-in vote by November 16th. The contract is for five years from November 17th.
And then there's federal politics. I honestly didn't believe that the NDP would bring down the government this fall, but it looks like the last day sitting for this government will be late next week.
Both of these stories are visible right now, here.
Tomorrow, Liberia votes. So do a bunch of places in the US, too, right?
2005-11-06
Telus Lockout Losing Traction
Telus, which was formed from combining the old "monopoly" telecoms, Alberta Government Telephone and BC Telephone has been on strike for some time now, and on my drive to work, I pass three of their plants. Actually, the workers were locked out. The issues are mostly "flexibility", as far as Telus is concerned and freedom from worries over off-shoring as far as the union, TWU is concerned.
A couple of weeks ago, The Vancouver Sun, the most news-y local paper, ran a story that there was a tentative agreement. Only the pickets never came down, so I wondered if I had been dreaming. Finally, this week, I find out that the agreement was put to a vote and lost by a really narrow margin. From the Union's website, "Of the 9027 votes cast, 4487 – 49.7% – voted yes and 4540 – 50.3% – voted no."
Late this week, most of the overpasses I drove under on my way to work had Telus workers holding protest banners against Telus' on-going actions. The largest site I drive by was a little emptier than usual, but I knew where some of the strikers were that morning. I had seen them.
I feel for these folks. It's not that long ago they were a crown-corporation monopoly but the communications boom of the 90s happened and now Telus has to deliver, not to Cabinet (two cabinets, actually) but to shareholders. And they don't understand that most of the other workers in the market they serve have never enjoyed the kind of pensions and job security they enjoyed before the 90s -- I've never had them. They're dedicated to their picket line, but this is a fight that Telus can wait them out on, I'm afraid.
On the other hand, a call-in radio comment I heard, from someone who had switched their high-speed internet from Telus to Shaw and was so thankful to be "dealing with a non-Union company" seemed wrong-headed in another direction. The Winnipeg General Strike was only 86 years ago. The need for unions in the coal mines of southwestern Alberta was a hot issue then, too. Since then, unions have often been more interested in gathering more and more power without much concern for the welfare of the worker, but it would be a shame if the protection for the little guys that unions have provided disappeared with the willing and eager acceptance of other little guys.
I can't help comparing this strike with the hockey strike that resulted in no 2004/05 NHL hockey season. At the beginning, the players didn't want to accept a $54 million per team salary cap. The hiatus in play has led to a depression of their market value and they've had to accept a cap of $39 million. At this point, it looks to me like the longer the Telus workers are out, the less value they'll be to their employer. I suspect they need to cut their losses now, settle and get back to work. There're Christmas presents to buy, not to mention meals, clothes, heat and electricity.
Telus, which was formed from combining the old "monopoly" telecoms, Alberta Government Telephone and BC Telephone has been on strike for some time now, and on my drive to work, I pass three of their plants. Actually, the workers were locked out. The issues are mostly "flexibility", as far as Telus is concerned and freedom from worries over off-shoring as far as the union, TWU is concerned.
A couple of weeks ago, The Vancouver Sun, the most news-y local paper, ran a story that there was a tentative agreement. Only the pickets never came down, so I wondered if I had been dreaming. Finally, this week, I find out that the agreement was put to a vote and lost by a really narrow margin. From the Union's website, "Of the 9027 votes cast, 4487 – 49.7% – voted yes and 4540 – 50.3% – voted no."
Late this week, most of the overpasses I drove under on my way to work had Telus workers holding protest banners against Telus' on-going actions. The largest site I drive by was a little emptier than usual, but I knew where some of the strikers were that morning. I had seen them.
I feel for these folks. It's not that long ago they were a crown-corporation monopoly but the communications boom of the 90s happened and now Telus has to deliver, not to Cabinet (two cabinets, actually) but to shareholders. And they don't understand that most of the other workers in the market they serve have never enjoyed the kind of pensions and job security they enjoyed before the 90s -- I've never had them. They're dedicated to their picket line, but this is a fight that Telus can wait them out on, I'm afraid.
On the other hand, a call-in radio comment I heard, from someone who had switched their high-speed internet from Telus to Shaw and was so thankful to be "dealing with a non-Union company" seemed wrong-headed in another direction. The Winnipeg General Strike was only 86 years ago. The need for unions in the coal mines of southwestern Alberta was a hot issue then, too. Since then, unions have often been more interested in gathering more and more power without much concern for the welfare of the worker, but it would be a shame if the protection for the little guys that unions have provided disappeared with the willing and eager acceptance of other little guys.
I can't help comparing this strike with the hockey strike that resulted in no 2004/05 NHL hockey season. At the beginning, the players didn't want to accept a $54 million per team salary cap. The hiatus in play has led to a depression of their market value and they've had to accept a cap of $39 million. At this point, it looks to me like the longer the Telus workers are out, the less value they'll be to their employer. I suspect they need to cut their losses now, settle and get back to work. There're Christmas presents to buy, not to mention meals, clothes, heat and electricity.
2005-11-04
The National Blood-letting -- November 2005
So, the latest chapter in the sponsorship scandal in Canada has gotten to a public milestone: the preliminary Gomery report. Since most of this testimony was conducted live on television (sort of like the OJ Simpson trial), there aren't a whole lot of surprises here. The surprises came six to twenty months ago as lurid tales of suitcases full of money, implications of mob connections, outrageous commissions for little or no work followed by kickbacks to civil servants who allocated the work, and significant portions of the commissions ending up in the coffers of the ruling Liberal Party, all wrapped up in end-justifies-the-means excuses: the Separatists nearly broke up our country -- we just had to do something to save Canada.
(None of this is news to my Canadian readers)
So all we have now that we didn't before, are Judge Gomery's notes, laid out in an orderly fashion showing how money flowed from here to there and back -- ultimately the facts and allegations go like this:
The end result seems to be a big fizzle. The Liberal Party of Canada
* is exposed as the most venal in the country
* is perceived in Québec as having tried to buy Québec's loyalty in the late 90s (outrage, votes for the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois follow -- no version in English)
* is viewed as being shrewd operators who were only trying to save the country in Ontario and by half the folks east of there, and
* is viewed as reprehensible and bereft of the moral authority to govern: scoundrels who ought to be drummed out of office by most of those living west of Ontario -- except for urbanites who are scared to vote for anyone else.
So, the latest chapter in the sponsorship scandal in Canada has gotten to a public milestone: the preliminary Gomery report. Since most of this testimony was conducted live on television (sort of like the OJ Simpson trial), there aren't a whole lot of surprises here. The surprises came six to twenty months ago as lurid tales of suitcases full of money, implications of mob connections, outrageous commissions for little or no work followed by kickbacks to civil servants who allocated the work, and significant portions of the commissions ending up in the coffers of the ruling Liberal Party, all wrapped up in end-justifies-the-means excuses: the Separatists nearly broke up our country -- we just had to do something to save Canada.
(None of this is news to my Canadian readers)
So all we have now that we didn't before, are Judge Gomery's notes, laid out in an orderly fashion showing how money flowed from here to there and back -- ultimately the facts and allegations go like this:
- Money flowed from the federal government of Canada into ad agencies (and other "structural companies" like Canada Post and VIA)
- The purpose of the money was ostensibly to "raise the profile of Canada" in Québec after the nearly-won sovereignty referendum of 1995.
- Firms receiving the money/advertising contracts were hand-picked, not chosen through any kind of bidding process.
- More money was paid than value received by the federal government and some of the money was paid in kickbacks to certain civil servants, especially Chuck Guité
- The most visible result of the money at the time was big "Canada" signs showing up at all kinds of festivals, conferences, conventions and shows in Québec between 1995 and 2001.
- The firms receiving the contracts were typically run by Liberals, who as well as having paid kick-backs to civil servants, also contributed significant percentages of their fees to the Liberal Party of Canada.
- Sheila Fraser, our Auditor-General (sort of like the GAO in the US gave some hints of the problem in 2002 and a full-blown report of her findings.
The end result seems to be a big fizzle. The Liberal Party of Canada
* is exposed as the most venal in the country
* is perceived in Québec as having tried to buy Québec's loyalty in the late 90s (outrage, votes for the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois follow -- no version in English)
* is viewed as being shrewd operators who were only trying to save the country in Ontario and by half the folks east of there, and
* is viewed as reprehensible and bereft of the moral authority to govern: scoundrels who ought to be drummed out of office by most of those living west of Ontario -- except for urbanites who are scared to vote for anyone else.
Quite likely we will have another federal election (what I called a "National Shout" last time) in the next six weeks to three months and I don't see the result being significantly different than it was 16 months ago. As I stated earlier here, I still don't have a real, viable place to park my vote and anyway, I live in a riding where a toothpick could run for a particular party and win, so my vote doesn't mean very much.
Do I sound cynical and disillusioned? I'm afraid so. But hey -- my kids aren't going hungry, we have no shortage of food, fuel or potable water out here in BC and I have the freedom to complain about this kind of thing out loud when it happens. Life's not all that bad, on balance, really. But I wonder how long this kind of meretricious behaviour in our political leaders can go on before all those other things are threatened.
Is that a real Canadian?
Has a tourist ever come through your town, with Canadian flags plastered over his or her luggage and you wondered, "Is that really a Canadian?" Saying "eh?" at the end of ordinary statements has become so stereotypical that you may be fooled initially.
One of the things I want to do here, is help to give little hints to help you figure out who is a Canadian and who is an impostor.
Really Canadian #1: Most Canadians (at least Anglophones) will not pronounce "roof" so that the "oo" rhymes with "hoof" or "book". On the contrary so that it rhymes with "blue" or "scooby doo". French Canadians will pronounce it "twa" or "twat" -- at least when they're speaking French.
Has a tourist ever come through your town, with Canadian flags plastered over his or her luggage and you wondered, "Is that really a Canadian?" Saying "eh?" at the end of ordinary statements has become so stereotypical that you may be fooled initially.
One of the things I want to do here, is help to give little hints to help you figure out who is a Canadian and who is an impostor.
Really Canadian #1: Most Canadians (at least Anglophones) will not pronounce "roof" so that the "oo" rhymes with "hoof" or "book". On the contrary so that it rhymes with "blue" or "scooby doo". French Canadians will pronounce it "twa" or "twat" -- at least when they're speaking French.
2005-11-02
All the best, but not just to King George
Gwynne Dyer's latest commentary focuses on Liberia, a place where I have some friends. At first I thought it referred to King George II of America. When I saw instead that it was about George Weah in Liberia, I was curious to hear the opinion of another outsider (besides me) on the situation there.
It happens that Mr. Dyer disagrees with my friends' political opinion (he's Liberian, she's white, born in Canada -- they are working in Johnson-Sirleaf's campaign) but I'm sure he and they (and I as well) would agree that it would be a good thing for Liberia to escape from the cycle of violence it has been trapped in for the last few years.
Until next Tuesday...
Gwynne Dyer's latest commentary focuses on Liberia, a place where I have some friends. At first I thought it referred to King George II of America. When I saw instead that it was about George Weah in Liberia, I was curious to hear the opinion of another outsider (besides me) on the situation there.
It happens that Mr. Dyer disagrees with my friends' political opinion (he's Liberian, she's white, born in Canada -- they are working in Johnson-Sirleaf's campaign) but I'm sure he and they (and I as well) would agree that it would be a good thing for Liberia to escape from the cycle of violence it has been trapped in for the last few years.
Until next Tuesday...
2005-10-31
Irish news!
Just off today's Five-Seven-Live and here on RTÉ's web-site.... One of the Protestant paramilitary groups has announced the beginning of decommissioning their weapons. I'm not from Ireland, so I'm not sure how influential the LVF is among all the Protestant paramilitaries, but one less weapon on any street is one less means to maim and bereave. Cause for rejoicing, even on a small scale.
Just off today's Five-Seven-Live and here on RTÉ's web-site.... One of the Protestant paramilitary groups has announced the beginning of decommissioning their weapons. I'm not from Ireland, so I'm not sure how influential the LVF is among all the Protestant paramilitaries, but one less weapon on any street is one less means to maim and bereave. Cause for rejoicing, even on a small scale.
2005-08-05
Dissing raised to fine art
I never expected the movie debut of Dukes of Hazzard to be a culturally enriching experience for anyone -- and I wasn't planning to see it. But if you want to hear it dissed in the most delicious fashion, you've gotta listen to the linked item. Mr. Turan, without having seen the movie, I am sure you must have told it like it is... Not that your review will hurt the movie's gate receipts, I'll bet. And if does, it won't hurt them anywhere near as much as your review (from laughter) hurt my sides.
I never expected the movie debut of Dukes of Hazzard to be a culturally enriching experience for anyone -- and I wasn't planning to see it. But if you want to hear it dissed in the most delicious fashion, you've gotta listen to the linked item. Mr. Turan, without having seen the movie, I am sure you must have told it like it is... Not that your review will hurt the movie's gate receipts, I'll bet. And if does, it won't hurt them anywhere near as much as your review (from laughter) hurt my sides.
2005-08-02
Pot Activist, Marc Emery, to be extradited to the US
On a story like this I find myself very conflicted, which is probably surprising given my very conservative lifestyle and views.
I do not smoke tobacco (never have), let alone pot. I only rarely drink alocohol (at age 42, I think I've had some alcohol about five times in my life, never more than a sip of beer, never more than a small glass of wine). I have seen pot destroy -- either itself or as the entry drug for other, harder substances -- many friends and some relatives, so that I am not a big supporter of pot rights either in theory or in practice.
On the other hand, some of the stories of those who find medical marijuana absolutely necessary to stay functional in the face of debilitating and life-ending diseases (the segment from 02:00 to 03:37 of the program here is one of the most heart-wrenching ones I've ever heard -- but less so than another story I can no longer locate. Does Angel Raich suffer from any striking credibility gap?). Does something displaying this kind of potential, even anecdotally, to alleviate debilitating symptoms deserve the kind of enforcement regime that exists in Canada? even more, the one that exists in the US?
On the other hand, should a scofflaw like Marc Emery be allowed to go parading about thumb firmly stuck on his nose at the law indefinitely? And, if his actions are not counter to Canadian law, should he go unpunished for flouting US law or fail to face extradition for supplying, not just medical users but also organized crime and hordes of under-functional pot-heads (made so by their ongoing use of pot) with the supplies that maintain their ability to break US law?
I have to do some research here for the following question: Were the Bronfmanns, Reichmanns and other liquour manufacturers ever similarly subjected to attempted extraditions to the US while the Prohibition laws in the US and Canada were divergent?
As a follow-on, I would ask, are there no parallels between the Prohibition debates then and those surrounding marijuana now? To me it seems self-evident that there is a high level of parallelism between the two questions and that ultimately, as much as anything, to get organized crime out of the marijuana supply chain, it will become a public safety necessity for government to get as intimately involved in the production and distribution of marijuana as they are today in the production and distribution of tobacco products and alcohol.
To me, speaking chemically, there is no difference between tobacco, booze and pot. They are all somewhat mind- or mood-altering; they all have some negative health impacts; they are all used recreationally and only tobacco, the most life-threatening of the three has never been outlawed, and hence has never been intertwined with organized crime. Doesn't anyone else see something wrong with this picture? Outlaw all three of them, or let them be legal and tax the bejeebies out of them, as is being done with tobacco and booze. Let's be consistent here.
All that said, Marc Emery's mistake, the one that removes all sympathy for his cause from me, is the fact that he made no efforts to keep his trade within Canadian borders. For him to have ignored what the standards are on the other side of the 49th, to have done anything but ignore all requests from potential customers from the US put him well within the DEA cross-hairs and if, in an American court he gets 10 years to life of hard time in an American Federal prison, that was the risk he took and he should be willing to survive the ordeal.
I say this, as much as anything else, from a Christian point of view where my fellow believers contravene their local laws in their countries of birth by possessing Bibles, talking about Jesus, or even by the very act of themselves having converted to Christianity. They know the risks and they accept them -- and if I lived there, so would I. From the outside, I appeal to their governments to desist from harassing my brothers and sisters in Christ but my appeal is for them to change their laws, not merely to release them apart from that change. (Are you listening People's Republic of China? Myanmar? Saudi Arabia? North Korea?)
On top of this, let me add my initial reaction with regard to Canadian sovereignty and Canadian authorities choosing to allow Mr. Emery's "rendering" to a country where penalties for marijuana trade are harsher. I already feel that Canada's very existence is at risk, especially with regard to having a separate legal code or an independant foreign policy, so my first reaction was, "How dare they!" However, a lot of these feelings evaporated when I heard the contents of the indictments against Mr. Emery, that they mostly had to do with trade into the US. Marc carried on business in the US which under US law was illegal. It would have been more productive to his cause in the Canadian national debate for him to be arrested in Canada and have his case tried before a Canadian court. His own folly or excessive idealism led him to a place where that will not happen. For his sake, I hope there are people who will be willing to visit him in Leavenworth, or San Quentin, or whatever life-suspension home a US court will consign him to.
On a story like this I find myself very conflicted, which is probably surprising given my very conservative lifestyle and views.
I do not smoke tobacco (never have), let alone pot. I only rarely drink alocohol (at age 42, I think I've had some alcohol about five times in my life, never more than a sip of beer, never more than a small glass of wine). I have seen pot destroy -- either itself or as the entry drug for other, harder substances -- many friends and some relatives, so that I am not a big supporter of pot rights either in theory or in practice.
On the other hand, some of the stories of those who find medical marijuana absolutely necessary to stay functional in the face of debilitating and life-ending diseases (the segment from 02:00 to 03:37 of the program here is one of the most heart-wrenching ones I've ever heard -- but less so than another story I can no longer locate. Does Angel Raich suffer from any striking credibility gap?). Does something displaying this kind of potential, even anecdotally, to alleviate debilitating symptoms deserve the kind of enforcement regime that exists in Canada? even more, the one that exists in the US?
On the other hand, should a scofflaw like Marc Emery be allowed to go parading about thumb firmly stuck on his nose at the law indefinitely? And, if his actions are not counter to Canadian law, should he go unpunished for flouting US law or fail to face extradition for supplying, not just medical users but also organized crime and hordes of under-functional pot-heads (made so by their ongoing use of pot) with the supplies that maintain their ability to break US law?
I have to do some research here for the following question: Were the Bronfmanns, Reichmanns and other liquour manufacturers ever similarly subjected to attempted extraditions to the US while the Prohibition laws in the US and Canada were divergent?
As a follow-on, I would ask, are there no parallels between the Prohibition debates then and those surrounding marijuana now? To me it seems self-evident that there is a high level of parallelism between the two questions and that ultimately, as much as anything, to get organized crime out of the marijuana supply chain, it will become a public safety necessity for government to get as intimately involved in the production and distribution of marijuana as they are today in the production and distribution of tobacco products and alcohol.
To me, speaking chemically, there is no difference between tobacco, booze and pot. They are all somewhat mind- or mood-altering; they all have some negative health impacts; they are all used recreationally and only tobacco, the most life-threatening of the three has never been outlawed, and hence has never been intertwined with organized crime. Doesn't anyone else see something wrong with this picture? Outlaw all three of them, or let them be legal and tax the bejeebies out of them, as is being done with tobacco and booze. Let's be consistent here.
All that said, Marc Emery's mistake, the one that removes all sympathy for his cause from me, is the fact that he made no efforts to keep his trade within Canadian borders. For him to have ignored what the standards are on the other side of the 49th, to have done anything but ignore all requests from potential customers from the US put him well within the DEA cross-hairs and if, in an American court he gets 10 years to life of hard time in an American Federal prison, that was the risk he took and he should be willing to survive the ordeal.
I say this, as much as anything else, from a Christian point of view where my fellow believers contravene their local laws in their countries of birth by possessing Bibles, talking about Jesus, or even by the very act of themselves having converted to Christianity. They know the risks and they accept them -- and if I lived there, so would I. From the outside, I appeal to their governments to desist from harassing my brothers and sisters in Christ but my appeal is for them to change their laws, not merely to release them apart from that change. (Are you listening People's Republic of China? Myanmar? Saudi Arabia? North Korea?)
On top of this, let me add my initial reaction with regard to Canadian sovereignty and Canadian authorities choosing to allow Mr. Emery's "rendering" to a country where penalties for marijuana trade are harsher. I already feel that Canada's very existence is at risk, especially with regard to having a separate legal code or an independant foreign policy, so my first reaction was, "How dare they!" However, a lot of these feelings evaporated when I heard the contents of the indictments against Mr. Emery, that they mostly had to do with trade into the US. Marc carried on business in the US which under US law was illegal. It would have been more productive to his cause in the Canadian national debate for him to be arrested in Canada and have his case tried before a Canadian court. His own folly or excessive idealism led him to a place where that will not happen. For his sake, I hope there are people who will be willing to visit him in Leavenworth, or San Quentin, or whatever life-suspension home a US court will consign him to.
2005-07-29
Towards a Christian Socialism
I am a frustrated voter.
I oppose the proliferation of weapons, especially of Space-, Nuclear-, Biological- and depleted Uranium-based ones as well as other long-term and wide-spread effect weapons such as cluster bombs, butterfly bombs and land mines. I also oppose aligning Canada's foreign and defense policy with that of the US. Don't get me wrong: I like Americans. But I deeply distrust their government, their foreign policy and especially their military. The policy choices of these three have often tended, at least since 1945 or so, to be consistently foolish, more than occasionally criminally so.
I believe that responsibility for the social welfare of a country's poorest, weakest and most victimized citizens rests with that country's citizenry, morally so for its Christian believers, but also, at least to some extent with the government of that country. To that end, I support a progressive taxation system which would be used to fund broad and generous programs to maintain a reasonable level of health, safety, education, protection and empowerment for all.
On the other hand, I believe that there are some objective standards of right and wrong, which political parties who would so far agree with me are willing to treat as relative, negotiable, discardable or even barbaric. My commitment to a Christian philosophy convinces me of the moral correctness of insisting on the one hand of preferring or insisting on the use of fair-trade goods, individually and collective making a smaller consumption footprint, and striving for dependence on renewable-energy-sources just as surely as it convinces me that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.
[As an aside: I am not convinced that a government should legislate all the points that I consider part of an objective moral code (theft and murder are clearly proscribable by all; alcohol use was unenforceable and I'm not sure cannabis use will be in the long-term, either) but to call something a marriage that does not contain the basic paradox of a life-long commitment across gender lines seems too much like the intentional weakening of one of the foundation-stones of civilized society for me to roll over and accept.]
Where are the others of like mind with me? How can we forge an alliance committed to these portions of agendas present on the right and on the left but from a committed, wholistic-Christian moral philosophy, one that denounces for instance, a belief that "Fill the earth and subdue it" was a divine mandate for anything other than the responsible husbanding of our world? If nothing else had convinced me that politics contains at best only provisional answers to the problems facing humanity, and in my case, more-specifically, the population of Canada, the lack of this political alternative certainly did.
Are there any others of you out there? Is it reasonable to hope that there can be a political movement that works towards a "Christian Socialist" agenda?
2005-05-19
So BC STV failed
Just shy of the 60% mark, but definitely winning out in most ridings, there is no mandate that the provincial government move ahead with STV -- but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't or that they won't.
I'll admit I wasn't always a booster, but by the time the vote came around, I really believed in it. And if you got there, too, perhaps you're wondering what next? Well I have a suggestion. Here's a letter I'm going to write to my newly re-elected MLA, Mr. Rich Coleman, Fort Langley-Aldergrove. I suggest you write something like it to your MLA. The more of our voices they hear, the more likely they are to pass it.
Failing that, I think there's a good chance that it could be written up as a ballot initiative. The bar for passing an initiative is bother lower and higher. 10% of all the voters in every riding need to sign a petition -- that's the higher part. And then the initiative needs to pass by 50% + 1 across the whole province. That's the lower part.
Norman Spector, Dave Barrett, Christy Clark and other such elitists said they thought the STV was a foolish idea, foolishly arrived at and foolishly presented to the people for a vote and to some extent I agree with them: after spending so much to arrive at it, why was so little spent on informing the public on the choice either way? Indeed nothing, to me, showed the value of the proposal more than the diversity on other points of political doctrine among those who agreed in support of or in opposition to BC STV. Still, I think that it's time for us, the Great Unwashed electorate, the Secret People (who have not spoken yet -- though we may not be of the same nationality as those whom Mr. Chesterton once referred to) to show that we didn't just like it enough to vote for it once, but to sign for it and to vote for it again.
So if you write a letter like the following to your MLA and he or she takes no notice, be on the look-out. That doorbell may be someone coming around with a petition (maybe me!) asking for you to join the 10% of the voters in your riding to sign up to put forward a ballot initiative. We'll get our STV yet -- and a much more honourable end it is than the one that Levesque and Parizeau forwarded unsuccessfully in Québec before us.
Dear Mr. Coleman,
I am writing to ask you and your party to introduce the BC STV plan as conceived by the Citizens Assembly, despite the fact that the referendum may not have reached its 60% threshold. Most of the people in your riding wanted it and though the bar for a mandated passage was set appropriately high, it would be shutting your ears against the desires of your constituents not to send it through the BC Legislature anyways.
If it does not get introduced and passed, it may yet become a ballot initiative and become law through other means. I commit myself to pursuing such ends and encouraging my friends, neighbours and relatives to do the same. This is a time for your party to show some leadership. Don't wait for us to bring about a ballot initiative. Introduce, pass and proclaim a bill instituting BC STV as the the way BC will elect its Legislature from now on. Either way, your electorate will remember whose interests you pursued now: ours or those of the Liberal Party. And either way, you can be sure, that later, when STV passes we will know how to reward you appropriately.
Sincerely,
Arthur N. Klassen
xxx xxxx
xxxxxx, BC Vxx xxx
(address redacted)
Just shy of the 60% mark, but definitely winning out in most ridings, there is no mandate that the provincial government move ahead with STV -- but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't or that they won't.
I'll admit I wasn't always a booster, but by the time the vote came around, I really believed in it. And if you got there, too, perhaps you're wondering what next? Well I have a suggestion. Here's a letter I'm going to write to my newly re-elected MLA, Mr. Rich Coleman, Fort Langley-Aldergrove. I suggest you write something like it to your MLA. The more of our voices they hear, the more likely they are to pass it.
Failing that, I think there's a good chance that it could be written up as a ballot initiative. The bar for passing an initiative is bother lower and higher. 10% of all the voters in every riding need to sign a petition -- that's the higher part. And then the initiative needs to pass by 50% + 1 across the whole province. That's the lower part.
Norman Spector, Dave Barrett, Christy Clark and other such elitists said they thought the STV was a foolish idea, foolishly arrived at and foolishly presented to the people for a vote and to some extent I agree with them: after spending so much to arrive at it, why was so little spent on informing the public on the choice either way? Indeed nothing, to me, showed the value of the proposal more than the diversity on other points of political doctrine among those who agreed in support of or in opposition to BC STV. Still, I think that it's time for us, the Great Unwashed electorate, the Secret People (who have not spoken yet -- though we may not be of the same nationality as those whom Mr. Chesterton once referred to) to show that we didn't just like it enough to vote for it once, but to sign for it and to vote for it again.
So if you write a letter like the following to your MLA and he or she takes no notice, be on the look-out. That doorbell may be someone coming around with a petition (maybe me!) asking for you to join the 10% of the voters in your riding to sign up to put forward a ballot initiative. We'll get our STV yet -- and a much more honourable end it is than the one that Levesque and Parizeau forwarded unsuccessfully in Québec before us.
Dear Mr. Coleman,
I am writing to ask you and your party to introduce the BC STV plan as conceived by the Citizens Assembly, despite the fact that the referendum may not have reached its 60% threshold. Most of the people in your riding wanted it and though the bar for a mandated passage was set appropriately high, it would be shutting your ears against the desires of your constituents not to send it through the BC Legislature anyways.
If it does not get introduced and passed, it may yet become a ballot initiative and become law through other means. I commit myself to pursuing such ends and encouraging my friends, neighbours and relatives to do the same. This is a time for your party to show some leadership. Don't wait for us to bring about a ballot initiative. Introduce, pass and proclaim a bill instituting BC STV as the the way BC will elect its Legislature from now on. Either way, your electorate will remember whose interests you pursued now: ours or those of the Liberal Party. And either way, you can be sure, that later, when STV passes we will know how to reward you appropriately.
Sincerely,
Arthur N. Klassen
xxx xxxx
xxxxxx, BC Vxx xxx
(address redacted)
2005-05-17
Belinda Stronach, the latest Liberal
In response, I sent the following to letters@cbc.ca:
In response, I sent the following to letters@cbc.ca:
Why am I not surprised? Martin is only doing in Ontario what he was already doing, with more success than failure out here in BC. Welcome to the circle of the excessively ambitious, Ms. Stronach! You should have held out for more than Ms. Stewart's old gibbet.So the fall of the government isn't quite so certain.
2005-05-12
What's "Linux"? What's "Open Source"? What's "Free Software"?
There's a growing document describing the history of open source here. If you want to understand those sorts of things better, take a look. The chapters are short and readable and expose the details of the culture quite well -- especially at the price!
There's a growing document describing the history of open source here. If you want to understand those sorts of things better, take a look. The chapters are short and readable and expose the details of the culture quite well -- especially at the price!
2005-05-02
Response to kuro5hin article against Intelligent Design
Earlier today, slashdot posted this article regarding an OpEd piece on kuro5hin. What followed was an incredible storm of comments, counter-comments, accusations and counter-accusations. I couldn't resist adding my €0.02 worth under the subject line, "2000 fundamentalists and counting", thus:
Earlier today, slashdot posted this article regarding an OpEd piece on kuro5hin. What followed was an incredible storm of comments, counter-comments, accusations and counter-accusations. I couldn't resist adding my €0.02 worth under the subject line, "2000 fundamentalists and counting", thus:
I have read the article and I wish to make two criticisms of it. Then I wish to point out the absolute lack of well-reasoned dialogue on this point.
1. benna writes:
The premise of Intelligent Design is that the universe is so unimaginably complex and perfect that it must have been created by an intelligent designer.Anyone catch the "gotcha"? What ID proponent is going to say that the universe is so "unimaginably... perfect"? This is a classic but cloaked "argumentum ad hominem - abusive": make ID'ers look like extremists so it's "obvious" to everyone that they're stupid before they even look at what is actually being said.
2. benna also cites a lack of ID articles in peer-reviewed journals as evidence that nobody in the "real" scientific community believes in ID.
This is a trifle circular. The tools used by those who oppose theistic explanations for the world (including ID) include belittling, caricaturizing, marginalizing, black-listing, not to mention monopolizing money and prestige to the exclusion of all other options from serious consideration. Faced with the scientistic forces arrayed against these bodies of ideas, is it any wonder that nobody who wants to be taken seriously later will give articles with an ID point of view serious attention? This is less about ideas "winning or losing" in the scientific marketplace and more about ideas being sand-bagged and informally kept from being heard in that marketplace.
If you don't believe this possible, look at what happened in a slightly different field to Immanuel Velikovsky when what he said didn't line up with accepted scientific orthodoxy in the fields Worlds in Collision and Ages in Chaos speak to -- whether or not you accept the contents of his books as reasonable alternative explanations.
As to my subject line: it seems that very few people can make a dispassionate, deal-with-the-facts comment on this subject either in favour of or in opposition to Intelligent Design. It struck me that there are more than one kind of fundamentalism and many slashdotters who would sooner die than be called fundamentalists merely suffer from fundamentalism in a different direction.
cheers...ank
More on BC's proposed STV electoral reform
When it first came out, I thought it looked like a great idea. Later, after discussing it with some people I thought it wasn't such a great idea. Now, I'm leaning again to thinking it is a better system than what we currently have but I'm not sure that it's the best we could do.
I understand that some people in Ireland want to get rid of it but every time that comes to a ballot measure it gets put up against a re-run of FPTP (our current system) and people don't want to go back there.
For myself, I would have preferred a Mixed-Member proportional system -- leave the rural provincial ridings intact, use federal boundaries for the more urban areas and everyone votes twice: once for a local candidate and once for a list. I personally believe that the rural BCers who, at the constituent assembly asked that the proposed system be STV instead of MMP were, to some extent mistaken: their ostensible reason for choosing STV over MMP went something like this: "we want to know our candidate and not be voting for a slate". I think that with the STV system we're going to be voting on, their ridings will get so big that no group of people will know any one candidate enough that the "personal support" factor will be at all significant.
To me the biggest downside with STV is the way ridings will have to be consolidated to support it in the face of the rider on the constituent assembly's mandate: choose a new system with the same number of seats. This is probably less of an issue for really urban areas -- and maybe not much of an issue for the far-flung reaches, either. Some of the rural ridings are truly monstrous already.
But for me, in the Langley riding where I used to live, and the Fort Langley-Aldergrove riding where I now live, I can see local issues and local interests getting completely swamped in one direction or another, depending on how the consolidation takes place. Will these two ridings get lumped with three Surrey ridings? I can tell you that Langley's and Aldergrove's interests will not be well served in that case: those areas are far more urban and our voices will get lost in their shuffle. Or what if we're lumped in with Abbotsford and Chilliwack? That might be less disadvantageous but I wonder.
I think local issues everywhere but in the urban areas will be ill-served by this particular reform: MMP would have resulted in moderate riding consolidation that would have gotten no less granular than the federal ridings. But STV will result in there being about 15 or 20 ridings across the whole province. Think about it: your riding and up to four neighbouring ones will be consolidated. Is that what you want? Or your riding may be consolidated with others up to two or three ridings away from where you are. Is that what you want?
Still, I may be completely mistaken and STV is far better than what we have now: I'm going to vote "yes".
My only other concern is that it will be open to manipulation in ways that only the big political machines recognize yet. Gordon Gibson says that party politicians don't like STV: I suspect they're shamming but we'll only be able to find that out either way several elections AFTER we adopt STV.
2005-04-19
Missing the message...
If there was a life message in John Paul II's papacy, in the sense that he was one of the biggest contributors to the fall of Communism, it was that authoritarian structures can not stand in the face of an ever-more-embraced truth. I believe that in many ways, the Catholic Church failed to understand that fact today.
If there was a life message in John Paul II's papacy, in the sense that he was one of the biggest contributors to the fall of Communism, it was that authoritarian structures can not stand in the face of an ever-more-embraced truth. I believe that in many ways, the Catholic Church failed to understand that fact today.
2005-03-30
Stop the Harp Seal Hysteria!
In response to this, I wrote them the following:
Unless you are a 100% organic vegetarian who grows all their own food, collects rainwater and distills it with solar energy and does entirely without the benefits of modern industrialized medicine, you have no moral high ground to oppose the harp seal hunt.
Just be quiet and go away, please. But I understand that that will take even more effort than it would to stop the hunt. So I wonder why I'm even bothering to send this. I don't know. Perhaps it's because I'm under the delusion that there may be a way to stop the mindless hysteria. I only wish.
These are not humans: they're seals! Okay, so they are extremely cute mammals. But once we realize that they are not humans -- unless of course we are complete vegans and all that as in the first paragraph, the issue shouldn't be how ugly their death looks but how long do they suffer and what will be the consequence if they are not hunted.
This last point is easy: they will over-run their habitat and cause all kinds of other problems.
As to how long they suffer, it's not significantly longer than the time a horse suffers when it gets shot as a form of euthanasia.
Oh, and there's also the factor of livelihood of the hunters, many of whom have no other source of income than this annual hunt. Unless you are willing to support them and their families, there's yet another reason why you should just be quiet and not criticize what you are reacting to emotionally -- not rationally at all.
I'm sorry, I'm trying to be respectful. I hope it worked but I have my doubts. Primarily emotional reactions which I have some reason to view as silly tend to bring out the pejorative in me.
In any event, please, you, respect my fellow Canadians and let them cull an otherwise over-abundant population, supply some folks with very warm coats and feed their families. You want "greater good"? There it is in plain sight if only you'd drop your placards long enough to see it.
In response to this, I wrote them the following:
Unless you are a 100% organic vegetarian who grows all their own food, collects rainwater and distills it with solar energy and does entirely without the benefits of modern industrialized medicine, you have no moral high ground to oppose the harp seal hunt.
Just be quiet and go away, please. But I understand that that will take even more effort than it would to stop the hunt. So I wonder why I'm even bothering to send this. I don't know. Perhaps it's because I'm under the delusion that there may be a way to stop the mindless hysteria. I only wish.
These are not humans: they're seals! Okay, so they are extremely cute mammals. But once we realize that they are not humans -- unless of course we are complete vegans and all that as in the first paragraph, the issue shouldn't be how ugly their death looks but how long do they suffer and what will be the consequence if they are not hunted.
This last point is easy: they will over-run their habitat and cause all kinds of other problems.
As to how long they suffer, it's not significantly longer than the time a horse suffers when it gets shot as a form of euthanasia.
Oh, and there's also the factor of livelihood of the hunters, many of whom have no other source of income than this annual hunt. Unless you are willing to support them and their families, there's yet another reason why you should just be quiet and not criticize what you are reacting to emotionally -- not rationally at all.
I'm sorry, I'm trying to be respectful. I hope it worked but I have my doubts. Primarily emotional reactions which I have some reason to view as silly tend to bring out the pejorative in me.
In any event, please, you, respect my fellow Canadians and let them cull an otherwise over-abundant population, supply some folks with very warm coats and feed their families. You want "greater good"? There it is in plain sight if only you'd drop your placards long enough to see it.
2005-03-04
Solution for puzzle of January 31 (longer than two weeks ago)
US OCCUPATION AUTHORITY IN IRAQ LOST TRACK OF NEARLY NINE BILLION DOLLARS
BRITAIN SAYS TEN MILITARY PERSONNEL BELIVED DEAD IN IRAQ PLANE CRASH
EU WARY OF MICROSOFT ACTIONS AFTER RULING
SWEDISH COACH WAS KEY TO SAFIN WIN - RUSSIAN CHIEF
GUANTANAMO BAY TRIBUNALS RULED UNCONSITITUTIONAL
SETTING = VOTER
KEY = DEMOCRAT
HAT = DEBATERS
2005-01-31
Headline Puzzle #2 -- solution to come in two weeks
enjoy...ank
FU CSSFVBQECM BFQICPEQG EM EPBX OCUQ QPBSN CJ MRBPOG MEMR WEOOECM KCOOBPU
ELYZIYF MIPM ZGF JYDYZILP OGLMKFFGD EGDYCGS SGIS YF YLIA ODIFG NLIMW
NW SOMU ZY EKAMZBZYR OARKZIB OYRNM MWJKIF
OAHPXOQ LGJLQ AJO VHB NG OJSXD AXD - ICOOXJD LQXHS
YSZKMZKZNL AZW MEHASKZGC ESGIV SKOLKCHMHMSMHLKZG
enjoy...ank
Headline Puzzle rotate:
Solution for puzzle of January 17:
I don't know if anyone even tried to solve it, but I'll post another one a little later today.
BOMBARDIER GETS FORTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLAR TRAM ORDER
THE SIMPSONS CROSS BORDER INTO MANITOBA
TSX DRIFTS AHEAD OF SLEW OF EARNINGS AND NY CLOSED FOR KING HOLIDAY
INDIAN TRAIN FIRE THAT SPARKED RELIGIOUS RIOTS 'ACCIDENTAL,' PROBE FINDS
NON-PRESCRIPTION CHOLESTEROL-LOWERING DRUG NIXED BY FDA PANEL
SETTING = SLAVE
KEY = EQUALITY
HAT = UNCLE TOM
2005-01-20
More thoughts on "BC's Citizens Assembly recommends STV for plebiscite"
I'm not so sure now. After talking with friends and ruminating over the idea. A Citizen's Assembly has recommended an STV system for electing our unicameral legislature in BC, the vote to be held with the provincial government election in May. I'm having second thoughts about it. The concerns voiced from the northern representatives, that they wanted to "know their specific MLAs" doesn't wash now that I've thought further about it.
I would be happier if they had recommended a mixed-member-proportional system and I think it could have been done in such a way as to allow the "northerners" to "know their MLA" and more importantly, not to be rendered legislatively irrelevant by the far more populous south. Something along the following lines would have done the trick:
- Use the current federal riding boundaries as a basis.
- For ridings larger than some threshold size, split them in half (make the threshold large enough that this only happens for four or five über-rural ridings)
- Each voter ranks all the "riding" candidates and votes for one list ("proportional").
- "Riding" candidates are elected through STV as proposed.
- "List candidates" are sent to Victoria based on popular vote.
The only remaining question is, will eventual "correction" of the system be easier if the current proposal passes now or if it is defeated? The $64,0000,000 question...
2005-01-19
To understand all is to forgive all?
Today I understand a bit more why Dubya was so intent on taking Saddam down. I'm reading A Pretext for War (which, by the way, contains a fair bit of overlap with the later material in Body of Secrets) and Bamford's exposition of the plot against Bush Sr. and the rest of the Bush family when they came to Kuwait just after Clinton's inauguration made things a trifle clearer.
I understand now much better why he would be so motivated, and he has my sympathy though not my approval. Until now I was thinking it was no more than a little boy finishing what his Daddy started -- another honourable motive, but not a mature enough one for a national leader. And vengeance on someone who tried to kill your family is, at least in the eyes of most, also an honourable motive. My quibbles with that view aside, I submit that fulfillment of a personal vendetta should not be the animus behind the actions of any national leader.
In short, I can understand his actions, even forgive him as an individual for his actions and their reasons -- as far as that goes, to understand all is to forgive all. Still, I cannot exonerate those actions nor acclaim their reasons as valid.
26,000,000 people should not be made to pay for their tyrant's plans. Perhaps they will be better off in the end without Saddam at the helm. But democracy doesn't come by the barrel of the gun. It's a long slow process, a crop that needs to be sown -- and often re-sown many times -- that originally took centuries: like the time between the Magna Carta and the last time the British monarch over-rode the under-democratic House of Commons (Queen Anne, 18th century) -- that even took half a century with a much higher toll of blood in France. China's odyssey on that road is not yet done (farewell, Zhao, man before your time, such as you are never welcome in your own time).
But what about the post-colonial independence binge? There were some success stories there, but not very many. How many decades will it take before a government that looks democratic from the outside will take root in the Middle East? Military action hasn't brought that date nearer, and that you may tie to.
2005-01-18
Someone's thinking clearly!
The Emperor's New Clothes -- The Emperor's New Mind -- now The Emperor's -- er, Pentagon's -- New Map (and sorry, Chapters, but you just didn't list it -- I tried to be a loyal Canadian but you thwarted me, here). The interview with Mr. Barnett on Morning Edition today is quite educational and worth a listen -- follow the first link. I've requested the book from my local library already -- okay, so I'm cheap! :)
2005-01-17
Headline puzzle anyone? (I apologize -- the former version was wrong. Sorry, folks, still learning...)
Solution to be posted in this space, 31-Jan or so.
PGYPNALOFA SFXC ZGAXJ-ZODF YOHHOGB LGHHNA XANY GALFA
ZIR HVBFHDCH QGDHH EDGURG VCZD BSCVZDES
UNW GFQTUN ZCPZG RT NSPH RT PZFMQMAN ZMG MV BSRNPG TRF IQMA CRSQGZV
XGYXOG EIOXG QXIH EUOE DCOIZHY IHJXVXKPD IXKED 'OLLXYHGEOJ,' CIKSH QXGYD
TCT-KBMFZBSKVSCT ZACRMFVMBCR-RCGMBSTE QBOE TSDMQ XW YQP KPTMR
Solution to be posted in this space, 31-Jan or so.
2005-01-14
Blogger-blogging by e-mail
What a disappointment! I sent some mail to my blogger and the lag-time in getting here completely defeats the purpose of using such a feature. I guess I'll be logging in instead of e-mailing here. I sent a test-post to my blog (now deleted since its content was so VERY pithy -- not) by e-mail on the 10th of January but didn't make it to my blog until this morning, the 14th. Not a very useful feature, I'm afraid. Oh well. I said this blog thing was something I wanted to "test". This time the test failed. sigh...
2005-01-11
What is the Meatrix?
Okay, so it's old, but someone posted it past me again and it was worth watching again. Grain of salt not included.
Okay, so it's old, but someone posted it past me again and it was worth watching again. Grain of salt not included.
2004-12-22
Mostly Political
The longer things go on, the less I trust or like the American administration. Even Mr. Bush's show of grief at the bombing in Mosul rang hollow to me, and I couldn't avoid laughing at the irony of his promise to "finish the mission" in light of his aircraft-carrier-top appearance under the heading, "Mission Accomplished!"
In other news, yesterday I almost wished I was Polish. The initiative shown by one Polish minister to show up and "object" to the fishy but not ichthyological entry in the Fisheries and Agriculture Ministers' session renewed my wobbly faith in the ability of governments of-, by- and for-the-people to stand up to huge well-funded multi-national lobbies. Up with Poland!
The other thing I've found amusing was the opposition by the currently sitting but retiring MLA for my former provincial riding (we've moved since the last election) given to one of the candidates looking to replace her. First some background: governments in BC tend not to win byelections (called when someone must step down, up or aside in mid-term) unless the current government is hugely popular. The current Liberal (just not federal Liberal) government is not.
A byelection in a riding in neighbouring Surrey fell to the NDP, which whether you like the NDP or not is probably a good thing since it increased the opposition benches by 50%. The failed candidate there is gunning for Lynn Stephens (perceived to be) much safer seat. Ms. Stephens recently endorsed all the candidates (eight) seeking to replace her except that one. What reason did she give? "We need a local candidate. There are other ridings in Surrey she can seek nomination in."
Ah, the things that doomed-to-be-short-lived huge majorities bicker about. I chuckled.
The longer things go on, the less I trust or like the American administration. Even Mr. Bush's show of grief at the bombing in Mosul rang hollow to me, and I couldn't avoid laughing at the irony of his promise to "finish the mission" in light of his aircraft-carrier-top appearance under the heading, "Mission Accomplished!"
In other news, yesterday I almost wished I was Polish. The initiative shown by one Polish minister to show up and "object" to the fishy but not ichthyological entry in the Fisheries and Agriculture Ministers' session renewed my wobbly faith in the ability of governments of-, by- and for-the-people to stand up to huge well-funded multi-national lobbies. Up with Poland!
The other thing I've found amusing was the opposition by the currently sitting but retiring MLA for my former provincial riding (we've moved since the last election) given to one of the candidates looking to replace her. First some background: governments in BC tend not to win byelections (called when someone must step down, up or aside in mid-term) unless the current government is hugely popular. The current Liberal (just not federal Liberal) government is not.
A byelection in a riding in neighbouring Surrey fell to the NDP, which whether you like the NDP or not is probably a good thing since it increased the opposition benches by 50%. The failed candidate there is gunning for Lynn Stephens (perceived to be) much safer seat. Ms. Stephens recently endorsed all the candidates (eight) seeking to replace her except that one. What reason did she give? "We need a local candidate. There are other ridings in Surrey she can seek nomination in."
Ah, the things that doomed-to-be-short-lived huge majorities bicker about. I chuckled.
2004-11-01
BC voters, take note!
The Citizens' Assembly, although its report is not due to be submitted until December, its content is now known: along with Ireland, Malta, New Zealand and Australia, we will be using the Single Transferrable Vote system.
I think it's a good idea. You can read all about it here, and as regards BC specificallly, here.
The Green Party of BC is, surprisingly, against it. Perhaps because it isn't the idea they supported in the first place. I'll have to go back and understand why. Doubtless there is some merit to their ideas, but to oppose it seems anti-democratic (which isn't automatically defined as "wrong") at this point.
STV: Recognize it, Understand it, and I say, "Support it!" but you, do so, only if you think it's the best option for Canada's western outpost.
The Citizens' Assembly, although its report is not due to be submitted until December, its content is now known: along with Ireland, Malta, New Zealand and Australia, we will be using the Single Transferrable Vote system.
I think it's a good idea. You can read all about it here, and as regards BC specificallly, here.
The Green Party of BC is, surprisingly, against it. Perhaps because it isn't the idea they supported in the first place. I'll have to go back and understand why. Doubtless there is some merit to their ideas, but to oppose it seems anti-democratic (which isn't automatically defined as "wrong") at this point.
STV: Recognize it, Understand it, and I say, "Support it!" but you, do so, only if you think it's the best option for Canada's western outpost.
2004-08-09
2004-07-26
"Ms. Sgro, whose rights are you going to take away today?"
Judi Sgro, a member of Paul Martin's newly minted Minority Cabinet, is adding dangerous folly to folly as she builds her governmental record. During the previous election campaign, she debased her former cabinet portfolio to the status of Minister of FUD by appearing at a campaign stop of the current and former Leader of the Opposition, with the sole intent of throwing heckling questions at him designed to raise doubts that he would re-open the abortion debate in Canada.
"Mr. Harper, whose rights are you going to take away today?" she squeaked from the sidelines. Never mind the very real philosophical doubt about when life begins and when a fœtus becomes a human worthy of protection under law — and no matter what side of the political debate you may find yourself on, you must deal with that question one way or the other. To do so flippantly in either direction is offensive. But in this case, it was just a whining innuendo that Mr. Harper would be sure to revoke 25 years of judicial and legislative ambiguity over the heads of any protest, given the chance. An implication that her party would be a better protector of civil society than Mr. Harper's.
But now, as Immigration Minister, she is perfectly willing for the sake of expediency to pressure the churches to relinquish their practice of offering sanctuary as a faint hope to those whose pleas for harbour from nasty countries of origin have met with a rebuff.
In Canada, we like to think of ourselves as a more civil society than that of our southern neighbour but knocking this notion of houses of faith as places of refuge flies in the face of that impression. Such a legal provision of final refuge goes back a long ways, beyond the Middle Ages, back to Græco-Roman times, back even to the ancient Jewish Torah. Perhaps the churches need to temper their offers of refuge once a "final appeal" has been lost as even the "Cities of Refuge" laws demanded. But to ask the churches not to offer themselves as final refuges places our legal system in danger of adopting some of the arbitrarily tyrannical characteristics of pre-Hammurabic law.
This is not a direction we want to go, people. Because even if you're in the majority today, one of your descendants may someday be in an oppressed minority and if you erase the recourse to refuge today, so as to stop the Terrorists! your actions will quite possibly expose your own flesh and blood or that of close friends and neighbours to the overzealous working of the long, strong arm of the law.
The right way forward here may not be that hard: Instead of asking the churches not to supply perpetual safe-harbour, perhaps the right thing would be for the churches to find other 3rd countries that would welcome (and give long-term safe harbour to) these individuals whose plea for refuge in Canada has fallen on deaf ears. But trying to pressure the churches into relinquishing their millenia-old role as the harbour of last resort is not just foolish (as the "heckle Mr. Harper" episode was) but dangerous in the sense that it increases the risk that unjust turns the law might take at the behest of tyrannical majorities would have no limit to their power of exercise.
Stop it, Ms. Sgro. Have none of your own forebears ever needed this safeguard? I cannot believe it. Will you nor any of your descendants never need it yourselves? It seems still more unlikely. You'd probably be hurting yourself if you succeed; but even if you aren't, removing this recourse isn't building up the civil society your anti-Conservative FUD was implicitly promising Canadians that the Liberals would be better at defending.
Judi Sgro, a member of Paul Martin's newly minted Minority Cabinet, is adding dangerous folly to folly as she builds her governmental record. During the previous election campaign, she debased her former cabinet portfolio to the status of Minister of FUD by appearing at a campaign stop of the current and former Leader of the Opposition, with the sole intent of throwing heckling questions at him designed to raise doubts that he would re-open the abortion debate in Canada.
"Mr. Harper, whose rights are you going to take away today?" she squeaked from the sidelines. Never mind the very real philosophical doubt about when life begins and when a fœtus becomes a human worthy of protection under law — and no matter what side of the political debate you may find yourself on, you must deal with that question one way or the other. To do so flippantly in either direction is offensive. But in this case, it was just a whining innuendo that Mr. Harper would be sure to revoke 25 years of judicial and legislative ambiguity over the heads of any protest, given the chance. An implication that her party would be a better protector of civil society than Mr. Harper's.
But now, as Immigration Minister, she is perfectly willing for the sake of expediency to pressure the churches to relinquish their practice of offering sanctuary as a faint hope to those whose pleas for harbour from nasty countries of origin have met with a rebuff.
In Canada, we like to think of ourselves as a more civil society than that of our southern neighbour but knocking this notion of houses of faith as places of refuge flies in the face of that impression. Such a legal provision of final refuge goes back a long ways, beyond the Middle Ages, back to Græco-Roman times, back even to the ancient Jewish Torah. Perhaps the churches need to temper their offers of refuge once a "final appeal" has been lost as even the "Cities of Refuge" laws demanded. But to ask the churches not to offer themselves as final refuges places our legal system in danger of adopting some of the arbitrarily tyrannical characteristics of pre-Hammurabic law.
This is not a direction we want to go, people. Because even if you're in the majority today, one of your descendants may someday be in an oppressed minority and if you erase the recourse to refuge today, so as to stop the Terrorists! your actions will quite possibly expose your own flesh and blood or that of close friends and neighbours to the overzealous working of the long, strong arm of the law.
The right way forward here may not be that hard: Instead of asking the churches not to supply perpetual safe-harbour, perhaps the right thing would be for the churches to find other 3rd countries that would welcome (and give long-term safe harbour to) these individuals whose plea for refuge in Canada has fallen on deaf ears. But trying to pressure the churches into relinquishing their millenia-old role as the harbour of last resort is not just foolish (as the "heckle Mr. Harper" episode was) but dangerous in the sense that it increases the risk that unjust turns the law might take at the behest of tyrannical majorities would have no limit to their power of exercise.
Stop it, Ms. Sgro. Have none of your own forebears ever needed this safeguard? I cannot believe it. Will you nor any of your descendants never need it yourselves? It seems still more unlikely. You'd probably be hurting yourself if you succeed; but even if you aren't, removing this recourse isn't building up the civil society your anti-Conservative FUD was implicitly promising Canadians that the Liberals would be better at defending.
2004-07-19
Bruce Cockburn does it again. From "You've Never Seen Everything", a reminder not to give up:
Don't Forget About DelightI'm sometimes in danger of forgetting delight.
Amid the rumours and the expectations
And all the stories dreamt and lived
Amid the clangour and the dislocation
Of things to fear and to forgive,
Don't forget about delight.
You know, what I'm saying to you.
Don't forget about delight, you know.
Amid the post-ironic postulating
And the poet's pilfered rhymes
Meaning feels like it's evaporating
Out of sight and out of mind. But don't forget...
Though you find yourself alone and stranded
With no friend to take your side
On the endless road afoot and empty-handed
Where the wild-eyed cossacks ride, don't forget...
Spring birds peck among the pressed-down grasses
Clouds like zeppelins cross the sky
Anger drips in pools and then it passes
And I say a prayer that I don't forget...
2004-07-14
A witty way of calculating primes:
Check it out if you need a way to calculate lots of primes (less than or equal to 2^64 if you have enough memory). Not only is it a useful program, it's a very clever algorithm.
Isn't the Internet fun!
Check it out if you need a way to calculate lots of primes (less than or equal to 2^64 if you have enough memory). Not only is it a useful program, it's a very clever algorithm.
Isn't the Internet fun!
2004-07-06
Wish no evil
This last Sunday, an American friend made a remark implying that I probably didn't agree with his publicly stated well-wishes to the United States of America on its 228th birthday (we live in Canada). I have made no secret of my annoyance with the government of the United States of America -- I'm no good at all about keeping secrets that have any emotional impact on me, just ask my wife -- but I was shocked into mostly-silence, and it was only yesterday evening, 30 hours later, that I came up with a response.
I was grieved that he believed that I would wish ill on anyone from any country, even if I happen to dislike things that their government does. For anyone to exact terror on anyone for any cause is wrong.
I object to the terror the US has been exacting from other countries for the last 100 years. And I will understand when (not if) someone exacts that kind of terror on the population of the US. But I do not relish that day nor do I wish for its hastening.
You must understand, too, that nobody has yet exacted that kind of terror on the US, regardless of what 9/11 looked like.
9/11 was not an example of "that kind of terror" no matter how big its effects were made to appear. It was actually only a tiny pop-gun of terror compared to what the US has done to the Phillipines, Iran, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Cuba, Grenada, Afghanistan and Iraq. (If one included countries where US tacit approval or quiet support resulted in local tyrannies acting murderously towards their own people, this list would be much longer.)
The actual victims of 9/11 numbered only 0.001% of America's populace. A similarly calculated percentage of victims in the above-mentioned countries numbers at least two orders of magnitude greater.
"That kind of terror" is definitely coming -- at whose hands I know not. But it has definitely not yet struck. And I will grieve when it comes, long and deeply, even if I understand the cheers of the survivors of the US' brutal history in their countries.
"The word, 'mercy' is gonna have a new meaning
When we are judged by the children of our slaves..." -- Bruce Cockburn (who else)
This last Sunday, an American friend made a remark implying that I probably didn't agree with his publicly stated well-wishes to the United States of America on its 228th birthday (we live in Canada). I have made no secret of my annoyance with the government of the United States of America -- I'm no good at all about keeping secrets that have any emotional impact on me, just ask my wife -- but I was shocked into mostly-silence, and it was only yesterday evening, 30 hours later, that I came up with a response.
I was grieved that he believed that I would wish ill on anyone from any country, even if I happen to dislike things that their government does. For anyone to exact terror on anyone for any cause is wrong.
I object to the terror the US has been exacting from other countries for the last 100 years. And I will understand when (not if) someone exacts that kind of terror on the population of the US. But I do not relish that day nor do I wish for its hastening.
You must understand, too, that nobody has yet exacted that kind of terror on the US, regardless of what 9/11 looked like.
9/11 was not an example of "that kind of terror" no matter how big its effects were made to appear. It was actually only a tiny pop-gun of terror compared to what the US has done to the Phillipines, Iran, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Cuba, Grenada, Afghanistan and Iraq. (If one included countries where US tacit approval or quiet support resulted in local tyrannies acting murderously towards their own people, this list would be much longer.)
The actual victims of 9/11 numbered only 0.001% of America's populace. A similarly calculated percentage of victims in the above-mentioned countries numbers at least two orders of magnitude greater.
"That kind of terror" is definitely coming -- at whose hands I know not. But it has definitely not yet struck. And I will grieve when it comes, long and deeply, even if I understand the cheers of the survivors of the US' brutal history in their countries.
"The word, 'mercy' is gonna have a new meaning
When we are judged by the children of our slaves..." -- Bruce Cockburn (who else)
2004-06-29
Canadian National Shout -- results
So, here are the results of our national election.
In the end, the scandals (HRDC, sponsorship), the gun registry and the callous disregard of the Liberal Party of Canada for regions that don't elect members to their government didn't cost them the government. It just cost them absolute power. Good enough for now.
I have mixed feelings over this election since I wanted to see more diversity in parliament and I wanted to see the Liberals reduced to the regional rump they've been so fond of accusing all the other parties of being over the last ten years. Neither of this happened.
At the same time as I wanted that, and at the same time that I agree with some aspects of the Conservative platform, I didn't want Canada to be drawn too closely into the orbit around the Bush White House.
So what did we get?
So, here are the results of our national election.
In the end, the scandals (HRDC, sponsorship), the gun registry and the callous disregard of the Liberal Party of Canada for regions that don't elect members to their government didn't cost them the government. It just cost them absolute power. Good enough for now.
I have mixed feelings over this election since I wanted to see more diversity in parliament and I wanted to see the Liberals reduced to the regional rump they've been so fond of accusing all the other parties of being over the last ten years. Neither of this happened.
At the same time as I wanted that, and at the same time that I agree with some aspects of the Conservative platform, I didn't want Canada to be drawn too closely into the orbit around the Bush White House.
So what did we get?
- Liberal reduction: Canadians could have sent a message to the Liberals that the corruption they displayed in office over the last decade wasn't good enough, but unfortunately, only Qu&eactute;bec did that. Even more unfortunately, they did it by electing sovereigntists. I'm happy with half of that result, but not the other half.
- Diversity: We have a sitting independent. Actually, he's a very popular Conservative member whose riding association and nomination process was hijacked by an interest group that was otherwise out of step with the bulk of their riding. This one can be played the other way: the members of the Conservative party who cared to get out to the nomination meeting spoke and Chuck Cadman's insistence on running anyways could be interpreted as sour grapes. The fact that he has cancer and may not live out his term will only enhance the human-interest aspects of this story.
- Not like in America? Well, actually, if you look at the negative attack ads (filled, by the way, with mis- and dis-information) run by the party that said they would keep us from Americanization, you'd have to say that for non-America-cosy politicians they sure were acting like American politicians.
2004-06-28
2004-06-25
Americans telling Canadians how to vote?
Q: What's less successful, more likely to back-fire, in Canada, than trying to buy Québecois loyalty to Federalism?
A: Americans telling Canadians how to vote.
We may like you folks, our neighbours to the south, as individuals, but we don't like your government, we only grudgingly appreciate aspects of your culture (but mostly because we have few other options and because so many Canadians have made it big in your market) and we don't like to be told what to do by you or by anyone else.
Imagine for a moment how much it would hurt a presidential campaign for foreigners to tell Americans not to vote for the other guy. It'd be a kiss of death, usually. We're no different from you on that score.
Your pundits would never have the gall to tell the Brits or the Spaniards how to vote. Latin Americans in the US would rise in anger at "brains" who presumed to tell the Mexicans how to vote (not to mention how that would affect the voters there if the word got out!). Why are they wasting their breath telling us?
Chances are, neither Ralph Nader nor Michael Moore (both of whom have told us whom not to vote for) understand the integrity issues that are very rightly dogging the Liberals (can you trust an insincere guardian of a social safety net?). And they probably don't realize that there are other parties, including the NDP (and even the Greens) who could come out of this election with surprising levels of influence. Our system is different enough that a Ralph Nader wouldn't be the same spoiler factor here as he was, say, in Oregon.
Who I'm going to vote for is my business and I choose to divulge that "publicly" to my ballot paper only. If you ask me whom in your election you should vote for, I might or might not tell you. I wouldn't think it appropriate for any public figures from up here in Canada to be telling you folks whom to vote for.
Ralph: loved the book (Unsafe...) but it's getting a little long in the tooth.
Michael: your movies knock me flat and they have made me think more lucidly.
You're both good at what you do, but when it comes to Canadian elections, you know not of what you speak. And as non-voters you have neither standing nor competence. Please, just be quiet and watch. Mr. Chomsky, another chap from your country who has opened my mental vistas, is saying nothing. There's an example you could both afford to follow.
If we ask you what you think, say it, by all means. But in the meantime, this is an election year in your own country: why don't you concentrate on that and let this one be.
Thank you.
2004-06-21
Sound-byte moment:
President Lyndon Johnston declared War on Poverty. Today the poverty problem in the US is bigger than it's ever been.
President Richard Nixon declared War on Drugs. Today the drug problem in the US is bigger than it's ever been.
President George W. Bush declared War on Terror. Given the record, did the US really want him to do that?
President Lyndon Johnston declared War on Poverty. Today the poverty problem in the US is bigger than it's ever been.
President Richard Nixon declared War on Drugs. Today the drug problem in the US is bigger than it's ever been.
President George W. Bush declared War on Terror. Given the record, did the US really want him to do that?
2004-06-17
Understanding the roots of the War on Terror
A co-worker encouraged me to read All the Shah's Men, Stephen Kinzer's exposé of the CIA's complicity in the downfall of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh (محمد مصدق) of Iran, Time Magazine's 1951 Man of the Year. From the Foreword, where an innocent question to a female Iranian writer results in a tirade against America: "Why did you do that to us? We believed you were on our side and then you betrayed us. We never understood then why America would co-operate with the British imperialists against our people."
Apparently that outburst pushed Kinzer to go back 50 years to understand how one month in 1953 affected 1979 so deeply; how it could still be echoing down the corridors of international relations between the US and the Middle East in 2004. The result is chilling. An honest assessment of all parties doesn't leave Mossadegh looking entirely like a saint but it's far more damning to the British, the Americans, and the various royal families of Iran from the 17th century forward.
Peace to Iran! and a government that takes its people's aspirations seriously!
2004-04-21
Bob Woodward of "All the President's Men" fame has "done it again." There's a doggedness about him as you listen to this Morning Edition interview with him -- and again on CBC's the National (dated 2004.04.20).
One may well ask how he gets these famous people to talk but listening to him, ploddingly introducing the same facts again and again, adding a bit here, then again the next time, you can guess what the effect on one of his "victims" would be. He only talks about what he knows plus a little bit about what he guesses. If you don't challenge his guesses but sound as though you know what he's talking about, he introduces one more little tit-bit, maybe intentionally including a false one. Eventually you fall silent or you become a waterfall of more information which he then tucks into his little kit-bag for use when he meets his next victim -- who may very well be somebody you name. Brilliant, relentless, and very effective. Eventually, when he lays it all out, he can just let the facts speak for themselves and that's more than eloquent enough.
Did I say reading Understanding Power was having an effect on me? One of the results is to look a trifle more critically at the acts of my own Home and Native Land. Peter Gzowski is such a gentle-spoken man on most occasions that I think I'd like to have heard the interview with Chomsky covered in Understanding Power just to hear him go off the deep end.
Apparently, Chomsky called Pearson a War Criminal and Gzowski went ballistic so that the 15 minute interview had to be cut back to 10 minutes. Then the switchboard lit up. Not with people complaining about anything Chomsky had said but taking issue with Gzowski's outburst. That would have been a scream.
He makes several points, though, about Canada as an American colony, that America doesn't really want to absorb Canada outright, that Québec is better off within Canada than they would be alone: alone they'd be an even bigger target for colonization by the US than they are as part of Canada etc. etc.
There's a habit of thought here that needs to be more widely pursued. This is a kind of prophet we could do with more of today. But if you're thinking of filling the bill, beware: prophets like that lead very lonely, marginalized lives.
Something fell on Saskatchewan in 1885
Where is it now when we need it in this century of jive?
The axe falls as if through water: it never leaves a trace...
2004-04-07
Reading Noam Chomsky's Understanding Power is beginning to rub off. I'm watching the news go by and was struck by things that weren't said, on two stories on NPR's Morning Edition this morning.
- John Kerry on Iraq and on the American economy Initially he carefully side-stepped when asked whether he would send in more troops to Iraq or not, and only answered in a way that supported the troops as humans and not necessarily the failed policies that got them there. But to me, the real interest came from some of his rhetoric about "a failed Iraqi state is in nobody's interest" is a clear sign that the monied interests have realized that their heretofore favourite's actions in Iraq have not led and are not going to lead to greater profits for them.
- The other item was about Brazil and nuclear weapons. Brazil swears up and down they're not developing weapons, and maybe they're not.
But what if they look at the example of India and Pakistan? Look at the more rational way in which these two countries have been treated by the rest of the world, but especially by the US, since they both became nuclear powers. When the possibility that a border skirmish would spiral up into a "strategic" nuclear exchange (and isn't that a moron's oxymoron!) arose, everyone who could engaged both India and Pakistan and now their cricket teams are touring each other playing one-day and test matches.
If the number one problem a minor power has is staying out from under the American thumb -- and if there is only one hyper-power then this is a smaller power's biggest problem -- then becoming a nuclear power is exactly what a ruler with a keen sense of the national pride and interest is going to do -- just not out in the open.
If the development of a bomb is going to lead to problems -- loss of support, of friends, of freedom to act in the "community of nations" -- but having a bomb leads to respect, you're going to do your darndest to develop a bomb under the thickest cloak of secrecy. Then when you're ready, you test it in some way that will expose your population to as little danger from it as possible and then sit back and watch the R-E-S-P-E-C-T begin to roll in. If you don't believe that then just read ESR's essay about his first pistol shoot, especially this bit:In fact, I found that the sight of three dozen people wearing pistols and casually socializing was curiously bracing. It said more clearly than words ever could: "We are adults. We trust ourselves and each other and take ultimate responsibility for our actions. We are armed, we know each other fit to be armed, and we are proud to be so fit."
I don't hold with weapons except for food-hunting but that's another story. Still, on the international stage, right now, national nuclear weapons are the pistol that bestows resepect-as-among-equals on the nations of the earth. I don't like it, but that's the way I see it.
2004-03-21
Dreams again...
I was born in 1963 and was troubled in my early adulthood by regular dreams of Global Thermonuclear War, specifically, places that I know and love well being destroyed by incoming MIRVs whose approach it was impossible to predict or prevent. 1989 came along and everyone seemed ready to abandon MAD approaches to international relations and the dreams stopped.In the aftermath of the 9-11 + invasion of Afghanistan + invasion of Iraq + bombing in Spain, they've started again, as of last night.
Oh Yay! Just what I needed.
The symptoms of the age are obvious to everyone. The causes seem equally obvious to me, but obviously they don't appear so obvious to our Glorious Leaders -- and I don't even live in a country that sent troops to Iraq!
As Londo Mollari once said: "Blood cries out for blood. There is no other way." (Yes, I'm a Babylon 5 fan -- and whatever I'm a fan of, I tend to "know" too much about it for anyone else's comfort) The blood that we, the West have shed in all parts of the globe (including our own but majoring on other parts) have been an investment with a certain though not fixed maturity date. This, just as truly as the crimes of "Monseigneur" in France (as logged in "A Tale of Two Cities") were a "reciting of the Lord's Prayer backwards", whether we knew it or not. When the demon of horrific terrorism aimed at our civillian populations, which we have systematically and thoroughly invoked, is visited upon us, we ought not to be surprised.
Rather the only hope that all our children and grandchildren will not play out lives threatened or shortened by terrorism is for us to acknowledge, turn away from and make restitution for our wrongs.
All our wrongs.
It's called repentance, not just as individuals for individual wrongs, but as societies for societal wrongs that have been perpetrated and allowed to be perpetrated for far too long. I know better than to hope for it barring other, just as impossible looking events. But I have other, even more fantastic hopes than this so that hope isn't too much of a stretch.
Book read this week: 9-11 by Noam Chomsky, Seven Stories Press, New York. ISBN = 1-58322-489-0, LOC# HV6432.7 .C48 2002
2004-03-17
Hans Blix on the war in Iraq:
"I was not impressed with the evidence.... Wouldn't it be paradoxical if you march in with 300,000 troops and you find no Weapons of Mass Destruction?"
"That's the critique one would field against both the UK and the US that the leadership did not exercise sufficient critical judgment."
"I was not impressed with the evidence.... Wouldn't it be paradoxical if you march in with 300,000 troops and you find no Weapons of Mass Destruction?"
"That's the critique one would field against both the UK and the US that the leadership did not exercise sufficient critical judgment."
2004-03-15
Manufacturing Dissent
Reading some Chomsky: Understanding Power
In the midst of all the brilliant analysis (or is that argumentum ad hominem abusive?) of why and how political power elites keep dissenting voices from being heard, despite free speech guarantees, a free press and all that, I'm struck again by the meta-conclusion that I came to after watching Manufacturing Consent. If you want your dissenting voice to be heard, you need to unite into a new collective.
Whose voice may be one you don't always agree with.
Whose means and tactics may themselves become so open to question that you're left with the feeling of being used in another way.
we thought we could change something
we helped them win
they changed the slogans
we get hunted again
when you're the fighter
you're the politicians tool
when you're the fighter
you're everybody's fool
... guess who? those who know me wouldn't even ask
And that's why I'm not rushing out to join the NDP or the Green Party any more than I've ever rushed out to join the Reform Party or the Christian Heritage Party. To use another quote:
"I am not entirely on anybody's side, because nobody is entirely on my side."
-- Treebeard (in Lord of the Rings)
2004-03-13
Here's another first! I'm on a laptop named "LEGOLAS" accessing a hotspot in a restaurant that's not yet open from their parking lot. Two firsts at once while blogging: never been at a commercial hotspot before, never just hung out in a parking lot this way. It works well enough. I could get used to this.
2004-03-10
Okay, so it's two years old, but I finally saw Bowling For Columbine last night. Now if that isn't the supreme admission of being out of the loop, then at least take it as evidence that I'm practicing one of the last available freedoms: Freedom from the Press -- a practice which would seem to be supported by the content of BFC.
Two impressions hit me and seem likely to stick for some time:
- The deep and subtle humanity of a character who is often demonized -- whose music and artistic style I, incidentally, find objectionable -- to wit, Marilyn Manson. His answer to Moore's question, "What would you say to the students of Columbine High?" was the kind of answer I would want to give.
- Charlton Heston's utter inability -- unwillingness? -- to answer a life-time NRA-member's questions about the cause of America's proportion of gun-deaths to population. Old and senile? Owned-outright? He reminded me a lot of Londo Mollari -- in possession of much that others envy but without the power of independent action or the of expression of an independent thought.
- "Bullet Control"
- Snoopy the Hunter
- Americans in Windsor
- exposing the many faces of Lockheed-Martin.
- news that hypes causes to fear as a driver of consumption
2004-03-08
What a wild experience. I talked briefly about Mozilla Firefox to some semi-techy people on another topic. As soon as I said, "It blocks all pop-ups by default," the chorus came back in unison: "What's the URL?"
In moments like those I feel sure that, in the end, F/L-OSS (Free/Libre - Open Source Software; Free/Libre in contrast to Free/Gratis which would make the acronym unpronounceable and untenable to those who want to make a living with Free Software) will WIN.
I don't believe it can do anything else but win when all the facts are known.
I'm not sure why I didn't mention Thunderbird and its built-in Bayesian filter in the next breath. Maybe next time.
In moments like those I feel sure that, in the end, F/L-OSS (Free/Libre - Open Source Software; Free/Libre in contrast to Free/Gratis which would make the acronym unpronounceable and untenable to those who want to make a living with Free Software) will WIN.
I don't believe it can do anything else but win when all the facts are known.
I'm not sure why I didn't mention Thunderbird and its built-in Bayesian filter in the next breath. Maybe next time.
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