Take Offense?

Today, as an insult, I was accused of being jealous of Shakespeare.

Jealous of Shakespeare?

I can't even begin to express how untrue this comment is...and it was hardly irksome - only confusing.

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Announcement

Working in government means that over time people greet the announcement of ministerial spending with a degree of cynicism. Whether it's because of previous experience with funding being pulled after it's been committed, the short-sightedness of a funding plan, or some other snafu, people tend to react with less than whole-hearted joy when these press releases occur.

Yesterday our Director announced that one of our programs that was slated to end next year has been renewed for two more years with several hundred million dollars in funding - $526 million to be exact.

This news was greeted with pointed questions and skeptical comments, and the Director cried out, "Okay guys, enjoy the moment! Don't go to your agitated place right away!"

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Breaking "News"

A new poll was conducted to tell us that people all around the world experience stress. Wow. What a breakthrough! That wasn't a waste of time and resources at all! This is brand new information!

Seriously, this is a top story? I guess it's been inserted there to validate your stress, distract you a bit from real news, and to make you feel that during the holiday stress zone you are not alone. I think it's ridiculous, and instead you should be aware that...

"A move is underway to make Jesus Christ the honorary king of Poland"

Yes, you read that correctly. Apparently this is to be expected because the citizens are hardcore Roman Catholic. Not only that, but this is the country that made Mary (mother of Jesus) its honorary queen because they believed she helped them win a battle with Sweden(!).

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Words #2

emolument [i-mol-yuh-muhnt]

-the wages or perquisites arising from office, employment, or labour

"And they are not obliged to follow those occupations, if they prefer leisure to emolument."

-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Overheard In The Office #2

My co-worker was on the phone with a courier company arranging for a pick-up and I only heard her side of the conversation.

"It's going to the Kamloops Brain Injury Association.....B-R-A-I-N.....you know; the 'brain' brain?!"


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Overheard at the Coffee Shop

"I'm thirsty, I'm hungry, it's pay day - I'm out of control!"

Just Say No To Space

Ottawa has decided against supporting Canadian space companies' and the European Space Agency's (ESA) request to allow Canada's space industry to contribute in building the ExoMars rover. The decision was a big surprise to everybody, especially considering that the request was not contingent on any additional funding.

The ESA was keen on getting Canadian space companies on board because they are considered to be world leaders in robotics and this rover would be a far more advanced and sophisticated one than was sent to Mars by NASA.

"Industry Minister Maxime Bernier told the companies the government hadn't made up its mind about the future of Canada's space role and didn't want to go forward with the project."

Also of interest is the fact that the U.S. was promoting this deal and has also signed off on having Canadian companies design robotics components for its moon mission slated for 2020.

Now, with the government relaxing support for space agencies, a fear is growing that Canada will be not only be left out of space exploration, but the brain drain of talented designers and scientists that started with the cancellation of the Avro Arrow program (which saw vast numbers of Canadian engineering and technical specialists take leadership positions at NASA) will be exacerbated.

I couldn't be more disappointed with this announcement - c'mon Ottawa, get our butts into space!

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Equal Access

The Green Party of Canada has an online petition that I have decided to promote. I'm not endorsing the party, nor associating myself with them, but I think the issue they are raising is fair and I have long agreed with them.

The issue? The fact that their party is consistently banned from all televised election debates. While I'm not sure that every registered party should have the right to be on the big CBC stage during election seasons, I do think that The Man has been excluding the Green Party without reasonable cause.

The online petition can be found on this site, and I found that the fact sheet was particularly eye opening. Even though I already supported this particular cause I learned that the party exclusion was more hypocritical than I had originally thought.

Some highlights...

"In the 1988 federal election the Bloc Quebecois did not exist. Gilles Duceppe was elected in a by-election two years later as an independent, not as a Bloc candidate. Despite having no seats in Parliament, no official recognition from the Speaker and only 75 candidates out of 295 ridings, the Bloc Quebecois was included in both the French and English debates. The Bloc has never fielded a candidate outside Quebec but continues to participate in debates in both official languages.


In the 1988 general election, the Reform Party ran 72 candidates, received 276,000 votes and won no seats. By the time of the 1993 election, the Reform Party’s only sitting member was Deborah Grey following her win in a 1989 by-election. Reform did not have Official Party status and did not win a seat in the 1988 election but Preston Manning participated in the 1993 leaders’ debate, based on the 11,154 votes Deborah Grey received in a 1989 by-election with a 47 per cent turnout. In 1993, the party ran only 207 candidates.


In 2004 and 2006, the Green Party ran a full slate of 308 candidates and won 583,000 and 664,000 votes respectively, over double the Reform Party’s performance in 1988.


In 1979, the Social Credit Party was excluded from the debate despite the fact that it had 11 seats in Parliament at the time of dissolution. And in 1997, both the NDP and Progressive Conservatives were included in the debate despite not having Official Party status.


In 1993, 1997 and 2000 five leaders participated in the televised debates. This was reduced to four following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives in 2003. Fair play, democratic equity and precedent demands that a fifth spot now be opened for a new national leader to join the debate. Five parties received over 2 per cent of the vote in 2004 and 2006 and all five should appear in the next leaders’ debate."

StatsCan on Wealth Distribution

update (December 14, 2006 11:54)

The Globe and Mail has an online poll today regarding the wealth distribution pieces that have been all over the news lately. The Globe Poll reads;

"A recent study shows the chasm between rich and poor is growing. Last year, those in the top fifth of wealth distribution had a median net worth of about $551,000 while for families in the bottom fifth, the value of their assets never exceeded the value of their debts. Where do you place yourself on the 'wealth' scale?"

The possible answers are "Top 20%", "Top 40%", "Right in the middle", "Bottom 40%", and "Bottom 20%".

When I answered the poll, there was a disproportionately high number of people who categorized themselves as being a part of the richest 20% of the population. I wonder if people might be misunderstanding exactly how few people actually hold all that wealth, or perhaps the lack of scientific value of online polls is being clearly demonstrated, or readers of the Globe and Mail are those people in the top 20%, or maybe we need more people to answer the poll in order to get values that reflect the findings of the studies - or more likely, it's a combination of all those reasons. Regardless, the results of the poll can be found here.

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StatsCan has released some new data that is a good companion piece to my post a couple of days ago on the disparity of wealth distribution in the world.

"Of the total household wealth in Canada in 2005, the top 20 per cent possessed 75 per cent of it."

This article focuses more on the cost of housing as a factor in the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Canada.

"Most of those (95 per cent) in the top 20 per cent bracket owned a home, and the median value of that home grew by $75,000 between 1999 and 2005. Only six per cent of those in the lowest wealth group owned a home."

"Statistics Canada said the median net worth of the poorest group has stagnated over the past two decades. 'The value of their assets never exceeded the value of their debts during the 1984 to 2005 period.'"

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President Harper

I think I've said it often enough, but I'll say it again; we live in world comprised primarily of uninformed idiots and the masses can not generally be trusted to decide most matters of public interest.

So when Stephen Harper announces that he wants to go U.S. style (this seems to happen a lot with Harper) and have members of the Senate elected by the people, I cringe, furrow, shake my fist in the general direction of Ottawa, and open up Blogger to have my say.

I don't think people, myself included, have enough information about experience, job descriptions, responsibilities, candidates, reputations, and all the other things that may be of importance for these positions. Sure, the simple answer is to get that information out to the public - whom we know don't pay much attention to these matters. Back to square one.

Besides my gut reaction to this announcement there are other issues; first, we have the usual unbalanced representation that favours the East over the West where "a province like Nova Scotia is represented by 10 senators, while a province like Alberta, with about five times the population, only has six senators."

Secondly, while it would seem that Harper has left a window open on the possibility that nothing will really change because the election results will be non-binding and the ultimate decision of who to appoint will still fall to the Prime Minister. Currently the Prime Minster appoints senators without public input - so why are we bothering with this new bill if basically nothing changes? Because "if passed into law, the bill would allow Harper to make changes to the Senate without reworking the Constitution, which would require co-operation from the provinces." Yep, it's just another bid by Harper to change the Constitution or to change it without actually changing it all without the bother of getting National support. That guy can not leave the damn Constitution alone - just like Bush keeps taking runs at their Constitution.


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Words

mordant [MOR-dn't]

-biting; caustic; sarcastic

"I have never injured anybody with a mordant poem; my verse contains charges against nobody. Ingenuous, I have shunned wit steeped in venom - not a letter of mine is dipped in poisonous jest."

-Ovid

Chasing The War On Drugs

Harper and his cabinet minsters have been quietly liaising with U.S. officials since before June. The ministers have been consulting them regarding their drug policy with an eye to developing a version of it for Canada. Right. Because it's widely acknowledged that the American style War On Drugs is the model of success? Oh right, that's a load of crap. The American War On Drugs is laughable and at best only marginally successful - and even then, only in spite of itself. This plan of course runs totally counter to the extremely successful programs being run in Europe where the drug problem is categorized more as a health issue than a criminal or 'moral' problem. Not only that, but the European model favours a harm reduction approach whereas the U.S. and Federal Conservatives' style is more along the lines of being an asshole and seeing how far that gets you.

Currently evidence shows that the European model more effective by leaps and bounds over the hard edged American style where there is no good evidence to support the approach. Which makes it all the more frustrating that the current government plans to unveil it's revised American-style National drug strategy next year.

After new drug action plan is unveiled, the Conservatives want to send diplomats "to do outreach with the U.S. and our like-minded countries." Since when are we a "like-minded country" Harper? The most recent indication that this country is not behind Harper and U.S. on this matter came in the form of national polls and protests over the Conservative government's plan to shut down the supervised injection site in Vancouver (Insite) that follows the ideal of the European harm reduction model. The Conservatives wanted it shut down (as would an American drug policy analyst), but the public, opposition governments, NGOs, health organizations and law enforcement agencies across Canada all lobbied the government to keep the doors of the safe injection site open. Insite won a few months reprieve, but the Conservatives plan to attack it early next next year - flying the face of public will once again.

Canada is not one of Harper's and America's so-called 'like-minded countries', but is our government listening? Do they know who they represent? So they even care anymore? I'm afraid the people's power is waning and they don't even realize it.


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Poor Vancouverites

We've had a rough winter so far in Vancouver. We've had flooding, a weeks long boil water advisory, downed power lines, a crippling snow storm, downed power lines, and now last night, more downed power lines.

Another wind storm kicking up gusts of up to 115 km/h hammered the city yesterday. The commute home was brutal; dark, raining, crawling through major intersections navigating the hazard of thousands of idiots who have no idea how to manage a four way stop. The ferries weren't running, trees that survived our last few storms toppled all over town, and this morning, power still hasn't been restored to 190,000 people.

BC Hydro has been very busy for the last couple of months and things aren't going to get any easier - the forecast calls for more strong winds tonight and tomorrow.


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Update (December 13, 2006 15:53)

For those keeping track, the continued high winds we've been experiencing in British Columbia has left 70,000 people without power today. That's 40,000 who haven't had electricity restored since the last wind storm plus another 30,000 affected today!

$2,200.00 USD

Sadly, having just $2,200 in wealth (household wealth was defined as the value of physical and financial assets minus debts) is all you'd need to be placed in the top half of the world's wealth distribution - but only the bottom 49% of that top half. The newest figures show that this distribution sees 1% of the total world population holding 40% of the planet's wealth. Meanwhile, "the bottom half of the world makes do with barely one per cent" of the world's wealth.

"The authors note that "many people in high-income countries — somewhat paradoxically — are among the poorest people in the world in terms of household wealth" because they have large debts."

This means that those who have at least $2,200 in household wealth and can be considered 'middle class' are only a tiny portion of the total world population. Scarier still is that the 50% of the population below that has to make to with splitting only 1% of the wealth.

So we have major problems income and distribution of wealth inequality that seem to be getting worse every year. The rich get richer and poor die off while trying to get a portion of the world's wealth scraps.

Disheartening isn't it?


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Does Anyone Trust The Cops?

I don't even know where to start on this story. Saint John's finest targeted a man (LeBlanc) who was taking pictures of a protest and three officers pinned him to the ground. He was arrested, charged with obstruction of justice, and police later testified that he was resisting arrest (a favorite catch-all accusation preferred by law enforcement personnel). The good news, for the victim, is that there is video evidence showing that he was peacefully snapping photos before being tackled out of the blue by police for no apparent reason.

"The video speaks for itself. It's very strong evidence, that video," [Judge] McCarroll said. "He's taking pictures. The next thing is, you know, he's down on the ground with three officers on him."

Police had testified earlier in the week that LeBlanc resisted during his arrest, but McCarroll held up a picture of the police walking LeBlanc peacefully across the lobby of the conference centre. "This doesn't look to me like someone who is resisting arrest."

The versions of the story told by the police are contradictory and inconsistent, and I didn't even get into how they set him up via his blog and then tried to deny any knowledge of knowing who he was before seeing him at the protest.

The judge so thoroughly blasted the police that the defence attorney is confident the case will be won and has decided there is no need to call any of his witnesses.

I'm very glad the judge spoke up about all of this, but I'm more concerned about the actions of the police in the first place. Sure, this guy will probably be found not guilty, but how will that address the fact that cops are engaging in shady business to frame innocent people? And since when is it illegal to take pictures of a public place and event unless you are a journalist? Did I miss something in the Anti-terrorism Act? I didn't realize the full extent of the Act's infringement on civil liberties if that's true - and it was scary enough with what I did know.