Obfuscated Thoughtlessness Inversed

Take that elected representatives. What you can't do with a job description that includes solving problems in the world, Michaelle Jean has done with a job description that reads do nothing. It certainly seems that Michaelle Jean has more siblings in Mali than the position she occupies in Canada has supporters.

What am I talking about? The rousing and internationally significant reception that Jean received in Mali, yesterday. Tens of thousands of Mali's people waited on both sides of the road from the airport to her hotel. Then she became only the second foreign leader in the history of Mali to address the country's parliament after Nelson Mandela.

The position of Governor-General is a largely redundant hold-over from past colonial times. Having said this, Jean's use of the position to come to grips with historical wrongs like slavery, forced deportation and the loss of your historical ties to the country of your ancestors birth is nothing but awesome.

After having posted earlier this week about support for a democratically elected Governor-General-like role, I have to say, the next step for Jean personally is to run for election in a role that does exist. Let's get her a constituency that would allow for a significant critique of the conditions that much of the world's poor live in.

I can't wait to see the documentary on this one.

Labels: democracy, opinion, spy-watch

Have the BC CFS and the BC Fed lost their constituency? It seems like a simple demand to me.

Raise the minimum wage to $10. Now!

The petition has been on-line for 22 days and has less than 300 signatures. There are more than 300 staff working for BC Fed (BC Federation of Labour) affiliated unions in British Columbia. Speaking of which one of the staff of the BC Fed itself, John Weir, only just signed the petition yesterday.

Come on folks. How hard is it to sign a petition calling for a livable minimum wage for everyone. Is it because the wage should be higher. Personally, I agree let's go for $20 an hour. At least then when it take another 5 years to raise the minimum wage again it will still be somewhere near livable.

The BC Fed convention is starting on November 27. There will be more than the 300 delegates at the convention. They had better be able to get at least one worker each to sign on to this petition. I want to see those numbers going up.

And what about the CFS (Canadian Federation of Students). They claim to represent 200,000 students in British Columbia. Representation requires being able to mobilize. If you can't mobilize to sign an online petition, it might be time to think about taking some classes again.

Whatev.. maybe I'm just bitter because online petitions are so damn easy to publicize and get people to sign onto. Maybe I'm just bitter because I'm not even making $10 an hour and I want the people who have represented me in the past to keep being able to do it well.

Ok it doesn't really matter why I'm bitter. What matters is that you go here now and sign the damn petition. Have you done it yet? GO!

PS: Don't like minimum wage increases? Feeling like a wanky free market economist? Get off my blog, NOW and go here to have your arguments debunked.

Labels: online campaign

Or don't!

This holiday season consider the following free solutions...

These are my favourite picks for free open source/web based applications. It might not make a 10 year old happy finding a step by step instruction sheet on how to access these applications under the tree, but these pieces of software could make your neighbour pretty happy or your co-worker jump for joy. Supposed to buy something for less than $10? Get them one of these.

Number one on my list is the Google Docs & Spreadsheets application. This Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel replacement combines a fully functioning spreadsheet/word processor with a web based interface that'll knock Microsoft's socks off. Office 2007 be damned, these applications work great and from anywhere you have an internet connection. You can find them at: http://docs.google.com/

Number two on my list is the other half of the Google Office suite: GMail and Google Calendar. Google Calendar will track your appointments for you with a web interface that beats Microsoft Outlook's neverendingly slow and oft-broken shitshow of an e-mail program. Want the functionality of a shared calendar? No problem, just create one with your favourite events and share it. No more broken down office e-mail or Yahoo Groups, this shared calendar is accessible to anyone and can be placed on any website. More can be said for these two products though. The interaction between GMail (your super-fast new e-mail program with nearly 3 GB of storage built-in) and Google Calendar allows for one-click addition of appointments that arrive in your e-mail. Need to manage your contacts? No problem, import them into GMail, easy as pie.

Number three is for the die-hard software installationist in all of us. For those of you who can't wrap your head around a web based interface, you can get for free OpenOffice. OpenOffice is already at version 2.0 and going strong. This Office Suite also kicks Microsoft's ass. So much so that many large organizations have been using it on many of their desktops for years. Drop the Microsoft and go for the free stuff already. OpenOffice is a full office suite of software including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation maker (think Powerpoint), database and calculator.

Ok who has time for a couple more freebies?

How about #4 on my list Scatterchat? This instant messenger built on a Gaim base will have your opposition spending millions trying to decrypt your random chatter with your friends in a continent away. Seriously, if you need military strength encryption for your day to day interactions; this software will do it for you. All you have to worry about now is the guy looking over your shoulder and the person with the keystroke logger. Everyone else will be seeing a lot of gibberish.

Number 5 is Ubuntu. This completely free Linux distro is available at http://www.ubuntu.com. You will find it to be a pleasant and complete replacement for your crappy Windows installation. It is easy to use and best of all, like everything else on this list, free! It can also be used as a server software.. but see my next list choice instead.

We're off to number 6 and that's my favourite server software. FreeBSD. This software has been my fav in serving since FreeBSD version 2. I've also been using it as my on/again off again desktop operating system. Ok stop looking confused. Just go to www.freebsd.org and follow the instructions on installing it on your computer. Next thing you know you will have a working server install with a gui (graphic user interface).

NUMBER 7. Mozilla Firefox. You would be amazed at how many people aren't using this free and excellent piece of software. Don't know what it is? See that's my point exactly. It is a web browser. It is what you should be using to read this. But no, you are still using Internet Explorer for some reason aren't you. Bleh. Burn it to a cd. Wrap it up and give it away. Or drop by their house with some egg nog and install it on their PC for them.

Number 8 has to go to Skype. What you are still paying to make long distance calls in North America. WTF for. Skype is free to install and so are the calls (this is apparently a limited time offer.. but who knows). Download it right now and stop being so stupid. Wait, you aren't being stupid, you already have free North America wide calling, it is your neighbour who has $200 phone bills. Exactly my point. See just because it is free to you, doesn't mean it won't be the best present they get this holiday season. This program works well with old microphones and yellow headphones from 1980's era walkmen, people have sitting in their old boxes of electronics. Have fun digging them out with them or make your old pair a part of the gift.

Numero nueve is VNC. Already purchased a license for Office 2003 and want to use it from the ski hill? This simple program gives you the ability to server your desktop from anywhere to anywhere. Make your computer completely accessible from your office or even from your handheld. Easy to install and dangerously insecure. Check it at http://www.realvnc.com/.

Number ten is an oldie but a goodie. WinAmp is the perfect MP3 player for those of you still wedded to the idea of running Windows (hint, you don't need Microsoft for any of the above.. just this one). Get it at http://www.winamp.com/ and start burning those CD's to a library.

I'll leave it at that. Please remember that some of these open source solutions are built by people like you and me for free. Contribute what you can!

Once again the list is:

1. Google Docs
2. GMail and Google Calendar
3. OpenOffice.org
4. Scatterchat
5. Ubuntu
6. FreeBSD
7. Mozilla Firefox
8. Skype
   
9. RealVNC
10. WinAmp
    

PS: These applications have the potential to save your boss's business thousands of dollars. Need help convincing your boss? Drop me a line.

Labels: anti-microsoft, green isn't just a colour it's an imperative, tools

Back on October 13, 2004 shortly after the now infamous debate between Kerry and Bush wrapped up CNN held a poll with the following question: Who do you think won the debate?

This of course is a relatively innocuous question. Unless you plan on doing what CNN did that night. I don't know why, but I did catch them at it. Why you ask haven't I posted this on the web sooner? Well, I actually did, I posted it on Victoria Indymedia and Indymedia internationally at that time. I just felt like resurrecting this story for my blog. Particularly, since it didn't gain any particularly exposure at the time.

If you look closely at the pictures above, what you will see is two screen shots captured 2 minutes apart showing the results of the poll. In the top part of the image you will see Kerry is leading by 83% to 17%. In the bottom screen, taken, just two minutes later you can see Kerry is leading by just 56% to 44%. Now this isn't that amazing unless you consider:
a. that the poll had been open for more than half an hour at this point,
b. that in the first half an hour more than 20,000 votes were cast with a result favouring Kerry 83% to 17%, and
c. then in 2 minutes an additional 29,000 votes were suddenly "cast" favouring Bush 63% to 37%

Here's those numbers again for you in long hand:

	8:34 pm	8:36 pm	Diff.	Perc.
Bush	3449	21698	18249	63%
Kerry	16852	27498	10646	37%
	20425	49413	28988

I'll be the first to admit that CNN polls state right on them that they aren't scientific in nature and are unlikely to reflect anything about the viewers or the populace of the United States. However, I'd say this poll definitely showed something. It showed something about the political bent of CNN.

Labels: alternatives, anti-war, blogosphere, democracy, green isn't just a colour it's an imperative, leftist content creation, opinion, pro-choice

The doctors say it works. The users use it. The scientists say it saves lives. Stephen Harper says it has to close in 2007.

Let's be honest, anyone who is willing to go here between 10 am and 4 pm to do drugs, should be supported. These people need the help and should not have their program canceled.

"Hey man I need a hit. Let's go down to the safe injection site, they got bright lights and little booths to do drugs in. Yeah man. That sounds like a great place to get high."

Come on! Vancouver's safe injection site should be replicated across Canada's urban centres not destroyed because of ideological angst about drug users.

What is Harper thinking?

Is this the wedge issue he plans on taking into the next election. The ultimate divide between rural solutions of the church and the urban constituency he doesn't have or want. Does he really think the constituents in the communities around the site, who have been collectively trying to deal with the problems of addiction and make a community solution work for the most vulnerable, should be undercut?

Maybe, he thinks if the users themselves had just made the right choices earlier in life they wouldn't be ill now. Maybe, he believes that the consequences of these decisions should be felt to discourage others from making the wrong choice?

"Look buddy, you just shouldn't have taken that first hit. I know you were fourteen, depressed and all your now dead, older and influential friends were doing it under that bridge. I know everyone, you knew was telling you it was the only way to be happy given the situation you were living in. But that was 8 years ago, that was the Liberal's fault that you had no access to school counseling because of social transfer payment cuts.. the deficit? yeah well I guess that was Mulroney, but let's stick to the point... Come on, heroine is bad for you buddy, sorry that's the way it is," opines the constituency assistant who not so gently is moving the 22 year old who now looks like she was born in 1959 towards the door.

"Oh you want treatment options? Look we know how to treat this, but, but, our government, it.. well how can I explain this to you so you'll understand.. We like cops and border guards and the military as our sort of long-term solutions. Yeah, the BC Government spent $1.2 million renovating the site but it only costs $500,000 a year to operate... but you know that doesn't fit in with our big plan to increase funding for weapons related solutions by billions of dollars and defund that program for safe injection sites. What about scientific outcomes you say.. Scientific outcomes? What do you know of scientific outcomes? ... You know about the x-ray machine.. oh well, yeah I guess that it is a pretty big scientific development that results in thousands of potentially life threatening injuries being properly cured with pieces of plaster and bed rest each year. Yeah, that safe injection site would have reduced the chance that you die from what once was a recreational habit, at less than the cost of one gently used MRI machine.. but we are ideologically wedded to canceling this program, Mr. Day said so at the last caucus meeting us constituency assistants were invited to."

The assistant is now closing the door in the constituents face, "But, look, Stephen Harper, (that's a picture of your MP and him at the last convention)" the assistant points to the dorky handshake shot over the door as a distraction. "Well Stephen just doesn't think science is a good way to make public policy. He thinks you should have individually solved this problem by yourself and every single other problem you have ever faced." Slam.. the lock clicks closed. The constituency assistant thinks to herself, wow I almost had to use the panic button on that one she was ugly.

Let's look at this from the perspective of actually trying to solve the problems associated with intravenous drug use. Collectively, we are on an Earth that, ignore it if you want to, is suffering from the effects of a serious humanity infection. If you knew someone else had the choice to continue to fund a project that was going to save your entire eco-system from destruction (be it urban or rural), wouldn't you be mad if they didn't?

How is this safe injection site different? For you the middle class blog-reader the effect of having many diseased people in a community is similar to having the ill effects of a polluted environment.

Lance the boil you say? ... force people to follow a strict moral code.. C'mon you won't find the solution to this problem, in Stockwell Day's bible. When that thing was written they hadn't invented a device for measuring time accurately. (How olds the earth Stocky? 6,000 years you say, really?) You also won't find the solution in Day's other book of magic, the Criminal Code, you can't easily dissuade addiction through threatening to put people in a place where the drugs are constant, there is a warm bed and a roof over your head.

What is the solution then?

Well we now know part of the answer to this question. We have known for a long-time that solutions to problems come from scientific discovery and the scientific method. Collectively, we just conducted an experiment on some of the most vulnerable people, in one of our most livable cities, to try and make it better. We did it to see if we could improve our community. To see if given a few tools we could improve the quality of life for everyone. Turns out, we do know how, when we hire nurses and use the science of basic hygiene, under the supervision of a doctor with a couple of social workers thrown in for good measure. When we make available some of the basics that most of us take for granted, to those that don't have them, basics like a well-lit numbered cubicle. We all get to see, amongst a particularly disadvantaged group of people, encouraging results.

If you knew, that decision makers were canceling the programs that provided proven results, that could improve your life expectancy through solutions that work for people in your community, wouldn't you be angry? Well get angry.

The safe injection site model can improve all of our lives. Aren't you angry that Harper has set a deadline of September 2007 for the permits for Insite to run out? I am pissed.

C'mon Harper. C'mon. Just try it this once. Just try a little science. [whispering] You'll be hooked on it for life. muahahahaha... [mirthful cackle]

PS: The minority conservative government can be beaten on this one. Our federal government has virtually no seats in our urban centres and safe injection sites are at this time essentially an urban solution. They have no mandate to cancel this program. A majority of our current Parliament should amend the relevant pieces of legislation to make safe injection sites legal. This solution would work within 2 hours travel by public transit of more than half this country's population. I don't mean just on an experimental basis either. We need these legislative changes introduced immediately, we will have to get on it to make sure they are in place, before the first safe injection site would otherwise have to close.

Labels: health, human rights abuse

It must be very hard for the democratically elected leader of our government Stephen Harper to be so overshadowed by such a gifted and eloquent Governor General. Yesterday, our commander-in-chief Michaëlle Jean landed on her first foreign visit in Algiers. She has only been gone for a day and already she has made me wish that we had sent her to the APEC meetings in Vietnam instead of Harper.

I am certain that she would not have had to posture, bristle and bumble about bringing human rights up with President Hu Jintao. Just reading the pre-meeting briefing note would be a far more powerful critique of China's record than any trade-interest-driven whine that Harper delivered. Even if Harper had stood and yelled for the entire 15 minute meeting just sending our GG would have had a deeper impact.

I'm just back from my own diplomatic fore shall we say.. (of course it was not of the magnitude that Harper and Jean are currently experiencing). I did, however, learn the hard way to tread lightly with Canadian norms. Many times I distinctly felt the temperature in Australian rooms drop to a chilly arctic freeze as I casually mentioned Canadian history and the political norms of my generation.

One of many places where Australia is well ahead of Canada is in support for a democratically elected head of state. The most recent referendum in 1999, on the issue, failed only because of a division between those who wanted an Australian Republic with a parliamentary appointed president and those who wanted an actual elected head of state.

I think it is time for Canada to have an elected Governor General, time for us to give a political mandate to the kind of work Jean and her predecessor Clarkson are able to do just by being themselves. It is probably seditious and maybe treasonous to demand that the current Queen's representative be elected to the role.. but sedition be damned. Queen Elizabeth II has nothing on our Michaëlle Jean.

There is a role for democracy in international relations and our country should join the 18th century and elect our top dog (and I don't mean to reference any empty chairs when I say that).

Let's start sending our head of state into international relations, properly mandated, as the voice of a democracy, not the representative of some other country's Queen.

Labels: human rights abuse, spy-watch

This just in. . . Terrorists have been caught red-handed counterfeiting clothing.

Well, that's the impression you would get from Sgt. Patrick Webb if he provided any evidence for this ridiculous assertion: "The funding for this is just like drug deals where the funding has to come from somebody with deep pockets, and that normally is organized crime and/or possibly terrorists."

Sgt. Webb has said some other zingers in the past like: "Whether this was a factor in this collision still needs to be determined but it probably was." In relation to the death of a British Soldier on Canadian soil. Rob Huck on the blog WesternStandard.ca has Sgt. Webb jumping to the conclusion that a group of teens randomly committed this assault.

Back when Sgt. Webb was only a Corporal he defended the $100 million dollars spent on the G8 summit's security in Kanaskis like this: "We have to communicate back and forth with our command centre. It's all part of our security requirement and we're not about to tell you why we're going to use it." [source]

I think it is worth wondering out-loud if the kind of logic that Sgt. Webb uses above, is the same logic they teach at RCMP school in Regina. That might be the reason why the RCMP purchased $28 million worth of equipment for the G8 Security during the Kananaskis summit in 2002. The outcome? A few charges against members of the RCMP for acting inappropriately during the summit.

Anyway let's have some fun stringing together some of these comments:

"The funding for this is just like drug deals where the funding has to come from somebody with deep pockets, and that normally is organized crime and/or possibly terrorists. Whether this was a factor in this .. still needs to be determined but it probably was. We have to communicate back and forth with our command centre. It's all part of our security requirement and we're not about to tell you why we're going to use it," Sgt. Patrick Webb as reported in the media with only one word left out.

Ok, seriously, I'm sure the guy is just doing his job.

However:

1. if you ever end up on a jury,
   
2. listening to wiretap evidence,
   
3. with your job to determine,
   
4. beyond a reasonable doubt,
   
5. just take a moment and wonder,
6. if a word might just have been left out.

Labels: anti-war, historical, leftist content creation, opinion, rcmp, spy-watch

I hate to admit it, but this blog posting about how Stephen Harper is to the left of Hilary Clinton is largely correct.

I have held the view that elected Canadian politicians, even of the far-right variety like Ralph Klein, are to the left of the vast majority of the Democratic Party in the US, ever since I heard this idea espoused comically by Jello Biafra as part of his routine going into the 2000 election.


Anyway, check out where you stand at: Political Compass (thanks Paul).

PS: If this posting gets lots of hits from Australia before the Victoria State election I'm pulling it, because I do actually want Bracks to win (not that this post won't help him)..

Labels: alternatives, leftist content creation, opinion