Lock up Your Wireless

Ha! for those of you who don't bother securing your wireless internet networks here is a good reason to start. People like me.

I'm 'camping' along highway three in the south of B.C. and when I turned on my MAC to upload pictures from the camera there is was: signal strength - and lots of it. So, I hopped on board and now I don't have to make this post from the tiny - but oh so lovely - keyboard of my blackberry.

I'm reminded of just how few people live in most parts of Canada. When I left Vancouver I drove through five, maybe seven ridings before I got to Chilliwack - the edge of the 'lower mainland'. Those seven ridings took an hour and a half. It's taken two days to escape the next riding that seems to stretch half way to the Alberta border. If you can judge the election results by the number of signs in a riding then the incumbent Jim Gouk is a shoe in. If the biggest signs get the nod then Liberal Doug Stanley (pictured giving Paul Martin a great big bear hug) is easily the next MP for the Southern Interior riding.

I missed the debate but from reading the newspapers the 'no clear winner' conclusion seems to be shared by all but the most partisan. After peeking at Pauls Wells' summary perhaps I'm glad I didn't endure see it.

What a bunch of braying jackasses. What a pathetic embarrassment, the lot of them.

These guys had two hours to discuss their plans for governing half a continent. A trillion-dollar economy. A national government for 30 million people. You'd think they'd have a lot on their minds.

And all they did was shout one another down, ask questions they knew could not be answered, declare their opponents unable to answer their bogus questions after the barest of pauses, and otherwise engage in a way that would have shamed the parents of any four-year-old.

So, with that happy thought, go put some encryption on your wireless network.

7.9 Earths

That's how many earths are required to sustain the current population if everyone had the same lifestyle and consumption patterns as I do. 7.9 Earths

Professor Bill Rees (UBC) and his associate Mathias Wackernagel use a concept called Ecological Footprint (EF) to measure the demand placed on nature to provide sustainable long term support for people. He says: “Human activities are bound to remain within the globe's ecological carrying capacity.” Seems so obvious as to go without saying.

Primarily because of population growth, the ecologically productive land available to each person has fallen from 5 hectares in 1900 to 3.6 hectares in 1950 to 1.7 in 1990. It could be 0.9 in 2030. The average Canadian household has a footprint of 4.8 hectares. That's 3 earths asuming we get exclusive use of it; leaving little or none for the other species.

If we think that eveyone should aspire to our level of consumption then clearly we have a problem.

In 2002, Wackernagel looked at the amount of time it takes the earth's land and sea to regenerate the resources we take from it and absorb the waste we produce. He found that in 1961 (when I was 1 year old) it took 0.7 years. Today it takes 1.25 years. It takes a year and a quarter to replace and absorb what we consume in a year.

We are living beyond natures means but if you listen to the news reports on TV you could be forgiven for concluding that the greatest decision we face is whether to vote Liberal, Conservative or NDP.

Sent from my BlackBerry

Could NPR Work in Canada?

It's a reasonable question: could the model used by the National Public Radio (NPR) service operating in the US or the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) work in Canada.

If you haven't heard of the NPR then do yourself a favor and check it out. It's brilliant and it's funded by public donations not public funds. You can listen to it live on the internet and judge for yourself.

It's a seductive question for me because I may be able to have my cake and eat it too. I'm always a little conflicted listening to CBC Radio One ( I don't watch much TV so to me CBC is Radio One, and the internet site). I like the programming (mostly), the progressive bias doesn't bother me much but I feel a little guilty listening to it knowing that there are millions of people paying for it that don't like it and don't listen to it. I feel a little like I'm eating their doughnuts or taking a swig from their beer when they're not looking. No great crime but it's still wrong.

That doesn't mean I think commercial radio and commercial TV can replace the kind of programming and content that the CBC provides. To me, the CBC is a great asset and provides a service I can't get anywhere else.

Which leads to the second thorn in my paw. If the CBC wasn't there, would another provider arise to fill the gap? By having the CBC there do we supress other alternatives like NPR?

There are lots of barriers to a national broadcasting system run by donation. The two most obvious ones are:

#Is the population large enough to maintain the news gathering and infrastructure?
#Could you deliver the service outside of the major centres?

But, there are advantages as well as barriers. If you think regional relevance is a strength of the CBC then you'll love the public radio model. If you like independent news then you'll love public radio because it doesn't get any more independent than that.

Whenever anyone mentions ending the CBC's funding the immediate cry is that we need more than commercial stations and the long list of shortcomings in commercial stations is paraded around until we all give in. The next time this happens we should remember that there are other models that work.

A Fickle Master

Is it wrong to love your Blackberry more than your Mac? Can you really be a Green Party supporter while subservient to product lust?

Sent from my BlackBerry

I love Technology

I do. I really love technology. I'm heading off on an undeserved vacation on Monday, but my weblog will still get it's updates. From the wilds of untamed BC, well maybe not the wilds of BC, I can update my weblog from my Blackberry.

Sent from my BlackBerry

An abortion of a Clause

There are some bitter fellows out there that have the wrong end of the interventionist court stick - inexplicably Harper the "smart libertarian" is among them. Worse, they seem to think that democracy is a simple matter of majority rules. 50% plus one and you're good to go.

Stephen Harper has been calling the courts interventionist for some time now. If I understand him correctly, on issues like Gay Marriage, if his Parliament doesn't like the way the courts have interpreted the constitution he would hold a free vote on the issue and, with the people's voice duly noted, the Supreme court should then shut-the-fuck-up and play with some other laws. Somehow this will enhance our democracy.

Many supporters feel the same way. Statements with a veneer of legitimacy help convince sloppy thinkers that democracy would be better served if a simple majority was in charge of our rights. Statements like this: "If we don’t like what MPs are doing we can vote them out and vote in new ones. Judges, on the other hand, we can’t vote out when they do something we don’t like",

This is about the daffiest notion going; it doesn't get worse than this folks.

Shutting up the supreme court, far from improving our democracy, would in fact be the last step to a white-hat dictatorship. After removing the only real check or balance in our whole system we need only await a real sociopath ( as opposed to the mere liars now vying for the position) to be anointed Prime Minister.

Think about it. The prime Minister now appoints the Judges, appoints the Senators, controls a majority of the House of Commons and, should the appointed Judges wander off the reservation and the supreme court tell him he's trampling on peoples rights he could, with his majority in the House, give them a raspberry and carry on.

Can you imagine how frightening it would be to live next to the most powerful country in the world if the President could be in office forever (as long as he kept winning), if he appointed the judges to the Supreme Court without review, if he always had a majority in the House of Reps, if the Senate was tame, and he alone could declare war? Holy disaster-waiting-to-happen Batman.

No, voting politicians out in the next election is not a sufficient balance to that kind of power. The Supreme Court of Canada is there for good reasons. It's there to interpret the constitution; it's a balance to the virtually unchecked influence of the Prime Minister's Office.

Stuffing a 'simple majority sock' in the mouth of the supreme court is a bad idea. Next on the list of dopey notions is using the notwithstanding clause which says: we'll accept a little tyranny, but only for five years.

If you don't like what the constitution says, then change it, but don't suggest the best answer is to remove the last check to the PMO's power.

A Reagan Perspective

A few years ago I was living in Chicago and commuting weekly to Washington D.C. for work. On one of those trips I got an insight into how great the gap can be between the way Canadians view American Presidents and the ways Americans view their Presidents.

I never paid that much attention to the presidency of Ronald Reagan. I was young and I was busy, but not too busy to form and opinion. The reports that seeped into my head about Reagan were rarely flattering: there was the ill-considered joke about launching nuclear weapons muttered into a microphone as a sound check; there was the whole business of selling weapons to a sworn enemy to fund illegal wars in central America; the congressional investigation that brought, "I don't recall", into the popular vernacular for nearly a decade; someone shot him; there was the whole "evil-empire" branding; the war on drugs meme and a steady stream of mind-numbing rhetoric.

Without giving it any serious consideration I came to the same conclusion that many others did: that Reagan was a not all that bright, and that he seemed dangerous.

Many years later, to my surprise, I found the Reagan label liberally splashed on buildings and monuments in Washington D.C. There's the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport; the Reagan center and various other prominent places all sporting the Reagan label.

While walking with a coworker past one of these many embossed Reagans, I commented on the odd fact that a President with such a poor record would have his name on such prominent buildings. The guy turned purple: I thought he was going to have stroke. "After Jefferson" he stammered, "Ronald Reagan was the greatest president the world (yes, the world not the US, the world) has ever seen."

Risking a possible hemorrhage in my friends head I pressed on: why was he so well regarded? "Because", I was told, "he restored America to greatness".

For a long while we both looked at each other with the same expression. Each unable to comprehend the apparent stupidity of the other. After a while I couldn't stand it and stated the obvious: America was always great, it required no restoration, and it got none from Reagan.

Apparently this was an acceptable because he nodded, smiled and we moved on in silence.

Obviously it's unfair to characterize all Americans as having some uniform view consistent with my friend's, but there is a deep respect for Mr. I-don't-recall.

Top Blog

Ahhh, success. Should I prepare a speech?

After whining a little the other day some kind sole has nominated this site for a Top Blog Award and the excellent and wise judges have given the nod.

Check out BlogsCanada is you haven't already. Check out the election group there or the excellent list of political bloggers compiled by BlogsCanada MC Jim Elve.

Now, if I could think of something to say about the election that hasn't been said ...

Chuckle from the CBC

From that alleged bastion of Liberal dominated media, the CBC, comes the following joke:

Paul Martin still believes Calgary can win: it all depends on what kind of cup Canadians want.

A Conservative Government at Hand?

A conservative Government is a real possibility. Way back when I said the Conservative party had to do two things. One they had to move to the centre of the Canadian political spectrum and two, they had to convince Ontario that they are not the CA re-badged.

Harper has done a really good job positioning the CPC to the left of their too-right starting point. With the exception of the recent abortion and death penalty land mines he's avoided most of the social policy controversy by not having one.

More importantly, according to IPSOS polling for the Globe and Mail the Liberals and Conservatives are in a dead heat in Ontario.

One party rule is well and truely over!

Update

In a comment on Andrew Coyne's site someone makes the valid point that

The polls show Liberal support collapsing...not necessarily that Conservative support is rising. In fact...just like all the polls taken lately, Conservative support is stuck at around 30%...that seems to be a threshold they can't cross. So I don't see a massive conservative shift in Canadian thinking...it more of a "throw the bums out" type thinking that is getting people to vote for "anyone but the Liberals"...so this seems like a temporary phenomenon and I suspect much Liberal support will return to them soon after the election.

Another comment goes as follows.

Whoa, slow down. Note first that the Liberal support is declining, the Conservative's is not going up. Second, just because the support is almost equal between the two parties, that doesn't mean that Ontario values have fundamentaly changed. They just don't like Liberals at the moment. It's a poll, not the apocalypse.

So I think I might have been a little uncritical in linking the dead heat in Ontario to a sustained change in Conservative fortunes.