Chrysler Now Nationalized... Sort of

The sound of toilets being flushed at Queens Park and Parliament Hill today was almost deafening. The sound of all that money going down the drain to "rescue" failing automaker Daimler Chrysler. The United States government has now taken a 8% stake in the company and Canada now owns 2% of the shares. The UAW/CAW now owns more than half the company's operations while Italian automaker Fiat taking the rest. The Federal and Ontario government made a colossal mistake in forking over $2.5 billion of taxpayer money to essentially the union who continues to deny any responsibility for the collapse of Chrysler. Ah, the workers now control the means of production; Karl Marx's and Ken Lewenza's wet dream. In essence, Chrysler has been nationalized and communized, bringing my own worst case scenario to fruition. Surprisingly I don't have a lot to say on the subject other than saying the government should not expect a penny of the $2.5 billion to be repaid. All it does is reinforce the problems that led to the auto industry's downfall. Nobody will learn anything from the ordeal and it will not be long until they return looking for more handouts. It may be cutting off my nose to spite my face given that it's my money funding this, but I will never purchase a car from the Big Three as long as I live. I already knew McGuinty was a terrible premier and I expected he would do this but I'm no longer sure if I can support the Harper Conservatives. Of course the alternatives are considerably worse and would never get my vote. However, Harper is going to have to do a lot before he can win me back. I wonder if the Libertarians need any supporters.

Update May 4th: One of the top advisers overseeing Chrysler's restructuring says the automaker will likely never pay off its government loans. He made the statement during the company's bankruptcy hearing. Did they really need a so called expert to tell them that?

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Swine Flu Should be Wake Up Call For US Immigration

Everybody is now panicked over the so called swine flu that's gripping Mexico. So far, the flu has moved into the United States and Canada. Most of the current cases in the United States have come from people who visited Mexico City in recent days on business and vacation. However, I think it should act as a wake up call over America's issue of illegal immigration from that country. This is where those who favour illegal immigration on humanitarian grounds fail the logic test. The problem with allowing people to come into your country illegally is not just a security matter but it is a public health concern as well. This type of immigrant slips past screening for communicable diseases and if they are infected with something like the swine flue, they are at high risk for passing it on to the general population. Remember that these countries do not have the same health standards that we do. While we can get vaccines to make us immune to many deadly diseases, they may not be available in poorer countries. In reality, the risk of this happening is relatively low but that does not mean it cannot happen. It's not discrimination against these people when it is known that such illnesses are in the wild. We need to take more precautions when people from there enter our borders.

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What is With Humanity's Obsession with Doomsday?

Japan has awarded its top scientific honours to MIT professor Dennis Meadows, who thinks it will all be over by 2100. In 1972, he lead a study on human growth trends and predicted that would be the year in which everything falls apart. He has gotten an award and a beefy $500,000 grant for his work. His study has been called alarmist and anti-technology be many. This study is completely irrelevant though in the grand scheme of things because it's hardly unique. Maybe some psychologist out there can answer this for me. I have my theories but I really would like a definitive answer for this question. What gives with mankind's obsession with the end of the world? It seems like that's all we talk about these days. Asteroids, economic crashes, global warming, overpopulation, world war, civil war, race war, class war, nuclear war, war war. By my count, following the claims of prophets and madmen through history, the world should have ended 1000 times over by now, at least. How did we as a species get so negative about the future? I'm just sick of hearing about it.

Source: National Post

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Turner Getting Sued, Well... Maybe, Hopefully

The Odyssey of Garth Turner never seems to end. The trend now for washed up celebrities and politicians is to write the tell-all-book, and Garth is no exception. The book, titled Sheeple: Caucus Confidential in Stephen Harper's Ottawa, naturally takes a stab at the Harper government. However, it has landed Turner in legal hot water with the Canadian Press. As you probably already know, Turner was ousted from the Harper caucus in 2006 for violations of caucus confidentiality through the use of his blog. Turner is now blaming the media for his ouster. He claims that the confidentiality violation was made up by the PMO and leaked to the media. The media is at fault, according to him, for not fact checking that tid bit of information. The Canadian Press is threatening to pursue legal action against the comment.

Turner himself is no stranger to controversy. He made a mockery of the Canadian parliamentary system in 2006 by jumping ship to the Liberals after his constituents advised him to remain an Independent. Turner had promised he would abide by their wishes which were voiced at a series of his "Town Hall Meetings." He was nearly kicked out of the Dion Caucus a year later for making inflammatory remarks against Quebec and Alberta on his blog, calling them "separatist losers". Turner was defeated in the 2008 election in his home riding of Halton by Lisa Raitt, current minister of natural resources. He lost by a significant margin of 12%. In my own opinion, after shamefully campaigning for the man when he was a Conservative in 2006, I think Turner has gone insane. There is a clear difference between being outspoken and mad. I'm outspoken but hardly crazy. I don't make claims that there was a conspiracy against me when I screw up. Garth seems to be a vary bitter person who is borderline paranoid. I really think he needs to seek professional help; and I'm not being cheeky when I say that.

Updated April 25th: I've come across a review of the book. Kudos to this fellow who actually read it. As you know, I have a severe allergy to BS that would cause my head to explode if I picked it up. According to the Creeple blog, the book is garbage and far more poorly written than some of Turner's other works. It reads like a compilation of his blog posts. Can you believe that at one time Turner was actually a respected journalist? How the mighty have fallen.

Source: Ottawa Citizen

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The End of the Canadian Auto Industry

I think Ontarians need to send a loud, clear message to the Canadian Auto-Workers Union. The union is protesting today at Queens Park, 5000 strong, to try and force the government to cough up $6 billion for their pension funds. I already discussed this in depth about how harmful such a payout would be for non-CAW members who would end up footing the bill, especially retirees (the majority) who don't receive government protected pension funds; if they receive pensions at all. It is morally wrong to force ordinary citizens to pay for outrageous retirement benefits the union demanded from the American automakers. Union top brass as still insisting that the union members have been put in this position through no fault of their own. They are still acting as though the automakers are bluffing and as if this is an ordinary end-of-contract negotiation. These people are fools and dangerous ones at that. Though I have no love for McGuinty, I praise that he has at least stood his ground on the issue. The province cannot afford to cover the billions automakers owe. The Union is simply interested in covering it's own backside to keep its operation lucrative rather than protecting the jobs of its members.

However, if in the event the government flip flops and decides that taxpayers should foot the bill, I urge all Canadians NOT to buy CAW made cars but rather purchase imports and non-union built Canadian cars. A message needs to be sent to the CAW as well as GM and Chrysler that we will not tolerate them toying with our money as a bandaid for their mistakes.

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Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Ah, the intellectual, enlightened liberal. What intelligent things they say.

WASHINGTON - A diplomatic skirmish broke out Tuesday over suggestions by Janet Napolitano, the U.S. homeland security secretary, that terrorists have routinely entered the United States through Canada, including the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks. Napolitano's remarks in an interview earlier this week have angered some Canadians and prompted the normally reserved Canadian ambassador to the United States, Michael Wilson, to forcefully set the record straight.

In all fairness to Obama though, all his other options for the position are currently being investigated by the IRS for tax evasion. So much for an end to Bush era rhetoric and misinformation. I keep looking for the "change" but I'm not finding any. Maybe I should try checking under the couch cushions at the Oval Office. The sad part is that Canada is now taking over the United States' role as a major world leader that people look to. I know, it blows my mind too.

Update April 25th: Seems John McCain has echoed Napolitino's comments about the 9/11 terrorists entering the US through Canada. I had rooted for him back during the 2008 election (after Rudy dropped out) and he has really let me down on this issue. The 9/11 Commission Report (which I have a copy of) proved beyond reasonable doubt that the perpetrators of the attack entered into the United States directly and NEVER passed through Canada. Despite the report, this falsehood seems to be a common belief within the US. It all stems back to the LA bomber in the late 90s who had tried to enter the US from British Columbia. However, they neglect to tell you he was stopped at the border by Canadian guards and arrested before he could launch his attack. Even if the terrorists had entered through Canada, as the National Post points out, the blame would still fall on US border guards and immigration officials for letting them in. It was America's lax immigration laws that let them in, not ours. For those keeping score, this is the second international incident sparked with Canada in Obama's first 100 days in office.

Source: The Canadian Press via CNEWS

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New Tax System for Canada: The Party Tax

I was thinking about Michael Ignatiff's comments that Canada should raise taxes during a recession, and about Dalton McGuinty's 8% tax increase. People on the left seem to be all about taxes and are quite content to pay more. Therefore, I've devised a new tax system for Canada which I'm calling the Party Tax.

The Party Tax does away with all conventional tax systems such as tiered income taxes that vary depending on your income bracket. Instead, the Party Tax is a flat tax which is paid depending on who you vote for. Here's the formula.

Vote Liberal: Liberals enjoy paying taxes and don't mind when they are increased. In fact, I'd say they're eager to fork out more. They're the first to demand Canadians pay their fair share whenever the government spends too much on some harebrained scheme. I think they need to pay more of their fair share since they're responsible for most of those schemes. They can obviously afford to divert a larger portion of their income to the government than most Canadians do. After all, they're the ones who demand the most government expenses. Therefore, under the Party Tax, all Liberals would pay at least 50% of their income.

Vote NDP: The New Democrats are all about helping the poor and they like to spend like water as well. At least their causes are somewhat more noble if misguided, unlike the Liberals who love spending cash on their pet projects. NDPers are also technically fuctionally retarded so they shouldn't have to pay as much as their wealthier Liberal counterparts. All NDP voters would pay a flat rate of 45% of their income.

Vote Conservative: Conservatives spend money more sensibly so they can be trusted to invest their cash into the economy. Therefore, their money is not really needed for the government and should be diverted to the private sector, which employs most of the NDPers. (Most Liberals work for government or for a friend in government) Since they're pumping so much to keep the rest afloat already, they should pay less tax. Therefore, all Conservatives should pay a flat rate of 5% of their income.

Vote Bloc: The Parti for Quebec, Bloc members don't really care about Canada so why should they pay to take care of it. Instead, they should pay a flat rate of 100% of their income to the Quebec provincial government to keep their greedy "nation" afloat.

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Want to Save the Planet: Stop Eating Say UK Profs.

British climate researchers are saying that the UK population must become more lean, like the people of Vietnam, to reach the government's 80% carbon reduction targets. Heavier people eat more. Agriculture is said to be a major carbon emitter. Also, heavier people use more fuel in their cars and on public transit than leaner people do. So apparently obesity also destroys the planet. They claim to meet this goal, Brits would have to cut their food consumption by 20%. UK based technology magazine The Register offers some interesting calculations to show how ludicrous the eating less plan actually is. The problem is that obesity is measured by body mass index (BMI), a division of height by weight. Vietnamese people by this measure are indeed less "fat" than British people are. However, they are also significantly shorter.

And we fat/heavy Brits eat more food than people do in Vietnam, that's true. But we aren't just fatter and heavier than Vietnamese people - we're taller too. Le Nguyen Bao Khanh of the Vietnamese School and Work Nutrition Department says that Vietnamese youngsters tend to stop growing early due to malnutrition, and "many are dwarfish". The Vietnamese government, indeed, are embarking on a national programme intended to raise the average male height to 5'5" from its current 5'4".

The Register concluded by saying...

Well, maybe. Us Brits emit almost ten tonnes per head a year, though. In order to meet the government's stated goals, much more serious efforts would be required: we'd have to halve the British population and shrink the average UK male to a height of 3'3" to achieve Mr Miliband's 80 per cent pledge, according to our calculations*. That's about the average height of a Hobbit, if we've recalled our Tolkien correctly.

The UK population needs to achieve 8 times the carbon savings suggested in the study to meet current government targets: thus they must lose 8 times as much weight, which would require vanishing altogether and then some. If numbers are cut by half, however, each person needs to lose only 80 per cent of their body volume. This equates to reducing all physical dimensions by 40 per cent, eg average UK men should become approximately 3'3".

Britain seems to be an endless source of harebrained schemes to reduce their carbon emissions to stop climate change, such as making monsters out of people who have more than two kids. The plans already imposed by the Blair/Brown government have pretty much destroyed the British economy. I've never seen such lunacy in my life. The UK is charting itself on a self-destructive course; and they said climate action wouldn't be detrimental to our society.

Source: The Register

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Not Our War

Many Canadians seem to be ignorant of why we are in Afghanistan. Most think it was primarily due to our partnership with the US. That is only half the truth since it has been forgotten that dozens of Canadians died during 9/11, thus it was not only an act of war on the United States but on our country as well. What is Canada's role when it comes to global conflicts? As with Afghanistan, this issue is mired in a lot of ignorance and half truths regarding our history. Should Canada take an active stance as the United States has done for the last fifty years, or should we take an isolationist stance as they did prior to World War 2? For many Canadians, the answer is simple; we're peace keepers. Arguably though Canada is an isolationist nation and I feel this is something that we must continue.

A growing trend within Canadian immigrant communities is a desire for Canada to get involved in the conflicts of their homelands. I bring up this because of Bob Rae's recent comments that Canada should get involved in the conflict in Sri Lanka between the government and Tamil Tigers. Large numbers of Tamil-Canadians have come out in support of the registered terror organization in the past month or so. It is unclear whether these people want military or diplomatic intervention. They clearly want the government to side with the Tigers. Despite appasing Tamils, I question whether there would be any political or strategic value of getting involved for Canada. First of all, I want to make something vary clear to all Canadians. If Canada did get involved as part of UN military intervention into the country, it would not be a peacekeeping mission. There is a huge difference between peacemaking, peace enforcement, and peacekeeping. Peacekeeping, which is what Canada is known for, only involves ensuring sustainable peace once a peace agreement has already been reached. That has not yet happened in Sri Lanka. This would be a peacemaking and enforcement mission that could possibly involve armed conflicts as neither side has been willing to talk at the bargaining table. So this leaves us with two questions. After Afghanistan, do we really want to risk putting our troops into another foreign war? Would it be the right thing to get involved in the first place? To the first question, Canadians have already answered that with a resounding NO. The second question is a little more complicated. To answer it, we have to look at history.

Perhaps the best example of a UN peacemaking mission gone wrong was the Korean War of the 1950s. A war which ended right back at the status quo ante bellum despite the thousands of lives lost. The tyranny of Kim Il Sung still lives on through his deranged son, while the people of North Korea starve and the people of the South are under the constant threat of war. Arguably things would have been worse had there been no involvement but most of the time things do not turn out so well. Consider the hugely unpopular Vietnam War where the United States stepped in to help protect an ally from the invading communist North. Vietnam ended by serving the Americans their first major military defeat combined with international embarrassment over the war's handling. Granada, Nicaragua, Iran, Cuba, Chile, Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, Somalia; a long list of recent conflicts in which the outcome was made worse by foreign powers poking their noses into conflicts that didn't involve them. It presents Western governments with a no-win situation. If you do not get involved, you risk alienating particular groups within your own society, or the war spreading to involve your own nationals. If you do get involved, you risk getting into an unwinnable conflict, a conflict that will come back to bite you in the future, or international scorn over the handling of the conflict or for simply getting involved in the first place. Of course there are exceptions to this but typically when a western country engages a non-western nation as a third party in a civil conflict, things inevitably get worse.

The Sri Lankan case is one of these internal conflicts not unlike the others listed above. The United Nations was originally created to resolve disputes among its member nations, not as a tool for resolving civil strife within the individual states. Internal conflicts, civil wars, tend to be far messier and more politically charged than international wars. For us to get involved in Sri Lanka would be akin to diving naked into a vat of molten lead. We put ourselves at enormous risks for getting involved, especially given that outsiders poorly understand the root causes behind the conflict combined with our natural human inclination to take sides. So far all we have heard is the loud, single voice of one side, those who side with the Tamil guerrillas. The Canadian government is already under enormous pressure from Tamils to support the Tigers despite them being internationally recognized as a terrorist organization. When we have a no-win situation like this, it is wisest to pick whichever choice is going to do the least amount of damage; with inaction always being a perfectly viable option. New immigrants to Canada need to get something strait. There should be a sign at all immigration offices that says "Welcome to Canada: Leave The Problems of Home at the Door". We cannot be going into your home land to solve the problems you created. It is not our country, they are not our people, it is not our war.

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Pirate Bay Ruling Shows Flaws With Modern Copyright Law

I never thought I'd be talking about Sweden on here but here we are. A court in the Scandinavian country has convicted Pirate Bay's co-founders and have found them guilty of accessory to breeching copyright laws. For those who don't know, Pirate Bay is like Google for torrents. A torrent is a peer-to-peer downloading service. Pirated music and movies are often provided through such services though torrents do have a large legitimate following within the open source software community as it is cheaper than conventional direct download distribution for large files. The Pirate Bay's founders have been sentenced to a year in prison each as well as hefty fines of $3.58 million US. This case exposes a lot of the problems with current global copyright law. Under Canadian and US law, copyright infringement is punishable with a five year prison sentence and stiff fines, up to $50,000 per instance I believe. This puts it as an indictable crime in line with serious offenses such as armed robbery. Many argue that copyright infringement is theft and should be treated as such. However, those convicted of petty theft rarely receive sentences of more than two years less a day, a summery conviction in line with minor drug possession. Most never receive prison terms, just probation and maybe house arrest. So what's the difference between shoplifting a DVD from a store and downloading it from the Internet? Why is the latter treated far more harshly by the justice system than the former? Also, how can Pirate Bay be held responsible? It is important to keep in mind that they were not the ones actually providing the copyrighted material. Pirate Bay is simply a search engine for torrents. They did not create the files and they were not offered for download from their servers. Are they encouraging people to download it? Most certainly yes, but I feel there is a huge legal grey zone here. They're only providing a means to an end. It would be as if I were to casually suggest to someone in a bar you can kill someone by putting a plastic bag over their head. If they actually go do it, am I guilty of murder as well? No reasonable jury would say so provided there was no proof that I was egging that person on. Google can easily be accused of doing the exact same thing, same with Microsoft or in fact any computer manufacturer or Internet service provider. Egging someone on is considered to be a crime, but does the punishment fit the crime?

I believe that Pirate Bay has simply become an entertainment industry pariah. It's not the first time they've done so. Copyright trials in the United States tend to resemble three ring circuses more than a court of law. Groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America have been known to uses spy tactics to obtain data. There have been several high profile cases in which these tactics have been used to falsely accuse people of copyright infringement. Most notoriously was the case of a deceased grandmother who never owned a computer. This sort of evidence gathering is technically illegal to begin with. The problem is that the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to private citizens. However, that sort of data is also technically not admissible in court either, something judges in the US are beginning to enforce. The Recording Industry alone has filed literally thousands of suits in the past five or so years, which have clogged the courts, something judges are growing increasingly intolerant of. Those who are convicted often face unreasonable sentences. Take a mother who was forced to pay up several hundred thousand dollars for allegedly downloading a handful of songs. Far more than what they would be worth at retail, even if you include people who downloaded the songs off her. (that's how P2P works) Groups such as the Electronics Frontier Foundation (a group that defends fair use rights in the US) have argued that this violates her Eighth Amendment rights to be free from excessive bail & fines and cruel & unusual punishment. The original conviction was overturned and a new trial has since been ordered.

The problem is that despite the fact that groups such as the RIAA engage in unscrupulous activities to gather evidence, they more often than not get their way. The entertainment industry has a huge lobby pushing governments to strengthen sentences for copyright infringement and reduce fair use rights. Originally appearing to want to soften copyright law and to add more fair use exceptions, Barack Obama has since decided that more needs to be done to strengthen copyright. Unsurprisingly his campaign for president received large donations from Hollywood. The way the law is set up now, anybody could be considered guilty of copyright infringement. Last month, Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore caused a stir when he admitted he likes to use his digital video recorder (DVR/PVR) to record his favourite shows and watch them at a later time. He also admits he likes to port these shows to watch on his iPod. Under Canadian law, recording TV shows using a DVR is illegal. This unintentional gaffe exposed the issues with last year's Bill C-61, which has since been dropped by the Harper government. C-61 would have brought Canada in lock step with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of the United States, passed by the Clinton administration in 1998. While the DMCA did clarify copyright law, it severely reduced consumer rights. Notably, it made it illegal to rip commercial DVDs and put something so common as ripping CDs to your iPod into a legal grey zone. I personally admit that I have ripped my favourite DVDs to store them on a personal media server. Doing this has a huge benefit in terms of convenience since I can have all my favourite films and TV shows accessible from my Playstation instantly on demand. No digging through discs, no risk of getting them scratched or dirty. I have purchased all these movies legally but in some jurisdictions, I have committed a crime just by transferring them to my server. If I travel to the US and save one of these movies on my laptop's hard drive to watch during the flight, US customs officials are allowed and encouraged to search and confiscate my computer. Imagine being told that the movie you copied is worth more than your $1400 laptop and all your work on it. I am not selling or giving away the film copies, I am using them only for my own personal use. However, I am still guilty of a crime punishable by five years in prison. If you copy a photo off the Internet to show a friend, that's illegal. If you copy text from a news article to put on your blog, even if you cite it, that's illegal. Not all of these are enforced but the law permits that they can be, and that they are all subject to harsh punishment. The entertainment industry has been pushing global governments to enforce every detail of copyright to the maximum letter of the law, and they have spent billions in lobbying for it. On the Moore issue, keep in mind that the entertainment industry once tried to have VCRs banned way back in the 1980s and audio cassette tapes a decade before that. They cited that these technologies would cause rampant copyright infringement, even though they never did. Both cases against these devices were thrown out of court. More recently though, the US government has allowed for the use of broadcast flags for over the air DTV signals which prevent certain programs from being recorded; the choice being left up to the content provider. The flags are not widely adopted and most current DVR systems ignore them. However, there was a controversy last year when Windows Vista users tried to record Medium and American Gladiators using the operating system's built in video recorder. The software is one of the few instances where the flags are supported and these people were prevented from recording their programs. This was the first time a large portion of the general public were introduced to the restrictions.

The problem with copyright law is not so much it trying to prevent actual piracy but rather that it has ultimately ended up treating ordinary people like common criminals. What we consider to be day to day activities when we use our media are crimes and can actually be punished with severe jail time. I argue that this violates basic legal and consumer rights of individuals in favour of the rights of large, powerful lobby groups. This is wrong. Dowloading a song off the internet does not justify jail time. A small fine and probabtion at most but these people do not deserve to have their lives ruined by powerful media cartels. It doesn't say much about our society when we value intellectual property or cartels more than say the physical property of the average Joe; or that we put drunk drivers and violent offenders away for less time than those who copy a few movies. Copyright law needs to be reformed to enhance consumer protection, not to limit it. The system we have now is broken, plain and simple.

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Noise Pollution

With all the talk about global warming and such, one form of pollution which can be just as harmful to one's health seems to get ignored. That is noise pollution. My current living situation went from a quiet neighbourhood to the equivalent of living next to the 401 in three year's time. I have found myself living in my guest bedroom just to be able to sleep at night, as it is on the opposite end of the house facing away from the road. Studies have shown that too much exposure to high levels of loud, unwanted noise over a long period can have serious long and short term health consequences. These range from elevated stress and irritability to high blood pressure and hearing loss. There has been a lot of debate on the subject and what frequently comes under attack are things such as leaf blowers, lawn mowers, and fuel powered radio controlled model cars and planes. However, what people forget is these objects are not run continuously. Your neighbour might run a leaf blower for a couple of days a year, for maybe one hour tops. The sort of 24/7 noise is rarely if ever dealt with in Canada. I've had a lot of time to consider the issue and have tracked down some common sources of this form of irritation.

The Backup Alarm
You know this one well if you've worked or live near a construction site. Beep, beep, beep. It goes for hours on end. These alarms are installed into commercial vehicles supposedly as a safety feature to let people know when you're backing up. Implemented by law, they were originally supposed to alert people from being run over. I have never heard of a single case of this happening though. The high pitched, constant beep serves more to irritate people than prevent them from being run over. People should try paying attention instead. I personally think these should be banned all together as they are a major source of noise pollution, especially if you live near new developments like I do. These do nothing to enhance safety.

The Engine Break
A feature on diesel engines, it uses engine compression to slow down the vehicle rather than using a traditional fiction break. They work especially well for large vehicles such as tractor trailers and dump trucks. However, they are considerably noises, especially on trucks that have poor exhaust mufflers. This is especially a problem in older vehicles. They make that burrr, bum bum bum, which is said to sound similar to a jackhammer but is 10-20 times louder. Laws against these are varied. Many municipalities forbid the use of them near residential areas though these laws are rarely if ever enforced. Truck drivers are a slimy bunch and often disregard these so called "insignificant" laws restricting where they can go. Tougher fines and better enforcement would nip this problem in the bud. The cops could make a mint.

The Motorcycle
My model aircraft are limited to 90dB at three meters. That's why I find it ironic that they hammer us so hard on noise limits but motorcycle engines are often significantly louder. Now, I can understand why motorcycle drivers have tuned their bikes to be loud, because not all of them are. Bikers want cars to be able to hear them coming since bikes are frequently overlooked by drivers. However, some are so loud that they go beyond reason. Stricter noise limits should be placed on bikes for them to be street legal.

The Thrush Muffler
The teenagers seem to love these. You put them on your exhaust and it's supposed to turn a 1990 Honda Civic hatchback into a 1969 Dodge Charger. Unlike what many stupid kids think, these don't improve the car's performance one bit. They also make it sound more like a bus or a tractor that a supercharged muscle car. The solution here is the same for motorcycles, stricter exhaust noise limits for cars.

The Sound Barrier, or Lack There Of
Many roads within municipalities have suddenly become main thoroughfares when they were not before. New houses also seem to be cropping up that are adjacent to main roads. The problem is that municipalities are refusing to build sound barriers to reduce the noise level for these people. In new developments, the developers usually put them up but for the older residents who suddenly find themselves living next to a main road are often crap out of luck. This has been my fight with the Town of Milton. Spend $74,000 for a sound barrier for me and my neighbours? Pass. Build a $1 million glass wall imported from UK for new City Hall? Heck yeah!

Poor Urban Planning
One of the biggest sources for noise pollution isn't the objects generating the sound but the fact that these objects are placed too close to residential areas. Take my mall issue for example that seeks to place a huge shopping plaza behind my house and widen the road to a main truck route.
More interest is being put into potential tax dollars rather than properly designed neighbourhoods that separate main industrial centres and busy commercial facilities from residential areas. Everything now is just a hodgepodge where anything can go anywhere without regards to noise or other forms of pollution generated.

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Galloway Funding Terror? Apparently So

Looks like the Government of Canada was justified of keeping British RSPECT MP George Galloway out of the country on grounds of funding terrorist activities. The UK Charity Commission has sent him a letter advising Galloway that they've lost patience with him and his organization. They're demanding he show up to provide answers regarding his charitable activities in Palestine or else be hauled before a high court judge. The accounts of Viva Palestina, Galloway's group that supposedly provided aid to Hamas civilians in the Gaza Strip during the 2008/2009 war, has been frozen. Naturally, Galloway blamed the Jews... again. He believes the accusations are part of a Zionist conspiracy against him and Britian's Muslim population. Is there anybody left on this planet that still doubts this man is a raving antisemitic lunatic? Galloway had previously admitted to giving $2 million to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as a political donation. In the United Kingdom, it is illegal to give funds of any sort to proscribed terrorist organizations. Canada has an identical law which is what prevented him from entering this country. It was never an issue of freedom of speech but about keeping someone out who had comitted, and admitted to, a criminal offense.

Source: The National Post, Terry Galvin

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Wasting Green on Green: The Tale of the $120 Rain Barrel

Now for something completely different. Canadian Tire is selling a 180L rain barrel for $120, on sale this week for a pittance of $100! It's being marketed as a "green" alternative that could save up to 40% on your summer water bill. (we all know that "up to 40%" usually means somewhere in the ball park of 0%-1%) This is the perfect example on wasting green on green. Rather than just picking on this company for charging an outrageous amount of money for something so simple, I've decided to take up the challenge and make something myself that's identical for half the cost.

The nuts and bolts of this expensive barrel seems to be what amounts to a plastic garbage can & spigot and something to connect it to a downspout. I don't need one as big as 180L so I decided to go with either a 121L (32 gal) or 77L (21gal) plastic garbage can, which can be obtained at Home Depot for $11 and $17 respectively. A metal spigot (essentially just an outdoor tap) costs about $10, probably less, and is more durable than the plastic one on the CT barrel. A screen to keep bugs out will cost maybe $2 at most, though I might already have that. I also already have silicone caulk to assemble it. My goal is to spend no more than $50 ($30 ideally) on the entire project to build a usable rain barrel. I might have to set up eves and a downspout for where I want to put it but I'm not factoring that into the cost of the project since the CT barrel assumes you already have that in place. Why am I doing this? No, I haven't gone to the green dark side. It's more of a proof of theory that the green industry is a huge scam. Of course I'll update my progress as I go along.

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An Unpublished Letter to the Champion on Urban Sprawl

It's been a while since I've written anything local but sometimes something just boils your backside so much that it just has to go to print. So let me give you a bit a background information. A developer is trying to build a huge mall behind my house that nobody wants or needs. Local residents, the hospital, housing developers, and local councillor Gary Carr have been strongly opposed to the mall. However, the town council has shown little to no interest in helping these people and the developer just ran off to the OMB when they failed to get the zoning changed. So myself and my neighbours have been trying to get a sound barrier put up since we back on to a major road. I have particular interest in this since the entrance to the mall (one of three!) is facing the back of our house, meaning we're going to get headlights shining in our back windows at night and 24/7 traffic noise. I was woken up at 6am this morning by the developers construction crew. I know some readers will think "aww, poor baby". I worked in construction for several years and by law, when working in residential areas, you cannot start earlier than 7am. We've tried to get the town and developer to put up the barrier for Bronte St residents. It would cost some $120,000 for the whole street from Derry Rd. to Vanier Dr. The developer has only put up $20,000, which is quite frankly an insult. The fence would cost us $6,000 to put up on our own property, which is a lot for us but a pittance for the developer. However, it looks like we're loosing this war.

Below is a letter on the subject that I submitted to the Milton Canadian Champion. They refused to publish the letter stating that it was "inaccurate". All the information it contains comes from meetings and official letters and our own discussions on the subject. It was 100% accurate, as everyone I showed it to agreed. To add salt to the wound, they actually published a notice in the paper saying that all letter submitters should ensure the information contained is accurate! That was a major slap in the face to myself and our cause. This leads me to believe that the Champion is in bed with the developers or is just incompetent. The last part is a guarantee, the first one likely but impossible to prove. I think this letter needs to be published so it's going to go up here, where I'm in control. On the plus side, this whole issue has given me a lot of new inductees for the Idiots Hall of Shame.

When plans to grow Milton were announced nearly a decade ago now, the Town Council stressed that they would try to keep the small town feel. Now that we can look at this plan with twenty-twenty hindsight, I can say this promise has been completely and utterly broken. Milton is walking down the same path Brampton did several decades earlier. It is a poorly planned jumble of development, snarling traffic, and increasing rates of crime. The common excuse is that this naturally comes with growth. In reality, this is the byproduct of the Town and the province turning over our humble little community to large developers who have no interest in preserving it as a small town. When it was on the other side of town, the development was easier to ignore. I guess the statement “not in my backyard” always holds true.
I have lived in Milton my entire life. My current house had a lovely view of the escarpment. Now there is a housing development there and half the view is gone, taking away much of the appeal of living in south Milton. So much for Dalton McGuinty's Green Belt; though his Places to Grow Act is what has been trumping it. The last straw for me is the proposed First Capital shopping centre development at the corner of Derry and Bronte. The plan seeks to cram a Milton Mall sized plaza on a plot of land half that size. Myself and my neighbours have been fighting this proposal tooth and nail. The land in question was originally zoned for light industry, which we were fine with as that only meant nine-to-five traffic. The plan for the proposed plaza calls for five large buildings, three entrances off Bronte, more traffic snarling lights, and more noise pollution. It has already gotten to the point where I am no longer able to use my backyard in the summer due to noise and the town refuses to erect a sound barrier. Originally the plaza was planned to be open 24-hours, which would lead to constant noise and light pollution, and possibly attract crime. After a meeting with the council, it was determined that nobody wanted this plaza, including the housing developers, and the town supported us. So naturally, First Capital took their fight to the OMB and the Town was forced to rezone the property. One cannot really blame the Town for this as the province has constitutional right to override the decisions of local councils. We have people unfamiliar with the community making decisions that affect us directly, without members of the community having any real input. The developer came back with “changes” to their proposal, which was now an “office development” that would include shopping. In reality, the plan has not changed at all since we originally voiced our concerns back in 2007. Indeed it was worse than the original as it included adding islands to Bronte and pushing the property buffers closer to the road. The Town's and First Capital's answer to our complaints? We'll plant some trees so you don't have to look at it. Lovely. We loose our escarpment view, our quality of life declines dramatically, but at least we will have some trees that do nothing to stop noise pollution, which is the primary issue. At the vary least they should be putting up an eight foot sound barrier along Bronte; at the developer's and the Town's expense, not ours. It's the only practical method for solving the pollution issue. Nothing is being done to adequately address our concerns.

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Idiots Hall of Shame: First Quarter 2009

Alright, I may or may not have stolen, err, borrowed the idea from Toronto radio host Bill Caroll. This is a list of people and organizations in politics who I think have done outright stupid things. The list is on the sidebar but after four months of it, it's starting to outgrow that format. However, I want to keep it stickied. So instead, I'm just going to keep them up for one three month quarter then archive them. The older ones will still be linked in the side bar but this should neaten things up a bit. January to March 2009 is below.

March Inductees
Mainstream Liberals -- For not being outraged by antisemitic comments by fellow liberals such as Syd Ryan and York University's student body

Warren Buffett -- For being a scared idiot and enduing needless panic in the markets.

CAW -- For thinking a wage freeze is a major concession.

David Dodge -- Ex-Bank of Canada Gov. More Buffett style phony fear mongering about the economy.

George Galloway -- British MP denied entry to Canada. An arrogant, corrupt, criminal, communist, antisemite. Need I say more.

Greg Gutfeld -- For insulting Canadian troops and being a general douche bag.

Dalton McGuinty -- Ontario Premier. Too many reasons to list here.

February Inductees
Barack Obama -- For nearly starting a trade war less than two weeks into his term.

York U TAs -- for being greedy, violent, and robbing students of an education

Ontario Municipalities -- for spending other people's money like water with no accountability

CRTC -- For thinking it can regulate the Internet

North American Druggies -- For destroying Mexico

NASA -- could have fed 4 billion people with money it wasted on CO2 hunting satellite

January Inductees
Howard Hampton -- For abandoning University Students, one of his biggest constituencies.

Erik Millet -- NB School Principal for banning Oh Canada

Google -- For not fixing Blogger's italics/bold problem

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Wasting Green on Green: Green Charity Scams

World Wildlife Fund is gearing up to do it's annual CN Tower Stair Climb later this month. This event used to be in support of the United Way but that changed somewhere in the last couple of years. The WWF stair climb is to fight global warming while the United Way fights poverty and homelessness in the city. Neither are big concerns to me but I find the latter to be a far more noble cause than the former. This has got me thinking about the recent surge in the number of "green" charities. The WWF has led this bandwagon. Greenpeace is now said to rake in over a billion dollars in donations. What is this money being spent on? Well, they certainly aren't doing what you'd think a legitimate charity would do. It's not going to help people who need it. It goes to a lot of pipe dream pet projects that the group's members think will stop climate change. People in Africa need AIDS vaccines and access to clean water, not solar panels. I think it's shameful for someone to give to a green charity rather than spending it on legitimate humanitarian aid projects. If you want to donate money, I suggest giving it to people such as the Red Cross or medical charities. I'm personally a supporter of Heart & Stroke Canada and The Diabetes Association of Canada, and I gave to the Red Cross during the Katrina disaster. Rather than donating your money to the stair climb for global warming, please instead donate it to the disaster victims in the recent Italian Earthquake Disaster and Manitoba Floods. You'll be putting a smile on someone's face right when they need it the most.

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CAW Signing It's Own Pension Death Warrant

Is Ontario legally, or for that matter morally obligated to ensure GM retirees are guaranteed a pension? CAW president Ken Lewenza thinks so, once again proving my theory that big unions are currently living on another planet. I got to thinking about my own parents who have recently retired. They're small business owners. Aside from the money invested in their business and in the stock market, they have no other money coming in. Since they are both under 65, they cannot even collect the pittance that is the CPP. They, like most other retirees, saw their savings plummet when the market crashed back in October. So through no fault of their own, they have less and less to retire on. There is no government safety net for them. To rub salt in the wounds, the CAW is now asking, no, demanding that Ontario tax payers pay for their pension fund should GM and Chrysler go under. The fund was never intended to support the massive number people should a large company like these two auto giants go under. There is only $100 million in the fund while GM is in the hole for $6 billion.

The threads are starting to unravel on this saga with each new story that comes out. There is a clear and present culture of entitlement within the North American automotive industry; stretching from the boardroom right down to those on the assembly line. Every single person employed by GM and Chrysler is equally at fault for the financial mess that the two companies are in. I know Lewenza is trying to protect his union members but to make such a crass statement that Ontario is morally obligated to shovel over tax payer dollars to their pensioners is just outrageous. It was the CAW that demanded, nay, forced the cradle to grave care that pushed pension costs through the roof in the first place. Of course GM executives are equally at fault for not reining in the union and not putting enough aside to pay for the expenses. However, the fact that Lewenza thinks that these pensioners are loosing through "no fault of their own" just shows how arrogant he is. So many other pensioners are being forced to go without yet the government only has a moral obligation to help the members of this one union; and they honestly expect the rest of us to pay for them? Socialism only when socialism is convenient for our group; that's the mantra of big unions. It is getting really difficult to feel sorry for autoworkers who are loosing their jobs when stuff like this comes out. They seem to think that they can keep operating at the status quo regardless of outside market forces and the stupid things they do. It's never their fault in their minds. It's GM's fault, it's Ontario's fault, it's the fault of consumers for not buying GM vehicles. No, never the CAW's. This is precisely why the government should not bail out the auto industry. Like I said in past articles, when you keep handing these idiots money whenever they screw up, it only serves to continue the culture of entitlement and arrogance that got them into trouble in the first place. Of course Dalton McGuinty will fold like a deck chair though. So far, no politician in this country has had the balls to take on big unionism, save Mike Harris. The auto industry needs to be allowed to fail if only to purge the idiocy that currently rules it.

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How Tough Times Breed Radicalism

Many people are perplexed as to how someone like Adolf Hitler could rise to power and commit so many atrocities virtually unchecked during his rule over Germany from 1933 to 1945. Hitler was an evil man most certainly but he was not the cause of Germany's problems, he was a symptom. The social and governmental problems that eventually culminated in the Second World War and the Holocaust had been festering for years; from the time when young Adolf was still doing paintings for spare change on the streets of Vienna. Sudden and catastrophic economic collapse opened the door for the relatively obscure political to take the German nation by the horns and drag it into its pit of destruction. The risk for democracies becomes apparent when all other mainstream sources have been exhausted, as happened when the country experienced its own devastating recessions through Hyper Inflation in the 1920s and later the Great Depression of the 30s. Hitler did what he had promised. He pulled Germany out of the depression before any other nation, but the consequences were dire. It's important to note though that Germany was still a relatively young and inexperienced democracy in 1933 and that Hitler's NSDAP never received a majority in the Reichstag. He was handed power by the country's incompetent president.
There are more recent examples though that should serve as a warning. Take Venezuela into consideration. It is a relatively old and stable democracy. It was one of only two nations within Latin America that never underwent a period of dictatorship, military or otherwise, during the turbulent second half of the 20th century. (The other being Costa Rica) Then in 1992, a radical young military officer named Hugo Chavez Frias attempted to launch a coup against the democratic government. The coup failed but Chavez was legitimately elected president of Venezuela in 1998. The switch to his radical Fifth Republic movement had been brought on by failures of the Liberal and Conservative parties in regards to stopping corruption and alleviating the countries long festering poverty and other social issues. Since his term in office, Chavez has steadily removed democratic freedoms including stifling opposition press such as RCTV and reforming the constitution to allow him to run indefinitely. As the continuing recession plummeted oil prices, he began to curb private property rights after loosing funding from the country's only viable export. Chavez is not a dictator, not yet anyway, but one cannot help make parallels between him and other radicals such as Hitler.

Most first world countries have managed to escape the scourges of home grown fascism and radical socialism during tough economic times. However, to think that Canada and the United States are immune to it is foolish. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to power, he had a set plan for fixing the economy. He was charismatic and gave people hope. Barack Obama ran his campaign on similar themes but lacked that set plan that was FDR's New Deal. It has become painfully obvious that Obama does not know what to do and has spent more time on other issues. In Canada, Steven Harper's Conservatives are following pretty much the same path, waiting for the US to react before making any decisions. The United States had said a resounding no to the Republicans' plans and the Liberals within Canada also lack anything concrete. With voter turnouts reaching historical lows in Canada, there is a serious risk of a crisis of legitimacy among the major parties. When people believe the mainstream parties are not acting to help them, they will seek out alternative means to vent their frustrations. This is evident with the strong support British RESPECT MP George Galloway has received. He is a raving antisemite and communist but people line up to hear him speak. For these kinds of people, the chances have never been better to gobble up seats within the House of Commons. Britons are hugely dissatisfied with Brown's Labour government and don't seem too keen on the Conservatives either. Britain has been on the decline for some time now. London is currently holding the G20 summit and the usual communist/anarchist groups have appeared to protest. However, police and officials have admitted they're surprised by the how violent the crowd is this time and sheer number of people who have showed up.
You will also see the increasing popularity of nationalist and fundamentalist movements. Radical Islam has been growing at a steady rate and a weakening America, in their eyes, confirms their belief that the "empire" has been destined by Allah to collapse. B'nai Brith is claiming that they have also seen a rise in antisemitism since the start of the recession. The hey day of the second Ku Klux Klan was during the depression of the 1930s. Although Islamic-supremacy movements have largely replaced white supremacists as the dominant racist organizations, skin head movements, particularly in Alberta, also seem to be making a comeback. These groups obtained notoriety in the 1980s during another particularly bad recession. Last month, they were involved in violent clashes with anti-racist groups and were sespected in the senseless random beating of a Japanese woman in Calgary. For many if not most, it's easier to point fingers than attempt to tackle the issues, or admit fault for your own problems.

A great man, Benjamin Franklin, once said that those who trade essential liberty for a little security deserve neither liberty nor security. I'm not going to make some prophetic predictions regarding all this. In all likelihood, this recession will not collapse our world order and will not send us into World War Three, or put us under the thumb of dictatorship. However, it is possible and it is a risk that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. There already is a growing threat from radical fringe groups who have been waiting for an event like this to present their cases as being viable alternatives. Democratic governments and mainstream politicians need to act now to regain the confidence of their people, or else this nightmare scenario could indeed become reality.

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