daviditron

Blog moved to Wordpress

2010-09-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

After much frustration over Blogger I've moved this entire blog over to Wordpress.

My new blog can be found at

http://daviditron.wordpress.com

Northover Traverse with Mike

2010-09-14T21:23:00.000-07:00

Mike has an excellent account of our trip to Northover at his blog here

Pictured above in the clouds is Northover, part of the continental divide east of Kananaskis Lake. It was one of two objectives for what I hope has become an annual trip with Mike.

Day One

Picked Mike up in Calgary and got dropped off at the end of the highway. After organizing our packs a bit we were off circumscribing the north shore of Upper Kananaskis lake. I was determined to pack as light as possible as our route involved going up a substantial headwall. For this reason I had only the clothes on my back plus rain gear in addition to a very lightweight sleeping bag and tent. This weight plus stove, food, water, first aid, etc still makes for a pretty substantial load. This obsessing over weight came to get me later!

After several kms through trees, we gradually gained elevation and made progress up the valley till the headwall came into view. I love it when from a distance, you can't tell how to get up something! As imposing as it was, when we were right in it, a weakness in the cliff appeared and we had no difficulty other than hauling a big pack up a steep trail. Off and on rain harassed us in that in between amount where putting a raincoat on is not much better than leaving it off owing to the sweat generated. I chose to leave my gear on as we were gaining elevation late in the day so getting wet and cold was worse than wet and warm.

By supper we gained our destination, Three Isle Lake. Upon getting the tent out, the rain opened up with pelting hail. I managed to not have my rain gear on when it hit so I scrambled to get rain pants and coat on while trying to get our tent up in the hail. We had it set up when we realized that the water was rising quite fast around the tent. "Should we move it?" we asked ourselves? After much pondering in the hail, we chose to move it several feet over.

We cooked our food next to a small grove of scrubby trees. It was the best shelter we could find which was more psychological than physical as it was still quite wet. While waiting for the water to boil I realized just how wet and cold I'd got. We ate our slop as it got darker out as I pondered how cold I was going to get tonight.

We ate and got into the tent and I was very aware how much I was shivering. I began a horrible process of accessing whether the night was going to be extremely miserable or dangerous. And if it was dangerous, what actions could be taken? We were a long, long way from nowhere. I stewed these thoughts over for an hour as I periodically blast heated myself with the stove. I could tell Mike was not keen to have the stove on in such a small tent. To tell the truth I only had it on out of desperation but quickly turned it off. After much thought, I ended up deciding that I was not hypothermic.

I don't know how much sleep I got but perhaps 2 hours spread out over the next ten hours. Many times over the course of that night I pictured myself at home weighing my pack and throwing out unnecessary items like extra long underwear and my heavier warmer sleeping bag! At least I was too cold to feel disappointment that the clouds were going to obscure the Perseid meteor shower we had both been looking forward to.

Day Two

Mike awoke feeling much better than me having brought extra dry clothes. I can't describe how energizing it was when while still balled up in the h.e.l.p position, a bowl of warm coffee and oatmeal was passed into the tent! My pants were colder and wetter owing to the moist air so I donned my Heli-Hanson rain pants over my bare legs and ventured out into the fog and drizzle.

We decided to go for an exploration up Mt Worthington and get our blood moving. The flowers really were tremendous as we bushwacked our way up the valley. With no trail, we stopped frequently to confer on the best route up the hanging valley to the Worthington Col.

above: Mike at the Worthington Col.

I ventured up the summit ridge by myself for a while while Mike stayed at the col. I was making good progress feeling invigorated from my newfound body heat generated from climbing. But the snow was falling quite steadily and the fog started to envelope everything. When the fog became so thick that I couldn't see more than a couple feet in front of me, I became very concerned and turned around instantly. I even had to stop briefly as I couldn't see where to go at all. Very uncomfortable feeling being pinned by fog. Strangely I've been stopped like this in winter while on skis but it never feels scary like this did.

The fog broke and I met Mike at the col and we made our way back down to our base camp making attempts to photograph some flowers as we went. My hands were so cold I had to get Mike to open my granola bar wrapper for me! We got back to camp and made supper in the drizzle and then the sun started to shine through the clouds. It didn't stop raining though so we looked rather foolish facing the sun with raincoats off holding wet things out as the rain gently fell on us. At long last though, at sunset the rain stopped and we dried ourselves out.

above: Mike on the scary part of the summit ridge. The ridge is just inches wide.

above: Dave is a tiny black dot on Northover with the massive Royal Group behind

Day 3

Woke feeling good so we ate, broke camp and set out for Northover. Great weather and great terrain. We gained the top around noonish and soaked in the truly amazing views. From the 360 degree vantage, the view is more spectacular than the mind can take in. The precarious ledge overpowers you with a sense of space. It reminds me of the Total Perspective Vortex from Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. When selecting a trip for Mike's visit, I need to find something that is the right level of challenge. When he told me that the summit ridge was quite scary, I felt relief! On our way down we found all sorts of fun rock formations to scramble down. A difficult place to leave as we spied many other good objectives from here.

Back at camp we shouldered our big packs we had left here and started back. Returning home from a trip is always slightly somber. The mind processes the accomplishments and the legs begin to fatigue. The goal is finished and the next thing has yet to form in your mind other than getting home. Warmth, food, comfort all take on increased value from the everyday.

We arrived at evening back at the highway and put on one last pot of coffee on the cook stove as we watched the sun set on the Opal range. Suzanne arrived at 8:30 just as we finished the last of the coffee -perfect timing.

Another great trip!

To see on GOOGLE EARTH our route, follow the link to my SPOT page in my links section and click on Northover.

Mankind: a success story.

2010-09-11T22:18:00.001-07:00

I thought a separate post on this would end a lengthy exchange in the comment section of an earlier post. The media and others are trying to convince me that I have much to fear over an increase in temperature. Lets see what the facts say.

As you can see, fewer people in the post 80's (assumed) warming period are dying of weather related events. Even if one assumes that the earth's temperature has risen .6 degrees, the mortality statistics clearly show a decreasing relevance of weather on mortality. The scare stories will not pan out because history shows us they didn't pan out in the last generation. As a species, we adapted to our environment through a higher standard of living. Our newfound ability to insulate ourselves from nature's wrath is truly remarkable! But wait, hasn't extreme weather deaths gone from .03 deaths per million to .82 deaths per million? True, but lets see how that compares to other death causes. In the following table you'll find it at the bottom.

When placed in context of actual problems, the scare stories fade into obscurity as the following mortality table indicates. Just a cursory look reveals some interesting imbalances in the attention they receive from the media. More people died in car accidents than extreme weather events by a factor of 40. Perhaps you are thinking "Oh but in the future when temperatures rise even more, then you'll see the effects!" As I showed, the world has become more immune to temperature swings not less.

Back from the Bush part nth...

2010-09-08T14:14:00.001-07:00

Another summer contract came and went this year. Very early on, I dropped my camera in a river and so I only have a few pictures.

above: me in the Crowsnest Pass Area.

The Weather

Weather dominates life outside and this year was no exception. Snowstorms fell on May 21, which isn't that unusual. But the snowstorms on June 10th to June 17th were fairly exceptional! Much of June was spent between Kananaskis and the Crowsnest pass area of the Rockies where record rainfall flooded rivers and made access very challenging. Our planters had to wade across waist deep rivers before climbing up to many cutblocks. On one particular morning I had to convince the other foremen that it was actually unsafe to send the crew to work. It was the

first time we ever called a day off for weather. Weather has grounded the helicopter and washed out roads causing unexpected days off, but it was the first time I can remember not even going out. But 1 degree above zero in a rainstorm with 50km/hr winds was a situation that I thought would lead to disaster. Having dealt with a hypothermic worker in the past, I really didn't want 40 cases! The day before I completely burned off my eyelashes by getting too close to an emergency warm-up fire I built under a tarp to warm up some people before they made the long trek back to the road. Even in July we had below zero temps that froze the water hoses in our camp kitchen.

Odd Things

I was hauling a large trailer down the highway moving ATVs from Slave Lake to Kananaskis when suddenly one of the trailer tires fell off! After getting control of my truck and trailer and getting safely to the side of the road, I looked to my left to discover a sign in front of a farm road. Highway44 Trailer Sales and Service! They helped me rebuild the bearing and hub (which were badly damaged) and sold me a tire and lifted my rig up with a tractor while I replaced everything! They charged me a pittance and I was on my way. I arrived at our Kananaskis camp at 4:30 am and the ATVs were used to get trees into the new blocks and we didn't lose a day of planting!

above: fixing my trailer while Rose-Mary runs the tractor with surgical precision.

I've seen plenty of odd weather related events and this year was no exception but I really regretted not having my camera during a circular rainbow that lingered for almost fifteen minutes. I pulled this picture off the net but it was pretty similar.

Another odd event involved a jet ranger helicopter we were using to fly the crew. I was

auditing a cutblock I had got into by ATV. The

pilot was flying over me when a warning light came on so he made a landing beside me. Upon discovering that the usual tools with the helicopter were missing, we managed to troubleshoot the engine with the very basic ATV tools I had. He managed to get airborne and made a sketchy flight back to Slave Lake sending another helicopter back out to pull the crew.

Wildlife

There's always a few amazing wildlife encounters among the hundreds of encounters during the summer. This summer I had a close look at a white grizzly bear. It walked right past me with caution but not fear. I flanked it for a little while making noise as I didn't want it to walk into the next block which had our crew working in it. Very stunning creature and quite rare. I really regretted losing my camera the week before! All together I saw a dozen different Grizzlies this summer which seems like quite a few. I was chatting with someone in town about seeing so many grizzlies, they asked how I knew they were different bears? I said they all looked as

different as you and I but I don't think they believed me!

A baby moose charged me while I was waiting to get picked up by the helicopter. I saw it running towards me and when I realized it wasn't go to stop, I scrambled up a pile of fallen trees. It looked at me for a split second then turned around and ran away. Weird.

I had amusing encounter one day waiting for the helicopter. I had to wait a while for a lift as the chopper was busy for at least 40 minutes so I lay down and draped my raincoat over me to be able to nap without getting eaten alive by bugs. I sort of drifted off for a while but awoke to the sound of footsteps beside me. Usually in the bush, if you can hear it, it's not scary. The scary things don't make any noise at all! But as I listened to these footsteps getting closer there was then a loud crash of a tree being pushed over. I thought very quickly that whatever it was, it was big and I should get up! In the second I jumped up and pulled off my raincoat, a black blur wheeled up. A moose was right over me and was doing a 360 turn to escape as I was doing the same! We both ran with equal heartbeats!

Of the many birds I see in the summer, there were two species that I don't often see. One pictured here is the mountain bluebird. The blue has to be seen to be believed. I also saw a scarlet tanager up north which was pretty odd.

The other surprise this summer worth noting was my thoughts on northern Alberta. I was working in the Crowsnest Pass area which I love as it's mountainous and bug free. Due to problems with the nursery, we had to take early delivery of trees up north. This meant starting a couple crews back in northern Alberta so I had to leave this bug free paradise and go back up north in the bugs and swamp to supervise. I really was very disappointed I had to leave.

The first day back I was bashing through understory up to my neck with ten million bugs trying to eat me. My head totally covered but for two eye holes to protect myself from the savage bugs. The humid air choking me, beating me down. But as I breathed in, I realized how good the air smelled. In the mountains, the air is so fresh because the environment is so harsh for life. In the mountains, the air is clean but kind of sterile. Up north in the swamps, life is teeming and you can smell it; flowers, shrubs, berries, trees, grasses, and decay. As the sweat dripped down my back and my foot plunged into some swampy ooze, a smile was hidden beneath my bug-proof face mask. I realized that for how much this place hates me, I've spent so much time in it, it feels like home. Even against my better judgement!

Oilsands

2010-08-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

I can barely keep this blog up it seems but better late than never I guess! This spring I got the opportunity to work for Terra Erosion Control up in Syncrude's oil sands operations. After listening to so many talking heads discuss the pros and cons of the oil sands, it was pretty cool to not just see the whole place, but to be part of the operations. As usual with the work I tend to do, it's satisfying to be part of the "mending" end of things.

The project I was working on involved stabilizing reclaimed oil sand and preparing it for vegetation colonization. My job was to drive a quad and trailer through the bush selecting and cutting suckering species. I harvested these while still in winter hibernation, and bundled them together with all branches cut off. These bundles can then be placed horizontally throughout the tailings. This prevents runoff gullying, allowing vegetation to take root. When the bundles warm up, they will sucker out from the old branches, root, and form a living wall like a hedge.

The team I worked with was an interesting lot. One guy was a Sherpa from Nepal who worked as a high level porter for 6 years. Another guy was a whitewater raft guide in the summer. Another was a former Canadian Telemark Skiing champion, another was a sculptor from the Kootneys, another guy runs a music festival every summer. Good people always makes a job interesting. Good weather helps too, in the month I was there only a week of -20. Quading in -20 makes for some bad wind chills so I was glad that most of the month hovered around zero.

The scale of the oil sands is pretty impressive. It feels very much as though you are taking part in some sci-fi planetary terraforming. I had to undertake two days of certification to just be allowed site access. The trucks are incredible, the scale of the processing is massive and the active mine areas are huge. The security is pretty amazing as well with checkpoints and special id scans frequent. But quite apart from how spectacular it all is, it was great to see the reclaimed land. I poked around some of it and found it hard to tell the difference between it and the original land. I encountered deer, rabbits, mice and a mink in the reclaim which is a pretty good sign.

I found the oil workers up there unlike the rig-pig stereotype I was half expecting. Perhaps it's all the time I've spent in Slave Lake working on the periphery of the oil patch. There's plenty of rough and tumble up there, and plenty of people I have nothing in common with, but the city is no different. Up there at least everyone shares a few things in common. Everyone respects hard work and results.

All in all, a great experience that I hope paid the way for more contracts in the future.

day 30

5 am half asleep leaving my hotel in Ft Mac

Soil Harvest

2010-05-16T18:10:00.000-07:00

In Canmore, owing to the bears, it is verboten to have outdoor composters. So our indoor vermiculture worms have been busy converting our vegetable waste into topsoil. I wasn't big on the idea at first as there is an occasional odor from the worm box. You might say they bring odor out of chaos. But after our first big harvest of soil, I'm definitely a convert. I no longer need to buy topsoil which I badly needed for my indoor plant pursuits.

These piles are just the worm castings. What was once table scraps is now very productive (and odorless) topsoil. We even had enough to share with some gardening friends from Calgary.

After scooping into piles, the worms scurry to the bottom of each pile where they can be easily collected and returned to their box.

As I'm off to the woods this weekend for a few months, I'll have to wait till I return to put the soil to use but I'm anxious to see how productive it is.

Snowstorms kill hundreds of cattle

2010-05-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

from the Calgary Herald today

May 12 2010

Ranchers in southern Alberta's Cardston County are in emergency mode after a barrage of spring snowstorms killed hundreds of cattle.

Losses are mounting as melting snow reveals calves that succumbed to the winter-like weather of the past couple of weeks, said Reeve Cam Francis.

The county declared itself a "disaster area" earlier this week, Francis said, noting that some ranchers lost more than 100 calves

I realize that weather anomalies happen all the time. But we are told all the time that we must act now to stop global warming yet you would think that if cold weather in the middle of May is killing cattle, perhaps the rush isn't so great. I realize that AGW theories never precluded having cold weather, but it seems we are being told of catastrophic warmth when the only real catastrophes seem to be cold. There's something Orwellian about that no mater how anecdotal this story is.

Housing, Wages, Illusions.

2010-05-10T21:31:00.000-07:00

When I first started to unlearn the Keyensian nonsense I learned in the economics classes I took in University, I found the concept of malinvestment strange. For example, Austrians warn that when interest rates are too low, money flows to malinvestments. I thought this didn't mater in the larger sense because the money "flowed and multiplied through the economy" regardless. After a few simple thought experiments from good authors such as Henry Hazlitt, I now understand the implications.
To see recent malinvestment on a grand scale one only needs to look at the US housing market. Low interest rates for a decade caused a speculative housing boom. Currently there are 20 million empty units in the US! Thats enough vacancy to house Canada! That is the face of malinvestment! It's true that people produced those houses and got paid for their work but now, that capital is just locked up, unavailable and useless. It should be obvious that with that kind of surplus, housing prices must go down. Unfortunately, the government is trying to not let this happen by giving huge tax incentives and reduced interest rates to buy houses. This keeps prices artificially high. It's like a boat filling with water and the government is paying people to get more water in the boat! Given that the vacancy rate is still increasing, that several million houses will be foreclosed on this year, and Fannie will be closing the trough of free money, house prices can be assured to plummet. Anyone who used to build houses will have to find employment doing something else.

The jobs picture in the US is quite funny also. It was reported that some 200,000 jobs were recently created but unemployment rose to 9.9 percent from 9.7 percent. This number bears so little resemblance to actual unemployment it's hard to fathom why it is ever mentioned at all. It's as though temperatures were reported always half their true value! The real number is closer to 22 percent if you bother to include people who don't have a job. For economic stats without the statist political spin see shadowstats. It was started by a finance guy who needed real data for pricing models he built for corporations.

It's ironic that during the recession, minimum wage has risen nearly 40% over the last 3 years. So at a time when wage adjustment is absolutely necessary for economic recovery, the lowest wages are being artificially pushed in the opposite direction. It's difficult to find ways for Main Street to lower prices when wages are rising! Most people who work minimum wage are the young, usually in their first job. It should not surprise anyone then that this is the group with the highest unemployment currently. Disincentives to introductory-type jobs would seem under the circumstances to be exactly the opposite of what is needed.

Government mandates low interest rates and fuels bubbles and then place every obstacle to possible recovery in the way of the economic engine. Then it tries to convince people they are fixing the economy. Terrible.

It occurred to me this week how gullible most stock traders seem to be these days. Today it was announced that the Eurozone had put together nearly a trillion dollars to stabilize the Euro. Of this, 570 billion "comes from" the member nations, 75 billion from the European Central Bank and 300 billion from the IMF. Translation: a trillion dollars got made up.
This is a Ponzi scheme in it's simplest form. Borrowed money must come from savings which are derived from production. Without this saved production, one is forced to print more money if one wishes to spend it. Thats exactly where this money comes from. One fiat currency bails out another. Eventually the music stops and everyone scrambles for a chair. If I were American, I would be in disbelief that my own country, which is totally insolvent, is in any position to prop up a currency with no value. And yet, this news was enough to rally markets? I'm not sure how much of Canadian tax money ended up in this package, but if it's anything, it's too much.

Hexette of Notions part ii

2010-05-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

Some observations lately:

Will Greece, Spain and Portugal prove to the world that "Austrian economics" explains economic crashes and that Keynesian policies causes them? Greece, rather than merely levy taxes on its citizens, issued bonds which are bought by European banks and then used as collateral to secure loans at the EU central bank. In this way, Greece gets to distribute currency dilution throughout Europe. It also gets to live beyond its means. No one seems to notice that the same mechanics are working within the US. Curiously, measures to control such practices were in place but ignored. All member countries agreed on deficit to GDP restrictions but these were then summarily ignored by everyone. Sadly, these problems can be soon expected with other fiat currencies controlled by clueless Keynesian central banks. I suspect this will be blamed on someone's "greed" and then Keynesianism can go on it's merry way destroying capital and currency. In the short term, the US dollar gets a lift as capital flies out of Europe. It's hard to know how much Euro panic is already priced in, but I would expect gold to do well this year as markets lose this year's gains.

I heard on the radio the other day someone lamenting that if we leave Afghanistan before "the job is done" our soldiers will have died for nothing. I wondered why giving Canadians a meaningful death was one of our mission parameters. Talk about mission creep!

SEC is investigating Goldman Sachs. Seems like early campaign hi jinx. If you bought a car without looking at it and then complained that it was a dud, you wouldn't get much sympathy let alone a court date. The fact that the seller was going to sell it to the scrapyard hardly relieves you of due diligence. As always, if you don't see that the market is a series of voluntary actions, you are doomed to never understand anything.

Arizona passes new law that formalizes how every poor Latino living near the border already gets treated. I'm not a fan of armed men demanding to see my identification, but outrage seems late to the party. Only a few citizens actually enjoyed the rights that are now being trampled. Frankly, I can don't see much difference in the erosion of liberty after this bill.

Glad to see the Canadian government resisting the urge to appear to be doing something lately. Flaherty seems deaf to the cries of the populist bank regulation cries. As unbelievable as it may seem, there have been calls to tax banking products to create a future bailout fund. It's hard for me to put into words how backwards a plan like this is. Many people research MP3 players more thoroughly than their banks and certainly more than their RRSPs. Why the apathy? Because their money is safe because the government insures it. What incentive is there to pull your money from your bank because they have risky practices? The availability of bailout money eventually makes it necessary to bailout a bank! It's kind of a moot point anyway since interest rates are so low that saving is non existent. Since there is no incentive to save, savings are replaced by speculations like the stock market and real estate. Which get over inflated and adjust sharply causing huge losses and the cycle goes on and on. Unfortunately, suppressed interest rates are popular with voters and thus we have institutionalized economic instability.

"Hide the Decline" climate alarmist Mann is being investigated by the Virginia attorney general. Since Mann's work was paid for by the state, the AG is looking at whether any of his actions violate those contracts. It should be an interesting test case that will at least shine a light on the level of professionalism applied to tax payer money. The Va University investigation was a joke, as was the UK parliament inquiry on the climategate emails. Unlike the other investigations to date, this investigation promises to have some testimony by experts with opinions different from the accused.

Climategate goes before Parliamentary Inquiry

2010-03-01T22:39:00.000-08:00

Royal Society of Chemistry backs sharing of data in contrast to Jones “standard practice” statement

1 03 2010

While Dr. Phil Jones prattles on about withholding code and data being “standard practice” The Royal Society of Chemistry has made a statement to the Parliamentary inquiry saying they as an organization support open data sharing. They now join the Institute of Physics in making a strong statement on the practices of UEA/CRU.

They write:

“…the benefits of scientific data being made available and thus open to scrutiny outweigh the perceived risks. To this end, scientific information should be made available on request as outlined in the Freedom of Information Act.”

Dr. Jones position of “standard practice” isn’t looking good. Not good at all.

Here’s the statement published on the UK parliament website:

Memorandum submitted by the Royal Society of Chemistry (CRU 42)

Source: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc4202.htm

Summary

· It is essential that the public and all non-specialists remain truly confident in the scientific method to provide a sound scientific evidence-base on which strong decisions can be made. Correspondingly, it is in the interest of scientists and the public that society as a whole has an understanding and an appreciation of science.

· Access to reliable, up-to-date information is vital to advancing research and enabling the discovery or development of solutions to global issues. Sharing information is especially important in multi-disciplinary research, where progress is very much dependent on willing and effective communication between different speciality areas.

· The RSC firmly believes that the benefits of scientific data being made available and thus open to scrutiny outweigh the perceived risks. To this end, scientific information should be made available on request as outlined in the Freedom of Information Act.

Submission

1. The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) welcomes the opportunity to submit formal written evidence to the consultation on the disclosure of climate change data from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia.

2. The RSC is the UK Professional Body for chemical scientists and an international Learned Society for advancing the chemical sciences. Supported by a network of over 46,000 members worldwide and an internationally acclaimed publishing business, our activities span education and training, conferences and science policy, and the promotion of the chemical sciences to the public.

3. The document has been written from the perspective of the Royal Society of Chemistry. It is noteworthy that the University of East Anglia is a member of the RSC Partnership Scheme, however this in no way constitutes a conflict of interest. The RSC’s Royal Charter obliges it “to serve the public interest” by acting in an independent advisory capacity, and we would therefore be very happy for this submission to be put into the public domain.

· What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?

4. The apparent resistance of researchers from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) to disclose research data has been widely portrayed as an indication of a lack of integrity in scientific research. The true nature of science dictates that research is transparent and robust enough to survive scrutiny. A lack of willingness to disseminate scientific information may infer that the scientific results or methods used are not robust enough to face scrutiny, even if this conjecture is not well-founded. This has far-reaching consequences for the reputation of science as a whole, with the ability to undermine the public’s confidence in science.

5. It is essential that the public and all non-specialists remain truly confident in the scientific method to provide a sound scientific evidence-base on which strong decisions can be made. Correspondingly, it is in the interest of scientists and the public that society as a whole has an understanding and an appreciation of science. The RSC strongly supports the dissemination of chemical knowledge to foster and encourage the growth and application of the chemical sciences, as stated in its Royal Charter. This includes the dissemination of scientific knowledge as a means to advance public understanding and the learning of science.

6. The dissemination of scientific information is central to progressing scientific developments, as it is based on a sound knowledge of preceding research.[1] Access to reliable, up-to-date information is vital to advancing research and enabling the discovery or development of solutions to global issues. Sharing information is especially important in multi-disciplinary research, where progress is very much dependent on willing and effective communication between different speciality areas.

7. It is also imperative that scientific information is made available to the wider community for scrutiny: the validity and essence of research relies upon its ability to stand up to review. In fact, advances in science frequently occur when the prevailing view is challenged by informed scepticism, this is fundamental to the scientific method and should be encouraged, even if controversial. The RSC firmly believes that the benefits of scientific data being made available and thus open to scrutiny outweigh the perceived risks. To this end, scientific information should be made available on request as outlined in the Freedom of Information Act. Furthermore, research needs to be presented in an accurate and reliable manner in the correct context in order to optimise this process. It may also be necessary to incorporate an independent auditing system into peer review with the ability to demand access to raw data sets to ensure best practices are being adhered to.

8. With the increased use of electronic media, access to information is widespread for scientists and the public alike. While this is a great benefit to society, the quality and validity of information available raises complex problems as valid scientific information and general opinion are presented side by side. The inability to decipher which information is legitimate, results in confusion, misinterpretation and may lead to mistrust of ’science’. There needs to be a clearer understanding in the public domain of what constitutes a reliable source, including an appreciation for the process that is used for disseminating research and the advantages of peer review.

9. The peer review system is central to the credibility of science: its purpose to prevent the dissemination of unwarranted claims and unacceptable interpretations. Formally published scientific research is subject to this authoritative process whereby a community of qualified, impartial experts examine the information and possess the ability to prevent publication. Authors generally protect their data until it has been peer-reviewed and published in a formal publication due to the competitive nature of research.

10. The issue of misinformation in the public domain must also be tackled. Just as the scientific community must be open with regard to their evidence base, those who disagree must also provide a clear and verifiable backing for their argument, if they wish their opinions to be given weight. When disagreements occur, the validity of the analysis must be established before credence can be given to any opinion. Increased understanding of the process of scientific research, firstly in the government, but also within the media and general public, is vital in order to foster a more open sharing of information.

11. Support from the scientific community is needed to provide context and to explain the process by which conclusions are reached. Encouraging scientists to openly engage with the public can only be achieved if researchers are given the necessary backing in the face of any unfounded arguments against their work. This support must come from the highest levels, sending out a strong message on the importance of scientific methodology and research and promoting open sharing of information between scientists and the wider community.

· Are the terms of reference and scope of the Independent Review announced on 3 December 2009 by UEA adequate?

12. The terms of reference and scope of the independent review are adequate, although some wider reaching aspects must also be examined. The effect on other researchers working in this area such as independent researchers, as well as those collaborating with CRU, should be explored. The impact of this incident on the public perception of the CRU and UEA as a whole should also be considered as a measuring stick for the implications of such actions in the public domain. The manner in which the findings from the items set out are interpreted and applied will determine their value.

13. As has been set out in the review, it is necessary to investigate the email exchanges which were discovered along with other relevant CRU information to establish whether data have been manipulated or suppressed. This is, not only needed in order to identify any unacceptable behaviour, but also to verify the results which have been published. This is vital in clarifying the severity of the acts carried out by those scientists at the CRU involved, i.e. whether it was a misguided protection of their work or a malicious misrepresentation of data.

14. The review of practices surrounding CRU’s use of peer review and dissemination of data should be used to shed light on how these comply with established best scientific practice. Any failings in this area should be examined in the context of the research methods used and any deviations should be assigned either to the individual researchers or to inadequate updating of the best practice to suit research in the digital age.[2] This will beget more valuable information on the motivation and the reasoning behind the conduct of researchers at CRU.

15. Research institutions should review established protocols regarding the management of, and access to, research data to ensure that they remain up to date and clear. This process must be developed in collaboration with researchers so that its importance can be understood. The current practices in CRU and UEA must be examined to ensure the unit and the institution fulfil public regulations and that they offer support to researchers to ensure compliance.

16. The review of the security issues surrounding the release of information is an important internal issue for CRU and UEA. Furthermore, the RSC supports investigations into the highly irregular manner in which information was obtained from the researchers.

· How independent are the other two international data sets?

17. From the information available, the RSC cannot comment on this issue.

Royal Society of Chemistry

February 2010

Team Building Exercise

2010-02-08T22:08:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, I was pretty good in most sports with the notable exception of baseball. In baseball I was really awful. I could throw good but absolutely could not hit for my life. I struck out nearly every time. Consequently I was picked last when teams were chosen in the traditional schoolyard way. I don't recall this being particularly awful as I took it for granted that I wasn't good so being picked last seemed like a natural consequence. I did hate batting and I recall it stressing me out when it came to be my turn.

The other day my recollections of my terrible skill coalesced into a wonderful metaphor for malinvestment. When I was struggling with Austrian economic theory, I found myself on a forum arguing about what malinvestment was. At the time, I imagined all investments contributed to the economy so the notion of the ills of cheap credit eluded me. As it turns out, picking schoolyard teams is a perfect metaphor.

Start with a random group of kids whose ability falls on a curve. The more kids you pick for the team, the skill level lowers in each addition kid. If a teacher mandates that the entire class is going to play, even people like me will find themselves on a team even though they wouldn't get picked if the teams were smaller. What is the result? I strike out at a crucial time and lose the game.

In the free market, the credit supply is like the number of players on each team. With less credit (high interest rates,) only the most profitable investments can be undertaken. With more credit (low interest rates,) less profitable investments are possible. But this is like including the lousy players on the team by increasing the team size.

In this metaphor, the teacher is the central banks. In the absence of the teachers, those like me who were awful in baseball, would have pursued some other goal to the mutual benefit of both me and the baseball team I didn't play on. Those playing baseball would have loved to determine for themselves whether each additional player was a benefit or a hazard, but of course it's just a game. The teacher has decided unilaterally that everyone will benefit by being on the team, even though many don't want to play at all.

Lowering the interest rate and stimulating the economy is like a teacher telling the team captains they must increase the size of their team and pick the lousy players. Meanwhile, on another part of the schoolyard, the soccer team is deprived of players, or a new made-up game never gets created at all.

The only way to fix a baseball team with rotten players on it is to get them off the team, not add more marginal players. The only way to "fix" the economy is to let wages and prices adjust themselves, not maintain recession conditions with cheap credit that encourages the marginal investments that created the problem.

Perfect Canmore Weekend

2010-02-07T20:41:00.001-08:00

My perfect Canmore weekend began with a test drive of my new ice axe. I got it used from the University of Calgary Outdoor Club for a song. Had fun practicing self-arrest on the snow and found it remarkably useful in the heavier scree. I climbed Mt Lady Mac behind the house with it and found it to be a worthy ally that made some icy sections very comfortable. My 6.5 hr total up and down time didn't break any records but it was above zero even at the summit, calm and sunny all day! Behind me in the picture is Mt Grotto which I climbed last year.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next day, Suz and I walked up to the Canmore Nordic Center where they were holding a World Cup cross-country ski race. It's the last big race before the Olympics, so everyone was there and in peak form. I was awestruck at the speed! Both men and women were skiing up massive hills not much slower than I would bicycle down! Canmore residents were well represented in the races and local girl Sara Renner put on an amazing display of determination to place 3rd. The crowd, which lined the entire course, nearly exploded while watching her attack over the last 1km straightaway seen in the picture. It's a real privilege to witness up close such rarefied talent, determination, strength, endurance and execution. Here's a short vid I took to get an appreciation of how fast these guys can climb.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the races were over, we hiked back down to town for some winter carnival events. Main street was blocked off and a ton of snow was dumped. I can't tell you how satisfying it is to see people skiing down main street instead of driving! One of the more civilized sights I've seen.

Once you've ditched the cars and left the snow on the street, there's really only one thing left to do-
grudge match dog sled racing!

The best race of the day had to be a couple that was getting married down the street who put their carefully orchestrated wedding on hold, and appeared impromptu in full wedding regalia. The groom raced the bride with her wedding dress blowing furiously in the wake!

As dusk approached we settled down with a coffee and watched ice sculptors carving. The end of a great weekend.

Leading Climate Scientists may get 10 years for Fraud

2010-01-29T10:41:00.000-08:00

In a comment to a previous post, my brother put the Climategate fraud in perspective when he suggested that in any other industry, their actions would be prosecutable. The analogy was made that if a drug trial was falsified, they would be in court facing legal charges and the scorn of society.

Early reports suggested that while parliament is investigating CRU's actions, they might not be prosecuted due to a 6 month statute of limitations. As with most mainstream media reports regarding these issues, this one was also incorrect. That time limit only applied to the Information Commissioner's Office, a parliamentary board. The Crown Prosecution Service will likely be bringing charges of fraud against the CRU and they have no such restrictions. The penalties carry a maximum jail time of ten years.

For a legal explanation of what constitutes fraud in the UK and the ample evidence in the CRU case for prosecution see here.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

2010-01-26T21:19:00.000-08:00

Have you ever blown your nose and then caught yourself looking at the kleenex to see what came out? That pretty much describes how I sometimes find myself checking in on CNN. This week, CNN has been examining the effectiveness of the stimulus plan now a year old. The extent of their diligence seems to be investigating whether any jobs were created. What's wrong with this kind of analysis?

Language alters the way people think about things and economics is not immune from this. We are so used to valuing things in terms of money, it's very easy to confuse wealth with money. Money is how wealth is measured but wealth comes from labour capital and resources. When money is confused with wealth through common speech, many other confusions follow.

Jobs are created from the pursuit of profit making activities. The wealth generated from that activity pays the wages in money. The money acts as a convenient substitute for the wealth that was created. When government tries to create employment, they must confiscate and redistribute the wealth that others generate. The benefits and ripple effects of the new job are computed after the money changes hands. The ripple effects and multiplier effects work just as well if you start before the money changed hands.

For example, assume that under the stimulus bill, a man qualifies for capital to produce solar panels. The product is easily seen as a good thing, but let us look at the means for producing it. What is not seen or counted by CNN is what could have been produced if the wealth had stayed in the hands of the person that created it. We see the solar panel created, we don't see the box spring mattress that could have been produced but wasn't. They contribute the same to the economy but stimulus supporters are making the claim that one is fixing the economy!

We are being told that 5-1+1>5. The reason this slight of hand is missed is because people don't equate the money government spends, with the wealth that money represents.

When you follow the logic of the stimulus plans using wealth instead of money, the slight of hand is obvious! In a pure barter economy, no one would be hoodwinked into thinking that if I give some of my carrots to Bill, we'll eventually all be better off. Bill can pay me with my own carrot, but I'm already down a carrot! Unless everyone produces more, you can't conjure stuff out of thin air. You can redistribute it but you can't create more. Our language has divorced the concept of money from wealth.

The other curious thing to me is why a project is valued by how many jobs it creates. If the number of jobs was valuable, why not use government money to build a bridge with the constraints that no power tools or heavy equipment be used. That way a bridge would be built by 5000 employees rather than 500! The logic of job creation runs opposite to the benefits of productivity. Productivity and improved methods of doing everything are the reason that we enjoy a standard of living that allows us to cure disease and live comfortable lives.

Bastiat: the seen and the unseen

2010-01-25T21:34:00.000-08:00

I couldn't resist posting this screencap. It's pretty emblematic of how people are victims of Bastiat's "that which can not be seen."

The OP asks why quarterly projections determine stock values when it's so limiting and not reflective of how a company behaves. They claim that only short term gains are required to keep "Wall St. happy."

It's hard enough to inform myself without taking it upon myself to inform others, but on this occasion, I couldn't resist and explain what price is. Strangely enough, 21 people disagreed with my explanation. Their disagreement represents a class of errors in economic thinking revolving around confused identities.

Referring to the original post, the author says rather nonchalantly that a company reduces it's bottom line causing it's stock price to go up regardless of the long term consequences. The confusion here is that in order to sell a stock and make the short term profit claimed, someone else must buy it! I emphasize this because people often only think of one side of the coin. The person who buys the stock must be looking at some point in the future and estimate that the stock will be worth even more than he paid. Who would make this purchase unless they thought that the company would be worth something in the future? Who would buy the stock without studying it's future? Without a buyer, there is no seller.

Because every stock sold is also a stock bought by someone else, the price represents the sum of every opinion of the stock. Some investors exclusively use price and volume histories to make speculative decisions. The price is a proxy for what everyone knows regardless of what you know. For example, if investor A has inside knowledge or insight about a stock, he bids higher or lower to be sure he gets more or gets rid of his shares, that drives price up or down alternatively. Investor B doesn't need to know specifically what investor A knows, because that knowledge got embedded in the new price. Price reflects all knowledge and opinion, hunches and guesses.

What is seen is the profits made by the seller.
What is not seen is the investment made by the buyer who decides the business will be worth more in the future.

By not thinking about the unseen, people misunderstand how markets work. It should not surprise anyone that governments can so easily buy votes with stimulus bribes when few people understand the basics of price. Without understanding the basics of how markets work, they can not see how governments have been destroying markets while claiming that the markets themselves have failed.

Olympic Experience

2010-01-21T14:32:00.000-08:00

I understand that it's easy for people to be cynical about the Olympics. Corporations spending millions to associate themselves with sport, governments bribing officials and spending tax dollars, and athletes cheating all contribute to an event that perhaps doesn't live up to the billing.

What I observed when the torch relay passed through Canmore was none of these things. I saw world champion athletes and rec athletes mixing together on the street. I saw wide-eyed children and emotional grandparents straining to see the flame. I saw torch bearers laughing and yelling to cheering friends and family waiting on the route. The torch made its way downtown where a regular party was going on. Natives from the nearby reserve were dressed in full regalia, torch bearers mingled in the throng getting their pictures taken with just about everyone, sled dogs were patiently being mauled by toddlers, local musicians played over a loudspeaker and everyone had a wonderful time. Some Japanese tourists were beaming from ear to ear when we gave them our flag to hold when they got their picture taken with one of the torches.

As much as corporate and state interests try to hijack the Olympics, they will always just be a caboose to the experiences of real people. It's true, Coke and RBC had giant floats blasting music and handing out promotional material preceding the torch runners (after all they paid for the torch run!) But everyone's experience consisted of connecting to something else. No one lining the streets thought that Coke was the event. They were too busy being proud of their friends, family and neighbors. The event was all about people, and no corporate agenda took that away from anyone.

Big Day in the Mountains

2010-01-17T16:19:00.000-08:00

Perfect conditions yesterday in the Main Range. Waist deep fresh snow overnight, low avalanche hazard and an expert guide led me to the mountain pictured here. Whitehorn 2b is it's rather unromantic designation. My ski descent route I've drawn in yellow.

Earlier, I got some technical instruction which improved my skiing dramatically. That being said, it was the most difficult skiing I've done. As with many things, one of the hardest parts was the initial commitment to go over the edge which was every bit as steep as it looks. Waiting for me at the bottom was the gift of accomplishment which on this day was super-sized. The other gift, I just today received- hobbling around quite stiff from hiking in deep snow added to that was the descent which used more leg muscles than I normally use in a month!

More Data Manipulation from Global Warming "scientists." NASA guilty of fudging data

2010-01-15T11:42:00.000-08:00

Now that the IPCC's data from CRU has been debunked thanks to the leaked emails, attention has finally come to gross data manipulation at NASA. I was disappointed with the documentary KUSI-TV produced but D'Aleo's report is excellent and brief: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Thursday, January 14, 2010
Source: KUSI-TV

Climate researchers have discovered that NASA researchers improperly manipulated data in order to claim 2005 as “THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD.” KUSI-TV meteorologist, Weather Channel founder, and iconic weatherman John Coleman will present these findings in a one-hour special airing on KUSI-TV on Jan.14 at 9 p.m. A related report will be made available on the Internet at 6 p.m. EST on January 14th at www.kusi.com.

In a new report, computer expert E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo discovered extensive manipulation of the temperature data by the U.S. Government’s two primary climate centers: the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Ashville, North Carolina and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City. Smith and D’Aleo accuse these centers of manipulating temperature data to give the appearance of warmer temperatures than actually occurred by trimming the number and location of weather observation stations. The report is available online at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.

The report reveals that there were no actual temperatures left in the computer database when NASA/NCDC proclaimed 2005 as “THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD.” The NCDC deleted actual temperatures at thousands of locations throughout the world as it changed to a system of global grid points, each of which is determined by averaging the temperatures of two or more adjacent weather observation stations. So the NCDC grid map contains only averaged, not real temperatures, giving rise to significant doubt that the result is a valid representation of Earth temperatures.

The number of actual weather observation points used as a starting point for world average temperatures was reduced from about 6,000 in the 1970s to about 1,000 now. “That leaves much of the world unaccounted for,” says D’Aleo.

The NCDC data are regularly used by the National Weather Service to declare a given month or year as setting a record for warmth. Such pronouncements are typically made in support of the global warming alarmism agenda. Researchers who support the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also regularly use the NASA/NCDC data, including researchers associated with the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that is now at the center of the “Climategate” controversy.

This problem is only the tip of the iceberg with NCDC data. “For one thing, it is clear that comparing data from previous years, when the final figure was produced by averaging a large number of temperatures, with those of later years, produced from a small temperature base and the grid method, is like comparing apples and oranges,” says Smith. “When the differences between the warmest year in history and the tenth warmest year is less than three quarters of a degree, it becomes silly to rely on such comparisons,” added D’Aleo who asserts that the data manipulation is “scientific travesty” that was committed by activist scientists to advance the global warming agenda.

Smith and D’Aleo are both interviewed as part of a report on this study on the television special, “Global Warming: The Other Side” seen at 9 PM on January 14th on KUSI-TV, channel 9/51, San Diego, California. That program can now be viewed via computer at the website http://www.kusi.com/. The detailed report is available at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.

Things I learned in 2009 Part II

2010-01-13T13:15:00.000-08:00

It's approaching the one year anniversary since the 800 billion dollar stimulus plan went into effect in the US. In that time, I transitioned from a Keynesian to an Austrian in terms of my understanding of economics. This new viewpoint involved unlearning everything I was taught in economics in university. To clarify my new understanding, I'd like to examine the stated goals and mechanism of the stimulus plan compared to it's results
Here are some predictions last year from Christina Romer and Jered Bernstein, Chairs of Economic Advisers for President Obama. The relevant part is the prediction that the stimulus will create 3 million jobs with a total 138 million jobs. Their claim is that without the stimulus, there will be 8.8 percent unemployment and only 134 million jobs. All these benefits for only 800 billion dollars.

So, what happened?
It's true that these are predictions for later this year, but so far unemployment is worse with the stimulus than was predicted without! It was claimed without stimulus unemployment would be 8.8% (it's now 10% after stimulus or 17% depending on how you measure it.) Either the economic advisers are incompetent and have no business spending hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars, or the economic theories they employ are completely wrong.

The Keynesian theory behind all this stimulus is that a dollar spent by the government is multiplied through the economy depending on what it gets spent on. A dollar that gets spent building a road goes into a contractors pocket who then spends that money on groceries etc. This is said to stimulate demand causing employment to rise. The increased demand provides work that more than makes up for the costs of the stimulus by reducing the length of economic downturns and those returning workers are paying taxes sooner than they would have otherwise. So says the dominant economic thinking with plenty of fancy math to back it up.

What has become clear to me this year is this just makes no sense.

How the Economy Got This Way
Over the last ten years, the value of the dollar was diluted through unsustainable low interest rates. It was intended to stimulate the economy after the bursting of the tech bubble and the consumer demand crash after 9/11, remember Bush telling people to go out and spend? The Federal Reserve flooded the market with easy credit and money flowed into real estate and the markets. Bidding wars for property and assets continued for almost ten years but the value of these assets were not due to increasing wealth but money supply. The artificially rising assets were being leveraged by banks loaning out the appreciation on assets that were not payed for. Demand was a function of credit.

Peter Schiff tells a great story about renting a beautiful condo during the housing bubble. He goes next door to look at a dingy townhouse for sale. After fees, taxes and mortgage, he would be paying the same as renting his current place. He asked the real estate agent who would buy it since you could rent next door and get way more for less money? The agent said that the townhouse will be worth more next year while Schiff won't have gained any equity in his rental. Schiff questioned in disbelieve why anyone would pay even more next year for a place that isn't nicer than one you could rent next door! The real eastate agent should have said that Ponzi schemes are only bad if you get in at the end!
This story illustrates the disconnect between real estate demand (prices) and the wealth needed to trade for it (it was credit driving prices-not wealth.) When we moved to Calgary a few years ago, I could barely believe that 150,000 dollar houses were being sold for 400, 000 dollars. During the hot economy in Calgary it was easy to imagine that price was a function of demand. Hidden from view was the expansion of credit fueling the larger economy, driving up commodities and the demand for goods being bought not with savings but with credit against rising asset prices. A vicious circle sponsored by the Federal Reserve.

As it turns out, what I witnessed was the Austrian School explanation of the business cycle. The Austrian School explains that inflation occurs due to deflating money by printing it or creating more of it through fractional reserve banking. This increase in money creates the business cycles and bubbles that eventually burst.
Investments are like fruit, the lowest ones get picked first (the ones that have the best return.) The more money that becomes available to invest, the more difficult fruit gets picked (the poorer those returns become.) Artificially low interest rates and surplus money and credit cause malinvestment (the fruit that no one is picking because you need a ladder.) In the end, if you give people money to buy fruit, fruit prices rise and a valuable ladder was not used somewhere else.
The Austrian school is better explained by more lucid and elegant thinkers than I. The vonMises Institute offers many elegant and simple primers.

Multipliers are not Immune from Opportunity Cost or Inflation
I've come to realize economies are like any other natural system, you can't cheat them. You can try to stay up for a while drinking coffee but eventually, you fall asleep. You can't artificially create wealth out of thin air by taxing and borrowing money, then spending it. Any multiplier effects are offset by the opportunity costs of taxpayers keeping more money themselves. In a downturn, people are more likely to save money which is where future capital comes from. Multiplier effects are also condemned because they create artificial demand which diverts resources away from profitable, wealth-generating projects. This diversion has real costs that greatly offset any multiplier effects. If stimulus projects were economically feasible, the market would be investing in it. They are by definition malinvestments! Meanwhile, the creation of this stimulus money devalues savings through inflation (America's next financial meltdown that nobody saw coming.) This massive devaluation effects people who worked hard and didn't invest in speculative housing or derivatives, whose only crime was to save money! This inflation is not seen yet because prices are falling relative to the Fed attempt fight falling asset prices though the creation of money. Also, the Fed is currently paying banks to hold even greater of their reserves in the Fed Reserve system. The only way they can pay banks not to lend money is to issue more money which forces the Fed to force the banks to deposit even more money with the Fed in a never ending borrow from Peter to pay Paul situation!

Apart from witnessing the Austrian explanation first hand, so much of macro economics makes more sense through the Austrian lens. In the stimulus bill mentioned earlier, Keynesians are left to make ad hoc explanations of why injecting billions of dollars into an inflated economy isn't making things better. They say that things would be worse without it or it will take more time or that there wasn't enough stimulus! Now I understand that the last ten years prosperity was based on an economy inflated by the creation of money not just the addition of capital to labour and resources. The solution is not to add more inflation. The solution is to let the malinvestments fail, let real estate devalue to a new equilibrium price, let people pay down debt rather than consume. Adding more money just delays the necessary price adjustments, creates inflation, and diverts resources. The rising unemployment demonstrate the error of trying to re-inflate the economy.

At best, the results have been incompetence, mis-allocation, savings devaluation, inflation, and the squandering of scarce resources. At worst is opportunism, graft, theft, collusion, fraud, dishonesty, and lies.

Things I Learned in 2009

2010-01-06T19:50:00.000-08:00

In 2009, my rights and freedoms increased dramatically

It was not because the military of this nation or any other fought halfway around the world for whatever reasons that were given. It was not because of any new policy created in the Parliament. It was not because of anything in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It was because we moved.

In Calgary, walking at night was confined to certain areas. The doors in the car had to be locked, same with the door to our apartment. Crossing the street was done with the first thought to the carelessness of drivers. Noise dominated every aspect of life. Whatever right to privacy is owed to me on paper was made irrelevant by having any real sense of privacy trampled by the crushing ado of living in a big city.

In Canmore, we have the freedom to walk anywhere and at any time without fear. Our right to private property is not some intellectual state-guaranteed idea, but a real thing put to the test every day. I now leave my bicycle unlocked on the deck because it's my bicycle, not because the law says it is. Tomorrow, it will still be there. In Calgary, like any other city, my so-called right to private property is really a farce in practice. What good are these rights that we credit the State with providing, if they exist only on paper? In light of seeing what really influences my effective rights, I find it distasteful to hear people speak of our troops fighting for our rights or freedoms or our country.
The sad truth is that their sacrifices are not heroic but tragically meaningless.

Are you Being Served?

2009-12-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

This week Calgary was buried in snow causing major transportation problems. The drifts in some areas were chest deep for several days as they waited for city crews to clean them. It was lucky that no emergency services were required in those areas since neither ambulance nor fire trucks would have been able to penetrate the massive drifts.

Most interesting to me was the news that private citizens can not hire someone to clean the public street for them. I heard one resident who owned a bobcat wishing they could clean their cul de sac but couldn't because they didn't want to be fined. In Calgary it is against the law to hire a private firm to clean your street.

Upon first blush this seems like a senseless and dangerous law. It is explained that the reason is to avoid liability issues if private equipment breaks a power pole or knocks off a fire hydrant. Most people begrudgingly accept this rationale as I did, though only for a minute.

Have we become so indentured to our institutions that we imagine that its difficult to hold a person responsible, but an institution can be? A real person with real wealth can't be held accountable for their actions but the city, which has no wealth of its own is considered a better risk? We mistakenly imagine that the city does have wealth but it does not. Its citizens do but the city does not. We give to the city the rights and obligations of a wealthy and responsible person but it is neither of these things. It seems that the law has flipped the natural order of things much to the dilution of human dignity.

When people prefer to give responsibility to an institution over a person, they can hardly complain when they wake up some day and realize that their institutions no longer serve them.

My Science Project

2009-12-06T18:28:00.000-08:00

One of the hallmarks of science is the ability of others to repeat experiments. Not to create consensus for it's own sake or for force of argument, but rather to ensure that experiments are done correctly. With this in mind, I thought it would be interesting to look at temperature data recorded in my neighborhood, that is used in calculating global temperature means.

Example 1, Banff Station

51.2 N

115.6 W

403711220000

rural area

1888 - 2009

(I went to this exact spot)
Here is the official temperature data. Under NASA GISS protocols, this station is considered a rural station because it contains less than 10,000 people. Technically correct when the station began recording, Banff was a sleepy village visited by intrepid train travelers. Over the course of the century, the ski hills opened, the Trans-Canada highway opened and the town began to attract year-round visitors. The international airport in Calgary opened and funneled international tourists into the town as well. What started as horseback traffic at the turn of the century grew into 5 million visitors a year.

I don't know what the heat signature is from 5 million people. I can only imagine that 25 Saskatoons, in a small valley like Banff, generates heat. Whether it's hotel air conditioners or thousands and thousands of RVs generating and reflecting heat, or millions of automobiles racing around on new 4-lane superhighways and interchanges, the heat signature around the recorder is totally different than it was at the turn of the century. Is it possible to factor these changes out? There may be generalized computer models whose accuracy is determined by how well we understand all the variables. Since this knowledge is still imperfect, the models are highly suspect. Certainly no one has made even an attempt to "correct" the data for this particular micro-climate at this particular recording station (and currently, this may not even be possible.) It seems to me that there are enough questions regarding changing the environment of the data recorder to rule out constructing a temperature trend from this data. Despite the obvious problems, this station forms part of the global temperature data.

Example 2 Calgary INTL station

51.1 N

114.0 W

403718770000

593,000

1881 - 1990

If you look at this data, you will see an increase that begins around 1970. Savy Calgary residents can easily tell from this graph when the OPEC crisis happened! Thats when oil prices soared and Calgary's urban development boomed. A picture is worth a thousand words so below is a before and after of Calgary in 1969 and later in the year 2000.

Pictured above is Calgary in 1969 before massive city expansion.

Pictured above is Calgary in 2000. Note the heat sink now called the downtown core that has enveloped the Calgary Tower. For a top down view see the picture below. I've coloured in the city expansion in the last 40 years in blue. Notice how not only did the core become a massive heat sink, but the location of the data recorder became completely surrounded by development. I placed the location of the data recorder myself but with the coordinates given and Google Earth, you can easily do it yourself.

With what you have seen, it seems pretty obvious that separating increased heat from the local environment is very difficult indeed. Clearly the post 1970 temperature increase in the Calgary data is an effect of urban development. But how much? Some non- zero amount that is closer to 100 percent than zero percent.

As in the first example, it seems hard to believe, but this data is part of the data set that is used to declare that the global temperature is increasing.

I use these examples not because they are the two bad apples of climate data, but because they are the climate recorders who's local environments I can verify for myself. In fact there are many really bad data recording stations out there whose data has been compromised by local building regardless of whether they are considered urban or rural stations. For a collection of really bad stations and further links to a project to visit all the weather stations to investigate local conditions that may affect climate data, see here.

Balance of Terror: The Logic of Obama's War

2009-12-02T12:55:00.000-08:00

In the original Star Trek episode "Balance of Terror," the Enterprise is deciding whether it is in their best interest to attack an invading Romulan ship. Their decision means potentially engaging the Federation in an intergalactic war, or retreating which would show weakness which Spock claims would precipitate the same result since weakness would be seen and exploited.

Kirk: Are you saying we should fight to prevent a fight?

Spock: ...If the Romulans have retained this martial philosophy then attack becomes imperative.

Bones: War is never imperative.

Spock: It is for them Doctor.

As Obama sends 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and exaggerates the mission creep started by Bush, I found myself thinking of this episode. It's a wonderful twist created by the writers to have Spock voice the logic of war. Kirk's question of fighting to prevent a fight couldn't shatter that logic any more effectively. In the episode, Kirk is eventually convinced by Spock's logic and fights and beats the Romulans and the Federation somehow escapes a long and protracted war.

Obama continues Bush's logic of fighting to prevent a fight. From Obama's speech:

"This danger will only grow if the region slides backwards, and al Qaeda can operate with impunity. We must keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region."

Inside the logic of war, I suppose this makes sense. Step outside and this logic collapses. The terrorists behind 9/11 were Saudis who learned to fly in Florida with Saudi money. The presence or absence of failed states was irrelevant as far as preventing 9/11 goes. It's true that terror cells operate in the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but failed states are not a necessary condition for terrorism. Terror cells operate in the most so-called civilized states in the world including the United States. While some would argue that America is a failed state, there is no debate that it produces its fair share of Unabombers and DC snipers and Timothy McVieghs. The IRA killed 1,800 people in the UK but didn't need a broken third world state to do it from.

So if Afghanistan is just one of many worldwide failed states, and if terrorists don't really need failed states to operate from anyway, fighting to prevent a fight starts to look not just unethical, but illogical. There's no such thing as fighting to prevent a fight. That's like killing your neighbor's child to prevent it from being killed. I guess if you've won the Nobel Peace Prize, killing your neighbor's child is just collateral damage.

Only in the logic of war could this seem just.

Let's Go!

2009-11-27T10:39:00.000-08:00

That's right, the annoying Grey Power commercials are ending according to company president, Catherine Smola.

Grey Power invites us to contemplate the injustice of having to pay the same insurance premiums as the heroine when you've clearly earned the right to pay less. I'll tell you what I've earned, the right to yell at the driver in front of me who is treating a busy intersection like a drive-in movie. "C'mon already lets go!"

Climategate

2009-11-24T12:24:00.000-08:00

The biggest news in the battle over hearts and minds that is climate debate, is the so-called Climategate story. The Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University was hacked and thousands of emails from prominent man-made global warming scientists (IPCC contributors) was released to the internet. After frustrated efforts of those requesting information and data under the Freedom of Information Act were stymied, a hacker inside or outside the government-funded institution used their own freedom to access the information themselves. While the CRU admitted that the data, documents and emails had been stolen, it is difficult to be sure of the accuracy of said files. Certainly the emails regarding resistance to FOI requests are consistent with their actions.
I obtained a copy of the thousand or so files and confirmed for myself what has been printed elsewhere. A good overview of a selection of documents can be found here.

Today, the CBC didn't question the validity of either the hacked information, or the IPCC, or the CRU or the scientists involved or whether man made global warming was proven with misleading data. Instead, the CBC 's only climate related news was that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere had increased from a per year rate of change of 19 molecules per 10 million molecules of atmosphere to 20! See story here. The story also incorrectly states that "CO2 is the main greenhouse gas," (it trails water vapour by an order of magnitude!) Congratulations CBC, don't report the biggest science scandal in years but instead propagate misinformation. The worst part is that I pay for this news service. I suspect British taxpayers have similar complaints.

If ignorance, misinformation, and news censorship is the best other mainstream media outlets can offer, then I guess everyone pays for it.

Another in a series of tiresome gripes...

2009-11-15T15:21:00.000-08:00

I really don't like encountering the word 'comptroller.'

That is all.

The Best kind of Revolutionary

2009-11-07T14:21:00.000-08:00

Much praise this week for Harley Hotchkiss, local businessman, who donated 40 million dollars of his money to the University of Calgary brain research institute that he started in 2004 with a 10 million dollar gift. From a conversation with Mr Hotchkiss last year, Gena Rotstein summarized his philanthropic philosophy:

"Your priorities are family THEN job. Your job will provide you with he means to support your community financially, but your family is what connects you to that community.

You don't have to be wealthy to be philanthropic. (Mr. Hotchkiss's first philanthropic activity was flooding the community hockey rink and coaching the kids)

When you are ready to give, it should "hurt" a little. If your donation doesn't make you consider giving something up (even if it is a latte a week) then you are not giving enough.

Philanthropy should be about building community, not just giving money."

As another 5th of November passes by, it's worthy to recognize those revolutionaries who are living and leading by example. I'm not sure he or anyone else would consider Hotchkiss a revolutionary but actually, he's the best kind. He doesn't proselytize or intimidate or guilt people into action, he doesn't exaggerate omit or fib in making his case. He merely evaluates what he can do and does it. It is the nature of his own contribution that compels imitation. It is the results of his actions that inspire others to do likewise.

These days, that is revolutionary.

Shoving Obama's pretty words in his guilty nose.

2009-11-02T11:32:00.000-08:00

I found it completely unsurprising that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended Karzai's de facto rule in Afghanistan. Without wincing, Gibbs claimed that Karzai had a majority "even if you took out all the fraudulent votes." That's the impossibly low standard we've come to expect from the Bush/Obama government!

For background, Karzai installed several warlords in his government, avoiding the letter of the law by having these warlords register their local armies as "private security officers." In addition to these henchmen, Karzai paid for 10,000 tribesmen to 'oversee' local elections. These men had no uniform and used their private weapons. Not the greatest foundation for a free and fair election but it gets worse. The Orwellian named "Independent Election Commission" was run entirely by political appointees and allies. Nearly 1500 of the 7000 polling stations were designated in no-man's lands that were too dangerous to travel to and were unsecured. Intimidation, violence, government censorship and bribery undid this election even before the ballot boxes were fraudulently stuffed or lost.

Abetting the massive fraud was the United Nations. American Special Representative to Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith, whose resume includes uncovering Iraqi genocide of Kurds and successfully negotiating the Serb-Croat treaty, witnessed vote fraud on a massive scale but was fired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for demanding action regarding the fraud . An interview with Galbraith is here.
from the London Telegraph Oct 4 2009:

Mr Galbraith said: "As many as 30 per cent of Karzai's votes were fraudulent, and lesser fraud was committed on behalf of other candidates.

"The fraud has handed the Taliban its greatest strategic victory in eight years of fighting the United States and its Afghan partners."

Calling the poll a "foreseeable train wreck", he said he had tried to prevent fraud by demanding polling stations not open in insecure areas where they could not be monitored or observed.

A spokesman for the UN in Kabul said the mission "has not, does not and will not turn a blind eye to fraud". That may be the intentions of those working on the ground but for those higher up the chain within the UN this seems woefully untrue. As has been seen with the UN's panel on climate control, political expediency always trumps truth for the UN. Senior UN officials cherry picking facts generated by staff seems to be business as usual at the UN.

In light of the scale of voter fraud and after much international pressure, a "run-off" poll was slated for November. Notice it was charitably called a run-off, ostensibly so that one candidate would have at least 50 percent of the vote. The very terminology starts to legitimize those involved. Abdullah Abdullah, the remaining candidate running against Karzai complained that as long as the election was being run by the same people that perpetrated the original fraud, there was no point in people risking their life to take part in a sham vote. Today he announced his refusal to take part in the November run off since Karzai refuses to purge the election commission of his allies.

And so today, British and American officials lined up to congratulate Karzai. Obama once again acts in complete opposition to his "freedom and democracy" rhetoric just as Bush did before him. America's mission creep in Afghanistan takes another ironic turn as it now finds itself no longer fighting for a free Afghanistan but rather on behalf of a fraudulent Afghanistan regime. The first premise was debatable but the second is now irrevocably true.

-from Obama's Nobel Peace Prize winning speech at Cairo University, June 4 2009:

"That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere."

Outrageous.

Why I am not getting the H1N1 Vaccine

2009-10-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

Each year, a vaccine is produced to combat seasonal influenza. The most likely strains are assembled and downtrodden. When administered, your immune system fights this weak version theoretically building the antibodies necessary to fight the strain. Study after study shows the flu vaccine reduces your chance of dying of influenza by 50 percent. Seems irrefutable.

The problem with these studies is that they measure people who chose to get the vaccine against people who don't. People who chose to get vaccinated are by definition concerned with their heath and more likely to take care of themselves. In the United States where vaccines are paid for by heath insurers, these studies are splitting the two groups into income brackets which naturally demarcate health. In other words, the studies compare healthy people to unhealthier people. You would think that any study worth its salt would eliminate this obvious problem by doing double blind experiments with vaccines versus placebos. But because the vaccine is presumed to work, it's considered unethical to give some a vaccine and others a placebo!

Some have challenged the results of this circular logic. In 2004, Lisa Jackson, a researcher with Group Heath Research Center in Seatle, studied medical histories of 72,000 people aged 65 and older. She found that outside of flu season, the baseline risk of death was 60 percent higher for the those that did not get flu shots.

This confirms the so-called "healthy user effect" demonstrating that healthier people tended to get the flu shot. In fact, the degree that they were healthier accounts for all of the supposed efficacy of the flu vaccine studies!

When Jackson presented these results to the Journal of the American Medical Association, they were rejected on the grounds that the results were akin to "suggesting the earth was flat." Other evidence is just as confounding. For example, just 30 years ago, few to none of people over 65 got a seasonal flu vaccine. Today nearly 75 percent get vaccinated, yet we don't see a decrease in influenza deaths to any degree that would indicate that the vaccine works. These obvious facts contravene sacred beliefs and are summarily ignored. It's possible that flu strains become have more infectious and lethal over that period and that lethality has exactly matched increasing rates of vaccinations but there is no evidence to support that claim. What seems most likely stems from the mechanics of the vaccine itself: those with good immune systems respond well to both the vaccine and the flu. Or more simply, the vaccine does nothing.

If a drug statistically appears to do nothing, then I will skip a step and not take it!

Important Post Script: I do not count myself among those who believe that certain vaccines cause autism or any number of other scientifically untenable claims.

Business News

2009-10-27T13:44:00.001-07:00

Congratulations to the French for their court's successful prosecution of the Church of Scientology for fraud and levying a fine of nearly a million dollars. I have no illusions that other branches of this criminal organization will be prosecuted. I think Microsoft could avoid some of it's legal hassles by registering itself as a religion rather than a public company.

Congratulations also to the conservative splitters of the Anglican church who were upset over part of their church treating people equally. Luckily for them there is always a place for intolerance, fear, and hate with the Catholic Church who welcomed them with openish arms this week.
Since this is essentially a business story, it reads better as if it were in the Report on Business:

Vatican
(Bloomberg)
Shares of Catholic Church (TSX-OMG) were trading sharply up today as investors welcomed a new deal to buyout Anglican (B) preferred shares in a 1-1 stock swap. In the third quarter of 2007, Anglican Ltd. a junior player in the competitive religious service providers market, announced it's intentions to keep its liberal income trust (TSX-ANG.un) separate. The emergence of recent income trust rules outraged the parent company with VP operations Bishop Martin Devon suggesting that "if Anglican Ltd could not keep its assets unified, debt obligations might make operations difficult." Despite this spin by senior executives, it was widely reported by Bay Street insiders that differing management philosophies had undermined it's business model.
Investors speculate that The Catholic Church, a fully integrated religious service provider, plans to keep the successful Anglican brand. Investor relations VP Cardinal Louis D'Anglois suggested that "owing to some accounting practice harmonization, downsizing of administration would be limited during the next two quarters."

Spectral Kirk Appears in downtown Tholian Project!

2009-10-26T15:26:00.000-07:00

Sewedge Sludge Opportunity

2009-10-23T19:49:00.001-07:00

The town of Canmore is currently seeking a new home for it's yearly 3,000 tonnes of sewage sludge. Until recently, it was shipped to Bowden correctional facility where it was converted to compost at a cost to the municipality of $420,000.
One project on the table is a possible deal to mix it with lime dust at Exshaw and use it for mine reclamation, the lime neutralizing any bio-hazard.

3,000 tonnes of sewage sludge seems too precious for land reclamation.

Ideas anyone?

Oldest Living Organisms

2009-10-20T17:09:00.000-07:00

Wonderful slide show of the oldest living organisms on earth. Includes a few things I've never seen or heard of.

Here's a lovely shot of my favorite BORG otherwise know as the trembling aspen. This grove is actually a single organism that can transport moisture and nutrients through its underground root system from rich sites to poor sites. If you attack it by hacking off branches, it defends the larger hive-self by sending up new connected shoots to ensure it's survival. A worthy foe for Chronos.

Last gasp of Summer.

2009-10-15T22:21:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Suz and I climbed up local landmark Heart Mt. From the Trans Canada, the name seems fairly arbitrary since it's wonderful shape can't really be seen. This picture is taken on the north side of the valley close to Exshaw just east of Canmore.

From the valley, the northwest ridge looks pretty intimidating but when it's right in front of you, the footholds and handholds appear much more forgiving. In the two pictures below I'm appreciating my new Vasque boots while I pick my way up a tricky section.

About two-thirds to the top is a shear face that tests the nerves a little though more so on the downclimb. Suz had no problem getting up first and then offering good advice while I struggled up. On our way down, I downclimbed this section more easily and helped Suz out returning the favour.

I was quite pleased not just with the view but with our accomplishment as well. While Heart Mt is considered an easy to moderate scramble, it is a good test of my shoulder mobility. It was exciting to do a climb that relied more on hand holds. There are many mental blocks for me still to put my shoulder in a vulnerable position in spite of it's strength. Our success here went a long way towards putting those fears in perspective.

Suz grabs a bite at the summit (7005ft) and enjoys that last hurrah of the season. Grotto Mt and the Bow river are seen in the background. Round trip time was six hours.

Attention Loyal Party Members

2009-10-12T14:12:00.001-07:00

More News of leather and feather

Nobel Prize awarded, New Coffee Machine!

2009-10-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Canadian Willard Boyle for sharing the Nobel Prize in Physics for his co-invention of the charge coupled device. A fascinating story of the discovery is worth reading here. The CCD is of course the chip that converts light into a translatable electrical signal. The applications have ranged from medical imaging to astronomy to the ubiquitous digital camera.

Telus announced today that they will be supporting the iphone finally. Telus has been using the CDMA 'standard' which was incompatible with the iphone. CDMA represents half the North American market but just 1% of the rest of the world. We can thank the government protected monopoly for having an antiquated telephone system. More importantly though, Suz and I can definitely see an iphone in our future. Living where we do, Telus is the only provider with coverage in the mountains so we have been very much beholden to CDMA until now.

Our friends Karen and Don recently upgraded their coffee machine and generously gave us their old one. For the last two years, I have be using a bodum . I've relished the results of having the water and the bean seethe for a lengthy socializing period, but the bodum daily clean up was always unsavoury. The new Hamilton Beach is a drip style method which is stored in a heated reservoir. To serve, one simply pushes the cup to the dispenser a la coffee shop. Magnifique!

My brother brought this wonderful location to my attention. Clearly signs of an ancient civilization. Or perhaps relics of an alien outpost.

Not all who wander are lost

2009-09-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

Last week I joined the Cochrane Search and Rescue team. For the next 2 months I go through a rigorous training and certification process. I'm excited to learn some new skills and use what skills I've acquired from years of bush work.
This weekend was rope and knot skills taught by the high-angle rescue team. Many new skills and techniques for me and many new knots to practice. As many of these skills were ones I was prepared to pay to learn in a climbing school, volunteering my future time will be an equitable trade.
My previous rants about poorly equiped people wandering into the middle of nowhere will likely come to an end now that I will soon be looking for them!

The Bow Valley became barbecue flavoured this week due to a rich smoke that wafted in. Weather conditions cooperated enough for the continuation of the Mt. Nestor prescribed burn (Mt Nestor is seen in my header banner.) The intent is to create a firebreak for our community as well as pine beetle control. It will also mimic the natural forest cycles that fire fighting has stalled. New mountain sheep habitat will be created. Berries will proliferate here drawing bear activity away from the populated Bow Valley.
My only disappointment was that I didn't get a chance to see it before it burned. Mt Nestor was on my list of climbs this fall but hip flexor tenderness has forced me to eliminate a few trips and this one got the axe. The view from the summit will be reduced but as I've often cautioned, environmentalism is often confused with anthro-centric aesthetics.

Smoke fills the Bow Valley as seen from Mt Yamnuska

Obama v Khadafi: If you see a difference, You lost the battle of the hypocrites.

2009-09-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

Obama spoke to the UN yesterday calling for a 'new era of engagement.' Like all Obama speeches, it sounds good but means little. Here's what the 'New Era' has meant in America, the country he has the power to change.

-excused CIA operatives from prosecution for violations of the torture conventions signed by the US. Went even further by offering the torturers legal support in case of international prosecution.
-refused to prosecute those higher up the chain of command for drafting illegal interrogation methods.
-refused to prosecute or even investigate constitutional violations such as illegal wiretapping, falsification of evidence and obstruction of justice in Department of Justice or CIA
-continues to violate habeus corpus, holding prisoners without charges.
-continued illegal Iraq war
-escalated Afghan War
-when Pakistan refused US troops movements, Obama authorizes illegal predator drone attacks within Pakistan. Since Jan 2009, 152 civilians in Pakistan have been killed. Western press remains mute.
-funnels hundreds of millions of dollars to Honduran coup while State Department claims to have suspended minor funding. American pattern of supporting non-left coups in Latin American continues while it uses democracy as a justification for invading other countries.

Obama may not speak like the condescending retard George Bush, but actions speak louder than words. Claiming you want to "look forward not backwards" as Obama says, is a sugar coated way of consenting to injustice. George Bush acted as though the application of law was discretionary. It appears that Obama is of the same mind. So much for the New Era.

In a classic case of 'feel fair and talk foul' and 'talk fair and feel fouler' as Tolkein wrote, I actually found it interesting comparing the speeches of Obama and Khadafi. Khadafi was universally ridiculed in the press for his rambling 90 minute oration. Laughing at him though, made it easier not to answer some of his angry questions. Why if the UN is always talking of democracy, is the UN itself not a democracy? He refers of course to the only limb of the UN with power, the security council which excludes 185 of the 192 member nations! He also questioned Western characterization of Islam as being anti semitic when it was Western Europe that tried to exterminate the Jews. When Europe was cleansing itself of Jews, Arab nations were providing them with refuge. Khadafi went on to champion the causes of the developing world.
This may seem hypocritical considering Khadafi was responsible for state sponsored terror. I just don't see a difference between the Lybian version and the American version. Compared to his own actions, Obama's speech was just as hypocritical.

"Handsome is as handsome does" says the Gaffer.

Greyhound Monopoly; do not pass 'GO,' do not collect 15M

2009-09-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

Re: Greyhound Cutbacks

Greyhound this week issued an ultimatum that it would need 15 million dollars to continue servicing unprofitable routes. The company enjoys this position of demanding money for being unprofitable by virtue of its inside deal. In exchange for a government protected monopoly, Greyhound services small communities mandated by the government.

For those of you who have always wondered why public transportation is so expensive look no further. Government protected monopolies created a deficit of transit competition that makes private transportation one of the cheapest options to the chagrin of environmentalists. Curiously, there is a direct correlation to cost per distance of a given mode of transportation, and whether or not its users bear the entire cost. In the US, the cheapest mode of transportation (apart from walking or bicycling) is the airplane at 13 cents per passenger mile followed by the automobile at 23 cents per mile, Amtrak is 56 cents per mile and lastly transit at 70 cents per mile. Of special note is that users pay all the costs of flying while transit at the bottom is heavily subsidized and monopolized. While it stings to have to pay the many airport service fees, at least the costs of air travel are borne by the users allowing efficiency to best evolve the network.

Ending the monopoly inefficiencies would go a long way towards a public transportation system that could be cheaper and more attractive to single occupancy drivers. As with many parts of our economy the problem is not the market. It's that there is no market.

Randal O'Toole has a good article that touches on this at the Cato Institute. The summary and first page appear dry and a little boring but it's a pretty interesting article. Non-libertarians (I include myself here) may need to park the odd sacred cow at the door to let him complete his argument but it's worth doing.

Not so Lonely Mountain II

2009-09-06T20:54:00.000-07:00

I usually enjoy planning hikes and climbs. The maps get spread across the floor, the dog-eared books litter the table and a path is worn between google earth and the coffee pot. However, when a friend comes out hiking, I always feel a little pressure to find the perfect trip to suit their expectations. So it was when Captain Orange confirmed that he would have a day in August to throw himself at whatever the mountains might offer. Knowing him as I do made the job of planning pretty easy. Something difficult with just a hint of the unknown thrown in. When I discovered that getting to Bow Peak involved a sketchy fording of the Bow River which might actually be too strong for safe passage, I realized this was the place for us.

From the Google Earth screen capture, I've drawn our route which begins on the icefields parkway, skirts some marshland then crosses Bow lake as it falls into the raging Bow River. If the river had been too strong, our backup plan was to cross the highway and climb Cirque Peak but the fates approved and allowed us to pass.

In the picture Mike makes the crossing which was about knee deep but with a pretty strong current that required one to take the task serious least you be carried down the rapids. The route then meanders up a drainage that contained a magical mixture of flowers, gentle waterfalls, glades and grass. For the better part of forty minutes we barely made any progress as we constantly stopped and admired it all while we made futile attempts to capture it with photographs.

We finally climbed above the treeline where Mike found some good granite to do some scrambling. Much of the rock in the Rockies is weather beaten limestone which tends to confine technical rock climbing to small areas of 'good rock.' In the picture here, this outcrop was an unusual granite that proved to be a good warm-up along the way.

After gaining the saddle between Bow Peak and Crowfoot Mt. we enjoyed the view of the valley as we surveyed our best route up . The funny thing about the mountains is that things look differently from different angles and different altitudes. From the saddle, what appeared to be gravel sized rock turned out to be a jumbled mass of rock sized between a living room and a rubics cube! An unfortunate characteristic of these boulders was that none of them seemed to be stable. Every foot placement and handhold caused each rock to wobble and slide a bit. It gave one the impression that you were about to slide down the pitch with several thousand tonnes of rock grinding you up like a canary in a cement mixer. In the picture above, I can't hide my displeasure with the sensation in spite of my rational understanding that these were not actually going to tumble down the pitch.
From the video you can get a sense of the endless boulders. But with determination and many brief rests, we won the ridge, a precarious knifeblade of decaying rock and massive stacked blocks.

While I chose a line that had a drop merely on only one side, Mike tip-toed across the blade of the knife interrupting his puffing with the occasional awed-imbued laugh. Of course you only need one side to fall down so I'm not sure why I felt safer but the mind is a funny thing. It did allow me to get some good shots of Mike on the ridge line. This picture comes close to expressing the sensation of space that being on a thin rope of land at the top of the earth creates. The ridge finally ended at the summit (9401ft) where we wrote our names in the summit register and drank in the view. As great as summits are, I often feel compelled to leave them. I have an acute sensation of how much effort I am from being safely on the ground. Lingering on a summit feel as bit like a game of chicken to me though it was a tough sell to convince Mike that we should probably make our way down.

By the time we made it off the steepest section and back to where we could hike out, the conversation had tapered off through tiredness. Though when it came time to cross the lake, a lively debate ensued as to whether the sun had melted the glaciers enough over the day to raise the level of the water and make our crossing more difficult. Examining our pictures from the morning we comically realized we crossed in a different spot. I prefer to imagine that the Fates opened a gate for us in our morning crossing and were now trying to close that gate by raising the water level. The rain that began to fall as soon as we closed the car doors certainly amplified the sense of Fortuna's blessing.

It was a great day with so many awe filled spectacles that each new one drove the next one out of my memory: torrential rivers, delicate flowers, stark valleys, pristine lakes, distant glaciers, accomplishment, adrenaline. Lung-burning serenity is one of many fleeting sensations in the mountains. Experiencing such fleeting moments with a good friend I think helps them endure.

more pics

Wrath of Khan:The Opera

2009-08-19T23:37:00.000-07:00

Ding-alinga dit-dit, dit-dit dee.

2009-08-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

A long standing riddle that has vexed me for years is the origin of that stereotypical "asian"riff in music. It has always amazed me that 9 notes could have come to explicitly refer to Asia, even though there doesn't seem to be a known source that everyone refers to. There really aren't many musical cliches and I've always been fascinated how this one came to be. Especially when it hardly sounds like Chinese music in the first place!

This problem had great longevity since it's difficult Googling sounds. But thanks to Luke Lalonde for finding this link, the entirety of this matter has been laid bare and this question is now solved.

Link contains music terms but is very accessible.
http://chinoiserie.atspace.com/index.html

Canmore

2009-07-31T09:04:00.000-07:00

I returned from the bush this week to our new place in Canmore. My time in the bush was marked by fewer bear encounters. I still had a few bears follow me around for uncomfortable lengths of time. The lack of bears was certainly made up for by a surplus of blackflies, and noseeums. I spent about a month camped in a marshland know as Musqua (see pic below.) From 5:30 AM until noonish, the bugs were pretty unreal necessitating appropriate attire around the head. In the picture is my black fly battle dress whose main purpose is to keep them from biting ears and eyes, and also to keep them out of my mouth. Its about as important as footwear in this part of the world.

By afternoon, the sun draws moisture up into massive cumulus clouds with accompanying winds to keep the bugs at bay until 7PM when the noseeums come out. You can tell when they're out because you look at yourself and realize there are hundreds of them crawling on you and then suddenly you realize you've been bitten several dozen times and they are starting to itch like crazy. Going into your tent at night involves rubbing your clothes vigorously all over to kill the nearly invisible gnats before you bring them into your tent and destroy any chance of sleep.

As you can see, I brought a camera with me to the bush this year, an unusual thing for me. I have a few pictures posted elsewhere but yet to post them in my public galleries. My emblematic short music video made from my hand-held still camera is posted at youtube . My days are pretty long and I carry plenty with me all day: food, warm clothes, rain gear, 4L of water plus all my work related gear. Because of this, even a little camera feels like extra weight I don't need so I only brought it with me a couple times. In spite of that I still caught a few interesting moments.

Usually, returning back to the city is a harsh transition. Canmore is a pretty gentle adjustment though. Looking out the window right now I have an uninterrupted panorama of trees and mountains.

At left is a shot I took of our place from the slopes of Mt Lady MacDonald. Our place backs right onto the mountains. Below is a collage of the inside of our kitchen/ front room. Its not as cubist as the picture hints at. Perhaps our favorite feature apart from where it is, is our first spare room. We now hope to lure friends over with mountain adventures and a proper place to crash.

Enjoying gin and tonics on the deck

Awsome movies that won't dissapoint me Part 1

2009-05-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

STV: nice if you don't think about it too much.

2009-05-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, the BC electorate go to the polls. Included on their ballot is a referendum on whether to change to a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. This new system would mean making electoral districts larger and with several elected candidates. The new ballots would mean rather than voting for one candidate in your riding, you would vote for up to seven candidates in a super riding. On the ballot, you rank your ordinal preference and the votes are counted. But each district has a different percent required to win (from between 12.5% to 33.3%) if a candidate gets that amount, they are the first to be elected, any "excess" votes get transferred to the next on the list in proportion to the excess until the district has selected its candidates. Proponents of this system argue that in first past the post, you end up with elections where for example 10% of the electorate vote for the Greens, but 10% of the legislature is not made up of Greens. Critics of this system argue that the complexity in tabulation require a computer to spit out the results with no paper trail or obvious correspondence between votes cast and votes received. Complexity is the least of it's problems.

Problem 1 Electors are failing with current workload.
I believe this system has several main flaws. Those that believe the distribution of parties is the biggest problem with government, don't actually observe government. The scandals committed by politicians of all ideologies runs the gambit from gross incompetence to outright criminal. Yet every politician who was ever jailed, everyone that rose to his or her level of incompetence was dutifully elected. Our worst politicians were all vetted by the public. Clearly, the public does a poor job of looking into the people they elect. The trend over the century as governments become more powerful with larger and larger budgets is greater voter apathy, indifference and ignorance. This is a problem in any system to be sure. With STV, in a 7 candidate riding, each party will run 7 candidates forcing an already lazy electorate to compare 30 or more candidates.
Is this even remotely realistic to assume that the electorate could possibly weigh this much information? Seeing that we do a failing job at filtering out the incompetent and the criminal when there are only 3 or 4 candidates, I think this is a no-brainer.

As pathetic proof of my argument, surveys on voter knowledge revealed a full 85% of the Ontario electorate had little or no understanding of proportional representation during their own referendum. Yet these same people would be charged with increasing the amount of information they would weigh under the new system!

Problem 2 More parties in government create less representation not more.
This seems like an oxymoron to most people but it is the law of unintended consequences in action. Under STV, proponents argue that smaller parties will get a voice in government. This sounds true until you examine how it works in practice. The more parties with elected members, the less likely there will be 50 percent majorities to form government. So how would governments form? By forming coalitions thereby including the smaller parties that were once shut out. The problem is the disproportionate power a small party has when it can make or break government. In the last parliamentary crisis, the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc formed a coalition to oust the Conservatives. I voted Liberal and had nothing but contempt for the NDP and Bloc platforms. But what parts of the Bloc and NDP policy would have made there way into legislation in a coalition with the Liberals? These deals happened after I had cast my ballot. I was sold a bill of goods that were then radically changed. I was so misrepresented, I sent a letter to the party canceling my membership. My vote ended up being a vote for someone else (transferred if you will.) This was a perversion of representation. Without provisions for ensuring that parties can't hijack their voters intentions, leaders vying for power will make a mockery of representation by political deal making. With STV, the electorate can look forward to more of this. Negotiations between parties vying for majority status horse trade policies and projects in the interest of those that elected them. But the point is that the people who voted for them never had the opportunity to vote for or against those policies. Concessions get made not on their own merits but because they are politically necessary for getting majority votes for legislation.

The nice idea of having a small party in legislative branch is offset by the problems of top down deal making in the administration branch. When people imagine the consequence of STV, I'm not convinced, they think this far ahead.

Problem 3 Smaller parties finally get representation.
Advocates of STV would consider this a good thing. Existing parties currently shut out of government need to look past their own self interests. I'm not sure how they will welcome the Jesus's Wrath party that elects a dozen members that hijack the political process for their own social engineering. The current system favours the center of opinion. It rewards the middle of the road. People may think this leads to unresponsive legislation and to our detriment, the status quo. They're right, it does. But it also means that change is predictable and life is sort of stable. The extremes are trimmed off and if you want to look around the world, this is an undeniable good. I believe that if an idea has merit, a majority of people can be convinced. If a majority can't be convinced then perhaps it deserves to be on the fringe. As much as I deride the average person, bypassing the majority rarely leads to justice. By suggesting that ideas most people don't like ought to be acted upon for their own good, is even more contemptuous of people than I am.

Problem 4 "Ought's" pushy brother "Is"
What this all boils down to is a judgment that the results of our elections don't look like what they ought to. Like when a better team loses to an inferior team one might think about how you could tinker with the rules to make sure the better team is more likely to win. That way, the results of the contest would be more representative of the teams. Of course one has already concluded what the result ought to be. Proportional representation advocates do the same. They conclude what the results ought to look like then fix the rules to get that outcome. Without examining the realities of how voter fatigue already contributes to bad government, without understanding how political necessity hijacks voter intent in coalition building, without understanding how the center is actually preferable sometimes to the fringe, one will be subject to the tyranny of "IS." The best of intentions for creating the world the way it ought to be are so often railroaded by the reality of how things actually are. Sure it would be nice if every party no matter how small got to have its "say" in the legislature. The reality is that at the end of the day, one group has to govern. We should pick that group in such a way that takes advantage of society's best qualities, and limits its worst. STV seems to ignore that there are such qualities in society and hence becomes a victim of those qualities.

May the 4th be with you...

2009-05-04T09:27:00.001-07:00

After 25 years of work, Ford presents: the Accord

2009-05-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

So I saw an ad for this 2009 Ford Fusion the other day making a pretty big deal about the fact that it had such amazing fuel economy. Working from the supposition that whatever claim is being made, the exact opposite is probably closer to the mark, I looked into it. I also wondered whether the Ford was as efficient as an 80s import.

2009 Ford Fusion 3.0 litre hiway: 30MPG

(from Ford's website)

1985 Honda Accord hiway: 29 MPG

Ford is all excited about making a car that Honda made better 25 years ago? And this is the one auto maker that isn't inches from bankruptcy? Okay, thats my last post about cars.

Endangered Species

2009-04-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

I copypasta'd the BIG 3's 2009 SUV models into a lovely collage. When you see them all together its hard to imagine that this industry is surviving in its present form. I doubt enough debt holders will bite on the equity swap proposed by GM to keep it out of bankruptcy. Now, I don't know much about marketing, perhaps excess product differentiation is the key to selling cars, but 30 models of SUVs from 3 companies seems pretty stupid.

Socotra: Greatest island on earth

2009-04-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

This little island off the coast of Somalia is only 100km by 40 yet hosts the most diverse terrain and plant life. The debate over whether life exists on other planets seems pretty inconsequential knowing I will likely never set foot on this island.

The Hangman by Maurice Ogden

2009-04-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

Suzuki outs his own Fascism

2009-04-20T11:44:00.000-07:00

News Item: Class Action lawsuit against casino.

This week, a class action lawsuit was filed for 3.5 billion dollars against Ontario Lottery and Gaming. Let me put aside the issue of whether the state should be operating casinos in the first place. What I found most interesting was the affidavit filed by litigant Peter Dennis:

"I could not stop myself from gambling."

I'm not a lawyer but isn't this a pretty undeniable admission of personal liability? I could not stop myself from gambling. Doesn't the very statement acquit the defendants? But after reading a little further, I see the suit claims that problem gamblers put their names on a "do not let me in" list which was then ignored. That shows negligence doesn't it? So let me get this straight. I tell the casino to not let me in. And then I sue them when I don't get caught for defying my own wishes. Attention unemployed mortgage-backed asset portfolio managers, I have a new business model for you!

News Item: NDP gets chaffed for opposing Carbon Tax

I'm enjoying the election in BC these days as the NDP is having to defend its opposition to BC's carbon tax with environmentalists in and outside of the party. You couldn't concoct better parody of informed dialogue than listening to the NDP debate carbon tax with the Suzuki Foundation. NDP leader Carole James defended her arguably populist and mainstream position by claiming among other things that the new tax hasn't limited demand as it ought to. Someone explain to Carole what price inelasticity is. Suzuki gave the NDP an earful and led the charge against the NDP.

“If [Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell] goes down because of axe the tax, the repercussions are the carbon tax will be toxic for future politicians,” David Suzuki said Friday.

“No politician will raise it. That's why environmentalists are so upset.”

"Toxic for future politicians" is pretty clear. Don't give people the opportunity to express their wishes since it will be harder to contradict those wishes in the future. He's never come so close to just being open about his contempt for public discourse. This very clearly admits that Suzuki et al have abandoned using reason and argument to persuade people and instead must use blunt power before people get a chance to express their will. Suzuki, rather than convincing people resorts to power justified by his own vision of the public good. The ends justify his means.

Finally, the NDP is forced to defend itself from its own brand of poorly reasoned and ill considered criticism.

Freedom to/from Sprawl in Calgary

2009-04-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

-Google view of North Calgary where citizens are indentured servants to automobiles.

Much applause from me this week for the Plan It Calgary group that released its findings on city planning and sprawl. They actually quantified the extra cost of servicing low density neighborhoods on the edge of Calgary versus more higher density projects closer to the center.
11 billion dollars.
It's hard to believe this isn't a ubiquitous metric at city hall. Traditionally city growth is at the whim of land developers whose only interest is making a king's ransom from buying land and subdividing it on the periphery.
This week Plan It suggested that high density was the only way the city could afford to grow. The developers cried foul with suggestions that the market should decide. Freedom and fairness, they suggested, was being violated. The interface between city rules and a free, unfettered, organic development is interesting. Like many other markets to date, the housing marketplace has only appeared to act freely.
Up till now, developers and the market have been free to build at improbable distances from the core, while everyone else subsidizes the additional cost of providing what few services are brought to these areas. Public transportation is hardly viable in these areas and the high cost of automotive infrastructure is not borne by the people who chose to live there. If these ridiculous costs were fairly borne, the marketplace would very quickly reveal that not many people would freely chose to live there after all.
Suburban living is incommensurate with my lifestyle but I am sympathetic to it. A new 3 bedroom house in my neighborhood currently sells for $850 000 while a similar house and yard in the newest suburb sells for $550 000. Under those conditions its easy to see where demand concentrates but that cheaper house in the suburbs only exists when everyone in the center defrays the extra costs of infrastructure. The tens of billions of dollars that Calgary will spend over the next ten years could be put to far better use elsewhere. Imagine what a city could do with 11 billion extra dollars! So Hurrah for Plan It and the hard money math that few in city hall can now avoid.

I'm all for a free market in real estate. When one appears, I'll support it.

The Barbarian States of America

2009-04-04T14:47:00.000-07:00

With regard to the latest mass murder in America, I notice everyone asking :

Why?

An easier question to answer is: How? He did it with two concealed handguns.

The Barbarian States of America claims a dozen more victims. How do thinking, considerate Americans live with this slaughter? Why aren't people rioting in the streets over the infestation of handguns? A pox on republicans, democrats and gun lobbyists. I can't wait for Lou Dobbs to build a wall between Canada and America.

Encana building takes Shape. Dave achieves sense of Calm

2009-04-01T19:36:00.000-07:00

After much construction teasing (the 6 underground floors,) the Encana building is finally taking shape. "The Bow" footprint as well as the first atrium floors have been welded into position. Steady progress is expected to follow in the spring and summer months.

Rendering of the new skyline. The Bow is the big silver one.

Most buildings are concrete core with glass curtain walls on the outside. The Bow is all steel construction which means frenzied cranes hoisting tinker toy frames and a spider web network of steel-work at blistering speed. Fellow construction voyeurs can follow along this spring and summer with a live camera feed.

-with thanks to everyone at "the bow" thread on skyscraper.com for insight, information, pictures and zeal.

David Suzuki: Televangelist Fraud Artist

2009-03-31T22:29:00.000-07:00

A less than bright idea brought to you by the Law of Unintended (but occasionally foreseen) Consequences.

We've all been preached to about getting rid of our light bulbs. The David Suzuki Foundation with others managed to convince the Ontario government to legislate against the little devils. I recall my father, who after thinking over the matter for but an instant realized what took everyone else a couple years: the furnace will have to work harder to make up for less heat in the new bulbs so its all the same except now you have a ton of mercury in the water table from discarded compact fluorescence. When I saw this article about the utility companies confirming this I searched my mental archive of Dad Rants ( meatworld://kitchen table/forums/obvious to me+when will they learn)

Curiously, a spokesdroid for the foundation demonstrates the kind of blind dogma they usually accuse everyone else of having. In addition the foundation zealously and successfully pushed these bulbs into legally mandated occupancy in the marketplace in spite of being a menace to groundwater with their mercury content. After getting a list of who works at the Suzuki Foundation, I learned that the Climate Change department consists of communications people except for 1 research analyst who has no academic credentials. Nice.

These are televangelists.
Who need to think.
Even just a little.
Before they tell everyone else what to do.

And screw everything up more than it already is.

Bush Visits Calgary

2009-03-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

Today, on traditional QNY, I went to protest George W Bush's visit to Calgary. Bush was speaking at the Telus Convention center for $400 per person. The scene at noon was of a thousand identically well dressed business elites lined up in a large "U" one block long in the Stephen Ave. pedestrian mall outside the convention centre. In the middle was the organized protest shouting various slogans from the profound to the inane. Intent on surveying the scene, I walked past the line of patrons and when I stopped to talk a picture, I noticed a understandable sheepish look on the people I photographed. Who wouldn't be a little off put by a stranger talking their picture? but in that expression was a pang of guilt. Next I noticed 3 young, ambitious looking suits snickering at the protest going on in the middle. They oozed superiority that would infuriate even the mildest person. I walked up to them and took their picture as a statement to them that their support for Bush is not happening in a vacuum. Their expressions changed instantly.
I staked out some geography at the entrance to the center behind 4 calm but serious police officers and waited for people to start filing in. The expression on the faces of the men waiting to get in was fear mixed with a little guilt but masked over with faux confidence and nervous laughter. The more I studied these faces, the more I realized that these were mostly wealthy businessmen who were really just there to be seen and mix with other business elites on their lunch hour. My alderman was there looking for people he recognized.

-this man ignores my querys while his buddy pretends I'm not there. They imagined their support for a tyrant would have no negative consequences to themselves.

I suppose there were plenty of businessmen who actually were there to politically support Bush but the networking fascists were really getting under my skin. It really started to bother me that these men would reward Bush with thousands of dollars in exchange for the privilege of being seen at a must attend social event. To reward someone who undeniably violates international law that Canada is a signatory to. To support such a villain and purveyor of injustice for their own personal networking and career advancement was a cowardly and banal kind of evil.
And so I looked each person in the eye as they passed and challenged them to explain why they were giving money to a torturer. Why were they giving money to a war criminal. "Why aren't you outraged?" I casually asked a suit who looked me in the eye. He smirked dismissively. I told him he was a coward as I shook my head with very real disappointment. "How can you pay money to someone who ignored every freedom he claimed to defend?" I ask another smug businessman. He laughs a nervous laugh and I tell him that you would have to have no soul to laugh at such blatant injustices. I found that the most effective scolding came in the form of making eye contact (I'm standing about 3 feet from these people) and just shaking my head and saying "shame" as I look them dead in the eye.

Shame on these cowards. Shame on these wealthy businessmen for divorcing themselves from their actions. Shame for putting their own networking above the cause of justice. Shame for their cowardice.

Traditionally on QNY, "getting told" often represents the exercise of one's freedom. Well, after "telling" a thousand people today, I feel as though I've accomplished in a very small way, the same thing.

Another Businessman robs the people blind with Government help

2009-03-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

News Item: Peter Pocklington arrested for Bankruptcy Fraud

With all the attention down south on American Captains of Industry stealing money whilst authorities followed the lead of the Absent President and did nothing, I thought it would be quaint to remember just one of Alberta's own high profile robbers. Back in the 80s as a car dealer(perfect) he would divert money from the Ford Financing wing into his own pet projects. Kind of Fargo-esque. But when things started going south, he secured a 10 million dollar loan to his worthless Fidelity Trust shell company. His buddy buddy relationship with Alberta's public held bank, ATB, in concert with showering its highest employees with skiing and golf holidays managed to run up a never ending line of credit totaling over 100 million of Alberta's dollars by the 1990s. Not to mention the 12 million dollar loan guarantee he secured for his failed meat packing plant that he never re-payed. When Fidelity Trust finally failed, it secured another 300 million from the public purse.
A useful quote from his personal website:

If you can't win, change the rules!
If you can't change the rules, ignore them

These quotes were intended to brand him as a leader with a creative business acumen who wasn't afraid to think outside the box. His main page notes his 3 divisions are food, sports, and "other." We now know that "other" means stealing public money abetted by public officials.
Anyway, added to his list of business laws is the following, when authorities are hot on your heels, flee the country. Which he did. To California. But after telling bankruptcy officials that he only had 2900 dollars in assets, (really? did that include the 800 dollar suit he was wearing at the time?) he was later seen repaying a local debt with $80,000 worth of art he retrieved from a storage locker. Oh yeah, and he drew cheques from 2 different bank accounts he forgot to mention to bankruptcy court! Meanwhile the Alberta government, or more accurately, those who weren't paid off by Pocklington in the 80s and 90s, are down in California trying to get some of the peoples' money back.

Here's a picture of Pocklington's tax lawyer Mike Lusby, who looks every inch the scumbag parasite. Photo courtesy his own website.

Pocklington's tax lawyer Mike Lusby (who makes $1000/hour except from clients who obviously only have $2900 to their name and therefore couldn't possibly afford such rates???!!!) defended Pocklington by claiming that it was a witch hunt.
He's right, it is a witch hunt. And this witch owes us millions of dollars.

In the media's newest story arc, the business tycoon gone bad, I hope it can find the time to expose the regulators and the bankers and the public officeholders who handed these robber barons their fortunes.

Dusting off the Key for QNY 19

2009-03-06T00:12:00.000-08:00

Thanks for eroding freedom, Lou Dobbs.

2009-03-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

The letter I got today from the Lou Dobbs show really was a nice touch. Of course if they had actually read my letter I'm sure they would have sent me their Haters form letter instead. The other day Lou was heroically defending the right to bear arms from the Liberal Menace. "Freedom Under Fire" the segment read. Normally I wouldn't give Lou's show the time of day but instead I watched and wrote a short letter inviting the show to contemplate the 100 billion dollars a year that gun deaths and injuries cause every year in America.
I thought if senseless death doesn't cause one to rethink "freedom under fire," then money might. But just to be sure, I sent some gun stats:

Since 1962, more than one million Americans have died in firearm homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings. Handguns were used in more than 650,000 of these fatal shootings.

In homes with guns, a member of the household is almost three times as likely to be the victim of a homicide compared to gun-free homes.
-from VPC

Why write a letter to the show? Well to celebrate QNY19 this week I thought I would either dig a hole to China or bring reason to the internet.

Stupidity exacts toll from Montreal Skiers

2009-02-28T15:29:00.000-08:00

News Item: Quebec skiers die in BC resort

The news has been chock full this week over how bad the RCMP are for not rescuing a Montreal couple fast enough. While I can't speak to their decisions regarding an SOS reported scratched into some snow, I can speak to the incredible stupidity demonstrated by this couple. The couple were incorrectly called experienced skiers. Nothing could be further from the truth. This pair defied posted warnings, crossed a fenced off area and headed into the back country with no food, no GPS, no compass, no map, no fire making equipment, no avalanche beacons or probes, no extra clothing, no route finding skills and most importantly, without anyone knowing where they were going or when they were to be expected back. Out of this list of 9 must-have essentials, even one of them could have saved their lives. You might as well jump out of an airplane without a parachute. I routinely travel in far more isolated mountain locations than this couple was "lost" in, but I equip myself with such supplies to ensure my safety and have a check-in procedure complete with intended route description. Traveling in the back country isn't a sneer at death, unless you make it so by taking no precautions or placing yourself in situations beyond your skill, experience and equipment.

The climbing bible for my neck of the Rockies, written by local legend Alan Kane says it best:

"Select a route within your level of ability and skills. If you don't know what your abilities are, maybe you don't have any."

Blaming anyone but themselves only excuses their stupidity.

Bush to visit Calgary:legal authority to arrest him.

2009-02-15T14:40:00.001-08:00

GW Bush is making one of his first newspeeking engagements in Calgary. Under Canadian law pursuant to international treaties, it seems we have plenty of legal justification to arrest him. With thanks to Observer151, Huffington Post:

Here's the relevant Canadian law on the matter - Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. This Act incorporates the 1998 Treaty of Rome regarding war crimes, as well as the Agreement for the prosecution and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis, signed at London on August 8, 1945; and the Proclamation by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, dated January 19, 1946.

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowTdm/cs/C-45.9//20090214/en?command=search&caller=SI&fragment=war%20crimes&search_type=all&day=14&month=2&year=2009&search_domain=cs&showall=L&statuteyear=all&lengthannual=50&length=50

Read the section entitled 'Offenses Outside Canada'. Nothing in that section exempts Bush from avoiding arrest under Section 6 of this Act.

In fact, it appear that nothing in the Criminal Code of Canada precludes an ordinary citizen of Canada from making a citizen's arrest of Bush for crimes under this Act. Section 494 of the Criminal Code provides citizens with all the power they require.

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/showdoc/cs/C-46//20090214/en?command=search&caller=SI&fragment=494&search_type=all&day=14&month=2&year=2009&search_domain=cs&showall=L&statuteyear=all&lengthannual=50&length=50

Mandatory life imprisonment is called for where intentional death occurs as a result of the accused's actions:

2) Every person who commits an offence under subsection (1) or (1.1)

(a) shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life, if an intentional killing forms the basis of the offence; and

(b) is liable to imprisonment for life, in any other case.

From the Albigensian Crusade to the Route4 Express

2009-02-02T14:39:00.000-08:00

News Item: Atheist Ad Campaign on Calgary Buses

A PSA has arrived in Calgary after obviously stirring up controversy in the UK. To balance this campaign, the United Church with nothing better to do with their congregation's charitable donations, has launched a counter-ad saying "There probably is a god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
"Probably is a God"?? Christians spent 14 centuries torturing and killing people for heresy and blasphemy and now they've been whittled down to "probably. " Well, that's the United Church for you. No wonder Catholics think everyone is going to Hell. A brief survey of the Catholic Encyclopedia about the inquisitions yields such apologetic gems and outright lies as:

"St. Augustine, on the contrary, was still opposed to the use of force" (not true)

"opposite of historical truth to assert that the imperial edicts punishing heresy with death were due to ecclesiastic influence" (hilariously wrong)

"In short, no blame attaches to the church for her behavior towards heresy in those rude days." (OMG!!!!!)

Thankfully, the church is no longer slaughtering heretics by the tens of thousands as Pope Innocent III did (this period is the origin of the phrase, kill them all let God sort them out). As the world marks Darwin's 200th birthday this week, I will try to remember that now the church only psychologically tortures people by telling them how they descended from, and inherited Adam's original sin. The American numbers are too scary for me to quote but even in Canada a full forty percent either don't believe evolution or aren't sure.
Sorry Mr. Darwin, you'll have to sit at the back of the bus.

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"In the red" carpet

2009-01-26T14:25:00.000-08:00

It's forecasting season once again! Yesterday, the Screen Actors Guild released its forward statements for the fiscal year. It estimates that the 850 billion dollar recovery package will lower unemployment by 1.8 percentage points and create 3.7 million jobs. They also suggested that the ensemble cast of "Slumdog Millionaire" was the best of several submitted tenders.

Opposing this outlook was the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which declined to see the same merits in any of the "Slumdog" cast. Further frustrating the Screen Actors Guild, the Academy projects lower unemployment by 2 percentage points in 2010 but with a much lower unemployment baseline than SAG predicts. Academy voting member Mark Zandi implied that the actual path of unemployment could resemble what the Obama team is projecting if nothing is done.

Private Members

2009-01-23T19:43:00.000-08:00

News item: Catholic church has own Youtube Channel

The Catholic church has decided to get its own youtube channel. I'm not sure if what the church can offer that can possibly trump mentos in diet coke. Perhaps the pope having a dance-off with Napoleon Dynamite. A spokespope said that they wanted to show that the church is no longer "in the middle ages."
Catholics believe in evil spirits possessing people, invisible all powerful man/god/ghost beings and miracles. If youtube is going to save them from being thought of as intellectually backwards, maybe miracles are possible after all.

For a proper image upgrade, see this Brilliant brand redo from Monkey Dust.
(Skit starts @ 0.56)

____________________________________________________________________

News item: NDP private members bill: Airline Passenger Bill of Rights

Thats right, an airline passengers bill of rights. Its hard to believe these guys come in last in every election. Where can I get in line to put forward my Diner Patron's bill of rights to ensure that careless line cooks aren't hard-boiling my sunny-side ups. While we're at it, can the NDP make sure the next movie I go to doesn't waste as much of my time as waiting for a delayed flight? Sheesh.

____________________________________________________________________

Suz and I got a slow cooker as a Christmas gift so we've been enjoying our middle class birthright: stew. As pedestrian as it seems, I really am enjoying throwing stuffing it in the morning and being welcomed in the evening to hearty goodness. It's the perfect ally for our weekends when we usually return from adventuring tired and hungry.

best laid plans

2009-01-10T23:26:00.000-08:00

In the darkest months of winter, I find myself with a hot mug of chicken broth, my new favorite evening beverage, a map and google earth. Between the topo maps and flying around the mountains on Suz's iMac, I've been planning most of my summer hiking. If I spend long enough on google earth, I'll hardly need to go to these places and save myself much excess carb loading.

Prorogies and sausage

2008-12-04T15:19:00.000-08:00

Convergence of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon from the other night made me giggle. What influence might this have on our parliamentary problems?
To find out, I searched "convergence" and came up with the following taken from the
Energy Activations website:

Fragmented off from the GATHERING OF THE ONE, Our highest level of vibration, these two "chips off the old block" have been assigned the task of exploring every possible/probable manifestation of "somethingness" and "nothingness" which is, was, or ever could be. Although their explorations are infinite, the Oneself has stipulated it (as in a court of law)......unto completion, and has initiated the Reconnection to Oneness on our planet.

These two archetypal "Gods" (if you will) are programmed to stay separate, but intertwined from infinity past to infinity future. But in 1987, the "brothers" (who we shall call "Theos and Chaos") entered into each others' Being for the first time since the start of The Grand Game. They began to CONVERGE...each began infusing the other with all the power and wisdom they had gained in their explorations.

This Convergence began a chain-reaction in the entire universal structure--initiating a collapse of the polarity format and the creation of an entirely New Paradigm for living. Global Transmutation began, with all its shifts, changes, and inner challenges. Though great change has already occurred as a result of this collapse, we not completely lose our involvement with polarity. We are simply moving to a new and more exciting level of the Game!

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I guess even a broken watch tells the correct time twice a day!

Anger Management

2008-12-03T19:07:00.000-08:00

I've been more angry this week than usual. My usually benign liberal party has betrayed me and turned into a party of retards handing the keys of power over to separatists and ideologues. That's probably going to create some economic stability which was their reason for ousting the minority government?!

And so to combat my stress over the continued demise of reason in this country, I'm turning off the news and looking at fine art. One of my favorites, Dutch master, Vermeer: Ahhhhhhhhhhh.......

What does it take to get Fired? by Rick Wagoner

2008-11-28T13:28:00.000-08:00

In his first 5 years as CEO of GM, Rick Wagoner earned 22 million dollars according to Forbes. From 2006 till the present he has earned only a couple million per year. Meanwhile his company decreased its market share by nearly half and investors over the same period lost confidence. GM's share price has fallen from $90 per share down to $2 a share. I guess 30 million doesn't buy very much CEO competence these days. One has to wonder what would constitute a performance failure? Did Wagoner pull the board of directors out of a burning Buick? What would a good CEO who increased market share and stock price be worth?
Wagoner had some nerve to complain before Congress that his industry was beset with problems stemming from the fact that customers cant get loans. Before the credit crisis, industry analysts were predicting GM bankruptcy and the performance of GM over the last 10 years speaks for itself.

I can only hope that the US car industry goes belly-up. I can only fantasize that this could turn into an opportunity for North America to evaluate the disproportionate resources it devotes to personal automobiles at the expense of collective transportation and shipping. Because even if America avoids a collapse of its auto manufacturing industry, it has a multi trillion dollar auto infrastructure to fix such as bridges and highways. The personal auto has butchered our countryside, choked our cities, poisoned our air, skewed our urban development, taxed our budgets, and constrained our livable spaces.

Let them go bankrupt and give the public's billions to public transportation. Let a crumbling auto industry usher in some new dialogue about the best way to move people around.

Winter Climbing 2008

2008-10-13T18:48:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving rolls around again which means its time for the 2nd annual Dave& Jim mountain expedition. This year we started at Spray Lake, 30 km south of Canmore. We shouldered our packs Saturday morning and headed up towards Buller pass with a healthy dose of snow under foot.

Pausing to drink in the view in the valley, Buller Mt in background.

With the heavy snowfall, we had to do quite a bit of route finding through rough terrain. Walking through boulder-strewn avalanche run-outs covered in snow is very difficult if you don't want to break your legs. At left we're pausing to discuss our bearing.

At left Jim nears the summit.

At the top of Buller, 8200 feet and perfect blue sky. In the distance at left is Mt Engadine and at right on the horizon is Mt Assiniboine. It was so nice we spent nearly a half hour on top, much longer than the weather usually permits.
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looking up at Jim negotiating the couloir.

looking down with lumps of snow falling towards oblivion.

Down the other side we descended a series of rock bands until we reached a precipice that looked too technical so we traversed to the couloir pictured above. The camera takes some of the steepness out of this picture but it was really a controlled fall of about a thousand feet- sounds fun but hidden in the snow are rocks waiting to tear you to pieces.

After descending the elevator shaft we waded through knee deep snow through the next valley. Getting slightly off-course we ended up dropping down a half-frozen waterfall, not the best scenario when you're tired cold and hungry but we were too tired to backtrack uphill. By our less than perfect route, we found Ribbon Lake where we pitched the tent, made a fire and ate re-hydrated stew.

The next day I awoke and wondered if we would be able to get out of the tent as there was a heavy layer of ice on everything including the zipper. The temperature had gone down to -10 freezing my boots so solidly I could barely get my feet into them. We quickly got a fire going and thawed out enough to make the long trek back.

We climbed the opposite side of the valley to better plan a route back and after much discussion, we chose a rock ramp that was difficult to get to but showed promise as an easier ascent to our destination. A geologist would have been fascinated with the glacial formations we traversed but a blizzard settled in and we mostly concentrated on our footing.

At left Jim picks his footing up the "ramp"

The sense of scale is lost quickly in these conditions. With only rocks and snow in the visual field, it is easy to misjudge a good route from bad. At left, I'm picking my way up near the line we abandoned the day before. With the top so close, I recall being relieved. Earlier in the day I wasn't sure if we would make it past this obstacle before dark!

Once past, we merely had to keep our feet moving all the way down the valley, no small task when you are exhausted but the snow turned to rain as we lost elevation and finally the sun peeked out when we reached bottom. This trip was a fantastic adventure with breathtaking sights and a sense of accomplishment that will be a while in eclipsing.

Debatable

2008-10-08T22:57:00.000-07:00

I watched the Presidential debate last night. John McCain started and ended every sentence with "my friends." Sorry John, but I don't want to be your friend. To lighten the mood after my brush with the icy hand of death that is John McCain's grip on this mortal coil, I made a lolcat of him.

Aftermath

2008-09-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

OECD PISA math scores 2006 (Programme for International Student Assessment)

Finland.........548...(+4) brackets indicate previous score 2003
Korea...........547...(+5)
Netherlands...531...(-7)
Switzerland...530...(+3)
Canada..........527...(-5)
Japan...........523...(-11)
New Zealand ...522...(-1)
Belgium..........520...(-9)
Australia 520 (-4)
Denmark 513 (-1)
Czech Republic 510 (-7)
Iceland 506 (-10)
Austria 505 (+0)
Germany 504 (+1)
Sweden 502 (-7)
Ireland 501 (-1)
France 496 (-15)
United Kingdom 495 not tested in 2003
Poland 495 (+5)
Slovak Republic 492 (-6)
Hungary 491 (+1)
Luxembourg 490 (-3)
Norway 490 (-5)
Spain 480 (-5)
United States 474 (-9)

The American economy tanks when vast numbers of its citizens suddenly realize they are spending more on fixed expenses than they earn. Simultaneously, financial experts mistake return on investment with return of investment. We didn't really need the PISA test to tell us that US math ability is at the bottom of the industrial world.

Bailout at 20,000 Feet

2008-09-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

Its hard to no longer be surprised by what happens in the Caricatured States of America (thanks Vin!) This morning I watched the reality show that is the US Congress. After the 700 billion dollar bailout bill was defeated by a majority of Republicans and a minority of Democrats, the Republicans held a news conference blaming the bill's failure on... wait for it... a partisan speech by Nancy Pelosi! Only in Republican hypocrisy and right wing gorilla math could vast Republican nay votes be the fault of Democrats! They crowded the microphone at the news conference each one wetting their pants trying to pin Republican nay votes on Democrats! What really amazed me is that the crowd of reporters didn't fall down laughing as I did at home spilling a teaspoon of coffee in the bargain. So let me get this straight, these Republicans who received thousands of calls and email from their constituents urging them to vote no and who are up for re-election in a few weeks were going to vote yes at great political peril, until Nancy gave a partisan speech and then they voted no out of spite? A kindergarten child would laugh at this retort yet this is how republicans imagine they get to have every issue their way. "We're anti regulation until things are screwed and then when we vote against fixing them, blame the interventionist democrats." They bet on every horse and hope Americans forget when they're wrong and boast when they're right.

The Bailout
I've been trying hard this week to understand the fulcrum that the US economy sits on. On the one hand, the crisis seems to be created by cheap credit given to bad risks and therefore creating more credit (by making it more fluid) doesn't solve the problem. On the other hand say some, the credit market is so tight that companies that rely on short loans to make payrolls and purchase necessities can not get money and meet these demands or capitalize new projects. In most economic downturns, credit becomes cheap causing borrowing and spending on capital projects creating jobs and turning the economy upwards. If there is no credit this cannot happen and stagnation occurs. Cheap credit is bad, no credit is bad- so what should the Fed do to push the market to the middle?
Settling this argument would require a calculation that could quantify the losses to the economy related to credit illiquidity and pit them against the inefficiencies of evaporating wealth from letting these mortgage-backed securities fail. No one can calculate this because it's probably impossible (another word for impossible calculation is the Future.) Instead, people can only guess. So a trillion dollar decision comes down to guesswork which reinforces the vagueness of the rhetoric surrounding arguments from both sides. I would argue that when the bond market shows negative interest rates as it did this week, the markets are demonstrating that they are willing to lose part of their investment to be sure they don't lose all of it. When this is the state of your banking industry, a guess to create liquidity is starting to look pretty good!
Whatever happens, the US economy is in an adjustment period, doing nothing is certainly one way to get where its going to adjust to. A bailout will not "save the economy" as the rhetoric suggests, it will merely soften the journey to its ultimate destination of post credit crash America which will look pretty different than it does now.

post script
As I watched simulcasts of the floor of the house and the floor of the NYSE, I could actually watch the "markets react" as the votes hit the big board in Congress. It did make me appreciate Canada's election system of no fixed dates. Its true I find the spate of elections in the last 8 years bothersome and expensive, but when I watch an economic crisis overlap an election down south, I mourn for reason.

Wisdom and Knowledge shall be the Stability of thy Times

2008-09-24T21:20:00.000-07:00

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

-John McCain, last week

Excess is the operative word here. Excess hypocrisy, stupidity, ignorance, and perhaps reckless abandonment of truth. McCain wants this Fridays debate with Obama canceled because of the "financial crisis." Even though last week, he thought the nation's finances were fundamentally sound and banking deregulation was Martha Stewartarianly a "good thing." McCain knew full well that his voting record on deregulation would come into the forefront at the debate, and his clueless reckoning of economics would be paraded by a more intelligent opponent. From the man that has made a career out decorating every conversation with his POW sob stories, he's proving that he is a unmitigated coward to the core. The fact that the upcoming election is even close is a terrifying indictment of half the nation.

Watching Bush's address to the nation tonight, I wondered whether he realizes that after 8 years of misleading the American people and the Congress on Iraq, asking to be trusted to dole out a Trillion dollars right away is really just too much. A Trillion dollars! (700billion now plus several hundred already given out.) I write it and can barely believe it! I guess when you've falsified evidence to send the country to war, defied every notion of freedom by illegal trials and torture, by defying the constitution by illegally spying on your own citizens, suspending habeas corpus, after employing executive privilege to bypass any oversight, by corrupting the department of justice to fire political opponents around the country-
its pretty easy for Bush to say "C'mon whats a trillion dollars? don't you trust us?"

The inscription on Rockefeller center is right.
Art Deco why hath you forsaken us??!!!

"Conan, what is best in life?"

2008-09-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, all my troubles did not seem so far away. Loose shale and poor confidence forced me to give up on my attempt on Mt Cory, a climb considered easy by active climbers. But my mood picked up tenfold upon hiking up to Cory pass on the way to circumnavigating Mt Edith. At Mt Edith's base, breezy aspens dot grassy slopes. Leafy underbrush was turning colour and nature seemed more like a postcard than an obstacle. I actually couldn't stop grinning it was so beautiful. It was my periodic payment for all the times that someone looks down their nose at me for not having a permanent job. Having just spent two weeks with Suz's parents which was by all means a lovely time but I bore the brunt of an opinion that work is something noble and the only way to create meaning and security. Well today was one of those reminders that money and class and status can never buy time. As I ambled over the mountains on this picture perfect day in solitude, I was being screamed at in every direction that there is nothing meaningful to me about a life that is not enjoyed to the fullest.

not too soon to see the ramparts of home

2008-08-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

Upon arriving home and spending a relaxing evening with Suz, I was anxious to test myself in the mountains while I was still battle hardened from the summer. I First chose Mt Grotto which at 8881 feet seemed a good first choice. I solo climbed the ACC direct line here shown in yellow.

I was quite pleased to make the summit in 2 hours and 30 minutes which I will have difficulty besting in the future I think. Adding my own height to the mountain, and by standing on two stacked rocks, my eyes were perched at an even 8888 feet! A suitable companion task to the Quest walk in Saskatoon I thought.

After a rest day, Suz and I went to the foot of Mt Bogart for a very relaxing hike though with significant elevation gain.
Along the way I revisited my failed attempt on Mt Sparrowhawk seen behind me. The picture below shows me about 3 thousand vertical feet from Spray Lake, our starting point. Around this elevation(6000ft) the hoary marmot can often be found, and we discovered a small colony here with several of them sunny themselves and poking around uncaring of our invasion of their privacy. This one was pulling up rocks to eat the yummy grubs hidden underneath.

After another rest day, I made an attempt on the Middle Sister, part of the Three Sister group south of the Trans Canada by Canmore. Middle sister, shown above is not surprisingly, the block in the middle! My route climbs up Stewart Creek, a series of bolder-strewn dry waterfalls, then traverses the south face.

Its a pretty big undertaking and the way I felt getting out of the car in the morning was more suggestive of pure sloth than unbridled enthusiasm. But I soldiered on picking my way through the boulders till I was back in a good tempo. At one point, I was finding a route up a dry waterfall when I realized I was on very loose scree on slab with bad exposure on one side. Without care it would be easy to slide into the small canyon beside me. I quickly but carefully downclimbed and traversed over to a different line. When you're by yourself, even something remotely dangerous must be treated carefully and respectfully.

Here I am at the col connecting Big Sister from Middle sister. I wasted too much energy by choosing a straight ascent line rather than a wider and longer traverse and at this point, I was pretty tired. Off in the distance is the Trans Canada hi-way and the flat plains of the prairies extending to the horizon.

I think this picture also shows how tired I am! Perhaps I'll take 2 days off before I set out again. After a summer of hard work, I'll take this unpaid and harder work every time.

Back From the Beyond, a summery summary

2008-08-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

Another summer in the woods blurs into my jumbled memories of bears and bugs, swamps and swearing. If there could be such thing as a good year, I would claim that I had it. The wasp population crashed this spring, the weather was wild but not extreme, the bugs were bad but not impossible. Thinking back it feels like I spent most of the summer folded into the front seat of an ASTAr helicopter with a map in my lap navigating to an endless series of clearcuts. I think I audited a couple hundred which means lots of time flying around trying to make the world match my maps and trying to do it as fast as possible since the helicopter costs $1500/ hour. The wood from the blocks is trucked out in winter over the frozen muskeg so summer travel, of any appreciable distance is by helicopter only

When I wasn't flying though I saw great quantities of the earth, hidden jewels secreted away from any signs of man. Places that I will be the first and last eyes to glance upon. I watched a pack of wolves take down and devour a deer. A chilling spectacle for both eyes and ears as the deer let loose a scream that I shall never forget. Bears in quantity this year but luckily for me, all healthy and well fed. I was stalked one morning by a black bear. It followed about 5M behind me for a disturbing amount of time but its demeanor was so non-aggressive that I was strangely calm until it finally left me alone. Another bear I caught sneaking up on me like a cat, a behavior I haven't seen before and a very alarming incident, but when I went into "bear scare" mode (screaming and banging sticks to the ground) it lumbered off. The other 120 bears I ran into this summer rambled off showing various degrees of concern towards me.

Suzanne came out from Calgary to visit when I was working in Kananaskis. She spent the day with me although she didn't really get a look at at what I usually do. But it broke up the summer nicely to have a short visit. Perhaps she was the good luck charm that held the usual disasters at bay!

The environment: Science not Politics

2008-04-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

Well, next week I depart for the woods for a few months to audit clearcuts, a mostly peaceful and solitary endeavor, broken only by the daily hurricane of helicopter insertions and the odd bear encounter. I recently read Greenpeace's latest media release about the boreal forest. Its been my job to audit the transformation from clearcut back to forest so when their claims don't match my experience or data, it naturally leaves me jaded. Either they lie because they think its worth it or they're just not very smart and make lots of mistakes, I'm not sure. But when I see that their report has the sigs of some forestry profs from Toronto, I realize just how easily objective science gets hijacked and slaughtered in the name of ideology.
I do look forward to getting away from my civ. I can only endure so much of my fellow species before I really go off my tree. A welcome break from people wailing about climate change who don't understand basic chemistry. A break from robotic eco parrots whistling about carbon dioxide, ignorant that ice core data shows no correlate between carbon dioxide and rising temperatures. Appeals to truth by means of status: "look at all these scientists who believe this" the surest sign that an argument cannot be won on its merits. Yes, I'm really tired of listening to myself complain about how an essentially scientific question is argued by halfwits with and without Phds. Opinion is the raw material of politics, not science. Science is about testing, results, analysis and verification/falsification. So far in the debate over whether man is responsible for the recent warming, I see only the former and none of the later.

And so on Earth Day rather than make myself feel good by imagining that I'm saving the planet (by the way, the planet will be just fine what ever we do or don't do) I chose to do something of substantial effect. I donated money to handicapped kids (a cause with resonance to me as a healed cripple) and purchased some malaria prevention nets (another malady I am too familiar with) to be distributed in Africa. Small tokens it's true but I felt confident that this marginal effort was more than lip service to a cause which I fear the environmental movement suffers from in spades. When people aren't suffering and dying needlessly, I suppose I will contemplate hypothetical impeding disasters such as the environment.

toe hold

2008-02-11T19:57:00.000-08:00

I read with interest in the current issue of Science that lo and behold, ethanol emits as much green house gases as petrol when all inputs are considered. I seem to remember last April blogging the same conclusion based improperly on logic and intuition. Vindication is sweeter than light crude.

For the curious, I present my frozen toe:
As you can see, the nail has turned a lovely blue shade and there is a minor fault or perhaps a subduction spread occurring at the base. Guesses as to when the entire facade lifts off can be made at this address.

Suzanne took me to the theater this weekend. We saw "The Gift of the Coat" by Sean Dixon. The story is of a philanthropist who gives a bum his expensive coat only for same bum to get killed for it by a thief. An iteration of the Law of Unexpected Consequences I suppose. It was technically superb but the lead was a little too affected.

This week we're off to spend the week in Banff. Its sort of a try it on for size experiment to see how it feels as we're contemplating a move out there. Mountain biking, climbing and skiing literally out the back door is the drawing card and amazingly, its slightly cheaper than Calgary and Canmore.

The Price is Right

2008-02-02T22:09:00.000-08:00

When I read the Saturday Globe and Mail I pretty much take exception to nearly everything which is why bothering to write about any of it is like the eye trying to resolve a star in a distant galaxy. As a very typical example though was an article discussing the merits of a government financial incentive to automakers to help them make more fuel efficient cars. The author was a complete idiot since there really is no difficulty at all making a fuel efficient car. The trouble is making the public drive a fuel efficient car. For heavens sake put a small engine in a small car and presto! A car that gets 90 MPG right now. Of course it wont rev loud and go faster than the speed limit but it will be efficient which everyone claims to want. Which leads me to the following conclusion verified on a daily basis: freedom can not co-exist with environmental stewardship. This program is a grant that allows car buyers to have their cake and eat it too. Any news article that fails to show this incentive program as anything other than a pandering to a greedy consumer via the automakers isn't worth the paper its printed on.

On a softer note though, my cynicism of America was lessened of late after watching the two Super Tuesday debates this week. The Republican debate was indistinguishable from parody. Mitt Romney, a guy who believes in con artist John Smith's wacky tale of "golden tablets" and talking white salamanders otherwise known as the Mormon faith, and John McCain argued over who supports the war more! And while Rome burned, Nero played the violin.
The following day Billary Clintama spoke most eloquently after clearly agreeing beforehand to have a public love in for the sake of the cameras. Really though, I would vote for either of those two for anything. They didn't talk down, they outlined their positions without sketching their opponents with misleading hyperbole. In short, they behaved like adults rather than children. I can't say I've seen that ever on any political stage. It was kind of a dream come true in fact, for a second, it almost seemed like they were behaving as though the electorate was educated and rational which is of course a long standing fantasy of mine. When I look to America jealously at their politicians, you know I've been in Alberta too long!

While standing on a snowy mountain top this week drinking in the view, I couldn't help think of the markets which roller coastered rather heavily this week. It occurred to me that since stock prices change constantly and some times drastically, the price is always wrong. Some would say that the price is always perfectly accurate since the price is always what someone wants to pay. Which is true but that price, since it always changes, was clearly the wrong price. Which makes the markets inherently irrational contrary to common thought. I say this because real value doesn't change that fast. which leads me to the price of Oil.
The amount of oil in the ground is more or less estimated yet the price wildly fluctuates. Is this real supply and demand? The supply isn't really going anywhere OPEC quotas notwithstanding. No, instead the price is based entirely on Fear. America saber rattles Iran and the price jumps not because there is suddenly less oil in the ground but because of Fear of supply problems. Since the major oil consumers have been using more and more oil every year, fear of supply is clearly just a myth. Like Romulus and Remus, supply and demand are bedtime stories.

climb and ski

2008-01-22T18:18:00.000-08:00

did some climb and ski today. Kept my promise to not avalanche

Perfect day in paradise though very exhausting. I shot this blurry and shaky Sasquatch style footage from the top

LARP

2008-01-21T21:04:00.000-08:00

Perhaps it will be discovered someday that religion is just a Live Action Role Playing game. That would explain a lot. This week, University of Rome faculty protested the Pope's possible speaking engagement at said university. The punchline was a press release today by the vatican urging the scientists to be more "open to other people's opinion." However, one of the benefits of being a scientist is that you don't have to listen to any opinion - just facts. Tenured professors don't even need to listen. Curiously, when I feel I need to be punished, I read the opinions of others in the letters to the editor in my local paper. the opinions of others make a ready stand -in for a few lashes. Its not quite as punitive as soul-crushing christian guilt, its not as dehumanizing as christian theology, nor is it as disempowering as christian prescriptions, but it does make me feel as though the world is a hellish, wicked place.

Ron Paul, Q Ray: together Doomed

2008-01-08T16:18:00.000-08:00

Well, the legions of undecided American voters can heave a collective sigh of relief for today I am finally pointing my own golden compass at the correct choice: Its Ron Paul. Its true he's a border freak and a tad bit isolationist but that's probably a good thing. The ultimate nod of approval comes from "free and fair" Fox news which refused him in its candidate debate! The fact that FOX news is scared of what he has to say demonstrates Ron Paul's credentials. He's the only candidate who seems to understand why militant islamists hate America. As he explained on Leno last night, its not because "they hate freedom" as the White House boldly invents (Its a comment on the stupidity of America that so many buy this.)
I'm actually enjoying the rhetoric machine that is the primaries. On the one hand candidates talk about how awful things are but on the other hand they must be talking about how great America is. Ron Paul is also the candidate who does the least amount of "presenting" himself which I'm naturally distrustful of.

He will lose of course since America can run itself and half the world into the ground and most Americans will vote for anybody who coddles their religious insanity regardless of how much of a clueless charlatan they are.

I'm very resentful of America right now. American retards defaulting on loans bought by other retards creating a need to liquefy assets by other retards without the backbone to wait it out all adds up to this retard losing lots of money.

My consolation this week was the court ruling against the Q-Ray bracelet ( a favorite target of this blog) The court said Q-Ray's claims about how the bracelets worked through "enhancing the flow of bio-energy" were nonsense. Really? The best part was the judges comments:

"Defendants might as well have said: Beneficent creatures from the 17th dimension use this bracelet as a beacon to locate people who need pain relief and whisk them off to their home world every night to provide help in ways unknown to our science," he wrote in his decision.

I'll take Potpurri for 800 Alex

2007-09-29T22:23:00.000-07:00

While the ADDers, preteens, other gamers, and people who simply don't know any better are drowning in the saliva of their own nervous breakdowns over Halo 3, I'm starting to get pretty excited about Unreal Tournament 3. Its the Cadillac of FPS and the latest instalment is raising my blood pressure because the editor is being ported to MAC finally so I can make a U of S map or perhaps virtually kill people from all over the globe in a rendered version of Saskatoon's Broadway Ave.

Sunday Suz and I will be making perhaps our last hike of the year as snow has been our third wheel last two outings. I've posted most of this years trips on another blog which is mostly finished, I'll drop the URL when its more done. We're hoping to tackle the Wasootch Ridge as long as the snow doesn't impede us. We're not ones to cower from snow but its actually pretty dangerous unless you have crampons. I'm excited about taking an avalanche course in November so I can prowl the backcountry in safety.

Big news out in Calgary is the Royalty Review Board's conclusion that oil & gas royalties should be hiked by 20%. Its looking like the province will adopt their findings which is proving to be a thorny issue for Encana which is threatening to pull a couple billion in investment next year. There is of course no correct percentage. Instead it seems that the government wants to get as much as it can without disrupting too much economic activity. With such loose parameters you can imagine that all players are struggling to construct logical arguments supporting some percentage or another. In fact there are no logical arguments on either side. Considering that the oil isn't going anywhere if Encana doesn't want to suck it out, I wouldn't be too worried about their threats. Incidentally, the province experienced the same gloom from the industry back in the 1950s and again in the 70s when the royalty was introduced and later hiked.
Their childish threats though are unfortunately easy for me to forgive what with Encana building this cool half "u" shaped skyscraper downtown. Its going to be 800 feet tall and will be the tallest outside Toronto. Its no Burj Dubai but its pretty cool.

Driving through Calgary tonight on our way to see Superbad I found myself praying to Turnicus Lefticon, Roman God of Opportunity.

My endeavours in the world of haute finance (Suz is brilliant!) have been much muted of late. Summers' volatility has made me rather gun shy but perhaps when the sun vacates in the long winter months, I will feel a greater urge to sit in front of my computer screen for an extra hour a day.

From my last post, you might be able to guess that I spent an entire Friday night on Youtube watching all the bizarre clips from the 1970s Sesame Street I grew up on. Strange animated odes to numbers like some sort of Pythagorean Renaissance, involved vignettes about the letter W. The whole show struck my adult brain as an effective OCD factory. I was also left wondering if I was part of some sort of experimental generation? And was the experiment a success?

no expiry date on foolishness

2007-09-20T20:33:00.000-07:00

Brrr... it is chilly

The Times, February 24, 1895
"Geologists Think the World May Be Frozen Up Again" Fears of a "second glacial period" brought on by increases in northern glaciers and the severity of Scandinavia's climate.

New York Times, October 7, 1912
"Prof. Schmidt Warns Us of an Encroaching Ice Age"

Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1923
"The possibility of another Ice Age already having started ... is admitted by men of first rank in the scientific world, men specially qualified to speak."

Chicago Tribune, August 9, 1923
"Scientist says Arctic ice will wipe out Canada."

Time Magazine, September 10, 1923
"The discoveries of changes in the sun's heat and the southward advance of glaciers in recent years have given rise to conjectures of the possible advent of a new ice age."

New York Times, September 18, 1924
"MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age"

Mmmm - nice and sunny...

New York Times, March 27, 1933
"America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-Year Rise"

Time Magazine, January 2, 1939
"Gaffers who claim that winters were harder when they were boys are quite right.... weather men have no doubt that the world at least for the time being is growing warmer."

Time Magazine, 1951
Noted that permafrost in Russia was receding northward at 100 yards per year.

New York Times, 1952
Reported global warming studies citing the "trump card" as melting glaciers. All the great ice sheets stated to be in retreat.

U.S. News and World Report, January 18, 1954
"[W]inters are getting milder, summers drier. Glaciers are receding, deserts growing."

Oops, getting nippy again...

Time Magazine, June 24, 1974
"Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age."

Christian Science Monitor, August 27, 1974
"Warning: Earth's Climate is Changing Faster than Even Experts Expect"
Reported that "glaciers have begun to advance"; "growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter"; and "the North Atlantic is cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool".

Science News, March 1, 1975
"The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed, and we are unlikely to quickly regain the 'very extraordinary period of warmth' that preceded it."

Newsweek, April 28, 1975
"The Cooling World"
"There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now."

International Wildlife, July-August, 1975
"But the sense of the discoveries is that there is no reason why the ice age should not start in earnest in our lifetime."

New York Times, May 21, 1975
"Scientists Ponder Why World's Climate is Changing; A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable"

Oh my god, we are, like, so totally fucked...

Earth in the Balance, Al Gore, 1992
"About 10 million residents of Bangladesh will lose their homes and means of sustenance because of the rising sea level due to global warming, in the next few decades."

Time Magazine, April 19, 2001
"[S]cientists no longer doubt that global warming is happening, and almost nobody questions the fact that humans are at least partly responsible."

New York Times, December 27, 2005
"Past Hot Times Hold Few Reasons to Relax About New Warming"

The Daily Telegraph, February 2, 2006
"Billions will die, says Lovelock, who tells us that he is not usually a gloomy type. Human civilization will be reduced to a 'broken rabble ruled by brutal warlords,' and the plague-ridden remainder of the species will flee the cracked and broken earth to the Arctic, the last temperate spot where a few breeding couples will survive."

from http://daveslife.instantspot .com/blog/index.cfm/2007/2/14 /The-Earth-is-Flat-Humans-Are -Heating-Up-the-Earth-and -other-science

--
with thanks to Vin

8

2007-09-14T20:47:00.001-07:00

ha ling

2007-08-19T20:41:00.000-07:00

Suz and I made a questy ascent of Ha Ling peak this weekend. A mostly steep and tedius climb up to 7,900ft. The reward was worth it as the final summit push follows the edge of a razor with several thousand feet on each side. Had a bit of vertigo for myself though Suz found a way to lean backwards over the precipice to photograph her head suspended over the bow valley thousands of feet down.

Return from the Beyond part 1

2007-07-22T13:35:00.001-07:00

Having returned from starbase 12 back to the city, I've noticed a few things which probably don't deserve comment, but thats what the internet is for isn't it?

1) First, I've officially substituted "global warming" with "global warning." So now I'm on a mission to "create awareness" or rather satisfy to myself that I'm doing something productive when I'm really doing nothing at all.

2)Im sure my rag-tag regulars could hardly care about Barry Bonds chasing Hank Aaron's home run record. I have a guilty pleasure for sports (they are the original reality tv dramas.) The bruhaha over Bonds inevitable breaking of this very old record is his suspected steroid use. What I find so odd is that steroids help build muscles. I'm not sure how that helps you to hit a 100mph baseball. If hitting 735 home runs was a function of how strong you are then why didn't the millions of guys who are way stronger than Bonds join the major leagues and do likewise? Or conversely, look at a picture of Aaron, he's athletic but not more than anyone you could find in the street, his lack of muscles or performance enhancing drugs was hardly a hindrance as he held the home run record for 3o-some odd years. Something doesn't add up in the logic of the prevailing attitude as usual. Whenever you here the phrase "performance enhancing substance," be sure to substitute it for "muscle enhancing substance." I for one will be cheering for Bonds.

genius exists. aspire to it.

2007-04-30T15:52:00.000-07:00

Earth Day

2007-04-23T20:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Earth Day so I guess I would be remiss if I didn't inject my usual contrarian opinion to this manufactured day.

1) To the right is the sober voice of reason in the face of the braying Suzukis. Curiously, supply estimates are increasing faster than production which is the exact opposite to the alarmist warnings of the 60s, 70s 80s and 90s. I find it funny that Suzuki doesn't talk about oil running out anymore. I also find it funny whenever I hear the term "vested interest" in reference to oil politics. David Suzuki makes a living predicting doom and chastising behaviors. Doesn't he have a vested interest? Seems like a good reason to ignore anything that comes out of his mouth frankly.

2) Also for your consideration is a graph of inflation adjusted oil prices. As you can see, except for that OPEC blip in the 70s, the price of oil has remained remarkably stable. This in spite of the popular mythology to the contrary.

3) In other words everything you hear is probably wrong.

Dark Have Been My Dreams of Late.

2007-04-16T17:01:00.000-07:00

What makes this picture so extraordinary is that my left arm is clearly sticking out at an angle that has otherwise been foreign to it.
I actually enjoyed walking this weekend and my shoulder seems to be slowly recovering, simultaneously gaining strength and flexibility.
Curiously, the skin had shrunk around my previously immobile shoulder and now that the joint is unlocking, the skin under my armpit has split like John Banner's shirt.

Physio/rehab is daily and difficult but my spirits are higher than they've been for nearly a year.

Hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things.

Climatology's Wrong Side of the Tracks

2007-04-09T20:54:00.000-07:00

1) Speaking of ice cores, here's a tidy little diagram showing the correlation between orbital eccentricity and macro temperature cycles. Its not hard for me to imagine that the "constructive and destructive interference" of the various cycles of precession,obliquity and eccentricity have the ability to present the earth with drastic and unexpected(for now) climate trends.

2) Below is a fine correlation between cosmic radiation and cloud formation. This is the work of Henrik Svensmark .
His work is interesting but unbiased assessment of it is nearly impossible to find since it runs counter to the prevailing winds of climate change. His experiments show how cosmic radiation contributes to cloud formation which obviously effects insolation/insulation. He also noticed from existing data sets that recent cosmic radiation and temperature were related.

3) Some other interesting counter-trend science involves solar dust in the atmosphere which also creates powerful greenhouse effects.

"The most recent observations in frame of the DUST experiment on board the Ulysses spacecraft have shown that stardust level inside of the solar system was trebled during the recent solar maximum (Landgraf et al., 2003. "..."It is possible that the periodic increase of stardust in the solar system will influence the amount of extraterrestrial material that rains down to the Earth and consequently down to the Earth's atmosphere and may affect climate through alteration of atmospheric transparency and albedo. "

4) And just in case one is tempted to bestow esteem on the scientific credentials of anyone, here's a cheap pot-shot at the acme of institutions. Its funny to me how absurd this comment is and yet how little has changed in scientific discourse:

[The objective of geology is] "to confirm the evidences of natural religion; and to show that the facts developed by it are consistent with the accounts of the creation and deluge recorded in the Mosaic writings."
-- William Buckland,
Oxford Professor of Mineralogy and Geology
in The Connection of Geology with Religion Explained (1820)

Ethanol Et thetera

2007-04-08T18:21:00.000-07:00

1) I've seen more and more media attention paid to ethanol these days. There are some PSAs floating through the 500 channel universe drawing attention to Harper's promise to have 5% ethanol fuel content by some date. Anyway, for those who don't know but suspected it all along, it takes more energy to produce ethanol than is given off by burning it. I suppose to a Saskatchewan born and bred tumbleweed like me who grew up listening to farmers complain about input costs for years, it doesn't really surprise me that it isn't efficient to drag tractors across the earth planting, fertilizing, pestasizing,harvesting and processing corn to the point that someone can burn it in their car.
As energy becomes less an economic issue, and more of a political issue, I suspect that the media will eventually wade through the many studies and the many competing interests. When this happens, its always useful to be armed with the facts. See the definitive study by Cornell Professor of ecology and agriculture here.

It might make you wonder why anyone bothers producing ethanol. Apart from those getting juicy government subsidies.

2) I'd like to see a movie that takes place over a weekend shooting of one of those bad local furniture store ads. Wes Anderson get on this please, I'll be home all week if you need to brainstorm

3) The United Nations released a huge study this week. It contains doom and gloom predictions of the earth's climate in the future. It was duly read and reported by every major news outlet. I'm not sure why considering that everyone knows that we can't predict the weather 4 days from now never mind 40 years! Compared to global climate, the hockey game between the New York Islanders and the New Jersey Devils is a much simpler problem to predict yet no one has figured out how to do that yet. I predicted that NY would win today which incidentally they did though my successful prediction should not be confused with understanding that would allow me to predict other games.
I really don't know what value this report is except to frighten people since its predictions are no better than arbitrary. And if that's the case, it should have been written by science fiction writers rather than scientists.

neck catheters and other drugs

2007-04-07T17:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I return from the hospital without need of a lawyer which is the best one can hope for I think. I declined to include a disgusting photo of the neck catheter that blocked signals from my arm to my brain. After blocking the nerves, they scooped out the blocking tissue surrounding my shoulder joint. Dr. Lo said that in his experience, he's never scooped out that much. I hate being connected to other people's superlatives. Anyway, they sewed me back up and after a few days gave my nerve endings back to me but started me on oxycodone or "poor man's heroin" as its known on the street. Its apparently the number one stolen drug from pharmacies. I was on it for 7 days straight until I so desparately needed a bowel movement and a moment of normalcy that I finally kicked. Heavy physiotherapy now stands between me and whatever chance that the surgery worked.

Keeping it Simple

2007-03-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

It is always uplifting to be so vigorously cross-examined, so I must first be grateful to have a most worthy adversary in Mr. Rainswept! It reminds me that intellectual vigor still exists in this often shallow world. It was not my intention to debate the merits or demerits of the ACCA but rather to point out that the Sierra Club presented it in the same shallow and perhaps misleading terms so common to its governmental foes. If my readers will indulge me, I shall endeavour to present a similarly cracked-lens example:

imaginary news release:
"It is a gross waste of public funds to give an 8 billion dollar tax break to the wealthiest Canadians"

Is this statement true? Much like the Sierra Club release, this is sort of true. 8 billion dollars is the amount that Canadians poured into their mutual funds this year. For the tax illiterate, every dollar you put into a mutual fund is subtracted from your taxable income. Additionally, the wealthiest Canadians spend the most on mutual funds. It is also true that mutual funds are how most people save for retirement. This money though becomes taxable when it is drawn upon making it essentially a tax deferral or as rainswept calls it, "an effective loan." It is useful though to examine what happens to this money as a form of opportunity cost to the public purse. It is true, because of the tax deferral, there is less money in the public purse, but this money gets multiplied when it is saved. This happens when the bank loans this money out, jobs get created when this money buys IPOs (initial public offerings) or other equity derivatives. Some of that money even may end up back in the public treasury if the mutual fund portfolio contains federal bonds. The point is that money is not destroyed, it is spread throughout the economy creating jobs and generating new taxes. Mutual funds are not as simple as a tax break for the rich.
Now back to the ACCA. One may think that my example is a defense of the ACCA since I'm clearly implying that tax deferred monies are buying equipment that creates manufacturing jobs, jobs for operators, mechanics, laborers, service jobs, support jobs and all the other spin offs that ultimately and eventually contribute back to the common good through tax revenue. It seems as though I could be arguing that "a tax break to big oil" is a lopsided way of saying job and wealth creation for tradespeople and others taxpayers who little resemble Armani suit wearing oil barons.
My point is this: the opposition to the ACCA is only logically grounded in the environment, not in economics. I think I have shown that the economic ramifications are not so simple. Taken on the whole, the entire economy, not just a corporate bottom line benefits from wealth creation. On the other hand, the environmental argument is much more simple.

Over the last 15 years, I have been to nearly every square foot of Alberta. I have supervised the planting of nearly 30 million trees from the US border to the tar sands. I have worked on oil and gas land reclamation (returning lands to their original condition) and road decommissioning. For over 4 years I have performed contracts for the government auditing forest management areas to ensure that government standards are being met. As opposed to the Sierra Club, I'm the guy who determines whether correct forest practices are being met and at the stroke of my pen, I can force a company to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. I've worked oil and gas initial survey so I've seen land before oil activity and after. My knowledge and expertise of the Alberta environment is unique and thorough and grounded with real experience not ideals. The benefit of this experience is a good understanding of the balance between resource extraction and environmental stewardship, both of which are in the common good.

My direct experience with the scale of destruction in some of the most beautiful places on earth has been profound. But equally profound is my experience with the regeneration of nature.

I have flown over natural forest fires that left a scorched earth hundreds of miles across. I've seen a pristine earth, maggot-ridden with the reeking stench of oil wells. I've seen majestic forests where once was man's greedy thirst for oil, trees and ore. Come to think of it, the environmental question is not that simple either.

The question then becomes: how can we extract resources and create power in a responsible way? To address this, the Alberta government showed some rare initiative by announcing a CO2 pipeline that will pump CO2 from the oilsands to underground storage in the Pembina field. One hopes that this infrastructure will pave the way for CO2 capture and storage from the biggest carbon emitter in Alberta, the coal-fired electricity plants that service Calgary and Edmonton. Curiously, the Pembina Institute, the leading environmental group in Alberta, slammed the proposal arguing that it perpetuated the dependence on fossil fuels. Do they want Canada to just walk away from trillions of dollars of infrastructure investment? Clearly this is just not on. Solutions have to slowly build concurrently with oil infrastructure before they replace it. Creating and supporting solutions requires intelligent dialogue between government, industry and the public. It is unfortunate for the common good that, in the main, those who claim to speak for the environment have squandered any credibility with rhetoric dominated with hyperbole and fantasy.
The most interesting solutions, to no surprise, come from industry. VRB Power Systems based in Vancouver is a new start-up company that has patented the vanadium redox storage battery that acts as an intermediary power storage device that regulates the peaks and dips of most renewable energy devices like wind and solar. This power storage leaves the smallest "footprint" since it doesn't use noxious chemicals and it eliminates the inefficiencies that have stalled wide scale renewable generation. Their devices are currently being tested with early success on wind farms on three continents. I invested in this company and hope to prove that profitability need not be at odds with the common good.
I might control my smugness when I mention that the ACCA may have contributed to my earnings while I was in the oil and gas industry which allowed me to invest in VRB which is paving the way for sustainable energy generation. If you want to get to the bottom of things, follow the money.

Sierra Club bathes in Conservative afterbirth

2007-03-04T20:46:00.000-08:00

I observed with glee the Supreme Court of Canada striking down our old "terrorism" law concerning the ability of the government to hold suspects without charges. Stephen Harper was further ticked off when parliament didn't play ball with the security rhetoric. I sigh with relief that my beloved Canada found the wisdom to not fall into the traps of our southern neighbors. Of course we were subjected to Harper's false dichotomy presented to the media scrum that followed the form " the opposition chose to play politics rather than secure Canada."
I find this so distasteful considering that the terror attacks in Canada this century have really been limited to Quebecers that got the wrong idea. It amuses me that considering how much more likely you are in Canada to be murdered rather than be subject of an act of terrorism, the Harper government doesn't offer the same logic regarding murder. Nobody would suggest that in order to prevent and catch murderers we need to do away with habeas corpus. Yet this same logic is applied to the near phantom threat of terrorism.

The Sierra Club, an environmental group that never fails to amuse me with their ignorance, provided me with a hearty laugh this week. They bent the ears of the equally ignorant media long enough to get headlines across the country drawing attention to their last cause: Eliminating the tax break for oilsands development here in Alberta. The tax break was put in place when oil was $25 a barrel and the oilsands were in their infancy. Since oil now hovers around $60, they argue that the development incentive is over and now taxpayers are supporting a booming industry that doesn't need the money and is a major source of pollution. It makes a nice soundbite to gas starved Ontarians to cut the 1.5 billion dollar tax break- but wait, there's more. As it turns out, the tax break actually just lets oil company write off all capital depreciation in one year rather than a piece-meal depreciation year by year. In fact, eliminating this "tax break" wouldn't add one cent to the government coffers.

It would seem that when it comes to snowing over a hapless public with half truths and spurious logic, the Sierra Club has learned well from their governmental nemesis.

Shostakovitch's revenge; Mormons v Christians

2007-02-13T18:46:00.000-08:00

Well, today is my birthday and my list of presents leaves me much to be grateful for. Suzanne gave me a wonderful edition of several Dashiel Hammett stories. We're also going to the Calgary symphony's presentation of Shostakovitch's symphony no. 10. "The pinnacle of Shostakovitch's’s creative power was his famous 10th Symphony. This fascinating work is exhilarating, reflective, violent and triumphant as it represents Shostakovitch's’s personal victory over the oppressive Stalinist regime." That this concert dovetails with my birthday is most fortunate.

My other present, this one from the universe, was the entry of Mitt Romney into the presidential race. What makes this so great is that he is a Mormon. Of course Mormons are completely repulsive to Baptists, the cornerstone of the American religious right so we can expect their critical examination of his Mormonism to be the irony of the century. Ostensibly, I think the christian right likens the Mormons to Aaron's golden calved brethren. The Mormons, 11 million strong, are the victims of a hilarious con man who was finally charged with fraud. The story of Joseph Smith and his founding of Mormonism reads like a Monty Python sketch with a healthy dose of Mark Twain and the fact that Mormonism is still around, and in such numbers is a mind-numbing confirmation of the stupidity of human kind superseded only by its uglier Christian sister. One who would be tempted to wonder how successful a candidate could possibly be when they profess to believe such silliness, need only witness the success of the Bush regime, whose beliefs are no less preposterous but believed by a majority. In any case, I look forward to the stupid cross-examining the foolish.

For those managing their portfolios, I would put a "sell" on bizarre rhetoric since the surplus in the coming year is sure to drive prices down.

Transvestite Impersonators:The new heroin chic

2007-02-08T20:05:00.000-08:00

Of course I rabidly watch Beauty and the Geek, a reality show that pairs age old rival stereotypes together to compete for cash and prizes. Each week the geeks have a social skills challenge and the beauties have some light thinkwork. The show innoculates the viewer with its 'we're all just people on the inside' antibiotics. What is most interesting to me is that one of the beauties pictured here is clearly a transvestite. This is just one example of a growing trend in the beauty zitgeist for transvestite-looking women. I'm not sure when I started noticing this but I sure see more and more women in the media that are being flaunted as good looking but have this tranny vibe lingering about them like axe body spray on a frustrated frat boy. I'll admit, there seems to be no lacking for good looking people on television and movies, but I wonder what this gender-bending trend is all about. Any graduate students in "gender studies" (yes the parenthesis are meant to demean the subject but I could just as easily placed them around "student") please feel to make use of my queery as a germ to grow a graduate thesis from.

Speaking of the transvestite invasion, said poster girl died today. Anna Nicole Smith apparently meant much more to CNN than I. They were broadcasting the story non-stop all afternoon doing their best to convince me I should care. Lest I seem callous, I do care. About 2 things:
1) did she die of a Hoodia overdose?
2) What female transvestite impersonator will take her place?
Internest rumors (that's right Internest rumours,) already suggest that Courtney Love has an investigative committee in place but her intentions to run have yet to be verified. She certainly has the drug abuse down pat and struggles to make money off her dead husband. The similarities are eerie. As eerie as CNN spending all day on a trivial gold digging attention whore when their county's leadership violates its constitution on a daily basis and spirals its ignorant population into the abyss.

Big Rock

2007-01-31T23:23:00.000-08:00

When I enjoy a beer, I usually indulge in the Big Rock family of beverages. This brewery is named after the Okatoks glacial erratic, a bazillion tonne rock sitting rather blamelessly on the barren prairie, a few kilometers east of the rockies. And so Suzanne and I decided that we would be remiss if we did not make a humble pilgrimage to the "big rock." I'll have to check with the brewery but I think I get to add "trad" to my name now.

Folly and Hubris: An ill Wind Blows

2007-01-30T14:54:00.000-08:00

The Globe and Mail (Toronto's national newspaper) devoted its weekend edition to global climate change declaring that 4 out of 5 Canadians have experienced the effects of climate change. I am constrained to point out that they certainly think they have. To make such a claim is to claim that the weather they experience is not part of the normal tempestuary deviation that is Canadian weather. I rather like that word I just invented: Tempestuary. It sounds like a reeking mud flat that a low tide would reveal in all its rotting-kelp glory.
In any case, the fact that the population now believes in climate change is a familiar disturbance. If they now believe it because they feel they have experienced it, then they are right- but for the wrong reasons. This phenomenon has ceased to amaze me yet its triteness does nothing to assuage my fear of my fellow townsfolk. Being incidentally right for the wrong reasons is perhaps the best I can hope for. But what folly and mischief this has caused in the past.

Did anyone else feel bloated this week? I was feeling positively rotund until I learned the cause. Last week the Chinese successfully shot down a test satellite. That extra gravity of a profound shift in the zero-sum game of military brinkmanship is what we all felt. The entire US military is routed, connected, synchronized and de-ionized by satellites that are now rendered obsolete (truthfully,the US military is de-ionized by their military issue Q-Ray bracelets.) It made for a good laugh when just days later, the US military announced it had successfully shot down a missile. Those in the know will tell you that the missile defense system really doesn't work at all but for p.r. purposes they had to appear to be on top of things. It makes no difference whether any of this is true or not. It just entertains me that the military power seems to be assayed by its high tech marvels. Watch any testosterone sponsored show on the History channel that showcases the latest US hardware and it becomes tragic comedy when you know that this high tech juggernaut is being defeated by stone knives, bearskins, and the cold heart that kills. Indeed this is a graven image.
If military hubris has become America's false god, then I shall melt this golden calf by watching American Idol tonight at 9pm. For I am a jealous God!

Arch

2007-01-25T22:21:00.000-08:00

I've christened beta blogger with a header of the lovely chinook arch that brought the warm winds of the same name to our fair city this week. The temperature rose about 20 degrees celsius for a good chunk of the week which makes a welcome repite from the deathscape of winter. Most impressive of all is the so-called "chinook arch" which is pictured above. Its rather other-worldly as though the fingertips of spring are peeling back winter as a curious prank. A sheet of clouds hangs from its skyhooks and a tempting sliver arch of blue leers over the mountains grinning. Its enough to make you weep you know not why.