Keeping it Simple

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

"Buzz" Aldrin: The Real Story

Today is "Buzz" Aldrin's birthday. An appropriate day to tell his sad story of drug abuse and the Apollo astronauts that enabled him. You see, he and Neil used to do rails of 'Tang' off the LEM Module's control panel. While Neil snorted the juice crystals mostly socially, Aldrin's habit quickly swelled to 3 packets a day, earning him the nick-name "Buzz." It was in one of their Tang-fueled frenzies, that they came up with the idea of playing golf on the moon.

Neil: Hey Buzz, there's one more line for you.
Buzz: Thanks Daddy-o!(snooort..snort-snort) Dude! I had a groovy idea. We should like, play Golf! On the Moon! HAHA!
All: laughing and doubling over

For my part, I find this very good ammunition for the moon-hoax cabals. I mean, who would fake a Tang-overdose-fueled-golf-date-on-the-moon? Who?

America Idol: Applied Epistemology

For my sins I've been watching the auditions for American Idol. Once the auditions are over its just the tedium of beautiful people singing which is of little interest. Unless you come from the Netherlands where all their singers are ugly and disfigured. The auditions are a marvelous peek at the inner workings of the human mind. After a particularly painful rendition of yesterday's discarded pop tunes, the contestant listens with incredulity as the judges tell them how comically awful they are. Then follows the best part of the series which is typified thusly:

Simon: Do me a favor and never sing again.
1)Tone Deaf Chump: (with blood pressure rising) Who the hell do you think you are anyway?
You don't know Sxxt!!
or
2)TDC: (with an expression that is not dissimilar to one found on an executioner's face just before the blade is lowered) I KNOW I can sing!

Semantically of course, someone who is in the act of singing is a singer, but I don't think this is the cognitive mistake the contestants are making.
The latter of these composites is wonderfully informative if they really mean what they say. "I know I can sing," it reveals a mind that has no formal algorithms for determining true from false, or a singer from an abysmal hack. This mind contains arbitrary information with no system of organization and no apparent interest in pruning the falsehoods and irrelevance from their unruly knowledge trees. In any case, its a sobering thought that these are the people who design banking software, ensure that our drinking water is pure and prevent planes from crashing into one another.

'
And speaking of music, For all my friends who loath Pachabel's Cannon in D, and for fans of very very clever musicians, daviditron theatre is proud to present Rob Paravonian. Most assured, its worth the every of its five brilliant minutes.

Maria Sharapova

Through the cyber ether, I pass along wishes that Fortuna smiles upon my girl Maria Sharapova at the Australian Open this week. I highly endorse this brilliant commercial that firmly sticks it to the beautiful but talentless.

Health Plans v Scary Think Tanks

I don't know what it is about Ultra right wing think tanks but they really have a penchant for touchy feely names. And so my first reader challenge of the year is to guess which of these logos are health plans and which are think tanks. I regret that I can't link you to any of these because frankly I will not be responsible for giving them link traffic. But if you're in the "right" frame of mind, it can be good for a laugh.

Feminism has never set itself up for ridicule

Well, I didn't quite go two weeks without talking politics. If only I had the willpower of the Duchess of York. Oh Fergie, whilst thou lendeth a humble serf some of thy focused mind? But back to the first course, in anticipation of Bush's new plan for Iraq, I read the Iraq Study Group Report. Its a tidy lil novella with surprises and twists, good character development a nice climax if a trifle unbelievable. One of its gems was the observation that of the thousand plus staffers in the Iraq embassy, only 8 were fluent in Arabic. If I could write great gags like that, I'd call myself a writer!
My prediction for the new policy is that the Tigris river will be choked with the dead of God's most chosen nation. It seems that American battalions will now be in Baghdad ensuring that sectarian interference isn't interfering with bringing militias to justice (and yes, the awkwardness of that sentance was inspired by Mister Bush.) My hunch is that the militias will revel at the chance to engage the American forces in street combat where they will hold a substantial advantage.


I've been reading Dawkins "The God Delusion" this week. Any theists who make it past the first chapter will toss it when confronted by his smarmy but witty tone. I don't think he can help it frankly but the book is filled with tasty nuggets in any case. Referring to how some feminist's refer to god using the pronoun "she" he says:
"But what, after all, is the difference between a non-existent female and a non-existent male? I suppose that in the ditzily unreal intersection of theology and feminism, existence might indeed be a less salient attribute than gender." Amen!


I also noticed the emergence of a new car company whose exclusive product is electric cars. Fittingly, its called Tesla Motors and their signature model is an elite roadster that blows the doors off everything guzzling gas. This CEO plaything will be followed by an $30 000 electric sedan for the rest of us, due out this year. A big Huzzah for Tesla Motors! In fact this product looks so good I may abandon my automotive inspiration: The Smart Camino. A smart-car style el Camino to attract the growing environmentally aware Hispanic demographic. I had already inked a deal with a pair of lovable Spanish midgets to help market the thing. "Eess good for the environment!" The marketing writes itself!

Palindromic Entertainers

I'm not sure which of these entertainers were cloned from which. Certainly it does demonstrate that talent isn't diluted with successive cloning. Its true, I don't have any genetic proof of this experiment, It came to me in a flash while waiting for the curteous and incompetant coffee droid at the coffee shop to pour me a simple cup of said drink

Also included for your perusal is my new favorite latin palindrome:
METAR, EA ERA, TERET, AREAE, RATEM.
I will measure off the raft; she, mistress of the area, shall grind.

If there is a better example of an erotic latin palindrome, I'd love to see it!

Hydrogen fuel Seal: My contribution to the energy crisis

Victoria's Secret

After feeling the pressure from a high profile protest, Victoria's Secret has decided to remedy its reputation. It was feeling guilty for publishing over a quarter of a billion catalogues per year. Well perhaps it wasn't feeling guilty but a few high profile news stories helped it to feign responsibility.
And so, it decided not to reduce its catalogue output, but rather to cancel it's paper supplier's contract. Coincidentally, and my connection to this story is that the paper comes from Alberta, and said trees are replaced by yours truly. In a news conference, Victoria's secret claimed that they were opposed to the demise of Alberta's woodland caribou due to forestry practices by their supplier. A little investigation led me to discover a few pertinent facts.
1) Woodland caribou populations in Alberta have only been studied since 1994
2) In 1995, the boreal forest experienced its most devastating fire season in centuries
3) Uncoincidentally, caribou population declined in the same year and are still recovering.
4) As yet, no statistically relevant data exists on the meta population in Alberta, only heard characteristics.
5) When the data showed that herds were declining (after the 1995 fire) the woodland caribou was placed on the endangered species list in Canada despite no total population data.
6) Scientifically inert city folk with a messiah complex and little understanding of forest mechanics suddenly equate some declining heard populations (many herds were either stable or increasing in Alberta) with forest practices. This transitivity permeates the activist community and voila: Victoria's Secret is now looking for a new paper supplier. Presumably one that doesn't use trees?

Extra Reading
As is often the case with activist notions, there are small kernels of truth that were trampled over in their desperate bid to feel important. There is a study that recently used gps radio collars to track caribou (Dyer et al 2001.)
This study though, is an exercise in problematic research methodology. What the researchers did was to lay out hypothetical roads and seismic lines on a map to see if the tagged caribou crossed actual roads and seismic lines less frequently. In the abstract it seems reasonable, however I could fairly accurately predict the results. The 43,000 data points they collected showed that there was no negative preference for actual seismic lines but by a factor of six, the caribou crossed the imaginary roads over real roads. What's wrong with this data? Nothing. The Conclusion is suspect though for the following reasons:
1) seismic lines are in fact random. They follow straight lines regardless of terrain. Roads on the other hand are not random. They follow high ground since low marshes are expensive to build on. They avoid watercourses, streams, marshes and bogs. Seismic lines are cut and used only in the winter and therefore excused from the constraints of roads.
2) caribou routes like roads but unlike seismic cuts, are not random either. Caribou prefer watercourses, bogs, drainage draws and ephemeral streams. The exact opposite of preferred roadways.
3) since the only random data point is the seismic line, and since a road data point is less likely to be a caribou data point by its very nature, it should come as no surprise that the data shows that caribou do not avoid seismic lines but do avoid roads.
4) This study, often quoted in many other studies, was used to demonstrate that any man-made disturbance impacted caribou. This by extension after several retelling translates into declining populations. All of this in spite of the fact that in 1995 mother nature reeked more temporary havoc than man ever could. Incidentally, 3 years later, I was evacuated from a fire in northern Alberta in 1998 that consumed more timber than had been logged in all of Alberta for the last 7 years.

A Hexette of Notions

Some thoughts this week:
1) Chocolate milk Must be properly shaken before serving
2) If you took Kurt Russell and left him in a moldy garage over a winter, you'd have Patrick Swayze.
3) Here's a great idea! A heartwarming christmas movie featuring recognizable stars!
4) All the christian right in Alberta will have to pray 23% harder next time they want to elect Ted Morton as the new Premier. Ha!
5) As a testament to my idleness, I now am ranked 112,322th out of 1,400,000 players in the world in my current vice:Unreal Tournament.
6) While the theistic mainstream likes to hold its snout high in the air in contrast to its extremist brethren, I fear tis no better. One can hardly stand on intellectually or morally high ground when one of the primary byproducts of religion is the constriction of thought. Religion shrinks the domain of reasonable explanation down to pert one liners that serve to comfort but also to occlude. A veil is placed over reason, replacing it with promises and fantasy. Apparently this is acceptable provided one is law abiding, but when this same gag placed over reason is used to justify violence, we turn on it and call it extremism of various hyphenated varieties. I mourn for reason. Reason that has been shackled to lies and fantasies in the name of religion. Indeed I draw not the same line of mainstream or extremism. Rather I see a single monolithic impediment to sanity and hope for mankind. Religion is the gateway drug of those who have stopped thinking, or refuse to think. And on that path leads sheep to the slaughterhouse. When we teach our children to believe in fantasies, we are preparing them for a world of horrible ideas leering at them from dark alleys. The great 'isms', like pedophiles preying on societies that have ill prepared themselves to choose ideas with discretion. Religion has a simple relationship with reason: it cuts it in half with a machete and then gives it a band-aid.

Egos, Quebec Nationalism and Birth Control

Kudos to Michael Chong, Canada's intergovernmental affairs minister for resigning his post. The "Quebec as a nation" retread bill before the house is Canada's answer to the tired sitcom plots imported from America. Its not very funny and is as predictable as it is tiresome. I also applaud Mr. Kennedy, Liberal leadership hopeful for having the stones to oppose such a sour frosting to an otherwise bland unity cake. Of course, Kennedy has the luxy of speaking from the political wilderness which seems to offer its denizens the ability to speak with unfettered conditions. In case you missed it, here's the federal problem in Canada, and it has little to do with Quebec nationalism.

Having lived and worked from one end of this country to the other, I feel as though I can speak with some authority on the Canadian experience. And I have uncovered the following: Every part of Canada has distinct needs and solutions to their own problems. These problems can be generalized as the following: increased ability to innovate or in other words, decentralized federal power. Whether its fishing on the east coast, oil wealth in Alberta, agriculture in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, manufacturing in southern Ontario, or the inferiority complex that is the province of Quebec, EVERY part of Canada feels hard done by the federal bargain. The difference in Quebec is that this discontent has been harnessed and the language of that disconnect has been altered and turned into a nationalist discontent and agenda. In fact, its the same discontent that's to be found Everywhere. Quebec has been hoodwinked into thinking that there is something unique about their discontent.
This is why the Quebec problem gets so little sympathy in the rest of Canada. Because no-one understands how Quebec is more different than anywhere else! After all, how can a pear be more different from an apple than an orange is! Its an absurd comparison without logic or resonance. Of course the argument is presented this way in Quebec because it elevates those who expound it and strokes the egos of Quebecers that support it. Thankfully the whiners in the rest of Canada lack the creativity to present this gripe in the same regional terms.


A story that probably did not escape Calgary this week involved a Calgary doctor that refused to give a prescription for birth control pills on the grounds that she was opposed to birth control! This doctor's governing body when questioned said that it was her right to do so! Im only assuming that the doctor is Catholic mostly on the grounds that few other institutions have been a greater impediment to rational thought and human dignity. But she may not be catholic. Its possible. Unquestionably, the patient has been betrayed here by a nation that cannot enforce its values. Birth control is legal. Last time I checked. This legality was a decision by the state. This crusading, shitforbrains doctor apparently has elevated herself to the highest law in the land and defied that legality. And I am forced to say things like religion is essentially a socially respectable form of self aggrandizing egomania. Its a sobering ponderance when I wonder what other lapses in judgment this doctor is capable of making. It only goes to show that being a dunce is no obstacle to obtaining a degree that is generally respected by society. It also makes me wonder why buildings don't crumble, bridges collapse and planes don't plummet to the ground more often than they do.

your tax dollars at work

I enjoyed fifteen minutes of fame today as I was in a CBC documentary about treeplanting that aired today on Country Canada. The film crew followed around some of my rookies all season so it was all about them but I did get a few speaky bits. I wore a wireless mike around which is a little surreal in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, here's a couple stills from their doc.

The Phenomenology of Republicans

It might seem like the master's got it made: the slave does all his or her work, and recognizes the master's power. The problem is, this isn't the kind of recognition that the master wanted. The master wanted to be recognized by somebody that he or she respects as an equal, as a peer. Instead, the master gets recognition only from a slave, and the master knows that the slave doesn't really respect him or her, but resents and hates the master.

For some reason, elections often remind me of Hegel. And while its often said that nobody ever lost money underestimating the American public, it seems that last Tuesdays election has become the exception that proves the rule. In any case, a hearty "Hazaa!" to those that voted. Its comforting to to know that after years of cowing to the politics of fear and the bizarre false dichotomies presented by Carl Rove and the Republican machine, Americans got a chance to show their metal.

Sir, Your Civilization has entered a Golden Age!

On a scale from 1 to 10, computer technology is finally non-zero! Witness the arrival of the Pentop Computer. There are a few digital pens on the market that optically record your penstrokes but a new product from Leapfrog has made an important leap. It has software in the pen that tutors math, spelling etc. Yes this is cool but here's the best part: You can draw a 'lil calculator on the page and then press the buttons of your drawn calculator to perform arithmetic. Sure, it doesn't really do anything that a 5 dollar calculator cant do- except I can draw it anywhere! Admit it, thats better than alot of technology on board the starship enterprise. Tools that create tools, however rudimentry, is my threshold for the stone age of computing. In terms of the evolution of computers, they've finally crawled from the primal soup. Indeed waiter, there's a Fly in my soup.