Carbon R Us

Happy Earth Day from Calgary.

Or more specifically, from Shawnessy C-Train station in the south of the city.

It's ironic that this morning, thanks to the introduction of a $3 a day fee to park in the Park'n'Ride lots, a car park that is usually full from 6:30am, was still half empty at 7:45am.

So where are all the cars? Driving into town.

At a time when cities all over the world are trying to coax us onto public transport, Calgary City Council have taken the decision to deter car owners from using the C-Train by charging them $3 a day to park. This has been done "to pay for cleaning up the stations and improving security" but really, it's a swipe at all the C-Train passengers who live outside Calgary. If you are a Calgarian, you can use the public bus system to get to your nearest train station. If you're outside the city, your only option is to park at a station or drive downtown.

So, really, they want to deter outsiders from using the Train which, after all, is subsidised by Calgary tax payers. Much better for those interlopers who used to use the train to drive their 5 litre trucks all the way into town.

Actually, council should go the whole nine yards and build a moat of flaming gasoline around the city, just incase their message isn't getting through to everyone. And then they can be parochial and anti-environment at the same time.

A ffine romance

Looks like Michael Ignatieff has put the welfare of Canada before his own career aspirations by agreeing to conditionally support the budget announced by the Tories on Tuesday. I think the Liberals are to be commended for this move; the last thing Canada needs right now is an aggressive coalition takeover. Jack Layton and Giles Duseppe are already frothing at the mouth about getting oh soooooo close to defeating their arch enemy. Imagine what they would have been like if Ignatieff had sided with them and the coalition actually assumed power. You would have had to use a cattle-prod to calm Jack down.

So now the NDP is on the attack against the Liberals. Wow, the whole Obama message of cooperation and transparency really didn't get down to Jack's height or translate into French for Giles, did it? It's all about getting Stephen Harper out, at any cost. Well, that's really the job of the Canadian people. Maybe they'll do a better job at the next election.

A Man's a Man...

Happy Burns Day (yesterday). To commemorate the birth of The Bard, here's the last verse of "A Man's A Man For A' That". Seems as apt today as ever:

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.

Yes, We Canada

You know, I had this great Star Wars parody post all lined up when it was all kicking off between Stephen Harper and every other party in Canada last year. I chose Star Wars because the events in Ottawa were fast becoming as bizarre as a George Lucas plot. The rebel Prorogue Squadron, the Separatist Duseppe Army, Jack the Jawa and little Yoda May. Then it all fell apart when Dion the Hutt (so called because no one could understand anything he said) did the right thing and stood down.


Then, family birthdays and work and Christmas kind of got the better of me and, before you can spell Ignatieff, (the extra 'f' is just for Stephen Harper) it's Barack Obama's inauguration and I suddenly remember that I have a blog to write!


I must admit to getting as caught up in the whole Obamania thing as anyone else. It's hard not to, given the level of coverage here in Canada. I watched the CTV stream on the web and it almost made me feel a bit sorry for Canada when I heard the commentators focus on how the American politicians from opposing sides were able to come together for the occasion. And this on top of the fact that Obama is pushing for cooperation between the parties and has put his money where his mouth is by consulting with John McCain on defense issues this week.


Compare that to the Muppet Show that is Canadian politics at the moment and Canadians must feel like they've just spent the day with a sibling listening to stories of how their neice or nephew has been accepted to an Ivy League school or been drafted by the Flames or become an astronaut, only to return to their own home filled with kids who can't last 5 minutes without kicking each other's heads in.


As I watch Barack and Michelle walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I'm reminded of Labour's election win in the UK in 1996 after 17 years of Tory rule and Tony and Cherie Blair shaking hands with almost everyone in a packed, clamorous Downing Street . The same sense of optimism, the same feeling, that Tony Blair was someone who could actually change the system and make a difference. And, to some extent, he did before the political machine absorbed him.


So, on a day like this, with so much optimism south of the border, it's easy to wish that Canada had it's very own Barack Obama. But lets not forget that the reaction to Barack Obama owes as much to the previous incumbent and the present economic and foreign policy crisis as it does to the significance of America's first black president.


Canada, for all that it's parliament seems to be held together with pieces of duct tape, still has good reason to hold its head high on the world stage.


This country is still one of the most diverse and inclusive in the world and it has acted with pragmatism in its foreign policy and its response to American financial greed.


We are feeling the effects of the global economic downturn, just like everyone else, but our banks appear to be solid (and I stress the "appear"). I've been watching, with dismay, the looming collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, a organisation that was, only 4 years ago, quoted as being worth more than Ford, General Motors, Nike and MacDonalds combined. Now, it will be lucky if its market capitalisation is worth more than a Big Mac, with the share price dropping from a 2007 high of six pounds to just 10pence today. The UK, it would appear, is in even bigger trouble than the US and the financial projections of a 5% decline for Ireland puts it within spitting distance of a depression.


So Canada, with all it's political squabbling, seems to be holding on in there. Now we need to see what the Tories come up with in next week's budget. That should be ffun...

Last night?

...was a good night.

What colour would you like?

I dressed up as Michael Myers at the weekend (for Halloween, obviously). Not the guy who gave Shrek the worst Scottich accent in the world but the other guy with the mask and the knife. Our whole family had a great horror movie theme going, I was Michael, my wife was the girl from The Excorist, my oldest son was Freddie Kruger and my youngest was SUPPOSED to be Jason from Friday the 13th until he changed to Obi Wan Kenobi at the last minute.

Stupid Force.

But I still went out trick or treating with my boys and had a great time freaking out the pre-teens even though I don't think they had a clue who I was supposed to be.

Then we went to a Halloween party and I discovered a piece of Halloween etiquette that I thought I would share:

When you go to a Halloween party, don't wear a costume that has a mask.

Sure, it sounds great and it is when you first arrive but then practicalities take over. You can't really spend the whole party with your mask on because half the people don't know who the hell you are and it's almost impossible to drink anything, although I did use a straw for a while.

There were some great costumes at this party, Gene Simmons, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Amy Winehouse, the girl from The Excorcist (hey, I'm always a husband first), to name a few.


And there was me, Michael Myers. Problem was, as soon as I put the knife down and took my mask off, I was just a guy with overalls on (or a boilersuit as we would say in Scotland). I could have been there to paint the upstairs toilet.




So, if you want to be a big party hit, get the facepaint out. I'm thinking of going as the U.S. President next year so I'll need plenty of the dark stuff...

"You want Magnolia or Cream?"

Any spare change?

So, I'm no financial expert, just a guy trying to do the right things. Like many people I have savings that rely on the health of the financial markets so I've been as concerned as the next bloke about the plummet of the numbers over the past few weeks. There's been a lot of talk about the sub-prime crisis, the broken financial system, government bailouts, looming recession, financial crisis, etc etc.


But let's be clear on one thing: this whole thing was caused by bad business practices. This is a crisis of greed.


A stable society places it's trust in the law, government, health, education and finance. If we act within the law we expect to live in relative freedom and safety, and we also expect that those who do not obey our laws are punished appropriately. We trust those whom we elect to represent our needs. If we are sick, we expect to be given competent and appropriate care. We expect to be educated without bias or propaganda. And, when we give our money to banks or to investment institutions, we trust that those bodies will temper their decisions and actions with objectivity and morality.

What we are seeing now is a betrayal of that trust in the banking system. In the U.S., the constant drive for financial growth-spurts and elephantine profits has resulted in a plague of sub-prime lending. In short, money was thrown at borrowers who were unlikely to pay it back.

And that is the root of the problem; very simple but requiring a complex fix.

When it became clear that this course of action would affect some executive bonuses, the banks tried to fix the problem by putting the financial equivalent of short skirts and lipstick on the debts and pimping them off to other banks and brokerages as attractive investment vehicles. Again, greed was the driving factor, making a quick buck out of the common man's misfortune.

But this was like putting a band aid on leprosy and, very quickly, these investments were dumped like the crack whores they were. Investors moved into commodities for safety, driving the prices of oil, grain and others through the roof. Banks reigned back on lending to each other and to businesses, which suffered or died, as did some major U.S. financial institutions. The rest of the financial world, being an active participant in the credit market orgy, felt the same pain as the money-men realised the mistakes they'd made.

But this orgy between the banks, this selfish, lazy, inbreeding has produced offspring.
What we have now is a six-fingered, buck-toothed, sloping-foreheaded financial system that has low intelligence, doesn't really understand what is going on and is easily swayed by outside suggestion.

Which brings me to the subject of George Bush.

It's interesting to consider that George's eight-year term has been bookended by two of the biggest crises the world has ever known. It started with 9/11 and ended with the near collapse of a financial system that, if it did go down, would take most of us with it like a suicide bomber.

Think of your pension, savings, mortgage, ability to borrow money. Think of how society would react if these things were suddenly lost.

It would be easy to blame George for this, last great exclamation mark on his presidency but it wouldn't be fair. This has a much more fundamental cause, that being our perpetual drive for growth, it being the fact that the very mechanics of our society are based on greed, on making more money than the other guy, on the mantra of EBITDA and on the paradox of the investor as being both served and screwed.

It would be nice to think that a better way could come out of all of this but it won't. The mother of all corrections will occur (helped along by those dumb taxpayer schmucks) and we'll all carry on, buying SUV's and MP3's, ignoring the third world and worrying about China (who, if you're American or European, you now owe a lot of money.)

I would worry about it more, but I'm going to play on my XBOX360.

If You Had a Robot, Would You Want it to Suck or Blow?

We just bought one of those iRobot Roomba things that cleans the floor for you. What's next, a pill that turns into a roast-beef dinner when you pour a drop of water on it?

To think that it is now possible to buy a "robot" that actually does something useful! I hear iRobot's next product will be a Prime Ministeroomba.

I was sceptical about the concept of a totally automatic vacuum cleaner robot at first but this does actually seem to work, not to mention the added value my kids get by following it around and patting it. It's appearance is a bit dissappointing, no mechanical claw arms or red glowing eyes and not on single laser-phasor-plasma-deathray thing and the bugger hasn't said 'exterminate' once since we turned it on but I suppose you can't have everything.

A robot vacuum cleaner - my, how times have changed; I can remember when we used to sprinkle bits of bacon on the floor and let the dog lick the carpet.

59.1%

Well, the election is over. Thank goodness for that.

And who won? Well, nobody really.

So, what changed? Ehm, well, nothing really.

On Tuesday, Canada had a minority government with a Conservative Prime Minister and today it has, yes you guessed it, a minority government with a Conservative Prime Minister.
Actually, something did change; the parties and the country spent a lot of money on an election that changed nothing. But at least it 'cleared the air' as Jim Prentice said on CBC radio this morning.

Cleared the air?

That's like me demolishing my house and building a new one because I had an argument with my wife in the kitchen.

I also heard some radio pundit say that Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Aberta and BC are now resoundingly Conservative. Surely a bit of a stretch when you consider that only 59.1% of the electorate voted. The only resounding thing about that is the lack of belief in democracy.

But, actually, democracy is working, just not in a good way.

Consider the scenario: on the Right you have the Tories, one party, a leader with stoic hair, a clearly understandable manifesto-of-the-me, something that people might not like but, at least, they get it.

Then, on the other side, there are three parties with very similar ideologies, the Liberals, the NDP and Lizzy's Green Party, who are all trying to do the right thing for society but with different approaches. They also fight just like three siblings, one bald, one with penchant for childlike simplification and one who can hardly speak English.

So, people have a choice: vote for a single right of centre organisation or dilute your vote into tense pool of leftism.

For many liberal-minded citizens, this choice is unnaceptable so they just haven't bothered. In this case, the Left has diversified just too widely.

So, is there a solution? I think the only way to restore voter willingness will be a reduction of the number of parties on the left, either through consolidation or attrition but the question is, does the left have what it takes to do the right thing for Canada?

We shouldn't have to wait too long to find out; there is already talk of another election in "a year or two" - those crazy pundits.
Hey, what else are we going to spend our surplus on? America has the sub-prime crisis - perhaps Canada will be the first country in history to experience an election-led recession.

This Post is Approved by Agents Acting for the Badminton Party

I was driving home on Monday night listening to CBC radio when I found myself in the cutthroat world of the political broadcast. Apparently, CBC reserves a 10 minute slot, from 8.50pm to 9.00pm, for parties to push their messages, free of charge. Predictably, about half the slot was taken up with the Tories radio ad (one of those that's supposed to sound like a real call-in show but doesn't) which was repeated twice just to make sure the listeners are doubly pissed off.

Then there was some woman whose manifesto was based upon her belief that America, Canada and Mexico are trying to create some evil superstate (presumably to be called Camerico - A Halliburton Country).

Then came the Marijuana Party whose desire for political office seems to revolve around the legalisation of an illegal recreational drug. I couldn't help wondering if this is the best use of the political process; create a party and try to get elected to federal government because you disagree with something that's illegal. I mean, there are things I would like to do without being arrested but I would never dream of starting a Speeding on the Highway Party or a Naked Party or even a Bagpipes after 11pm Party.

Just how badly does this guy want a spliff that he would try to appropriate the system upon which we rely to provide us with security, stability and the chance to look down our noses at America, just so he can get a guilt-free high? It just seems so selfish; I want to get stoned, Man, and I want the WHOLE country to know it! And believe me, he did sound stoned on the radio.

Forget the common good, ending poverty, fair and free health care, affordable housing, the environment and the economy; let's just have a political system based on things we like to do; I'll tell my son to form the Bakugan Party, my wife to campaign for cheap shoes and I'll work tirelessly to have sleeping late on a Sunday written into our national legislation!!!

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that there are enough jokers in the 'proper' political parties; if want a joint that badly, join the Liberals.