One of the tactics we see regularly in use by governments is “silencing by intimidation” – where opponents of an issue are labelled and dismissed as “extremists”, threatened by legal charges that can’t possibly be upheld and which are aimed purely at trying to silence critics. Now we have the latest “card” in this game, where charities are being threatened with removal of their charitable status if they don’t bow down to Conservative political ideology.
Here in Canada, the Harper government refuses point-blank to engage in any discussion with its critics or opponents. At the last election there were numerous cases where people were removed from Conservative “debates” and presentations for no other reason than the fact that they weren’t fully-paid-up members of the Conservative collective ass-kissing community. Harper and his party can’t tolerate dissent in any form it appears.
Now they’re extending this to threatening charities with the removal of their charitable status simply for supporting causes that go against Conservative policy. Tides Canada, for example, recently had its charitable status threatened for supporting ForestEthics - an organization that opposes the dubious Endbridge pipeline.
The Harper government has called people against the Endbridge pipeline “enemies of the government of Canada”. They’re wrong. I’m an enemy of bullies, of anyone who tries to browbeat, threaten and lie in order to achieve their own selfish goals. I believe in democracy, for everyone, not just the self-serving rich and powerful; if this makes me an “enemy” then we have lost democracy completely.
The pathological Conservative government lists the following as “adversaries”: the media, the biodiesel industry, environmental and Aboriginal groups. “Allies” listed are: Energy companies, the National Energy Board, Environment Canada, business and industry associations.
This isn’t a government representing people; these are the tactics of the bully pure and simple. Even if you agree with the development of the pipeline, this behavior is still wrong. Tell Harper you don’t want a country run by bullies.
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
- Thomas Jefferson
I’ve been quite a fan of Google for a long time. I remember just how well their search engine brought back results that were relevant and fast. You could pretty much hit the “I Feel Lucky” button and expect to get where you wanted to be every time.
It was also the case that the company itself seemed to be in tune with people; it had its “Do no Evil” policy and swore that it would protect its users’ information and stand up for them in the burgeoning swamp of ruthless Net companies that were playing fast and loose with people’s privacy.
That’s changed. The growth of the web has made the “Lucky” button less of an attractive option, but that’s certainly not Google’s fault. Google is also now going to ‘aggregate’ all data from all of its services – and that certainly is their fault.
When Google talks about its services, look at what they actually mean: Google Search, GMail, YouTube, Alerts, Picassa, Blogger, Maps, Reader (Newsfeeds), Books, Calendar, Groups, Documents and many others. This site lists over one hundred services provided by them. Google now controls and owns a significant part of the entire internet. If this were a regular company in fact we’d likely be talking about monopoly investigations – perhaps Google needs breaking up like the phone companies were when they became too big.
Recently, even before the latest changes to Google’s policies, I’ve found myself growing increasingly concerned about their behavior. They’re reading people’s emails and blogs and then using this information to target advertisements and that seems sneaky to say the least. Would you like someone reading your diary so that they can figure out what to get you for a birthday present? It seems unlikely. Google takes this much further, recording everything you write, every site you go to – all in order to try and sell to you more effectively. If you use an Android based phone they can even link in your physical location in real-time!
I’ve also seen their ads getting much more intrusive and scarily big brother-esque. I look at something on Tiger Direct and literally seconds later I am seeing Google Ads for the same thing. I view a video on YouTube and suddenly start seeing ads for related products and services. Not only that, but these ads ‘follow me’ – so I get the ads at work as well as at home. There’s no separation: my home interests are exposed through ads delivered to me at work. Sure these are ‘mostly harmless’ but I doubt that even Ford Prefect or Zaphod Beeblebrox would be happy with this kind of intrusion.
Think of what someone with criminal intentions could do if they could access that data on you? Google has just as many issues with hackers as any other large web organization and has already suffered ‘data losses’ from such attacks. Remember, when Google talks about such ‘losses’ they’re talking about your personal data leaking out to god knows who.
I keep reading how people now are less concerned with privacy, that they’re happy to share things in ways that would be unheard of ten or twenty years ago. Perhaps this is true, or perhaps it’s that they’ve been brainwashed by ruthless companies into thinking that this is okay, purely for the benefit of said companies. Whatever the case, people have to stop burying their heads in the collective sand and realize that there are consequences for all of these things. Somehow, someday, this profligacy of exposure will come back to bite you on the proverbial fundament.
My own usage of Google is relatively light. I use Reader to pull together newsfeeds, search and Google Docs. There are alternatives for all of these and I will use them. I’m closing my Google account as of today – I suggest everyone else does the same.
If you want to know how to do this – look here.
Recently published research shows that Americans are drinking more soft drinks than ever before, as much as 13 billion gallons each year, making them the “largest source of added sugar and excess calories in the American diet”.
The figures are staggering.
“According to the National Soft Drink Association (NSDA), consumption of soft
drinks is now over 600 12-ounce servings (12 oz.) per person per year. Since the
late 1970`s the soft drink consumption in the United States has doubled for
females and tripled for males. The highest consumption is in the males between
the ages of 12 – 29; they average 1/2 gallon a day or 160 gallons a year.”
Do the math on that.
A can of soft drink contains roughly 10-12 teaspoons of sugar - yep 10 or 12 per can!
Half a gallon represents around five cans per day, giving us around 50 or 60 teaspoons of sugar.
A teaspoon of sugar is around 50 calories. So we’re talking about an intake of around 2500 to 3000 calories per day, just from soft drinks.
That’s the equivalent of the total recommended daily intake for a male to maintain a healthy weight, and that’s without eating anything!
When you also take into account that people are also eating a lot of pre-packaged junk food, in extremely large servings and people are increasingly sedentary, it really is no surprise at all that we’re facing an obesity epidemic.
Of course there are always the rose-tinted spectacle wearers who will say, “It’s all good. No harm, no foul.” etc. The problem is that obesity comes with a very large cost that affects all of us regardless of whether we personally are obese or not.
Recent studies in both the Unites States and Canada reveal the staggeringly high costs of obesity: $140 billion in the U.S. and over $1.8 billion in Canada. Just imagine the benefit to everyone if the healthcare systems received this level of funding increase…
The Financial Stability Board, backed by the G20 members, was set up in 2009 after the financial meltdown to monitor and regulate international banking.
Last Friday they announced their list of banks “too big to fail”; this list includes twenty-nine banks. It probably comes as no surprise that many of those listed were also recipients of some of the largest bailouts from their respective governments. These include:
- Bank of America – $45 b
- Bank of New York Mellon – $3 b
- Citigroup – $45 b
- Commerzbank – $11 b
- Deutsche Bank – $12 b
- Goldman Sachs – $10 b
- JB Morgan Chase - $247 m
- LLoyds Banking Group – $60b
- Morgan Stanley – $10 b
- Royal Bank of Scotland - $70 b
- State Street – $2 b
- UBS AG – $65 b
- Wells Fargo $25 b
Add all of that up and you have over 350 Billion dollars of bailout; not including many other international banks I haven’t listed that were also recipients of bailout money or at least ‘protected’ in one way or another from the consequences of their selfish and stupid gambles.
These banks, their directors and staff continue to be the beneficiaries of huge profits and disgusting bonus rewards, while the rest of us work our collective asses off to pay for their mistakes. This is a level of payback that will see us through most of our lifetimes and more than likely into our children’s lifetimes.
The reason we are in such a mess is because when things started to go wrong in 2007/8, all of these banks were considered ‘too big to fail’ and were handed barrow loads of cash with no strings attached. Even while taking this money, the bankers continued to pay themselves huge salaries and ridiculous bonuses, rewarding themselves for their ‘success’ with amounts beyond avarice.
And now the FSB is making exactly the same mistake. Lessons from history are often difficult and painful – but now we don’t even learn them after the fact. Parasites like this should be left to fail; they need to learn the lessons and consequences of their own actions.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana 
It’s been a while since I posted anything – family visiting from England gave me a long and very pleasant vacation – though it’s never long enough of course…
I’m currently(finally) looking at adding a garage to our house and the whole thing seems like a nightmare.
First of all our lot is not ideal for such an endeavor. We have an acre of land but most of it is next to useless for geological and/or topological reasons. The only place that seems to make any kind of sense is at the far-side of the house away from the street. Hardly the best location.
Secondly, the planning requirements for any kind of construction now seem to be ridiculously over the top. Because I want a garage of reasonable size (bigger than a postage stamp it seems…) I have to have an ‘engineered floor’.
What this means is that I have to do the design and drawings, give them to an engineer who will then (rubber) stamp them in exchange for several hundred dollars. Yes, that’s right, I do the work, some engineer stamps them and says “yeah, okay” and they collect a handful of cash. Talk about money for nothing! I really think I’m in the wrong career…
Of course it’s not that simple. Because of the building regulations (codes) here I am supposed to have a minimum twenty feet (feet/inches! Yes, we are back in the stone age!) setback from the front lot line. Now, tell me, who wants a twenty feet driveway in Northern Ontario? That’s right, no one. In my case, with the general topography of our lot, would put my garage underground!
Of course, I can apply for a ‘minor variance’ to bring the garage forward. That only takes a minimum of two months and again costs about seven hundred dollars. No wonder it’s called a ‘setback’.
With that and the actual permit application fees I will have spent around $3000 in bribes fees before a shovel even touches dirt! This seems to be just a money-making scheme for the city and ‘jobs for the boys’ with the engineers.
That also means I can’t possibly get this built this year. Which is infuriating to say the least.
On the other hand I had some good quotes for garage kits from our local Home Hardware store. The price contains pretty much everything and is very reasonable. I tried to get a quote from the local Rona as well for comparison, but they haven’t bothered calling me back – something that I have seen with them several times previously. I really wonder how some of these places manage to stay in business – they certainly don’t seem to want to!
Something I’ve seen a great deal of in previous jobs is a lot of bullying and attacks on people who spoke out about problems, or were critical of bad decisions or plans. Our corporate culture seems to be increasingly happy to employ a ‘shoot the messenger’ philosophy, in complete denial and disconnection with the reality of the situation they are in.
It’s not only me that seems to be affected by this. Several of my friends, and others I have worked with in the past, relate similar experiences. Increasingly the expectation is that we are all supposed to wander around like passive, silent sheep. If you are perceived to be ‘negative’ then you’re a bad employee: immediately suspicious, undoubtedly seditious and ultimately to be persuaded/manipulated/forced to move somewhere else.
A personal example of this which left me incredulous was during a meeting with senior representatives from a company. The project I was working on already had extremely tight deadlines and in the course of the meeting I was told that the system would now have to interface with two completely different hardware technologies.
My response was that this would have a very big impact on the delivery schedule. To my amazement the senior people started to laugh at this point! They also insisted that the project deadlines could not move because they had already promised the dates to clients.
I’m sure that the problem here is fairly self-evident. Double the scope of the project but keep the schedule the same? You would have to be a complete brain-dead moron person with limited experience to even think that THIS was vaguely possible.
I can understand that people don’t like bad news – who does? But to deny it and actively attack the people delivering it, that’s just dumb. We’re not the creators of these things, we’re just reporting reality. Guess what? That quart really doesn’t fit into the pint pot, no matter how hard you try.
On another occasion with the same company, we had a situation where a manager made a successful bid on a contract for a system that involved making significant changes to software components. The manager made up his own estimates for how long it would take to implement the changes without consulting anyone from the software team and without having any personal software development experience.
When the inevitable happened and everyone realised that the bid was completely undeliverable at the bid price and the schedule couldn’t be met due to the underestimates involved, it somehow became the software team’s fault. How does that work exactly? To get out of this the client was lied to, the software team was forced to do overtime for which they were never paid and were castigated routinely for being lazy and useless!
Maybe I’m weird or something. I prefer to know the real situation. Sure the truth can be hard to swallow, but at least if I know what it is, I have a fighting chance of being able to deal with it. If I just avoid or deny that then I’m screwed. Arse-kissing has always been a factor, but when all you have is that kind of person, don’t be surprised when the only thing you have left is a prune-like rear.
This seems to be an issue increasingly apparent in IT work, but recent news on NASA suggests that it is more wide spread.
Interestingly, the behaviours I am talking about are well known and documented organisational anti-patterns. In the same way that in Software Engineering there are documented good solutions for most basic situations, there are also documented bad solutions.
In the case in point we see clear evidence of ‘Management by perkele‘ – where subordinates are deliberately made to be fearful and uncertain in order to instill unquestioning obedience. There is also more than a hint of ‘moral hazard‘ too – where someone is insulated from the consequences of their behaviour and decisions. Finally, the ‘Groupthink‘ pattern is clearly evident too – where people stop promoting ideas that are outside the ‘comfort zone’ of the organisation.
It’s hard to see how any organisation can continue when it suffers from such well known flaws, but has we know bullies are always very inventive in justifying why they act the way they do. It’s also the sad fact that in our culture these types of actions and businesses get away with it because people are just too scared to speak out.
With regard to the ‘laughter’ experience I had. It was explained to me later that I hadn’t handled things correctly. What I should have done was to say nothing, gone away and considered things for a while, worked out the results of the changes and then come back to the senior people with these results.
At which point the answer would have been exactly the same. You see, I didn’t need to take time to consider things and work them out and mull them over. When you double the size of my project I know that the timetable has to shift – what do I need to think about? Not only that but, due to my wily, cunning, nasty, pessimist brain I can even take a pretty good guess as to the size of the timetable shift. Hmmmm hang on, off the top of my head here… ohhh double.
See, that was easy.
Researchers at the UT Southwestern Medical Center have published results showing that people taking anti-depressants continue to have many of the symptoms of depression including insomnia, sadness and decreased concentration.
“Widely used antidepressant medications, while working overall, missed these symptoms. If patients have persistent residual symptoms, these individuals have a high probability of incomplete recovery,” said Dr. Shawn McClintock, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry.
High probability of incomplete recovery? In other words they don’t work.
As I have said previously anti-depressants are an easy cop-out for doctors and a nice money maker for drug companies but they only mask the problems – they aren’t, and can’t be, a cure. The only value to anti-depressants is that they provide multi-billion dollar sales to drug companies every year ($20+ billion in the U.S. alone!), which is why they spend so much ‘persuading‘ doctors to prescribe them.
The only way to ‘cure’ depression is to tackle it head on. Find what is causing it and then remove/change that cause, or rework your reaction to it.
As expected, the Skylon didn’t get any of NASA’s funding giveaway. The results are out though, with funding going to Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corporation, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Boeing.
A total of over $250 million is being awarded to the winners who will now be able to refine their ideas and designs to take NASA astronauts back into space.
Some of them aren’t exactly waiting around though. SpaceX have already announced that they will be ready to fly their first manned missions within three years!
Good luck to all of them.
It’s a shame that it comes in the shadows of reports of more bad press for NASA, detailing a culture of habitual lying over project budgets and bullying people who speak out.
Climate scientists need help
Climate scientists are under attack by unscrupulous pressure groups and various climate change denialists. These groups and individuals use court orders and “Freedom of Information” requests to effectively harass scientists. This witch hunt makes for a hostile environment for the scientists, while also creating doubt in the public perception of climate change, despite the fact that the victims have been cleared of all wrongdoing many times and climate change is accepted as fact by an overwhelming majority of scientists.
Is it any surprise that these denialist groups and individuals are funded heavily by the oil and coal industries and others who have a lot to lose if any real* emissions limits are ever enacted. This gives these groups a virtual bottomless pit of money to continue their actions against scientists and spread their FUD.
Now there’s something that you can do to help. The Climate Science Defense Fund has been set up to raise money for scientists under attack, the money raised goes towards legal fees to fight off these attacks.
* By real I mean not involving carbon ‘trading’ schemes that are nothing but ways to channel money towards fat banks and finance companies in the pretense of doing something about climate change.