Apparently we are approaching that time of year again

For the past few days Jeannette has been slowly ramping up for the holiday season. One of primary ways that this ramp up has manifested itself is through gingerbread person themed ornament versions of people (fictional and real).

At first Jeannette started with pretty run-of-the-mill gingerbread men.

Then the neckwear started to change.

First there was a scarf.

Then a standard issue necktie...

...and a bow tie.

I am proud to say that a few of my suggestions were even accepted and gingerbreadized.

One of my earliest suggestions was 'construction worker.'

I then moved on to eighties classics when I suggested Richard Simmons.

Jeannette then decided to run with the popular persona theme and chose to do an Einstein, ...

...MJ (from the Beat It music video),...

...Freddie Mercury, ...

...Luke Skywalker,...

...and Han Solo and Princess Leia.

Oh, and because it was Jeannette making these there were also a few zombies.

And just to demonstrate that Jeannette's skills aren't anything special I decided to make one of my own, a school crossing guard.

Not to brag too much, but I totally nailed it. It's pretty clear that I have captured the essence of crossing guardness more than any other artist before me.

Then, to try to top my crossing guard, Jeannette moved to the 3D realm with this third rate wintery scene.

I mean really, can you get more hotel room art than this? Where's the passion and feeling that you see in my crossing guard? Where's the humanity?

Anyway, we're definitely in the ramp up phase. If we aren't careful we will soon be overrun with homemade seasonal crafts.

To help with that party vibe

Frequently the Killam Library has something of a party vibe. Instead of studying, many students sit around at large tables and socialize. On some evenings it is a particularly raucous and happening place.

I am now starting to wonder if this state of affairs isn't related to something that I found on the fifth floor.

A place that makes the location of its 'staff ounce' known is surely the obvious place to go for a party. Apparently all kinds of the undergrads knew about this before I did.

Very delayed reaction

A few years ago I posted about a fire that took place near our South End Halifax apartment. The fire, though not particularly large, did manage to damage a few restaurants and some row housing.



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Since the fire in January 2010, at least as far as I could tell, not much had happened with the buildings. Though the adjacent buildings were soon fixed and the restaurants re-opened, the restaurants in the primary fire location did not re-open in the same place.

Well, after almost two years, it seems that the building is finally being torn down.

I guess this means that there will now be space for new development beside Cornwallis park. I would be curious to know if there are already plans in place, or if they will only begin thinking about how to fill the space now that the building has been torn down.

Post-shovelling

At about 10:40 the snow had almost come to a complete stop. Obviously this meant it was not time to start shovelling.

I set out with the shovel left to us by the previous tenant. At first thing seemed to be going quickly as the snow was light and easy to shovel. Then, after a few minutes, I noticed that the shovel I was using was really quite short. It didn't even come up to my waist.

The shortness of the shovel, I noticed, was forcing me to bend over quite dramatically. While I could sustain this position for a while it soon became clear that the entire driveway was going to be a bit of a challenge.

The other problem that I soon noticed was the that the snow seemed to be getting heavier as I kept going. I am not sure if this was an illusion, or if increasing temperatures were causing a change, or if the snow nearer the road was heavier, but an already bad situation was seemingly becoming even worse.

Of course, I managed to use the collapsable emergency shovel to clear enough snow to allow us to access the car. Assuming that we aren't ploughed in over night we should even be able to exit the driveway without too many problems.

Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to use this driveway access to make our way to a local shovel store to acquire a more suitable shovel. I really don't think I can do the driveway again with that less than adequate shovel.

Oh, and I would guess that we had about 40ish centimeters of snow.

Still?

We are close to fourteen hours into this thing and it is still snowing (though it has finally slowed). For the first time in hours my 'reference point' has finally started to accumulate again. I am not so sure why this seems like such a victory.

I also managed to take a photo that makes it look as though it is still quite a storm.

This one is likely a more accurate representation of the current state of affairs in once-sunny Wolfville.

Anyway, this has definitely lived up to the forecast. I guess there is a first time for everything.

This is getting crazy

It has now been snowing non-stop for about twelve hours. It seems that we must be getting close to 30 cm, if we haven't already passed it. Of course, my 'reference point' hasn't been of any use for the past several hours. (And we have moved from a 'snowfall warning' to a 'winter storm warning.')

What has been amazing about this storm is that it has lived up to, if not exceeded, its hype. The other aspect of this that I find amazing is that given the lead time there hasn't been much ploughing or salting. And I guess I also find it amazing that so many places didn't close today. Didn't they see how much it was snowing?

Only halfway there?

Are we really only halfway through this thing?

It's really getting old now

The snow keeps on falling and leaving my increasingly useless reference point.

It's getting old now

This snow stuff keeps on coming. If I had to guess I would say that we have at least 15 cm, though I am not sure how accurate a guess that would be. And the wind has definitely started to pick up. The wind has picked up so much that my 'reference point' is now pretty much completely useless as any indication of the amount of snow that we have received.

Maybe this next photo will give a more accurate sense of the conditions here.

As I hope you can see, we are still in the midst of the snowfall.

And it keeps on coming

Yup, it's still snowing heavily.

And still cold.

It's worse than I thought

Just a few minutes ago I returned from a trip out into the eye of the storm to retrieve a stuck Jeannette (she and the car had been unable to make it up one of the steeper hills in Wolfville). Anyway, any sense that I might have had that things were slowing down was probably premature. The snow is still coming down quite quickly and it is incredibly slippery on the roads. Even walking on the roads can be tricky. Furthermore, while it still isn't particularly strong, the wind has definitely started to pick up a little.

For those of you who are becoming attached to photos of my reference point, here is the picture I took at about 1:15.

My sense of things is that the accumulation is increasing. Unfortunately, when choosing reference points, I didn't even do a particularly good job of choosing a point that would clearly show the full extent of the accumulation. I would guess that this post is several centimetres shy of what you would find on the ground.

And it continues, though maybe it has slowed?

My 11:45 photo seems to suggest that we are still seeing some accumulation.

I guess if I really wanted to I could try to figure out how much accumulation happened between the points in time that I have documented and then determine if things have actually declined. I am not sure if I have the energy for such a calculation.

And it seems that the storm system might be shifting southward into our territory. Presumably a continued shift in this direction will mean worse weather for us as the day continues.

I know you will all be waiting with baited breath for my next update.

Some nice accumulation

At about 10:15 I took this photo.

At about 11:00, or 45 minutes later, I took this photo.

Not only have we had a fair bit of accumulation in the past 45 minutes, but during that time the snow flakes also seem to have become a little bit larger and fluffier.

It's certainly something

Well, as predicted we are receiving some snow (though when I woke up it hadn't yet started snowing). And so far the snow and the gloomy forecast have lead to quite a number of closures (with more in the works).

What troubles me is that it looks like the majority of this system is heading north of much of Nova Scotia so I really don't know how bad it will be for the rest of the day. I guess if it makes a sudden shift south we will be in for it, but otherwise I wonder if we might not just get the gentle, if steady, snowfall that we are getting at the moment.

Of course, if/when this turns to rain things could become quite treacherous on the roads.

Anyway, I guess I will allow myself to be distracted by the weather conditions as the day progresses, though I hope the extent of this distraction is limited. There is nothing worse than being completely and uncontrollably enthralled in a non-event.

This looks yummy

It seems that the first major snowfall warning of the season has been issued, and if the satellite imagery means anything I think that we will be due at least for some quantity of precipitation tomorrow.

Hopefully I won't have to spend too much time out in the snow/rain.

And I guess this also means that we may have to pick up some salt for our steps.

Apprently I have cried wolf too many times

It seems my recommendations of my own YouTube videos aren't worth very much these days. About a day after my latest recommendation my recommended video has only received 8 'views,' at least 2 or 3 of which came from me (and during this time we've supposedly had 15 unique visitors and some number of (dozens?) RSS subscribers).

I suspect that my inclination to post absolute garbage to YouTube for the past five years has made you hesitant to give anything I post a shot, and I guess I understand that. At best most of it is only moderately entertaining, and at worst some of it is downright atrocious.

Anyway, this isn't some kind of lame attempt to get more views for my vid (it's Ok, but nothing too special), just an effort to let you know that I know what you think about my vids (and to let you know that I'm a little relieved to know that our readers do have at least a modicum of taste).

Maybe my best time-lapse event yet

[Embedded video]

This was taken over the course of a few days in early November.

While this isn't anything earth shattering, I do think it is one of my more worthwhile attempts at time-lapse video.

A Few Quick Notes 553

-Though I didn't spend much time outside today while the sun was up, my recollection is that it was a nice day (though maybe a bit chilly).

-Bright and early this morning started doing some dishes. Once I finished with the dishes I moved on to a single loaf-sized batch of bread. The bread looks good, but I haven't yet gotten around to sampling it.

-After a few hours of work I took a break to make a batch of hard candy. The break became somewhat extended when I managed to burn the first batch (the temperature seemed to jump from 300 to 350 in about 60 seconds). Fortunately, the second batch went according to plan.

What didn't exactly go according to plan was the shaping of the resulting candies. It turns out that they were a little harder to shape by hand than we hoped. Fortunate we were able to cut them in a way that resulted in candies of a reasonable size.

Now that we have something of a handle on the process we may try another batch in the near future.

-Even though I spent a while with the dishes the morning they have continued to accumulate through the day (I guess the baking and candy making projects haven't helped). I hope that somehow by the time I go to bed they are under control.

Baking misadventures

A few weeks ago some friends were coming over. I thought that having some freshly baked muffins on hand might be nice.

Of course, part way the baking process, at about the time when I realized things were going according to plan, I came to the realization that I had forgotten to add the baking powder.

The resulting muffin shaped dough pucks ended up kind of looking like muffins, at least until their innards were exposed. And while aspects of the flavour were as expected, the overall package was quite disappointing.

Today, while making a scone recipe I have made dozens of times I neglected to add the called-for sugar. Of course I didn't notice this until part way through the first scone.

In retrospect this omission likely explains why the scones looked a little different than normal.

I am really hoping that this will be the final instance of my baking forgetfulness for the foreseeable future.

I have a hard enough time single-handedly eating full batches of baked goods when they are properly prepared that I don't need to give myself additional hurdles, particular if those hurdles make the output less palatable.

A Few Quick Notes 552

-Though chilly, today was a beautiful day. Much to my surprise, there are even remnants of the dusting of snow that we received a few days ago. I think it is safe to say that we are definitely into late fall now (even if on Wednesday I saw people sitting on the sidewalk in shorts and a tee-shirt while reading the paper).

-Today, at Jeannette's insistence, we made our way to a local Christmas craft fair. While much of the content was a little too Christmasy for me, there were a few vendors selling some really neat products.

Though for some time Jeannette has been telling me that this thing is a big deal, I really didn't think that it was going to be as big as it was. Not only were there more vendors than I expected (maybe even twice as many), the event seemed to be attracting hundreds of people, likely thousands over the course of the three-day event. It was really quite surprising.

-A few days ago I had the pleasure of doing some multiple choice grading. The upside is that this process is much easier and faster than essay grading. A downside is that, because I wasn't involved in the creation of the test, I don't have as good a sense of the areas where the students are and aren't doing well.

-I am in the midst of keeping a food diary for kidney stone related reasons. Knowing that I will have to record each thing I consume has encouraged me to think a little more closely about my consumption patterns. While, at least for the most part, I don't think I am too bad, I do think that this process has encouraged me to skip a few unnecessary even snacks that I might have otherwise been careless enough to have. (I am not sure how the observation process is impacting the data collection, but there is definitely some impact).

-I should probably head back to the kitchen to check on some food I am preparing for dinner. Assuming all goes well we will be having some dal (with vegetables) and rice. If I manage to get the recipe down I may end up making this on a semi-regular basis.

I was starting to think I had imagined it

For a few years I have had a vague memory of a television show from my childhood. Basically all I could remember was that there was dancing and that the the title was something along the lines of The Rockets.

Shortly after I mentioned this to Jeannette, though she had no recollection of the show, found a few clips and the theme online.



[Embedded video]

It turns out that the show as pretty much as I remembered in that it had some kids, dancing, and a Rocket based title. Apparently it was filmed in Winnipeg.

Now that I have reacquainted myself with the show I just want to know how long the show was on the air and why I possibly would have watched it. Also, does anyone else remember this show? I can't ever remember anyone talking about it.

And if it turns out that this clip really gave you a taste for more you are in luck, it seems that a number of episodes are available on YouTube.

Is it just me or are do these bare more than just a passing resemblance to one another?

I have recently come across a few passage that deal with the election of speakers in Canadian legislatures. As I was reading these I occasionally had a strange sense that I had read some of the passages before.

From Monpetit and Marleau's House of Commons Procedure and Practice (2nd edition):

The election of a Speaker has precedence over all other matters. No motion for adjournment is accepted until a Speaker is declared elected and installed in the Chair. Once he or she has been elected, after the customary thanks and congratulations have been expressed and after announcing the time and the date for the Speech from the Throne, the Speaker adjourns the House until the next sitting.

From British Columbia legislature's Standing Orders:

11 (a) (4) The election of a Speaker shall take precedence over all other business and no Motion of any kind shall be accepted, and the House shall continue to sit, if necessary, beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, until a Speaker is elected and is installed in the Chair and if the House has continued to sit beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, the Speaker shall thereupon adjourn the House until the next sitting, unless otherwise ordered.

From the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly's Standing Orders:

2 (7) The election of a Speaker shall take precedence over all other business and the House shall continue to sit, if necessary, beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, until a Speaker is elected and is installed in the chair and if the House has continued to sit beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, the new Speaker shall thereupon adjourn the House until the next sitting day.

From the Rules and Procedures of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan:

40(4) The election of a Speaker shall take precedence over all other business and no motion of any kind shall be accepted, and the Assembly shall continue to sit, if necessary, beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, until a Speaker is elected and is installed in the chair. If the Assembly has continued to sit beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, the Speaker shall thereupon adjourn the Assembly until the next sitting.

From the New Brunswick legislature's Standing Rules:

The election of a Speaker shall take precedence over all other business and no motion of any kind shall be accepted, and the House shall continue to sit, if necessary, beyond its ordinary time of daily adjournment, until a Speaker is elected and is installed in the Chair and if the House has continued to sit beyond its ordinary hour of daily adjournment, the Speaker shall thereupon adjourn the House until the next sitting, unless otherwise ordered.

A quick end for the new Occupy NS site?

It seems that since my last post the police were called to the Occupy NS site to make sure that the occupiers vacated Victoria Park. Based on the photo accompanying the CBC story it looks as though the removal was really happening quite quickly.

This surprise tactic, at least in the short-run, seems to have worked for the city. They seem to have removed the occupiers from the city parks. Of course, I suspect that we will have to wait a few days to see if this all fades away quietly or if the protestors mount some form of rebuttal.

I am also curious to see if the protestors question the validity of the eviction notice and claim that they were given permission by the city. Unfortunately, as the news stories thus far seem to be focusing on the position of the city officials I don't really have a sense of how the protestors are responding to these developments, though I don't get the sense that there has been much of a fight so far (though I guess it's still early).

Hopefully more news will make it out shortly.

Update: Based on Twitter reports I gather that there have been a number of arrests during the eviction process. I guess we'll have to wait a little longer to see exactly how many there are in total.

Big news on the Occupy Halifax/NS front

Though I haven't mentioned anything about the Occupy NS/Halifax front for several days the protest has been on-going. After a negotiated departure from the Grand Parade (in advance of today's Remembrance Day ceremonies) the occupiers set up camp in Victoria Park, a site across from the Public Gardens. As far as I knew things were in motion for the Occupiers to return to their original location in the near future.

It seems now, at least according to the Chronicle Herald and a city notice, that this may not be happening. The city seems to now be attempting to shut down the protest before it returns to the Grand Parade. Apparently the city is now going to try to enforce the no camping and park closing rules that they have been lax about for the past few weeks (That the city seems to think that it is Ok only to enforce rules when it wants to is troubling and, at least to some extent, undermines the principle of Rule of Law that is so important in Canadian society).

In many ways this was a neat little maneuver by the city. The protestors left the site directly in front of city hall voluntarily based on negotiations with the city (a city that seemed to imply that it would support a continued occupation - it even suggested land that could be used for an encampment site). Now, once the protestors have vacated the prominent location, the city has decided it will shut them down.

Though I don't know all of the details, from the outside this definitely seems a little duplicitous on the part of the city government. Not only were the camps allowed to pass health and safety inspections, something that seemed to implicitly suggest some level of governmental approval, but the protestors were also explicitly offered an alternate park-based location for their protest by the city. This latter fact seems particularly pertinent.

For the city, which seemingly approved of the activities protests, to now try to shut them down, if anything, is asking for trouble. I suspect that many of the protestors and those who support the protestors will feel betrayed by the city. As I haven't been in Halifax for the duration of the occupation I don't really know what the public's position is on the matter, but I suspect that it could have a big impact on how this will all play out (and who knows, maybe the city knows that the public doesn't support the occupation). In any case, the city seems interested in forcing the issue sooner rather than later.

Sadly, this isn't particularly surprising

It seems, at least according to a recent report by the CBC, that the new farmers' market in Halifax is having some financial difficulties.

Sadly, this isn't really much of a surprise.

One of the issues that Neil and I discussed years ago when we first heard about the new facility was the location. Even though the last location was a little out of the way, this new location is hidden behind a hotel and isn't in a part of town that many locals would visit organically. Actually, given the concentration of tourism activities in the area it is even possible that the new farmers' market is in a location that many locals would actively avoid, particularly in the height of cruise ship season.

Related to the location problem is that there is also a parking/walking problem. I am not sure if the parking for the site is ideal. I kind of get the sense that there probably isn't enough parking during peak times.

Alongside the parking issue is a walking issue. The new site is incredibly unpleasant to reach on foot. There are a few cross-walks that seem to be missing from the mix that would allow pedestrians to conveniently access the market.

All of this is to say that transportation-wise, things don't appear to be well designed so that the location is easy to access.

I suspect that another problem that the Halifax farmers' market is having is that many of their vendors aren't really farmers'. It's one thing to buy an omelette or some freshly prepared food on a Saturday morning, but I am not sure that the food-service vendors are really attracting people during the week when the market is open. At least when I visited on during the afternoon last week most of these places weren't open.

Actually, another problem, and a tricky one, is that the market may be open but most of the vendors aren't. When I was last there it seemed as though only a few of the vendors were open for business. And if the market doesn't have enough selection to allow a shopper to forgo a trip to the supermarket they may instead to forgo the trip to the market.

So being a little out of the way and having an incomplete slate of vendors likely means that an extra trip to farmers' market just isn't worth it for most people during their day-to-day grocery buying activities.

Oh, and not that I am always one for 'character' in a building, but the warehouse feel of the new location does not really induce me to visit.

The worst part is, aside from scaling back to only being open once or twice a week, I really don't know what they can do about the problem as the building has now been constructed and a location change is off the table. Hopefully they manage to come up with something in the near future as it would be disappointing to see the collapse of such a well-respected Halifax institution.

A strange contrast is. the Wolfville farmers' market. They too recently acquired a newly remodelled building and, while I don't know the particulars of their finances, I get the sense that things are going quite well.

It can be funny how things work out sometimes.

Where did this idea come from?

I was just listening to an interview on CBC about financial shenanigans in a small Nova Scotia town. At some point in the interview the interviewee, a small business owner, suggested that it was clear that the town's finances now needed to be managed more along the lines of how a business would be run.

What I want to know if when businesses came to be seen as as models of financial propriety?

Is it not the case that there are frequently businesses that are involved in various financial skulduggery? My recollection is that the questionable use of business managed funds lead to the big economic downturn in 2008. And is it not also the case that Olympus is currently being investigated for the questionable financial management practices?

So in the face of countless examples of business/corporate mismanagement/questionable management of funds why are they seen as the examples that public sector should follow?

More poking about on the internet

Not surprisingly, my poking about on the internet didn't end with my examination of The Council on Governmental Ethics Laws's membership list.

I soon found myself looking at Standing Orders/House rules for various legislatures in Canada. While looking at the standing orders for Newfoundland and Labrador and the House Rules for Nova Scotia I was surprised by the fact that neither had been amended in the past few years. The last time the Newfoundland Standing Orders were amended was 2005. The last time that Nova Scotia's House Rules were amended was 1998. Between these two amendment dates and now both of these legislatures have had significant spending scandals that seem to have had no impact on procedure.

This means that in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia the newly constituted Management Commissions that came about because of these scandals are not mentioned. Though these Management Commissions aren't technically matters of procedure, that they aren't mentioned at all seems a little strange to me.

It should also be noted that neither of these two sets of rules seem to deal with matters relating to matters of ethics or conflict of interest.

I think these last two points become a little more significant when these provincial rules are contrasted with the House of Commons' Standing Orders. Both the Board of Internal Economy (the federal analog to provincial Management Commissions) and the Conflict of Interest Code are included in the Standing Orders. Though I guess I will leave it to you to make of this what you will.

Am I missing something?

I have been doing some work this afternoon and through a somewhat circuitous route I ended up on looking at a list of members of The Council on Governmental Ethics Laws. Not surprisingly, most of the members on the list appear to be governments or public entities with a pretty explicit stake in the governmental ethics arena. There are also quite a number of law firms, which I guess also makes sense (presumably some specialize in this area of law).

I also noticed that there are a few technology companies that are listed as members. For the life of me I can't figure out why Apple, Oracle, and Xerox would be members of such an organization.

Given that there are at least three such companies with membership in the organization I presume there is a reason for this trend, I just haven't been able to figure it out yet.

Finally, my first glimpse of an Occupy site

Since deciding to come to Halifax for a few days one of the things I have wanted to do is take a look at the Occupy NS site on the Grand Parade. Though there has been more media coverage of the protest as a result of the city's request that the protestors vacate the square to allow things like the Remembrance Day celebrations to take place, my sense of the physical reality was still lacking. How many tents were there? How full was the Grand Parade? Did it look like a tent city?

Finally last night Jeannette and I had the chance to drive by the occupation and get a look at the set up. Much to our surprise the Grand Parade was not full, there seemed to be a line of tents along the back of the paved area, but much of the rest of the pavement was unobstructed. Though there may have been one, I didn't see a single burning barrel (and we all know it's not a real strike/protest if there isn't at least one burning barrel).

As this view of the site was relatively brief I may have to find some time tomorrow to examine the site a little more closely and really get a sense of how things are working at the Occupy NS headquarters (especially considering this is a protest site that has passed it's health and safety inspection).

Oh, and in related news Occupy Magazine seems to have come out with its second issue a few days ago. As far as I can tell this issue also seems to be comprised primarily of articles harvested from other sources rather than original content. In this issue I really was expecting to see more content exclusive to this publication, but maybe that isn't the type of publication they are going for. Maybe if I make it to the Grand Parade tomorrow I will be able to pick up a print copy of the magazine to inspect in more detail.

Jack-o-Lantern time

So because we finally live in an apartment that might be visited by Trick-or-Treaters we decided it would be appropriate if we had a jack-o-lantern. Because my family has a long tradition of having politically themed jack-o-lanterns I realized that I needed to come up with an appropriate and well-known figure on the Canadian political scene to morph into a jack-o-lantern.

Of course, it didn't take long to narrow the pack to Darryl Dexter and Stephen Harper. Given Dexter's more limited weight on the national stage Harper became the choice by default.

The next part of the project was to figure out how to get Harper's face on a pumpkin. At first I tried to find a stencil online. Much to my surprise I was almost immediately successful.

Harper

Not too long ago the Globe and Mail made the above stencil available to the public. Sadly, this wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I was less interested in caricature and more interested in just a standard rendering of Harper.

After we purchased our pumpkin last night I settled on making my own stencil, even though I had no idea how I would go about such a task.

This morning I started my stencil making project by looking for suitable photos of Harper. Almost immediately I came across the classic Harper and kitty shot.

I then chopped the head out and started to turn it into a stencil.

After just a few iterations I had something I thought I could work with.

With my stencil now in hand I was reading to start the carving process. To start I affixed the
stencil to the pumpkin and began tracing the black areas by jabbing the pumpkin with a pin. After maybe twenty minutes I had a largely useless partial outline of the stencil. Eventually I reattached the stencil and began re-tracing the black areas with a knife.

Eventually the face began to take shape from the mass of the pumpkin. And then almost immediately it was clearly a face, if not clearly Harper's face.

Now that I have had a chance to examine my work my guess is that my stencil wasn't quite as good as I thought it was. Maybe it was also a little too large? Anyway, I think I will need to work on my technique a little for next year's iteration.

At the moment I suspect that my pumpkin would really only be recognizable in the following context.

And that's hardly a context in which I can display the pumpkin.

The 'Unseasonable' Storm - 4

It turns out that the reading Jeannette and I planned on attending was not adversely effected by the stormy weather we were experiencing this afternoon. Amazingly enough, our drive from Wolfville to Windsor wasn't even much slower than expected as by the time we left most of the rain had stopped. (The reading/performance was great. I am hoping to see the performer doing a slightly different performance at the end of the week.)

When we went out to the car we did discover that we didn't manage to escape the storm unscathed. One of the rose bushes adjacent to our driveway was blown over into our driveway. And as the plant doesn't seem to have become uprooted I am not exactly sure what we are supposed to do with it. I am kind of hoping that once the wind dies down and the plant has a chance to recuperate that it will just right itself. Maybe this is overly wishful thinking.

The 'Unseasonable' Storm - 3

Much to my surprise, it seems that at least one of the closest power outages has been resolved. I am taking this to be good news in a number of ways. Firstly, the conditions are not so bad as to prevent power crews from working. Secondly, power crews are actively working to repair damage. Thirdly, and this may be a little presumptuous on my part, but I take this to mean that they don't think that things are going to get worse in this area.

The 'Unseasonable' Storm - 2

The power outages seem to be spreading across the provinces quickly. The effect has likely been intensified by the fact that for some period of time the NS Power Live Outage map was not adding new outages as they were occurring. As far as I know outages are now being added as they occur.

The other big development (to go along with the return to real-time of the Live Outage map) is that our region now has both a rain and a wind warning. A little while ago we just had a rain warning (even though it was pretty windy).

Hopefully the event that Jeannette and I are hoping to attend later this afternoon won't be adversely effected by the weather. As it is, I know of at least one local event that has been cancelled because of the weather.

The 'Unseasonable' Storm - 1

Well, it seems that we are actually in the midst of a storm, though not to the extent that some parts of the New England states are (I have seen photos of substantial snowfalls). At the moment all we have to complain about are high winds and rain.

Of course, now that this has been going on for the past few hours we are starting to see power outages in the province. And one of the three power outages is just a short ways away from us. Fun. At least we have gathered our 'emergency supplies' and are ready, at least as ready as we can be, for a possible power outage.

It seems that Neil and a few of the matheletes may have been more seriously impacted by the storm in that at least one of their flights was cancelled on their way back from a conference in the US. I still don't know the extent of their delays, though I imagine that today's developments haven't made things better.

I guess I should get back to storm watching (i.e. work).

A turn towards the absurd

A few days ago I heard about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's negative reaction to Mary Walsh's ambush-style interview at his Toronto home. It was also reported that shortly after the ambush took place he had called 911.

After seeing the relatively tame footage of the event I assumed that the suggestion that hadn't actually dialled 911 was probably true. Who would call the police when a prominent Canadian TV show, busily doing the thing for which they are most famous, was busy doing their thing (even if you might make a reasonable argument that their behaviour was inappropriate)? As one can see in the video, they don't have any interest in hiding who they are or what they are doing.

Well it seems that the suggestion that Rob Ford didn't call the police was completely wrong. Apparently he called the police not once, but twice. It is now being reported that the second call was laced with expletives. Apparently there have now been complaints filled by the dispatchers on the receiving end of these calls.

Mary Walsh, the 22 Minutes correspondent involved in the incident, spoke to a St. John's CBC show about the incident. If you are interested, you can listen to the interview here.

We shouldn't be getting this traffic bump

A sure sign that there hasn't been enough coverage of the Occupy Nova Scotia festivities is that this blog is getting a surprising number of visitors as a result of our discussion of the protest. Given the size of the regular readership and very limited impact of this blog this shouldn't be happening. We shouldn't be one of the first results in the Google blog search category when you search for 'Occupy Nova Scotia,' we just aren't that big or important.

Where's the rest of the Nova Scotia blogosphere on this issue?

Finally a story that deals with challenges to Occupy Nova Scotia

Much of the relatively sparse media attention devoted to the Occupy Nova Scotia/Halifax event has been relatively devoid of coverage of how non-occupiers feel about the Occupation. This struck me as quite noticeable.

Didn't Haligonians working in the downtown core have opinions on the Occupy protest? Didn't the city have an opinion on the appearance of a tent city in on of its parks? Or were they all in favour of the Occupy Nova Scotia encampment? These questions and many more went unanswered.

And even though the fact that the the municipal government has issued an 'eviction' notice to the protestors prompted another story from CBC, issues surrounding the community's response are completely absent.

It seems that another component that was absent from the CBC story, but that was included in Halifax Media Co-op coverage, is that while the city has requested that the protestors leave the Grand Parade they have suggested an alternate location for the protest to continue. So the city isn't really shutting the protest down, just suggesting a change of venue. Of course, it's possible that this less prominent location, if agreed to by the protestors, will have a negative impact on the visibility of the protestors.

Anyway, the notice to leave the Grand Parade will likely lead to another round of media attention, though I can't help but wonder how comprehensive the resulting coverage will be. Certainly what we have seen so far, at least as far as I am concerned, is lacking in depth and breadth and has left the public with a very incomplete sense of the encampment as it currently exists in downtown Halifax.

A big week for federal appointments

It seems that just a little while ago Harper announced the replacement for outgoing Auditor General Sheila Fraser. Michael Ferguson, Deputy Minister and former Auditor General in New Brunswick, will be the government's nominee.

What seems immediately notable about Mr. Ferguson is that he seems to have spent most, if not all, of his career in a variety of jobs in public service in New Brunswick. This is in contrast to Ms. Fraser who spent a years working in a number of capacities, including in the Office of the Auditor General, before she became the Auditor General. While I know next to nothing about Mr. Ferguson, it does seem at least noteworthy that an internal candidate was not the nominee.

The other big appointment news of the past few days were the two Supreme Court of Canada nominations from last week.

I found the following passage from Harper's press release on the subject particularly noteworthy.

Both candidates were highly recommended to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada following comprehensive consultations with the Attorney General of Ontario, senior members of the Canadian Judiciary, prominent legal organizations and members of the public.

Even if these appointments are 'Ontario appointments' it seems a little strange that Ontario was the only province consulted on the matter. Even if the appointees are to come from Ontario (a practice that might need review given than in more than 60 years Newfoundland has never had a judge on the court), their rulings will impact the entire country. Thus broader consultation seems justified if not essential.

The return of the Occupy Nova Scotia/Halifax media coverage

It seems that after about a week without coverage mainstream media has come back to the Occupy Halifax/Nova Scotia protests in the Grand Parade. I am now curious to see if the other media outlets in the city will provide an update now that at least one source has? Also, isn't just the fact that a tent city has sprung up in downtown Halifax something of a newsworthy story locally? I imagine that this is having at least some impact on the thousands of people who work in the surrounding area.

Interestingly, so far I haven't seen mention in the mainstream media of the occupation's associated publication, Occupy Magazine. An notable development since yesterday on the Occupy Magazine front is that the publication is now available online. Apparently the print only idea only lasted a day or two before cheaper distribution mechanisms were decided upon.

The upside of Occupy Magazine being available online is that I have now had a chance to see the type of material it contains without actually having a print copy in my hand. And at least for their first issue they seem to have gone with content relating to the Occupy movement first published in other venues. Only a small portion of the magazine was comprised of content written specifically for this publication. I guess we will have to wait for subsequent issues of the magazine to see if this model is continued or if they are able to source original content from international contributors, as seems to be their goal.

In related news, there seems to have been an 'Occupy'-themed "open the House of Assembly" protest at the confederation building in St. John's today.

At the moment it seems that Atlantic Canada is just full of excited Occupiers.

An unexpected development at Occupy Halifax

After my last post I continued to search the internet for signs of life at Occupy Halifax/Nova Scotia. I eventually found evidence that the protest has given life to a new print-only publication, a magazine called Occupy Magazine. It seems that the co-op responsible for publishing the magazine are interested in having their publication distributed internationally.

The first issue was released only yesterday and I gather that they are already thinking about subsequent issues. Of course, the magazine's Twitter feed suggests that the magazine is in the red. I guess given the current state of the print media this shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

Because the magazine is new and because it is not available online I still don't have too much of a sense of exactly what it is or what it contains. Maybe in a few days more reports about its content and origin story will make their way to the web. I am also curious to see if the national and international distribution plans come to fruition.

Has Occupy Halifax fizzled?

Last week's news coverage of the Occupy Halifax event spoke of protestors who were dedicated to the cause and interested in spending days or weeks on the Grand Parade (at least they would be back this weekend). Interestingly, there seems to have been little to no mainstream media coverage of the protest since last weekend (or at least any coverage that I can find through Google News). I was starting to wonder if the protest even made it much past last weekend

I did just find a post that suggests that the protest lasted at least 6 days. Of course, as this was posted about two days ago I don't know if the protest is still ongoing or if they have packed up camp and moved on.

Twitter activity does suggest that as of last night there may have still been something happening Occupy Halifax-wise, though the extent of the occupation is completely unclear to me.

What seems a little clearer is that news outlets that were covering the event a week ago seemed less inclined to cover the event through the week. And can such an event continue without relatively widespread media coverage? Given media disinterest how long will the Occupy Halifax event be able to hold out?

A rather bold statement for a former Governor General?

Earlier today while skimming my Twitter feed I happened to see a Tweet from Canada's former Governor General Michaëlle Jean.

The content of the Tweet, while not inherently shocking or any more radical than the normal anti-status quo jargon, surprised me because of author's previous job atop the Canadian governmental hierarchy. Is there is a position in the Canadian governmental system that might be more associated with the maintenance of the status quo than that of Governor General? Not only is the Governor General representative of the Queen, a person whose financial stability can be attributed to nothing other than to have been born heir to the throne, but they also personally sign all government legislation.

I can't help but wonder if she could have been more complicit in the maintenance of the system about which she is now complaining?

In the vein of the Durham Report quotes

I am in the process of skimming through a book, The Least Examined Branch: The Role of Legislatures in the Constitutional State, on the roles of legislatures in constitutional democracies when I came across the following passage in the forward:

This distinction between judicial and legislative roles is not therefore between principle and policy, because both institutions can and should act in principled ways. It is rather between ruling narrowly and legislating broadly, whether the rulings are a matter of principle or policy. This distinction is fundamental to understanding the difference between how courts and legislatures are typically designed to work and how they work best in supporting a constitutional democracy. Legislatures most often make egregious mistakes when they try to rule on single, high-visibility cases for politically expedient purposes. Courts correspondingly most often make egregious mistakes when they rule in ways that go far beyond what can be confidently inferred from the merits of the actual case or cases at hand.

I think that this is probably a pretty good way of thinking about the respective roles of legislatures and the judiciary. I am a little embarrassed that I hadn't explicitly thought about such distinctions before now.

Edit: The more I think about it the more I realize that this perspective is a little ahistorical, at least in the Canadian/Westminister tradition. Private Bills, for quite a while, were a major component of the legislature's work. And I can't help but think that issues relating to the setting of precedents are reasonably somewhat relevant to the rulings passed down by the judiciary.

Maybe my early excitement was a bit hasty.

Apparently there was an Occupy Halifax event

I guess I shouldn't be surprised to learn that there was, in fact, an Occupy Halifax event, and that it was conducted with the support of the Occupy Wolfville crowd (which explains the weak showing on the Occupy Wolfville front).

And while I would have guessed that such an event would take place in Cornwallis Park I guess it makes a little more sense that it took place on the Grand Parade.

What seems to set this protest apart from the original is that long-term occupation doesn't seem to be the goal. Instead of occupying the Grand Parade for close to a month the Occupiers seem to plan to head back again in a week.

I can't help but wonder if such a protest wouldn't have more of an impact both in actual and media terms if it were to be held on a business day?

A Few Quick Notes 551

-I guess I have to say that today is a pretty nice day, though it is a little cooler and not quite as bright as I might consider ideal.

-Though Jeannette and I have driven past the set of the HBO Canada show Call Me Fitz countless times we have still not yet had a Jason Priestly sighting. I guess I can't say that I am particularly surprised that I haven't had such a sighting because I really don't have much of a sense of what he looks like.

Maybe more than having a Beverly Hills 90210 alum in our midst, I like that New Minas is serving as a stand-in for Detroit.

-Assuming all goes as planned, Jeannette and I will be playing some pick-up Ultimate this afternoon. Assuming things keep getting colder, this could be one our last such events for the year.

-For some reason it has been about three weeks since I last posted an entry in this series. Sadly, a mass outcry relating to the paucity of these posts did not develop in the way I might have expected given the longevity of the series. It is almost as though we don't have a particularly active or large readership here at Montifax.

-Last night I heard that various Occupy X protests were being shut down or picking up. For some reason I haven't yet heard much follow up today. Maybe the situations are still unresolved? All I know is that even though the streets of Wolfville were teeming with people last night, by this morning things seemed to have cleared up. I guess there just isn't much of an Occupy spirit in Wolfville these days.

(Apparently there was supposed to be some kind of Occupy Halifax event yesterday. I wonder if it happened in Cornwallis Park?)

-Now that I have passed my comps I have to start working on my thesis. So far things haven't moved particularly quickly. Hopefully that will change in the very near future.

This is even more shocking

A few days ago I posted justifications Kathy Dunderdale gave for not opening the House of Assembly until the spring.

It seems that since that post she has given even more ridiculous statements about nature of the House that really indicate that she doesn't understand the role of the legislature.

CBC is reporting that Dunderdale suggested that:

If the house of assembly was just about question period, where most of the accountability takes place, then we could go and do that in a month's time

First of all, though it is probably already obvious, most of the 'accountability' does not take in question period. It's my opinion that question period could be completely eliminated with out having a significant impact on the ability of the members of the legislature to hold the government to account.

The members of the House have a much greater ability to hold the government to account through things like the Public Accounts Committee and the estimates committee. Of course, whether or not these mechanisms are used effectively or not is another matter altogether.

And maybe most importantly the legislature is the place where the government of the day has to introduce, defend, and justify its legislative and budgetary proposals. The members of the House, whether they are government or opposition, have the responsibility to examine these proposals and engage in a public discussion of their merits.

If anything, the existence of Question Period allows all parties to act as though it is the important function of the House, that it is where accountability takes place. And they can do this because the quotes and fast-paced exchanges that take place in Question Period are what make the news. Sadly, Question Period is nothing more than a facade of accountability that distracts from what most members, opposition and government, aren't doing, which is effectively holding the government of the day to account through the various means available to them.

The worst part of this is that most people probably don't know how unimportant question period is in the scheme of things. They also probably don't know that Ms. Dunderdale's comments betray a shocking lack of knowledge regarding the proper functioning of a parliamentary government. And comments like this won't help them have a better sense of how a legislature can best hold the government of the day to account.

Name two American presidents whose children have written Washington based mysteries?

If you said Roosevelt and Truman you would have been correct.

Margaret Truman, the daughter of Harry S Truman, wrote quite a number of books about murder in and around Washington. It seems that her first mystery was even turned into the classic Wesley Snipes file Murder at 1600.

Elliott Roosevelt, one of FDR's children, wrote mysteries in which a fictionalized version of his mother serves as the 'detective.' Oh, and at least one of these is set in the White House.

And y'all thought that the children of presidents never amounted to much of anything.

Let's hope she's alone on this one

As some of you may know, on Tuesday elections for the House of Assembly were held in Newfoundland. As you may also know, the House of Assembly is Newfoundland's provincial legislature. Another way of getting at the issue is that Tuesday's election dealt with selecting legislators, or people to sit in the House of Assembly and conduct the work of the legislature.

So, given this back story, I thought it was a little funny to see that newly re-elected MHA Kathy Dunderdale has been quoted by CBC when talking about the re-opening of the legislature as saying "I don't find it a place for a very healthy, open, constructive debate to start with." All of this was to justify her decision not to open the House again until the spring.

If she isn't interested in doing this part of her job can we expect her to be declining the approximately $100 000 pay cheque that accompanies the post?

Maybe my only celebrity obsession

For quite a while I have been taken with the melding-of-celebrity-first-names phenomenon that we have seen with Bennifer and Brangelina. While I don't really care one way about the individuals, these guys can't divorce and dissolve these wonderful names.

What has surprised me about this phenomenon is that it has remained relatively limited. Only a select few celebrity couples have such melded names. Why isn't this more common?

To help popularize the phenomenon I have decided to help the process along by coming up with a few possible melded names for your other favourite celebrity couples:

Russell Brand and Katy Perry = Rusty

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher = Demon

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes = Toe

Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds - ScarRy

Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett = Lylia

Unfortunately my limited knowledge of celebrity couples limits the number of these that I can create. Though I'm sure that with these as a starting point you can all go forth and create your own melded celebrity names that you can then try to slip into the vernacular of the day (with the eventual goal of seeing them on TMZ or Perez Hilton).

More from the 2011 Windsor Pumpkin Regatta

While at the 2011 Windsor Pumpkin Regatta I grabbed a few clips of the races.



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As you can see, even the motorized pumpkins aren't particularly fast.

On a related note, not that it really matters, but at least at points today we have been the first Google Blogs result when searching for the "Windsor Pumpkin Regatta." This really amazes me. I really thought that higher profile blogs would have claimed this spot. Apparently not.

Who knew the construction of a golf green was this complicated?

[Embedded video]

I certainly didn't.

Election Day in Newfoundland

Wow, I am not even in Newfoundland (though I am still a resident) and I am incredibly excited about tonight's election outcomes. I am even a little more excited now that a CBC reporter has just confirmed that CBC's TV coverage will be streaming live.

Oh man, I can't wait to watch the coverage and see how things turn out.

(I wonder how many more of these non-posts/election anticipation posts I will post before the polls close tonight?)

Only one more day to go

After a short three week campaign period the Newfoundland election is almost upon us. While the polls have regularly shown the PC party to be in the lead (and I too think that they are likely to win), I am really curious to see the particularities of the results. Most importantly, I am curious to see how the two opposition parties do.

The recent polls seem to be suggesting that the NDP have seen an increase in support while Liberal support has fallen off. Of course how these changes all play out will be interesting to watch.

I am particularly curious to see if the Liberals have any luck in picking off a few of the rural seats or if the NDP are able to pick up a few more St. John's seats.

Anyway, I guess I will just have to wait until tomorrow to see how everything plays.

Windsor Pumpkin Regatta

Over the past few years I have occasionally heard about the Windsor Pumpkin Regatta, an event where giant pumpkins are turned into boats and raced. Of course, after hearing about Martha Stewart's failed attempts to attend such event I began paying even more attention to the existence of this event.

Though I may have been interested, for years I wasn't close enough to the even to take it in.

This year, for the first time, I was close enough to Windsor to make the trip. Actually, Jeannette, her parents, and I were all close enough to make the trip.

Yesterday afternoon after an early holiday meal we made our way to Windsor. Within a few kilometers of Windsor it became apparent that we were about to be attending a popular event.

Traffic slowed to a crawl and we soon saw that people were beaching their cars almost anywhere they could find room. The highway off ramps were almost completely lined with parked cars. Not surprisingly, as we drew nearer there were even fewer parking spaces.

At about this time we also began to see the crowds. My guess would be that there were a few hundred people on the Falmouth side (the starting point) and maybe a few thousand on the Windsor side (the termination point).

Another surprise was the weather. Instead of the nice seasonal 10 degree day that I expected we were confronted with a sunny day in the high twenties. Almost immediately I was hot and felt as though I was burning. Of course because it is now October I didn't think to wear sunscreen.

Though we arrived at the scheduled starting time instead of immediately seeing giant pumpkins sail across the water we first had the pleasure of listening to a number of dignitaries speak through an insufficiently powerful PA system. The only amusing aspect of the speeches was that we could hear delayed versions of the speeches coming back across the water from the Falmouth PA system.

Eventually they were ready to start the first heat, or the experimental heat. Instead of calling this heat the experimental heat they really should have just called it the "with frame and motor" heat.

Almost immediately one of the three boats pulled out ahead. As the race went on their lead continued to grow and grow. I think that the winner likely finished a minute or two ahead of their competitors, which is a rather impressive gap given the relatively short length of the course.

The second, and final, heat included the single and double paddle powered pumpkins. Though I expected that the doubles might have an advantage it soon became clear that about five singles were way out in front and were clearly going to win. Eventually one of the singles pulled away and developed quite a lead.

Many minutes after the first single finished the bulk of the singles began to near the finish line. And after this bulk made their way to the finish line the stragglers gradually came towards the shore.

I think that all of the doubles were in this last group. And also seemed to be the case that those individuals in the doubles were not effective rowers.

The more we thought about it the more we realized that the doubles were actually mostly filled with girls, likely because two adults wouldn't fit in most pumpkins. Anyway, it seems that these doubles were really quite slow. Though, much to our surprise, a few of these inexpertly rowed pumpkins managed to finish the race. There was one pumpkin in particular that we really thought was going to tip over at several points.

And after these two heats all that was left was the awarding of medals. Though we didn't stay around for the medals ceremony we head towards the dock to examine the pumpkin boats before we left.

This inspection also allowed us to see how the motorized pumpkin boats worked.

I was a little disappointed to see that a number of the motorized boats used the same design and that it appeared that these were anything but experimental and that rather the same design has been used year after year. Maybe next year they should require all participants to come up with new designs?

So while the event was definitely a pumpkin regatta I feel that it could do with a bit more sprucing up to really make it into a full-fledged outing/afternoon. As it stands the whole thing is over in about an hour and a half, and many of the thousands of people were out of their in less than an hour after it started. Hell, you can't even buy pumpkin themed confections while you are watching the races. Windsor is really sitting on a goldmine with this event so it is unfortunate to see them failing to capitalize on it.

Starting points for improvement might be to increase the number of heats. Two heats is just not enough pumpkin boat racing. They should also try to incorporate a few related events. Maybe they could have farmers selling pumpkins or pumpkin baked goods or even a pumpkin smashing event (for the misshapen/rotting pumpkins that many farmers must have). Basically there should be so much to do that people won't want to leave without spending a few hours and dollars in Windsor.

Today was a wet one

So it turned out that the forecast regarding rain wasn't too far off. Today was a wet one. I even saw some field flooding in some places.

Oh, and I finished my comps today. What a bummer to have to deal with them on the wettest day of the year, but at least they are over.

Slowly ramping up

It seems as though after something of a slow start the storm is finally starting to ramp up a little. The rain is no longer as intermittent or as inclined to fall straight (some is now being blown sideways onto our windows). Of course, even with this ramp up we are still a long ways away from anything approaching a serious storm, but I guess we are at least heading in the right direction.

Since my last update Jeannette and I gathered up a few emergency supplies and placed them on the kitchen table. Amazingly, I was able to rustle up about four flashlights, a dozen or so tea lights, batteries, and a hand crank operated flashlight/radio combo. Hopefully we won't need to use any of these things.

Oh, and we have also mentally prepared ourselves in case we need to heat up canned foods with candles. I have even been thinking about I could rig things up efficiently.

I really hope we don't have to go without power tonight. That would be a real bummer. And as I have to drive in to Halifax tomorrow I really hope that the roads aren't in particularly rough condition tomorrow.

Fortunately, at least for me, it looks as though the storm system may be veering towards Newfoundland.

I guess we will just have to wait to see if this is actually what is going to happen or if we will be hit with the full force of this system.

Think back to December 2006...

Back in December 2006 who would have imagined that Dion, Ignatieff, and Rae would all end up leading the Liberal party within five years?

I know that no such thought crossed my mind. To have even suggested it would have made you sound like a crazy person.

So as to prevent such a prediction gap in the future I wonder if I should suggest that is likely that all of the major contenders for the NDP leadership will eventually lead the party within 5 years?

I think I hear something

I think I just heard the first few raindrops of the forecast deluge. I guess now we just have to sit back and watch as the rain falls and determine if what we end up getting was worth the rainfall warning. At least as far as I am concerned this process of weather observation will add a little levity to my night of studying.

Transparent hype or watery reality?

It seems that a heavy rainfall is being forecast for much of Nova Scotia and adjacent regions. I have also seen that at least two municipalities (Halifax and Wolfville) have go so far as to warn their residents to take precautions in anticipation of the rainfall.

I really hope I don't need to tap into my non-existant storm back-up kit. That would be a real bummer.

Of course given the weather forecasting track record in this part of the world one might reasonably think that this weather warning might be a little over blown.

I guess I will have to wait and see if the predicted heavy rainfalls do arrive this afternoon or if this was all for nought.

(My secret inside suspicion, based on the satellite imagery) is that there may be something to these warnings, though I will have to wait to see bad it will actually be.)

This is big

In 2008 Harper almost lost his minority government (at least in part) because he was considering the elimination of per vote subsidies to political parties. It seems that now that Harper has a majority he is planning on re-introducing the plan. Assuming all goes according to plan in just a few years the per-vote subsidy will be completely phased out.

Given the relatively strict limitations on party contributions, this change will likely have a significant impact on the major Canadian parties. Who knows, maybe some parties will no longer be viable entities.

Whether you are a fan of these subsidies or not this change is big and will likely have a pretty significant impact on the way political parties at the federal level operate in Canada.

I don't feel so classy anymore

A few days ago I mentioned that I had just received a direct mailing that suggested I was a global business leader and encouraged me to subscribe to Bloomberg Business week. Today I saw a Groupon deal that offered a better deal on Bloomberg Businessweek to the general public.

I am a little bit hurt to find out that my direct mailing might not have actually based on some assessment of my personal traits and that they were really just trying to sell magazine subscriptions. For a second I thought that I might have actually been something of a trend setter.

This is unacceptable

A few minutes ago I was reminded of a situation that has been allowed to continue on the Government of Newfoundland website that is completely unacceptable.

While the Department of Government Services provides online access to its Registry of Companies, one can only access the database if they are using Internet Explorer 6.

In case you aren't up on these things, Internet Explorer 6 was first released in 2001. According to the Wiki article about Internet Explorer 6 suggests that "Microsoft now considers IE6 to be an obsolete product and recommends that users upgrade to Internet Explorer 8." A Microsoft website dedicated to eradicating Internet Explorer 6 goes are far as to say "Now that we’re in 2011, in an era of modern web standards, it’s time to say goodbye." This same site also suggests that only 2% of Canadians use this browser.

So to get back to my original point, by allowing access to the database exclusively through an outdated browser the Department of Government services is effectively failing to provide access to this data about Newfoundland companies to the vast majority of the Canadian population. That this situation has been allowed to persist is completely unacceptable.