A message from Ujjal Dosanjh, MP

Here are the two sides of the sketchy Liberal leaflet:

It was definitely delivered via mail, with no postage. Possibly as bulk mail? The Liberal Party is clearly identified and yet the leaflet is not labeled like traditional campaign material.

In all fairness, the Conservatives might have been doing the same thing all along, but I wouldn't have thought to look because it would have come from my actual representative.

Movie Review: Stranger Than Fiction

Even though I'm not convinced it made any more sense than your average time travel movie, Stranger Than Fiction was extremely entertaining.

Rent it today.

First Round of Canadian Federal Election Propaganda?

I today received the first communique in several years from the Liberal Party of Canada. They don't represent my Federal riding (White Rock/South Surrey), so I have to assume that they are positioning themselves for an election.

The message itself is a pretty bland "Conservatives are Evil" kind of thing, but they do amusingly equate "removing thousands of low-income Canadians from the tax rolls" with "tax fairness and equality". (I don't object to the policy however.)

The interesting bit is this text: "A message from Ujjal Dosanjh, MP". And an absence of something like "Paid for by the Liberal Party of Canada".

Dosanjh represents Vancouver South, and is definitely not the closest Liberal representative to White Rock/South Surrey. Perhaps his riding is the only one that had the infrastructure to produce all these leaflets, but even then I wonder why they would put his name on them.

The big question is, did the Liberal Party pay for this, or did Dosanjh's Federally funded office? I was under the impression that if a party creates any kind of advertising they legally have to mark the origin in a very specific way. Perhaps that rule is only in effect after an election has been officially announced?

At any rate, it would be pretty stupid for the Liberals to be misappropriating what is probably a tiny amount of money for this purpose. And it should be particularly offensive to the residents of Vancouver South if this propaganda is coming out of funds that are supposed to represent them...

Anyone out there know the actual rules for Federal political advertising? I'll post a picture of the leaflet if anyone is interested.

Hot Air Balloon Safety, Or Lack Thereof

The recent hot air balloon tragedy in BC really struck a nerve for me - I am scheduled to go ballooning (with a different local company) in less than a month, and don't really appreciate hearing about flaming people leaping for relative safety.

One thing that stands out about the incident is that apparently balloons, baskets, and their tethers to stop premature launch are all fairly flammable. Given that hot air balloons are powered by flame, this strikes me as kind of foolish. Yes, there are weight constraints for the balloon and basket (although I'd be surprised if there aren't lightweight, largely non-flammable replacements, even if they are pricey), but why not use a steel cable to tether the damn thing to the ground?

If the news reports are accurate, the fatalities would likely have been avoided if the basket had remained attached to the ground.

I'll try to find the TSB report when it comes out. Incident reports tend to be educational, even if grim.

Pletka: 1, CBC: 0

There was a "no good music" period on my drive home, so I ended up listening to the CBC. One Danielle Pletka was being interviewed, and she rocked the interviewer's socks.

The topic was the Iranian army being designated a terrorist organization by the US, and how this departed from the traditional definition of terrorist organizations. It started out civil enough, but the interviewer was looking hard for an anti-Bush spin and kept getting more belligerent as Pletka denied him a sound byte by answering some questions very well, and declining to answer the ones that she had no expertise in. He ignored her invitations to provide examples for his claims that the IRGC was being singled out unfairly, and by the end was basically yelling "the Americans are terrorists too!"

Pletka had to excuse herself and hang up on the clown after it became clear that there was no more discussion to be had.

Hilarious, right up until you realize that your (my!) tax dollars are funding this garbage.

Movie Review: Blood Diamond

Initially dismayed by Leonardo DiCaprio's ridiculous sounding accent, my resolve to not see Blood Diamond was only broken when a friend who hangs out with ex-Afrikaner mercenaries told me that a) the accent was dead on, and b) the portrayal of the Afrikaner soldiers in the film was dead on.

And I'm glad I changed my mind because it really is good, even if hard to stomach at some points. Jennifer Connelly plays a pretty one dimensional character and DiCaprio's character evolution is fairly predictable, but that didn't hurt the film too much.

It did an excellent job of associating gruesome murder and mutilation with the diamond trade; by the end of the movie my wife was twisting her engagement and wedding bands around pretty compulsively. I do however take issue with the whole "make sure your diamonds are conflict free" message that was heavily promoted. The idea that any end consumer could have any idea whether they are getting conflict diamonds or not is ridiculous. Most diamond retailers wouldn't even be able to say with confidence whether or not their diamonds come from war torn regions. Stupid polar bear engravings could be counterfeited just as easily as they are legitimately added.

And in the end, regardless of whether you buy blood diamonds or not, the global price increases with your purchase. This creates more incentive for bad bad people to get the things into the legitimate markets. Much like with oil, the only way to hurt a specific producer is to stop buying from all producers (and not buy any equivalent products either).

Schornack's Showboating Lawyer

Now that I am confident that all of Schornack's grievances are baseless, I have begun to wonder what kind of lawyer/law firm would agree to represent him in this almost certainly losing battle.

The answer to that would be Elliot Feldman of Baker & Hostetler LLP. This guy apparently spends a great deal of his time representing Canada in things like the softwood lumber dispute, where the US was smacked down for moronic protectionist trade violations (what are the Republicans supposed to stand for again?). Feldman gained some small notoriety during this dispute for, as near as I can tell, accusing Canada of funding the Republican party's disastrous 2006 midterm campaigns.

I'm guessing that representing Schornack is simply a PR effort for Feldman's law firm. They'll file a bunch of summarily dismissed motions that won't cost too much to draft, nothing will go to trial, and lots of cheap publicity will follow... damn it! I fell for it :-)

California Takes Voting Seriously

From the "better late than never" department, California has decertified all the electronic voting systems that have been put forward by vendors. This apparently means that they can't be used in the upcoming presidential primaries.

This comes after a number of tight schedule code reviews found numerous and significant flaws in all the machines. It's kind of shocking that any of the states were stupid enough to use these machines without code reviews to begin with - elections are one of the few domains where a vendor might consider it worthwhile to knowingly deliver software that does something other than advertised.

Crude Oil vs Oil Shale vs Coal

A short but interesting article suggesting that oil shale and coal liquefaction will allow us to continue our petroleum hungry ways for 100s of years.

In other words, no peak oil in our lifetimes.

Via Planet Gore.

Amateur Legal Advice For the Leus

I posted a long comment on a previous post regarding what I think the Leus' strongest options are if they want to keep their wall.

If no one can produce a US equivalent of the International Boundary Commission Act, I think they are home free.

Schornack is Done Like Disco

I have updated my previous post on Bush's firing of Dennis Schornack.

In short, the basis of the "10 foot rule" he was trying to enforce is increasingly in question, and I am also more and more skeptical of his claim that he can't be fired.

The real crime here appears to be that the Canada Border Services Agency interprets the (purely Canadian) International Boundary Commission Act to apply to both sides of the border.

From the Act:

5. Except with the permission of the Commission, no person shall

(a) construct or place within ten feet of the boundary any work or any addition to a work; or

(b) enlarge any work that was on July 6, 1960 within ten feet of the boundary.

From the CBSA interpretation:

3. To perform any type of work on the 20-foot (6-metre) -wide vista along the boundary, a letter of authorization from the Commission is required.

Schornack, not having any background in the field, probably just followed along with what he was told the law stated. I wonder how many misapplications of that office there have been... and how many lawsuits are going to pop up on the US side now?

Movie Review: V for Vendetta

I had completely dismissed V after seeing trailers for it; stupid looking masks, and what I presumed would be moronic criticism of the Bushitler.

Turns out that the masks, while stupid looking, have their place and don't ruin anything. And there really isn't any effort made to draw parallels between the real world and the one the movie takes place in.

Instead you get a tight story that takes place in a "what if" universe, specifically, what if the UK became a fascist state that mirrored the communist nations that were still prevalent during the '80s. Luckily for these Brits, they have a super-human crazy guy to fight the good fight, and fight he does.

Perhaps the Wachowski brothers aren't the no-talent hacks that I have always assumed...