The Boiling Point

To Con Supporters: You’re Willing To Accept The Government Legislating Lower Wages For You, Right?

gregvalcourt — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:21:05 +0000

Many have attacked the NDP and unions for stopping postal service and delaying return to service, but to be fair, the union was delivering the mail before they were locked out by Canada Post. Jack Layton was urging the Conservative Government to end the lock out. Makes sense right? All Stephen Harper had to do was call the CEO of Canada Post and ask that they end the lock out, or legislate an end to the lock and let negotiations continue. What makes sense doesn’t fit the Conservative agenda, which is to attack unions and end collective bargaining rights.

Now some have argued that since the employees of Canada Post are paid with tax dollars, the Government has the right to legislate salaries. This is wrong for two reasons: Canada Post makes a profit and does not cost the tax payers anything. All workers have the right to negotiate the terms of employment with they’re employers. What Harper has done is neuter bargaining rights for everyone.

I want to dispel one myth: Unions make it impossible to discipline or fire bad employees. This is false. Unions make sure that due process is followed. If management follows proper protocol, they can discipline or fire workers who under perform or are causing problems. As a member of a union myself, I don’t want under performing workers around, because it makes my job more difficult and it looks bad on us. Unions have raised the standard for all workers, unionized or not. If you are not in a union, you can thank unions for your benefits and wage. Now if a particular work place has a lot of lazy workers, it’s because they have lazy management who don’t want to follow protocol to manage their workers. The next you here someone making disparaging comments about all union workers being lazy, kindly remind them that performance management is management’s job.

There were two main arguments I heard supporting the Conservatives action: Canada Post isn’t relevant and the strike is hurting the economy. Well, they can’t both be true, unless you think the economy is irrelevant. If it were the case that Canada Post is irrelevant, there’s no need to legislate them back to work. If the strike is hurting the economy, then they are important and the workers deserve the right to negotiate fair compensation for such an import role that they serve. If the Conservatives wanted the postal workers back to work, why didn’t they end the lock out, as Jack Layton repeatedly reminded them that this is the most logical thing to do. The workers aren’t at work because they were locked out, so end the lock out, dummies.

For the Conservatives, this is really about attacking unions. They don’t like workers having rights. They don’t think the workers deserve to negotiate compensation. And they don’t acknowledge that without workers, the economy wouldn’t function.

So my question to Conservatives is: how would you respond if the Government legislated your wage to be lower than what it is now?

Marginalizing The Voice Of Dissent

gregvalcourt — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 01:03:49 +0000

This weekend Stephen Harper got what he wished for. By holding the G20 and and G8 in downtown Toronto against the advice of local politicians, vandalism was sure to erupt. Now the vandals can be used as an excuse for excessive spending: 1.2 Billion dollars (which would administer the UN for a year) compared to $18 million for the last G20 summit. This is not a way to justify the expense since it is unlikely a few hoodlums with bricks can cause anything close to $1.2 billion damage. But that money needs to be spent because the leaders that represent us can’t walk within shouting distance of us.

The second accomplishment of choosing such a provocative location is much more important: diversion. Naturally the media focuses more on violent confrontation than rational discourse. It’s sure hard to hear the voices of the labour movement, environmentalists and anti-war protesters with so much chaos going on, which also provides a nice brush to paint all protesters with.

Now that many observers are confused between hoodlums and persons exercising their democratic rights, police can arrest and detain protesters without charges and without much question. They can even rush people after singing O’Canada:

Share The Road!

gregvalcourt — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:34:58 +0000

There seems to be a lot more bike accidents lately, or maybe I’m just paying more attention having become more involved in urban cycling in recent years. Last year we had the Ottawa accident, last month 3 died near Montreal and today we had one killed in Winnipeg.

Cycling on roadways is generally safe if you follow the rules, however, a cyclist has no control over drivers who don’t follow the rules, don’t understand them or make a mistake. Drivers are in charge of a massive mobile machine that has the potential to kill when things go wrong. There should be a heavy burden placed on the motorist.

Many drivers understand their responsibility and are safe. Some do not. Some treat driving like it’s a right and not the privilege that it is. The law is partially responsible for this attitude. Bad drivers are allowed to buy “indulgences” through higher insurance and license costs. Yeah, they’ll take away your license for impaired driving (rightly so) but wont take away the license of those who have demonstrated to be bad drivers while sober.

There are some who think it’s okay to text and drive or eat a foot long submarine sandwich. No, it isn’t. Driving requires full attention. I don’t care what magic powers you claim to have, you cannot see what’s in front of you when your typing a text message, nor is your brain engaged enough to predict what’s going to happen next. It’s been demonstrated that cell phone users are worse than drunk drunk drivers. Where’s the jail time for it?

I think that every driver should have some experience cycling in busy traffic. Then they would get some appreciation for the magnitude of their responsibility behind the wheel. Drivers should know what the rules of the road for cyclists are.

Before I come off as ragging too much on motorists, I’m going to rag a little bit on cyclists. Cyclist, don’t ride on sidewalks. It’s dangerous:

drivers in back lanes can’t see you very well when backyards are fenced and you approach out of nowhere
you risk having an accident with a pedestrian, which can be deadly
drivers aren’t used to dealing with objects traveling at that speed on sidewalks at intersections

Also, it’s a nuisance and against the law.

If your a good driver and good cyclist, you probably understand all of this. If your a good driver, you probably have no issues with what I’ve said. Otherwise, please get some understanding of the issue or get off the road.

Thumbs Up To Michael Mulley

gregvalcourt — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:44:56 +0000

Who is Michael Mulley and why am I praising him? I don’t often give out praise, so what did he did to deserve it?

Michael started a website called Open Parliament which gives the user access to voting information and debates in The House of Commons. This information is made publicly available, but it’s a real chore to dig through in the format the government provides it in. Michael has “scraped” parliament’s web site and put the information in a database. That means it can be searched and accessed in an intelligent way .

I really like the debates section, which is indexed by date and topic. The debates are presented in a forum style which Internet users are so familiar with. Also handy: being able to see how any MP voted on any bill.

This is exactly what a democracy needs: the facts to be presented in a straight forward manner without any spin. Interesting that a computer programmer is bringing us closer to openness and not a politician (What was that about transparency Stevie?). This is also good in light of the news that Stephen Harper’s former communications officer is to be put in charge of developing a new Fox like news channel. Rhetoric and lies need to be challenged with fact.

I think I will be using this tool the next time I feel the urge to blog about politics, which might start happening more often if we get Fox North.

New SND (Social Networking Disease) Making The Rounds On Facebook.

gregvalcourt — Mon, 31 May 2010 03:35:51 +0000

Do you have an SND? If you have a Facebook account and you’ve clicked on any links your friends have liked today, you might. Get tested. You can test yourself by checking your Recent Activity on your own wall page. If it says you’ve liked something that you haven’t, chances are you’ve come into contact with the latest SND.

The most common links that have been seen so far go to blogspot.com or thedatesafe.com. The links are labeled:

LOL This girl gets OWNED after a police officer reads her status message
The hidden body part the artists at Disney didn’t want you to see
This Girl Has An Interesting Way Of Eating A Banana
This man took a picture of his face every day for 8 years
You’ll never believe what Obama did on TV
The Prom Dress That Got This Girl Suspended From School

To fix your profile, first remove the entry. Then go to Accounts > Edit Friends > All Connections. You’ll have to browse through the list and find the connection you didn’t approve of and remove it.

This SND exploits the Like plugin Facebook has which allows users to Like web pages with a button in the web page itself. The Like button is labeled “Click To Continue” (or along those lines), a technique called clickjacking or UI redressing.

There is no information available indicating that this SND does anything more serious. Here’s the only independent information I can find right now. Update (May 31, 2010 5:25pm CDT): more reports have shown up since my initial post.

The ability to allow third party websites to post to your wall as long as your logged in to Facebook is one example of the company’s disregard for users’ control over content that is published in their name. Privacy, security and other concerns have raised the eyebrows of many advocacy groups.

On a related note, tomorrow is Quit Facebook Day.

Where’s The Noise Now?

gregvalcourt — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 03:50:02 +0000

Now that November’s Climate Gate incident has been sorted through and the scientists have been cleared of any serious wrong doing, you would think the news would spread like wildfire across the Internet, just like the original “scandal” did. But it doesn’t. Why? You’d think that anyone motivated to spread the truth would be just as eager to clear someone’s name as to smear it.

The people who made the most noise were the denialists. The goal was to influence public opinion, not to find the truth. If they were interested in finding the truth, they could have done so without illegally compromising an email server. For example: the method used to calibrate the tree ring data was published in the same report that made use of the data. The server compromise was just a prop to give the impression that new information was uncovered, and therefore “proof of scientists hiding something”.

The denialists were so incredibly picky. They picked three grains of sand out of an entire sand pile of evidence. They thought that if they could challenge those three things, they could take down the mountain. They failed to even make a serious matter out of the 3 emails they picked.

Skepticism is a respectable thing. I practice it. Reasonable proof should be demanded. However, purposely stamping on those who provide conclusions that you don’t like despite the evidence is not skepticism. It’s denialism.

I am curious as to why these teabaggers and conservatives (and others) are so eager to waste tax dollars on such an incredibly stupid inquiry. At least the denialists had the trial they were looking for. Why don’t they speak up about it?

Let the criminal investigation on the denialist monkey men (the email “hackers”) continue. I look forward to the results.

What Do Charity And Ideology Have In Common?

gregvalcourt — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:43:04 +0000

Many people give to charity as an act of human compassion, but some people like to give to charity with strings attached. To the latter, “charity” is an act of control over the disadvantaged. Targeting the vulnerable (children,the poor, those with addictions) is a hallmark for the Christian religion. They get the easy converts and the publicity of helping others (while implying that non-Christians aren’t as charitable as them).

But what is charity other than to give without expecting something back in return? Apparently that notion of charity is lost on Youth for Christ, who are more interested in getting public funding to convert the disadvantaged than they are in helping them.

I applaud my MP, Pat Martin (NDP), for taking a stand against this abuse of tax dollars, especially when other youth resource groups more appropriate for the area were denied funding.

I understand that it’s easier for counsellors to sell their ideas of Christian Socialism to their tax vote base in suburbia, especially when your applying it to someone else’s heathen children.

I’ll bet I would be judged in the wrong if I tried to withhold my portion of tax that went to this unholy alliance of church and state.

I wrote this up yesterday, but didn’t publish until today. PZ beat me to the punch.

I See Harper’s Busy With The Budget

gregvalcourt — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:10:03 +0000

Of his many excuses for proroguing parliament, the most common one was to give Conservatives time to work on the budget. Obviously having the house in session was too much of a distraction (despite other budgets in Canadian history being drafted while the house was in session).

Well it’s good to see that he’s using the extra time he bought the Conservatives to work on the budget wisely by interviewing hockey players.

If you’ve been keeping track, you’ll know the following things are of higher priority than a sitting house of democratically elected MPs representing Canadian Citizens:

the markets
the Olympics
hockey

Well played Mr. Harper. Well played. You need to keep the support of sports fans and investors.

I might like the guy if had become a sportscaster instead of a politician.

You’re Only Here For The Ride

gregvalcourt — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:55:27 +0000

You’re only here for the short term. That’s all you’ve got. Use your time wisely. Don’t give it to those who promise the impossible: eternal life. They promise what they cannot deliver, but by the time you discover that, it’s too late and your not alive anymore to contest it. It’s the ultimate contract: you hold up your end of the deal, and they don’t have to hold up theirs, because your DEAD.

In ordinarily law, this would be illegal. But of course we must make a distinction between cult and religion (the only real difference is size). It’s okay for a mainstream religion to teach children that they are born unworthy (original sin) and thus must rely on self appointed authority (who claim can hear God’s voice, without having to demonstrate it) to feel worthy. It’s pathetic preying on children’s innocent minds that propagates religion.

Life is the ultimate gift reality has given us through the phenomenons of physics, chemistry, abiogenesis and natural selection. Greed, of course, has lead to some making claim to the nature of reality. They do this to gain control over human minds. They will make the claim that they have inside knowledge. Since they can’t prove this, they invoke “faith”, which is another way of saying “believe me, just because I say so, and if you don’t, you’ll be punished after death”. And if you do believe them, you’ll benefit from the promise of eternal reward in heaven. Of course, no-one has ever come back from the dead to confirm these claims (except for Jesus, a character from a novel of fiction called “The Bible”).

Oh well, if an omnibenevolent, omnipotent being exists, we’ve got nothing to worry about. He can’t blame people for not believing since he hasn’t revealed himself. And even if other people have claimed that he has, he can’t blame us for not believing, since it is human nature to lie. He is all powerful, and could reveal himself at anytime to us non-believers. Since he is omnibenevolent, He should care about us in the end, even if we didn’t believe. He would know our reason for doubt. Really, an all knowing, intelligent being would respect intellect more than faith. A defence based on logic is better than blind obedience (unless of course He’s a petty dictator).

To theists: If you must drink the poison, don’t look at me in disgust for not doing the same. Go ahead and drink the poison if that’s what you feel is “right”. Don’t expect me to follow.

Once your dead, your dead forever. I only wish there was a special kind of hell for these mind manipulators to go to ….

Proroguing To Avoid Political Problems: A New Canadian Tradition?

gregvalcourt — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:47:19 +0000

It has been claimed that prorogation is common in Canadian parliament. That’s true, but it’s usually only done when the government is done it’s agenda for the session. And consent of the house is usually achieved. Harper has used prorogation twice in just over a year to avoid facing his responsibilities as PM. The only other PM to do this was John A. Macdonald.