Author: Fred

Neil Young, automobiles, and the environment

I just read a very interesting article by Neil Young on the automobile industry, bailouts, and reducing emissions. While I do not know enough to validate the feasibility of the strategy suggested in the article, I still believe it is an intelligent discussion. There should be no money to bail out the automobile industry without very clear, very specific, very enforceable requirements to retool the industry to produce vehicles which are relevant to the current economic, political, and environmental situations.

(not that I expect any of our leaders to have the guts to follow that path).

Fiddling while Rome burns Part 2…

Ok, I posted a while back on the political circus to the south. It is embarrassing now to watch the kids in Ottawa try very, very hard to out do them.

I am not going to go through the details of what is happening in Ottawa right now, since you can read about it on any Canadian news site. I do have a few points to make about it, however:

  • In reading various forum posts, blog posts, etc. it frightening to see how little Canadians know about their own political system. People ranting about the coalition being treason, a “coup”, etc. I am afraid not folks – this is the way our system is designed. What they are doing is perfectly legal (though not too bright, politically). Also, people going on that Stephen Harper has some kind of “mandate”. We do not elect a prime minister. We elect representatives. The majority in the house decides the leader. If the majority changes, the leader changes. This whole party leader=prime minister thing is just a side effect of this atrocity known as “party politics”, which is the biggest enemy of true democracy.
  • the conservatives are ranting about the coalition’s deal with the BQ. Funny how they forget about 2004, isn’t it? They are doing far more to harm national unity than the coalition is.
  • the Conservative party in its current form is only marginally more a “national” party than the BQ. Sure they have candidates in a broader geography, but thier actual support is nearly as narrow. And they are really only interested in keeping their power base out west happy.
  • the current situation has nothing to due with economics, financial crises, social programs, or anything of the sort. This is all about power, and playing political games to keep or get power. And all four party leaders are to blame (maybe not Duceppe – as much as I disapprove of the BQ, at least they are very clear, honest and open about their goals).

As far as I am concerned, there is only one credible way out of this mess now:

  1. Like it or not, we need to have another election. Harper should pre-emptively call an election (does he have that option right now? I am not sure). The Conservatives have lost the confidence of the current house, and probably cannot regain it. This would, however, stop the coalition from taking power – although the coalition is legal, it is bad for the country due to the division and instability it is creating.
  2. Mr. Harper needs to resign. He has demonstrated through 2 elections now that he is unable to achieve a majority. In addition, his judgement and credibility are somewhat questionable now.
  3. Mr. Dion should also resign. I do not think anyone in the country (his own party included) believes he has what it takes to lead the country.
  4. Mr. Layton should resign because his visible involvement in the coalition will severely harm his party’s future.

So, what would an election look like if none of the parties had leaders? Kind of like the last election, I guess.

I am so completely embarassed by and ashamed of our government right now. I do not know how any of them have the nerve to show their faces in public at the moment.

Interesting stats

It is kind of funny to me that the most popular post I have written (based on the number of hits, anyway) is one on Vista from well over a year ago. It is even more interesting that the hit rate on this post has gone up over time.

Of course, it is fairly easy to draw hits – just use any combination of Microsoft, Vista, sucks, etc. in your tags!

21st Century Family Time

As many nerds know, the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, came out last week. As with the previous expansion, both of my sons and I got our copies at midnight the night it came out.

In the past week, all three of us have spent considerable time online together playing WoW, and sharing our experiences and adventures. Something occured to me on the weekend – is this quality family time for the 21st century?

Good discussion of pros and cons of SharePoint Site Definitions

Here is a pretty good posting on the the pros and cons of using custom Site Definitions in WSS3/MOSS 2007. 

I had always thought that Site Definitions were the correct way to deploy site level customizations (as opposed to using Site Templates). I began to question that, however, when I heard (from a Microsoft employee working with SharePoint, no less) that custom Site Definitions were being phased out in the next version (Office 14, or whatever). I have not been able to find any confirmation of this, however.

Fiddling While Rome Burns

I find it amusing (or would if so many real people were not suffering) to watch lawmakers in the United States continue to play the same old partisan games while their country tumbles towards economic disaster (or through economic disaster, more correctly). It would seem that they are all far too interested in their own personal agendas and philosophical obsessions to act in a way that protects the people who elected them (as opposed to the people who pay for them).

And this not just about the current fiasco over the proposed $700 million bailout. It has been obvious for a long time that a collapse like this was inevitable. All of our leaders, however, have been completely obsessed with political manoeuvring in order to gain or retain power. 

(as an aside, I have no better opinion of our government here in Canada – which has acted in such a secretive, cloistered manner that it is really hard to see what, if anything, it has done during its current mandate)

At what point will elected officials in both of our countries realize that they do not work for the lobbyists, corporations, and others who pay them to believe in and vote for what they are told.

They work for us – or should. They are not in office to vote their beliefs. They are not in office to vote the party line. They are not in office to vote their “conscience.” They are there to vote the way their constituents want them to. If they do not do so, they should be thrown the hell out!

(if only there were a viable alternative to the idiots we have now)

Apple Marketing and Political Mud-slinging

I was wathing one of Apple’s “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials last night, and noticed how much Apple’s marketing campaign resembles the mindless mud-slinging which permeates the political campaign process. I cannot remember the last time any of these commercials actually mentioned anything good about the Mac, or even mentioned anything about the Mac’s capabilities.

I am sorry, but saying “you should buy my product because XYZ sucks” is a pretty lazy marketing campaign – especially from an organization that pretends to be innovative.

Does Vista Suck if it is Not Vista?

Interesting post over on Ars Technica – Microsoft does a blind test with Windows XP users, telling them that they are testing a new OS. It is really just Vista. And the overwhelming majority are impressed.

As I have said frequently before – Vista’s problems are (for the most part) not technical – they are marketing and perception. It reminds me of a term from (I think) Tom Peters in Thriving on Chaos – “relative percieved product quality”. It is not the true qualty that drives consumers, it is all about perception.