Some good sense, for a change

A recent survey conducted by Queen's University and reported today by the CBC shows that 47% of Canadians find new security laws introduced since 9/11 are 'intrusive'. Well, duh. I mean, the whole liquids and gels in carry-on luggage debacle? How about the fact that several provisions in Canada's counter-terrorism act where recently struck down by the Supreme Court? This all slightly begs the question of when the remaining 53% will find the slow erosion of freedom and civil liberties by their own government intrusive.

This study also crosses the border, finding that 57% of Americans also found security laws in the post-9/11 world intrusive. Just why a higher percentage of Americans responded this way is a bit of a mystery, I would characterize Canadians as, on the whole, less likely to roll over and take it when it comes to increased police powers and the nightmare that air travel has become in the 21st century.

Anyway, congrats to those among the 9 000 people surveyed who where intelligent enough to recognize that more security means less freedom. Because security (much like control) is an illusion, freedom is an ideal.

Peace out.

Many Reviews

Okay, I know when I started up this blog I promised some reviews in addition to my general ranting and insanity. And I intend to deliver. It's just been a while since a movie came out that looked worth seeing, since at some point Hollywood movies became all about making the same moronic horror movie 14 times under slightly different names.

So on to our first review:

Review: Borat: A Film of America for Make Good Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. This movie is too funny for its own good. The synopsis is simple enough, a Kazakh reporter is sent to New York to learn about the American way of life and bring that knowledge back home to improve life in Kazakhstan. After all, America is the richest and most powerful nation on Earth, even if it is run by idiots. Far from being a simple fish out of water comedy, this is a shades of Micheal Moore (seen Fahrenheit 9/11 or Bowling for Columbine? Go watch, I'll wait...) take on all things Americana, along with some gross-out humour and my favorite, satire. Some ugly issues get involved, including antisemitism, conflict between the US and pretty much every predominantly Muslim nation, and the 'war' on 'terrorism' (rant saved for another day), but only for the purpose of making them look ridiculous. The mere fact that any of these issues are broached has earned it a ban in some Canadian cinemas and I'm sure many places in the USA (hurts being on the butt end of virtually every political joke, doesn't it?). But every theater in Ottawa with the cajones to show a controversial film has been selling out most nights, everyone I've talked too has said that the theater was packed when they saw it. Borat is by far the funniest movie I've seen since I was introduced to Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail some years ago, and unlike most of what passes for entertainment nowadays it won't rot your brain.

Review: Holsten Festbock Strong Dark Beer: Hey, a beer review? Why? Because I'm running this show and I love my beer. This one is a product of Germany and is 7% alcohol by volume. It is about as dark as any beer I've seen, about the colour of coca-cola. It smells a bit chocolaty and is actually quite sweet. I'm not a big fan of the usual import beers (Guinness, Kilkenny) because being British they are so damn bitter, so I was happy to find an imported beer that suits my tastes. Consulting Wikipedia, a bock is any of a family of dark lagers developed in and around Munich in the middle ages. Being Canadian, I can certainly appreciate a good lager as several are produced domestically. At any rate, I will certainly be making this my weird beer of choice, i.e. that strange import that all beer drinkers seem to have when they get tired of the domestic options.

Rank this, Maclean's

Ah, another year, another issue of Maclean's Magazine university rankings. For those of you not familiar with Maclean's, its a Canadian news magazine which seems to take great joy in spinning current events way out of proportion. As I understand it, Carleton University did not do well in this years rankings, in fact, it came in last in its category (universities are ranked into small, medium, and large, basically) causing a scathing headline in the Ottawa Citizen "Last Chance U". Now, I'm not going to tell you what to believe, I haven't had the best experience with Carleton myself, finding it to be overly beurocratic. I'd simply like to offer a word of caution to those of you who are younger and still looking ahead to much if not all of your university career and not back on it like I am. The Maclean's rankings are promoted by many people, and indeed by the magazine itself, as a guide for students to choose the best school for their interests. This is a poor way to choose, because academics, the real purpose of going to university, do not figure into the rankings. The Maclean's ranking system primarily focuses on business issues such as how much in the way of scholarships and research funding is available, how it is allocated, class sizes, etc. So if you are looking for a faculty position or a research fellowship, then this is a good source to consult. For the average student coming in, none of this matters much except the average entrance scholarship and class size categories, and those alone are a bad way to decide how you will spend 4+ years of your life. If the trend from previous years holds, they trashed UNB, my alma matter, which tended to do badly in the rankings because it is a poorly administered school up in the lofty senate/presidential levels. It is, however, top 3 in the country in Engineering (bitches) according to several ranking systems that look at academic performance. Rank that.

Despair for the Human Race

The other day I thought of what would happen if everyone simply obeyed traffic laws. I mean all the time, like the rules of a computer program or a mathematical procedure. I soon realized that accident rates would fall through the basement, saving lives, repair time, and money. Road rage would all but disappear. Traffic delays would be greatly reduced as most of these are caused by accidents, although those caused by construction would still occur. I soon became very depressed as I became aware that this would never happen. Everyone is in too much of a hurry, secure in the belief that arriving a their destination at the proper time is more important then the destinations and arrival times of everyone else on the road.

In other news, there was a minor financial sh*tstorm up here as the taxation rules for a class of companies called income trusts were revised. Apparently, since the 1970s a great many corporations in Canada have been re-designating themselves as income trusts, a form of holding company. Because income trusts are not corporations, simply groups holding assets in trust for various "unit holders" (like share holders), they did not pay corporate taxes, and many paid no taxes at all. Until now, that is. Which is fine, I'm all for closing loopholes which allow for multi-million dollar companies to get out of paying taxes. The rub is, many of these income trusts were publicly traded; the resulting sell-off caused the Toronto Stock Exchange (along with other lesser exchanges in Canada) to plummet. The resulting economic adjustment: increased investment in bank stocks. In fact, all of the Big 5 banks saw their share prices rise nicely. So we've eliminated a tax dodge, but we made the banks richer. Can't see if we've made a gain on that one.

In cops-and-robbers news, Ottawa is adding 10 more drug cops. This to me seems like a misallocation of resources. Sure, the murder rate in O-town is up, along with violent crime as a whole, but we need more drug cops who will probably spend all their time looking over people's power bills to see who has a few marijuana plants in the basement. The logic is inescapable. My policy on policing is based on a hierarchy of who I want the heck away from me and my family. These are, in descending order:

1) Murderers and Rapists
2) Thieves
3) Pimps and Drug Dealers
4) Panhandlers and Bums
5) Petty criminals such as vandals, petty thieves, potheads, etc.

First, get rid of categories (1) and (2). At that stage I am reasonably happy. Then (3), when you get a minute. I could definitely do without (4) and (5), but I can deal with them (a sharp kick in the face is generally effective). But those first 2 are the big ones and I would feel a lot better going out if the Ottawa police would kindly put the 10 new recruits to work on these big-ticket items.