Too Smart For Canada

I am not a big fan of Michael Ignatieff but this is brilliant.

Paying For Local TV

Next time your sitting there for minutes on end watching all those annoying commercials think about the commercials telling you that your not paying for local television.

Making David Suzuki Look Like a Fool

Dr. David Suzuki is a respected scientist, world renowned environmentalist, and excellent communicator. So one would think that it would be difficult to make him look foolish. But the folks at powerWISE have found a way to do it.

I only hope that he is being well paid for the powerWISE commercials and putting the money to good use because, IMHO, they make him look like a fool.

Unfortunately the folks at powerWISE are very protective of their commercials so I was unable to embed a clip of the worst one, entitled “TV-Habitat” (the habitat of the common draft dodger), which makes me cringe every time I see it. The only copy of it I found on the web outside of the powerWISE site had been removed for a “terms of use violation”.

The powerwise ads can be viewed here.

My advice to Dr. Suzuki, never leave your image in the hands of the advertising industry again.

Migraine Hell and Other Thoughts

The Fifth Columnist has just gone through migraine hell, spending two weeks with an almost continuous migraine. Thus blogging was sporadic over the last couple of weeks. After a visit to emergency, and a CT scan determined my brain was normal and a visit to the doctor put me on new medication, I am actually feeling quite optimistic that my migraines may now become much fewer.

Unfortunately a lot was happening and I was thinking about blogging about things but was not able to – like how pissed off Stevie must have been when Michaëlle shared the front page photo of the Ottawa Citizen with Barack, rather than him, especially as he tried so hard to hide her from the press, but she and they would have none of it.

The other thing I contemplated was other “controversial” ads that OC Transpo could ban from their buses, like:

The Earth is Not Flat, Stop Worrying You Won't Fall Off The Edge

Gravity Keeps You Down – Don't Worry If You Run Out of Crazy Glue

The Climate is Changing and it's Our Fault – Don't Worry, Do Something About It

The interesting thing that all these slogans have in common with “there’s probably no god”, is that they have nothing to do with religion and everything to do with science. It is a sad day for Canada when scientific facts become too “controversial” for the side of a bus.

If there was a god …

these ads would not be allowed on OC Transpo buses...


and these ads would.


NOTE: the Gods of Rock ads have been withdrawn, no thanks to OC Transpo or any mythical creature, but due to Virgin Radio listening to the people. Now will OC Transpo listen to reason and allow atheists the same freedom of expression they allow religionists on OC Transpo buses.

I Like The New Tory TV Ad

I have to say I like the new Conservative Party "certainty" ad, although it is not available on their website. It is not an attack ad but just a straightforward statement of their basic philosophy - change is bad and new ideas are dangerous. Refreshing.

Tories Going To A Lot of Trouble To Hide Their Innocence

Prime Minister Stephen Harper claims that the Tories “in and out scheme” was in accordance with Canada’s election financing laws.

"Our position is that we always follow the law as we understand it," the prime minister said in response to a reporter's question at a joint news conference with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon in New Orleans.

"We were following in the last election the interpretations that had been put on that law in the past," Harper said. "If those interpretations change, we will of course conform, but we will expect the same rules for every single party."

If they were so innocent why the elaborate attempts to cover-up the scheme, including the use of forged documents.

Even before last week's raid, Elections Canada had obtained numerous statements from party candidates and invoices from the Toronto-based advertising agency Retail Media.

Investigators also talked to Retail Media executives, including chief operating officer Marilyn Dixon, who when shown one candidate's invoice, speculated that it must have been "altered or created by someone" since it didn't conform to the appearance of the company's invoices.

Why was it necessary for Elections Canada to call in the RCMP and require a search warrant to get access to the documents regarding the scheme.

RCMP searched Conservative party headquarters in Ottawa on Tuesday (April 15) at the request of Elections Canada.

Elections Canada spokesman John Enright confirmed that elections commissioner William Corbett requested the assistance of the Mounties to execute a search warrant, but he wouldn't say why.

Elections Canada is probing Conservative party spending for advertisements during the 2006 parliamentary election campaign. Corbett, who enforces the Elections Canada Act, launched an investigation in April 2007 after chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand challenged the spending claims.

The Tories have done, and are doing, all the things that someone trying to hide a fraudulent scheme would do and none of the things that someone who is innocent would do.

Of course they would have you believe that there is a conspiracy of people out to get them. The only conspiracy will be at the next election when the voters conspire to put them out of office.

A Nineteenth of A Cent For Your Thoughts

That’s what a penny buys today, compared to 1914, which is as far back as the Bank of Canada Inflation Calculator goes. The buying power of a penny back in 1914 was equivalent to 19 pennies today and nobody saw the need for a nineteenth of a cent coin. So why do we need a penny or a even a nickel today, which was worth almost a dollar (94 cents) back then in today’s buying power. We already have the loonie so we don’t need the nickel. But I would keep the dime, even if it is, relatively speaking, the equivalent of having a half cent coin in 1914.

In fact we have acted at the other end of the coin spectrum by recognizing inflation has turned one and two dollar bills into small change, so we added two new coins, the loonie and the twonie. Now it is time to eliminate the two at the bottom, the penny and the nickel.

For those that are concerned about losing a few nineteenths of a cent in the rounding process we could require that all prices be a multiple of ten cents and that all sales taxes be rounded down to the nearest ten cents.

Pat Martin has the right idea we just need to take it to the next logical step.

And while we are at it maybe retailers can stop treating customers as idiots with their silly pricing, such as labeling an item $1.97 to try to make us think it is priced under two dollars. Does anyone really think a car buyer does not know a sticker price of $29,989 really means $30,000. But then again, anyone who watches television commercials these days knows retailers think we are idiots.

It's Our Web

Facebook: From Networking to Marketing

Facebook began at Harvard University and was soon opened up to all universities, university students and alumni. It was a wonderful networking tool for the academic community.

But it was not to remain so. As it’s income generating potential became known it’s creators positioned it as a marketing tool by opening it up to the whole world, making it just another MySpace, though perhaps more sophisticated and certainly with more business savvy.

The transformation from a networking site to a marketing site came with the policy of allowing others to run applications on top of Facebook, virtually selling you, your personal information, and your list of friends to outside marketers. Thousands of these applications have been implemented on Facebook.

Jennifer LaBorde, of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Advance Titan writes that ”Facebook applications disguise immoral advertising business”.

Between the Lines at ZDNet states that this can be “downright dangerous”.

The newest Facebook application that has raised the most concern is called Beacon and it will tell your friends what you buy online (and it automatically opts you into the application). Simon Barrett of Blogger News Network writes that privacy experts are concerned that Facebook may have crossed the line from being social to being invasive.

But perhaps more troubling are concerns raised by TechCrunch that Facebook is censoring search results for political reasons.

I remember when the Internet was non-commercial and primarily an academic network with public access via Freenets, such as the Cleveland Freenet, the world’s first Freenet, and the National Capital FreeNet of which I was ”one of the first information providers”, as organizations and individuals who provided information via the Freenets and Internet were then called. The Internet was very much a networking tool at that stage - for academics, public interest organizations and individuals.

I remember the concerns being raised when it was first proposed that commercial use of the Internet be allowed, because” in the beginning” business was not allowed on the Internet. As one who shared those concerns I was relieved to find that, for the most part, business use of the net has been positive, providing useful resources to the public and customers.

However concerns have been raised lately about the corporate interests that control the hardware networks that the Internet runs on favouring certain commercial users over the broader public interest. This is a concept known as net neutrality.

I use the Internet for social networking, primarily through mountain biking and photography sites that operate on a membership fee or donation funding basis.

This blog is on a commercial site, but there is no intrusion on the blog itself except for the compulsory task bar at the top. Though advertising options are made available that would provide revenue to me and the service owner (Google) I have not been required to have any advertising on my blog.

It would be nice to see a real social networking site for the academic community - universities, professors, students and alumni. It could be developed by the open software community, hosted co-operatively on the university networks and maintained by volunteers.

With Facebook the original purpose has become secondary to generating revenues for it’s owners. Facebook has become the worst of capitalism on the net and I call on all progressive Internet users to BOYCOTT FACEBOOK.

It’s Time To Ban Inane Drug Ads

Don't you just love Canadian drug ads. I know they have me hooked, I'm heading down to the drugstore right now to get bottles of "dancing in the street like a fool", "floating through the meadow" and maybe I'll pick up a couple of bottles of "talk like an alien baby".

One of the most interesting is the Viagara retirement speech ad where the retiree is bleeped, apparently for saying, so we are supposed to think, that he is going to have more sex, or some euphemism therefor. Of course, we're supposed to think he's being bleeped because he mentions sex, but actually it is because to do so would come too close to telling the people what the drug is for and in Canada drug ads cannot mention the name of the drug and the disease or ailment it treats. That is why you see all these drug ads that give you no clue what the drug treats, or you see "education" ads about an ailment telling you to ask your doctor about new treatments (in the hopes he will prescribe the drug that is being "advertised").

If the government wants to ban drug advertising why do they not do it directly, instead of taking this approach that forces us to watch these inane drug ads. There is no reason for drug advertising in Canada. Prescription drugs should not be self-prescribed in a country where anyone can see a doctor without personal cost. It is the doctor's role to diagnose conditions and prescribe drugs. If patients want to do research on the Internet or in books and ask their doctors about specific treatments or drugs they can do that. Drug companies so-called "education' ads are only veiled attempts to sell products.

It is time to spare us the suffering and take those inane drug ads off our television screens.

A Trip to the Chocolate Factory

You may have noticed I missed a couple of weeks posting to my blog. We have had visitors for the last two weeks and I have neglected the blog.

My daughter was up from Toronto York University visiting and we went to visit the Hershey Chocolate Shoppe in Smiths Falls. The factory shoppe is a chocolate lovers dream come true and the prices are better than retail and they throw in a free chocolate bar or two with every purchase.

However, the Hershey Chocolate Factory is closing while Hershey is opening a new plant in Mexico.

This is just another example of how the capitalist market works. But sometimes we forget that it works that way because we let it and we let it because we have lost our sense of community. We would rather buy cheaper chocolates than provide jobs for our neighbours. Not all of our money goes to low wages, of course. Besides high profits, much of it is paid to high paid advertising gurus to convince us to buy products in the first place.

Communities across North America complain about the impact Wal-Mart will have on their local businesses . If local people care about their local businesses all they have to do is continue to shop at them. So why do we not do that. Why do we all flock to the huge Wal-Mart instead. Why do we watch local clothing and shoe factories close while we buy cheap goods from abroad. Are we that greedy. Do we just not care.

Much more than money and jobs is at stake here. If we rebuilt our sense of community I have no doubt that the results would astound us, mental health problems would decline, crime rates and vandalism would decline, quality of life would improve and everyone would be happier and feel more secure.

We can start by saying “hi” to our neighbours next time we walk down the street. If indeed we do walk down the street and not drive to the corner store, if we have one. But that is another whole column.

Love as a Revolutionary Act (January 4, 1972)

Click on the image to read the column.