Month: July 2006

Garth May Sound Right, But He Is Wrong On Per Diems

Mulder

I have seen quite a few Blogging Tories praise Garth Turner for his view on some of the perks being given to MPs and Cabinet Ministers with regards to per diem expenses and having them applied to mortgages.

I hate to go against my BT friends, but I have worked in jobs that have worked on per diem expenses and I have worked on jobs that let you write off specific expenses with the appropriate explanation.

And in the private sector if you have a per diem food expense (let’s say for example $40 per day), then you get that money whether you spend $30 on food or if you spend $60 on food. What a frugal person saves and puts away to spend on whatever they want, be it a mortgage or saving for baby’s new pair of shoes is irrelevant. The per diem expenditure companies make is not something they follow up on.

The whole purpose of per diems was to minimize expense reports and follow up or verification that the expenses submitted were valid.
Many of you know I am quite frugal when it comes to spending tax dollars and that I am quite a fiscal conservative but their is a clear division here.

When a per diem guidelines is set up the only two primary issues should be a) what days should an MP receive a per diem? and b) how much that per diem should be.

How the MP chooses to spend that per diem is up to them. Just as a per diem dining expense rewards the guy who eats McDonalds vs. the guy who eats at Hy’s, a lodging per diem can reward the guy who pays part of his mortgage with it vs. staying in a hotel. Remember, that MP’s do not (or SHOULD not) get the per diem when parliament is not sitting, so if they choose to invest in a home, they still have plenty of time throughout the year to pay their mortgage without a per diem out of their own pockets.

Comments?

Softwood Lumber Deal Gives GDub Potential To Bitchslap Liberals

Mulder

There is much talk about the 23 month lock in period for the softwood deal and the option for the Americans to pull out after this time. Try to follow along.

Month 0 – July 2006 – softwood deal struck

Month 5 – December 2006 – $995 Liberal Party Leadership convention (I have to put that $995 in ‘cuz it’s so damn expensive)

Months 11 to 17 – June 2007 to December 2007 – Liberals set a bit of policy (estimated as 6 months to a year following leadership convention)

Month 18 – 21 – January 2008 to April 2008 – Tories drop 2008 budget in early 2008 which might be looked at as a good time for left wing parties to take down the government on the money bill.

Month 23 – June 2008 – Softwood deal option can be excercised

Month 19 to 23 – February 2008 to June 2008 – Potential Canadian election timeframe if the Liberals feel comfy. (Note it could always happen sooner but this might be the first reasonable attempt for taking down the Tories)

Month 29 – November 2008 – American Elections (which Republicans stand a decent chance of losing unless they find Osama bin Laden)

Month 31 – January 2009 – New President of USA sworn in.

Did you see that? Let’s look closer at 2008.

The option to cancel the softwood deal happens after the Liberals elect a new leader and at a time many pundits think the Tory minority may be taken down but BEFORE George W. is gone. This gives him a nice chance to bitchslap Canada if we put Liberals back in power.

Sweet!!! That would make my Smackdown list for sure!!

OS Bookshelf – Godless-The Church Of Liberalism by Ann Coulter

Mulder

As many know, you need to take Ann Coulter with a bit of salt, but not too much. She definately does her research and footnotes her information very well.

What I found really informative in Godless is Coulter’s view of the American education system and the mythconceptions many have about teachers. Considering there is now talk in Canada of setting up a Native School Board to help swell the numbers of leftist teachers, I was quiteAnn Coulter's Godless interested in this chapter. Even if you are not a Coulter fan, you really should read it. It is full of great information on how the education system is screwing up our kids.

I am in full agreement with Coulter on this fact. When I hear teachers say “I had to take a summer job to make ends meet.” I laughed. Because she responded the way I do. I say “most people work 49 to 50 weeks a year, why do you think you, as a teacher, deserve anything different?

The last 4 chapters were quite an in depth view of Darwinism. Having read The Origin of Species years ago and being one of those who tries to balance evolution with religion, I found her information on the lack of a fossil record to prove Darwin’s theory quite interesting.

I must also say that the bad rap Coulter gets for slamming the 911 Widows is way overblown. She does deal them a nasty hand of slams but backs up the slams quite well. Similarly, she tosses Cindy Sheehan to the sharks and, as Sheehan has done, Coulter uses Sheehan’s son to do it. Nice turnaround Ann!!

All in all, it was a good read and I give it a solid 8 screws out of 10.

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Did The Korean Missile Fail? Or Were The Americans Successful?

Mulder

Reprinted from Jack’s Newswatch

I was thinking about the huge missile that Korea launched all day today as I followed the news…

Bravo to the Bush administration for its measured response to North Korea’s Fourth of July fireworks display.

The North’s missile tests, their date chosen to coincide with America’s Independence Day, were, as the president’s national security adviser called them, “provocative behavior.”

Yet the firing of the single intercontinental Taepodong II, which exploded in mid-air less than a minute after launch, just shows how unsophisticated Pyongyang is. The overall display, which included up to six other missile launches as of this morning, also demonstrates how desperate the country is for international attention.

…And I just chased something down that has been bothering me.

The ABL is designed to detect and destroy theatre ballistic missiles in the powered boost phase of flight immediately after missile launch. The aircraft loiters at an altitude of 40,000 feet. Missile launch is detected by a reconnaissance system such as satellite or Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft and threat data is transmitted to the ABL aircraft by Link 16 communications. A suite of infrared, wide-field telescopes installed along the length of the aircraft’s fuselage detects the missile plume at ranges up to several hundred km.

The pointing and tracking system tracks the missile and provides launch and predicted impact locations. The turret at the nose of the aircraft swivels towards the target and a 1.5 metre telescope mirror system inside the nose focuses the laser beam onto the missile. The laser beam is locked onto the missile, which is destroyed near its launch area within seconds of lock-on. Where the missile carries liquid fuel, the laser can heat a spot on the missile’s fuel tank, causing an increase in internal pressure resulting in catastrophic failure. Alternatively, the missile is heated in an arc around its circumference and crumples under atmospheric drag force or its own G-force.

“Nah, couldn’t be – could it?”

It sure could be Jack!! I was never a true believer that the Star Wars SDI program was something that would work, but I also know laser technology fairly well. I also know that computers these days can accomplish amazing things, and the capability to use DSPs and high speed sampling is quite possible. In fact, capabilities of processors and DSPs are often measured in MIPS (millions of instructions per second) and sampling in the 100’s of millions of samples per second can easily keep a focus on a moving object at high speed. Lasers travelling at the speed of light can zip (or zap as the case may be) 300km in 1 millisecond. i.e 1/1000th of a second.

If I were Pyongyang, I would be quite concerned about that failure.

Breaking News: Three Urinators Found

Mulder

The Ottawa Police has just announced that they have identified two of the three suspects who urinated on the War Memorial but they cannot be named due their age.  In late breaking news, the third suspect who is also now known to the police was in the process of being contacted when he called the Ottawa Police himself.  He is apparently 23 years old.

The fact that the only one old enough to be named is the only one who contacted police himself seems quite fishy to me.  I suspect this is just part of some way to deflect the anger and let the guy live a normal life without being harassed by bloggers like me!!

I am also now wondering if the photos of the two young offenders constitutes a breach in publication bans on their identity.  If anyone with a legal mind out there knows the answer to this I would really appreciate it since I have several photos of the urinators on this blog.

A Clearer Picture Of Urinator Number 3

Mulder

I snagged this off of the local Ottawa News tonight.  I missed their frontal view of Urinator Number 2 below, but I will get it online when I get tomorrow mornings repeat taped.

urinator number 3

I have seen a lot of people online commenting on this.  I do think my “string em up by the eyelids and kick them in the balls until they blink” comment may have been a tad (yes just a tad) harsh, but I do like the idea of making them scrub the monument from top to bottom with a toothbrush or making them clean the toilets of every Legion’s bathrooms for a year once a week might just make them, and anyone else thinking of defiling this monument, think twice before doing so.

In any case, I saw an interview tonight with a WWII vet who said they should be shamed for months.  I couldn’t agree more.

I am glad to see that an official investigation is taking place.  I think if they come forward, like men, they will probably get off a lot easier than if they have to be hunted down like the dogs they acted like.

Happy Birthday America!!

Mulder

Today, as many Canadians did, I went to work.  But after returning home our family had a good old American style barbecue and enjoyed our burgers, baked beans, freshly baked cookies and potato chips.

Happy 230th Birthday America!!  Some of us Canadians really appreciate what a great nation you really are.

Only The CBC Can Erroneously Turn Plankton Into A Story About Global Warming

Mulder

Ask any environmentalist what the cause of global warming and they will tell you that greenhouse gases trapping the sun’s rays in our atmosphere is the dominant cause. We already have told you that 97 to 99% of greenhouse gases are water vapour which is not something within the control of man.

But tonight on the CBC nightly news they were talking about the large wave of Phytoplankton present off the west coast of North America. They even went so far as to say that it might be an effect of global warming.

What they did NOT tell you is that phytoplankton thrive on carbon dioxide, the “other” culprit in the greenhouse effect, and convert it to harmless oxygen.

From Wikipedia:

Phytoplankton, like plants, obtain energy through a process called photosynthesis, and so must live in the well-lit surface layer (termed the euphotic zone) of an ocean, sea, or lake. Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton (and terrestrial plants) are responsible for much of the oxygen present in the Earth’s atmosphere.

So let’s get this straight. Mother earth heals herself by creating more plant life and phytoplanton when weather warms, which in turn eat up more carbon dioxide, which reduces the greenhouse effect, thus cooling the earth naturally.

Only the CBC could get this story completely ass backwards and put a further fear of global warming into society when the completely opposite is true. This healing plant lifeform may be an effect of a warmer spring as they mentioned, but it is also a buffer against the carbon dioxide that traps heat in our atmosphere.

ADDENDUM I was contacted by CBCwatch.ca regarding my posting above. They say that they watched the National starting at mark 19:00 and they said:

I could find no statement by Natalie Clancy, nor those interviewed implying or suggesting that the phytoplankton was responsible for global warming.

Alternately, Angelica Pena of Institute of Ocean Sciences sad “we don’t know the consequences of global warming”

So I took a closer look.

At mark 21:07, Natalie Clancy says “Pena says it COULD be a sign of global warming.” (emphasis was Natalie’s not mine.)

Right after the above quote, the cut goes to Pena who says:

We don’t know and that I think is the worst thing about (i couldn’t make out the word) sciences is that we don’t know what are the consequences of climate change on the phtyoplankton or the ecosystem community. We are still trying to, you know, learn what are the consequences but we have no idea.

So the CBC took Pena’s words stating they have no clue what the effects of global warming are on they phytoplankton and turned them into “Pena says it COULD be a sign of global warming”. I wonder how they came to that conclusion.

To continue:

At mark 21:30, Natalie Clancy says “Scientists say they will have to monitor plankton on the BC coast for a few years before they will know for sure if all this algae is blooming because the planet is heating up (long pause) or simply because this has been an unusually warm spring.”

This last quote is emphasized because it happens right before Clancy’s sign off.

This may not be enough for CBCwatch.ca to call bad journalism, but for the CBC to TWICE discuss the warming of the planet without a stitch of proof is bad journalism and quite misleading. I encourage you to watch the clip yourself from mark 19:00 on and let me know what you think?