Car accidents are the #1 non-medical cause of death in developed nations, so it only makes sense to try to make driving safer. Based on the statistics, and what I’ve seen on the road, I’d have to support a ban like this.

Reported various places, including a detailed article in the Globe and Mail.

As Gmail has become more popular, I’ve started receiving frequent emails for John Hanley, Jessica Hanley, Jane Hanley, Joe Hanley, and many more. And for the most part, these people are entering the wrong email address themselves!

I’ve received funeral condolences, “pen pal” letters, very personal family information, personal financial information, login information for test scores, scads of logins for commercial sites. You name it, I’ve seen it.

I try my best to contact someone to let them know they have the wrong address, but sometimes there’s no return address. In that case, the best I can do is cancel the account/subscription and hope they’ll get a clue.

Please — everyone — take some time to learn what your email address is and try to enter it correctly! Otherwise, you might unwittingly send some very personal details to some poor confused stranger out there in Internet land.

$300 million was spent to bring us “democracy”, but nobody is happy with the results. Because of our antiquated electoral system:

• The Bloc received 20 more seats than they deserved
• The NDP received 18 less seats than they deserved
• The Conservatives received 28 more seats than they deserved
• The Greens received no seats at all — 21 less than they deserved
• People had to resort to strategic voting instead of voting for what they actually believed in
• More people didn’t vote at all than the combined sum of Liberal and Conservative votes

If the Left had united, as the Right did in 2003, they would have formed a majority government. Unless reformed, our electoral system will eventually devolve into something even worse — a dysfunctional two-party system like the United States.

Before the next federal election, we need to adopt a proportional, progressive system, like most modern nations already have.

Want to find out more? Check out http://www.fairvote.ca/

However, we are in an election, and politicians love to fan the flames of the whole gas price conspiracy fire, alleging price fixing/gouging and the like.

I’m no fan of the big energy companies, but I’ve always known that retail gasoline prices were strongly correlated with crude oil prices. The constant rantings about gas prices over the summer made me curious about the nature of the correlation.

I plotted the last 10 years of gas vs. crude oil. (real dollars, both adjusted to an index of 100 in 1997, Weekly data from here, Oil is blue, Gas is red)

The prices are highly correlated, but the gas price fluctuations are actually “smoother” than the oil prices. You can see in the late 90s gas failed to fall as quickly as oil, and over the past year, how gas has not risen as quickly as oil.

The general trend, however, is strong correlation. As I can tell, there’s no evidence to indicate any sort of conspirancy, price fixing, or price “gouging” that seems to be constantly implied by popular media.

What’s your interpretation of the data?

…
Pre-ROWE

Manager: “We’ve been working on this strategy for awhile, and I really want you to crack the nut this year.”

Employee: “Got it. I’ll do my best.” [”I have no idea what you’re asking for, but if I show up every day, stay late, and come to you next year with something that I think you might like, I should be okay.”]

Post-ROWE

Manager: “We’ve been working on this strategy for awhile, and I really want you to crack the nut this year.”

Employee: “Let’s define ‘the nut’. How will we know if I’ve cracked it? How will it be measured? What’s ‘meets expectations’ and ‘exceeds expectations’ on cracking the nut?” [”If I can get clear on how to exceed expectations on cracking this nut, I can figure out the activities that will get me there and also plan how I’ll volunteer at my child’s school, coach her basketball team, and take a vacation to Miami.”]

…

See the full article here: http://caliandjody.com/blog/2008/10/06/what-is-everyone-doing/
*Results-Oriented Work Environment

“I limit misbehavior by limiting options. Notice that I have no shelves. This discourages accumulating papers and encourages both elimination and immediate digital note-taking.” … “Don’t want to eat too much chocolate? Don’t put it in your house.”
…
“Constraints — a precursor to simplicity — aren’t always a bad thing. In fact, they’re often better than increasing options.”

This reminded me of some simple “tweaks” I use in my own life to achieve optimal results. For instance, there are certain types of junk food that I just can’t resist if they’re in my cupboard, but at the grocery store, I have the discipline to simply not buy them. I buy healthy food instead. Then, when I’m at home looking for a snack, I end up eating cottage cheese and fruit, instead of cookies and potato chips.

Simple and effective.

“Management is telling people what to do, which is a vital part of any industrial economy. Leadership is figuring out what ought to be done then getting people to do it, which is very different. It is a vital part of any successful post-industrial economy, too, but most managers don’t know that.

…

In contrast to the military, most businesses do a lot less explaining and pondering and a lot more laying down edicts. That’s management, which works fine on an assembly line, but not at all well building a big software application or winning a war.”

You can read the full article here: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080917_005420.html

Far from scientific, I’ve taken a quick “poll” of the official party pages on Facebook, a few days into the campaign. Currently they look like:

• Green: 2,417 fans, 142 wall posts, 24 discussion topics
• Liberal: 969 fans, 83 wall posts, 3 discussion topics
• Conservative: 654 fans, 75 wall posts, 5 discussion topics
• NDP: 437 fans, 19 wall posts, 2 discussion topics

I wonder if these numbers actually reflect the voting preferences of the “Facebook demographic”. Someone should do a more scientific study. Any volunteers?

This shows one of the reasons the Greens have had such a hard time breaking into the mainstream. They have intelligent people and great ideas, but people don’t understand them, and aren’t ready for them yet.

They talk about the “Guaranteed Livable Income” concept, which basically enforces a minimum standard of living in terms of food, shelter, health, etc. for everyone.

Poverty is a complex issue that can’t be solved with a “silver bullet” policy like this alone. But one would hope with all of our knowledge and technology, the least we’d be able to do by now is provide the basic necessities to everyone. This sounds like a progressive step towards a better society overall.

The problem is that nobody is ready for radical changes like this yet. The Greens are making it too easy for other parties to prey on people’s ignorance and fear of change.

If the Greens want any chance of winning, they need to focus less on their brilliant, sensible platform, and play it old school — exploiting people’s worst fears and promising more than they can deliver.

Expect more offers like the one I received from RBC today:

“As an RBC Direct Investing client, you’re probably already enjoying lower commissions on trades and top-notch research and investing tools. Now we’re offering a 1% cash bonus as well.

Transfer $25,000 or more into an existing or new RBC Direct Investing account from an account held at an investment dealer outside of RBC by November 28, 2008, and you may be eligible for a cash bonus worth 1% of the transfer, to a maximum of $2,500 per account type. As an added incentive, we’ll also cover up to $125 in transfer fees.”

Perhaps they’ll even get a clue and stop charging such ridiculous “maintenance fees” on their regular accounts.