seine ramblings....

British Columbia politics

2012-02-04T08:18:00.001-08:00

The recent BC supreme court ruling calling into question the constitutionality of the ‘enhanced police power in dealing with drinking drivers’ suggests we’d do well to give some thought to what we have done - to what kind of people have we granted the power to govern our lives?

Let’s begin with that ‘claim to protect the driving public’, giving police officers the power to judge and sentence, to impound vehicles and revoke driving privileges without oversight. The members of our legislature have deemed it appropriate to eliminate the judicial process entirely in the case of suspected mixing of alcohol and driving. In general, the public doesn’t appear to have much resentment in accepting the belief that alcohol and driving don’t mix at any level, a message spread by MADD and other social pressure groups for many years. Years of scientific research as to the actual impairment caused by a particular volume of blood alcohol is ignored. I’ll return to this later, but first a few more reasons why we need to look again at who we grant power to.

If we open our eyes and minds, taking a clear look at the actions of our governments over the past number of years, we will see that we now have a dysfunctional system staffed by incompetent, arrogant busybodies with no respect for the individuals whose labour buys the bread for their tables. Can I support that statement? Let’s take a drive down memory lane and, while the BC Liberals are the subject of my inquisition, I’ll also remind everyone that if we were to backtrack a little further, the provincial NDP would fare no better.

Let’s first consider the privatization of BC Rail, a move I personally supported but a process hidden from public scrutiny and shrouded in stifled controversy. There was never a public inquiry into this controversial, complete with criminal acts, deal. After the taxpayer picked up the 6 million dollar legal bill for a couple of ministerial aids, the premier just said, “Case closed”. The broken election promise to never sell BC Rail was ignored and no sitting members of our legislature ever provided an honest, sworn, official explanation of what took place and why the decision went the way it did.

The denial of public access to the books of BC Ferries was another example of stretching reality beyond the breaking point. The taxpayers of the province own BC Ferries but by calling it a private rather than a crown corporation, financial accountability has largely been hidden from the ‘owners’.

The implementation of BC’s carbon tax was carried out with no regard as to what was being done in other jurisdictions of Canada or the USA. Nor was consent asked from the people of the province through a ballot, only the arrogance of elected representatives believing they hold a mandate to do anything they want. Their claim of revenue neutral, just means that they have no problem taking your money and giving it to me and saying that’s fair. While many will disagree with me here, the unscientific demonization of carbon dioxide gave legitimacy to the move to bring us a carbon tax. Events over the past couple of years entirely erased any credibility for the belief that our world is about to suffer catastrophic, human-caused global warming.

The implementation to harmonized the BC sales tax and the GST, the infamous HST was handled in much the same way, with just months after winning an election, partly based on the promise not to bring in any HST, the arrogant members shoved through the bill making the HST law. While the backlash was immediately obvious, the arrogant attitude prevailed not weakening until the pressure of a referendum awakened the sitting members to reality, that they are but a number of votes away from re-entering the competitive work force. And though the arrogance of Mr Campbell forced him out of office, his replacement continues to dig deep holes of her own by continuing that arrogance by very slowly replacing the old tax structure.

The final cost of this boon-doggle , in both financial terms and lost opportunity will be in the billions of dollars.

The government has, for years, used the crown coronations as tax collectors, siphoning revenue from both BC Hydro and ICBC. Obviously, BC citizens have been paying more for auto insurance and electricity than those organizations return to the citizens in services. Even recent revelation that these crown corporation have negative cash flow and the kickback have only been made possible by increasing debt, the arrogance of our elected representatives is not reined in.

BC Hydro’s mandate to purchase private power at far higher rates than they can sell that power for is another example of a government that has lost sight of public service, choosing to rule without consequence instead. Need I mention how arbitrary and arrogant they have been in implementing the billion dollar ‘smart-meter’ program? A billion dollar of your money cost spent with their own advertising only claiming instant recognition that your power has been interrupted as a justification for this expense.

Recently, because members of the legislature ordered the bureaucrats in charge of licencing mines to ignore a company’s application for development, BC taxpayers paid them a 30 million dollars penalty. The justification, that the health hazard of mining uranium justifies preventing this development does not meet the test of science. Other jurisdictions mine uranium safely with Saskatchewan’s Cameco being the world’s largest uranium producer. This neighbour province currently has the best growth rate in the country. Watching Mr de Jong’s rant against uranium shows him to be firmly sequestered in the unscientific camp.

And my last ‘straw’ is the government’s recycle policy. Many years ago, a fee was levied to reduce beer-bottle litter. Since then automobile tires and batteries have been considered dangerous for landfills and because those fees where greeted with public apathy, recycle fees have now been extended to every kind of beverage container and every liquid ranging from oil to paint carries a form of these ‘sin’ taxes. Now all small electrical appliances, toasters, microwaves and televisions carry the burden of extra fees and levies for the purpose of recycling.

I could list many more instances showing that our governments have been operating under the guiding principle that all citizens are fools and idiots, looking at ski-hill helmets and food control. There are few areas where we have not had the decision making power stripped from our personal lives and rules have been implemented to spoon-feed us all the same diet of ‘socially correct’ pablum.

Forgotten entirely is our history - by both our elected leaders and by ourselves, the general public. It was an environment of political freedom allowing individuals to fail that sorted through our action, giving us the feedback to determine when we acted beneficially or detrimentally to our own and the health of those around us. Now the decision making has moved to our parliaments, ultimately turning those institutions into elected dictatorships. While bicycle helmets and cell phone usage are more of the same in the destruction of personal freedom and responsibility, I consider the modified drinking and driving laws to represent a monumental step away from legitimate law. There is no clearer example of an impending police state than this. That our legislators could conceivable see this as a proper way to rule a state tells me we have a very serious problem.

Historically, in the development of law, two hard-fought principles helped ensure that justice was achievable. The right of appeal along with the separation of arresting and sentencing authorities were prime factors in removing the arbitrary from the enforcement of rules in a society. Police are the enforcement arm of law. Their task is to arrest said violators of law. Historically guilt could not be determined by the arresting police officer and the accused subject was considered innocent until judged guilty in a court of law. Giving police the ability to sentence individuals and removing the right to appeal is a monument step toward dictatorship.

We can debate the accuracy of roadside, hand-held breathalysers or the need prohibit driving for 0.05 and changing the legal limit from 0.08, but those are details detracting from the broader travesty of transferring arbitrary power to our police. The foregoing is irrelevant to the broader question on the means by which law should be established and enforced.

Furthermore, just as we’ve not made law better, we’ve not helped the police with this either. We have opened a can of very smelly worms as the opportunity for graft that arbitrary, unmonitored power bestows on the officers will certainly have us see criminal acts by police officers.
But a further look sheds still more light on how dysfunctional our BC legislature has become. The stated justification for this change in law was to ensure the safety of the driving public by taking drunks off the road and the government’s claim that clogged court system and lengthy arrest procedures restricted the ability of the police to set up enough road checks. Well on the cogged courts I’m going to predict, “we ain’t seen nothin’ yet” compared to what is coming.

With the ruling by justice Don Siguardson labelling portions of this law to be unconstitutional the appeal process has been opened up and is about to flood the courts. That he also place a 6 month extension on this law for the government to draft suitable, legal regulations simply show that he too, has no consideration for taxpayer cost nor justice for individuals. Previously a suspected drinking driver could insist on having a legal breathalyse reading taken at the station to challenge a judgment of a roadside suspension. Now the choice is a different road-side machine. I do not believe the judge has ruled correctly in favour of law and we have not yet seen the end of this legislative fiasco.

The case of Ms Margaret MacDonald of Cranbrook, who wisely had trhe hospital confirm her sobriety should have been a wake-up call. Instead we see the minister, the MLAs and the police joining forces and continue to deny justice. Though supplying proof of innocence, the bureaucracy stonewalls by claiming to ‘study’ this case, almost a year after she was falsely charged.

At the root of the entire problem is our society’s move away from personal responsibility and the desire by a meddling class to try creating a problem-free society. But the so-called commitment to clear the roads of drunks becomes a rather shallow promise when those who do cause death by irresponsible driving often spend a year or less in jail. The fact that we have people stealing cars that have been convicted of more than thirty offences for the same thing shows that our government’s commitment to halting crime has been hollow words with no action. However, looking at their stated concern, that the costs of enforcement means that laws need revision to reduce court time, shows that our governments are incurring costs beyond their ability to collect money. That both taxes and fees are sky-rocketing while services such as law enforcement are considered sacrificial is further proof of how dysfunctional this government has become. The big three, healthcare, education and welfare are driving the cost of government yet the elected body is unwilling to reduce funding in those very areas where the problems are.

And the unavoidable question that is being ignored by all, is, how much further down the road of taxing one to provide service to another will we go before we open our eyes and our minds to reality. Are we going to go over the debt cliff before we stop? Are we going to tolerate a state that subverts all law in its zeal to provide all things to all people? Are we going to ignore the lessons of history and destroy a once affluent society, ignoring all the factors that created our wealth? It is intelligent human action that forms a free, affluent society - it is thoughtless reactionary government policies that destroys it. We have the ability to avoid a disaster but we’ll only do so by reclaiming control of our own lives.

Servitude vs. Destroying Evil

2009-10-21T22:56:00.000-07:00

As I looked once more at the images of those flaming buildings, I thought back to the day of that ignoble event. I relived my thoughts and feelings at the time, going to work on the west coast and hearing that a plane had struck one of the World Trade Center buildings. The incredulous voices of the radio announcers, speculating on an horrific accident and the number of lives that might have been lost - running through my mind, as I started work. Going back to the radio at the top of the hour and hearing that a second plane had struck the other tower. Stunned...dazed response from all - by the most monumental body blow in living memory.

Catching pieces of news as it came in, the lethal fires, the exasperated rescuers unable to reach those above the strike zone, the panicking victims, jumping, rather than dying in that inferno, the Pentagon HIT and finally, a pile of rubble in the streets of New York as the most visible signs to describe our capitalist society succumbed to the flames and were no more......and all air travel halted. Freedom, also, brutal injured that day.

When I think back, a number of other things are refreshed in my mind. Seeing the carnage, I’m once again reminded of how little it takes to be destructive. A single match can undo a lifetime of productive effort, yet that foolish, popularly-repeated phrase, ‘man is destructive’ evades everything from the pyramid, to space travel. Those few determined fanatics, who valued their own lives less than another person’s death, armed with a few hour of aircraft simulator flight hours and utility knives, destroyed billions of dollars worth of infrastructure.

Their ‘kill ratio’ surpassed 150 to 1 and they change the very fabric of the society they despised.. They were immeasurably successful - up to this point.

Thinking back, I see the USA to be as fragile as those buildings were. And how only the intellectual disarmament of America made the 9/11 massacre possible.

So what did we get - the first call by the new, still-in-shocked president, after the dust of the Trade center building had settled, was for ‘Americans to go back to normal, the government will solve this outrage and justice will prevail’. A reassurance that this government fully knew its responsibility, to provide the protection from physical harm a free people need to resume productive lives. And, we were told to spend, a rational activity in an abundant capitalist society, but behind the scenes, a nervous government seeing looming transfer-payments entitlement while a nervous people waited, straining a fragile financial system with a shrinking revenue flow.....ominous signs.

The very first thought I had when that first building was struck, was that the Empire State building had sustained an airplane hit, shrugged it off, and stands today in all its glory, albeit, bathed in the colors of red China, a graphic display of the intellectual rot of the country. In the months of cleanup and investigation that passed, two things - the war against asbestos had succeeded on helping the hijackers achieve their purpose - the building only had an illusion of strength above the seventieth floors. And the slime began to ooze from where it had been shocked into silence.

We heard shrill denouncements, of unaddressed environmental concern at the cleanup site and, America asked for the attack because of years of inconsiderate foreign policy, belligerently steamrollering over passive underdeveloped nations, stealing the resources from these peace-loving helpless people, across the entire face of the earth.

And we heard about Bin Ladin. Quietly, for, if one read between the lines, he had issued a decade of invitations to fight - The USS Cole, a couple of embassies, but easy to overlook if the dress holds dried semen stains. Oh, could that be the intellectual bankruptcy thing again?

The face of the enemy became more visible as we saw modern weapons carried on the backs of donkeys in Afghanistan’s gravel pile. We saw a people, utterly impoverished by their commitment to a medieval religion, lead by zealots with no consideration for human life. And we saw precision guided bombs, turn rubble into different rubble.

We watched months of deliberation, posturing, pleading, looking for support, and finally an American president deciding to, essentially, go it alone and the army forming on the border of Iraq, a face-off with one of the most brutal bandits to ever take over a county. We were graced with film footage of literally a surgical strike, taking out the strongest army in the zone, careful to avoid civilian death, and winning in less than two weeks of fighting. And then, our exhilaration shattered as that intellectual bankruptcy set in once more.

A nation with militarily supremacy , showed that it lacked the knowledge of how to win the peace while on the home front the barricades were going up and the random searches began. What I believe could have been simply solved by retro-fitting secure cockpit doors and sporadically arming the flight crews, was instead solved by a bureaucracy ill fitted to think. The politically correct absurdity, considering everyone a potential homicidal terrorist, brings us now, eight years later, passport requirements to travel over what used to be considered the friendliest border in the world. And the militarily decisive blow needed to end the reign of terror - still undelivered.

These action do not show a mind able of conceiving of a means to lift a conquered foreign citizenry from feudalism to a modern, free society. The decision makers of today lack the ability or the desire to create such a country as the USA was. From the time of its inception in 1776 till 1900 England and American transformed themselves from cottage industries to industrial empires. The rest of the world watched but failed to grasp what made it possible.

A small aside, I have a theory and it is rooted in the concept of common law. In those early years, when power of life or death had been stripped from the monarchy, the early law makers looked to the rules that guided the common folk in their day-to-day actions and largely, those were the rules that guided the formal laws that the infant representative governments brought forth. All of that had changed by the 1900's as the legislators took an elitists view, bring down laws that forced a sometimes, reluctant and other times willing, public to change their behavior.

England, lacking any government controlling document such as the American constitution, disappeared as an economic force rather quickly. The property rights clause in American has been able to make the destruction a longer, drawn-out process, but now the country is in a comparable state to those World Trade Center towers. To an uncritical eye, the country remained the financial giant of the world - to one with the vision of Ayn Rand, rampant intellectually bankrupt had eroded its strength before 1930. Few people now, are blind to the fact that there are serious problems. But, there are also, oh-so-few, who clearly see the direction that is not terminal to our free society.

Today, in a span of years twice as long as it took to free the world of two mighty, dictatorial empires, Afghanistan’s Taliban, living in a primitive rock pit, denies victory to what is still, the strongest army the world has ever witnessed. Domestically internal security rules are utterly out of proportion to an intelligent response to the actions of nineteen religious maniacs and, in New York, the most visible sign that all is not well. Rather than a giant defiant building showing the world the pride America has in capitalism, the productive system that sprinkles prosperity on all who accept it, we have.......... a hole.

And finally I come to servitude. This president is calling for the citizen to exchange public service for a purposeful retaliation for September 11th, 2001. The call is to forget the outrage, the pain, and the unfulfilled passion to cleanse this world of the force that drove those distorted minds to kill themselves and publicly destroy, taking with them into death, 3000 innocent people who were trying to put in a productive day. But the capitulation to servitude can only come to fruition if the nation’s people have become complacent.

Across the entire world, the chains of servitude hang heavy from the shoulder of all productive people. We need to ask ourselves, how can a heavier burden solve our problems? Clearly, this asylum is not in the hands of the healers.

And so again and for the final time, I bring up that missing intellect, vacuumed to oblivion, and I lay some of the blame for this problem on the shoulders of one of the truly greats of American history, Thomas Jefferson and his support for public education. That was the mistaken belief, that the education process could be placed in the hands of any government and remain uncorrupted. If the 56 founders of the United Stated had foreseen the utter collapse of reasoning skills that institutionalized public education has delivered to helpless children, they would, I’m sure, have burned the Constitution and started over.

But is that intellectual bankruptcy simply a result? Could it be that, as Ayn Rand said so long ago, with altruism as our basic moral code it was simply inevitable the ‘right’ would be consider ‘wrong’ and the wrong, right? The world we live in is upside down, because our morality is inverted. Do we need reminding that placing others first will lead to our own destruction? Until that poisonous idea is removed from our knowledge base, the field of education will deliver ever more broken minds. I believe, only by spreading the words of Ayn Rand can those minds be healed.

Here it is time to state that I’m a citizen of Canada but my personal stake is the same as each of you, a chance to live in a world where capitalism allows me to produce and benefit from my production. If by chance the USA become the USocialistSA, the collapse will not end there, rather the entire free world will disappear. Hence, every freedom loving individual is in this fight.

And this fight needs every healthy mind. If now, president Obama’s collectivizing plans are broken, the surge could well be enough to open a flood gate of reason and discredit collectivism beyond recovery. There has never been a better time to support the efforts of the Ayn Rand Center, but that is not the only place help is needed. Be it tea parties or speaking with anyone who support capitalism, we need to, apologetically and publicly, claim ownership of our own lives, never a bow to servitude.

And if by chance you have lost your passion, that time has transformed it to cynicism, open your mind and look at the burning buildings at the top of this page, think of the jetliner cruising over Pennsylvania, its passengers condemned to death, and remember the cry of Todd Beamer, “Let’s roll”, choosing a patriots end to life rather than helpless slaughter. It was not an act of servitude, it is an exercise in meting out justice. Recall from Abe Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here......”. Once again, let your sense of outrage loose.

Terrorism

2009-08-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

This LTE was sent to the Victoria Times Colonist shortly after 9/11happened, something to hold in mind when asked by President Obama to make 9/11 the day of public service.

Sirs:
On September 11th 2001, some 3500 of our fellow citizens started their day the same way we did, harboring no grudge toward others and simply wanting to put in a productive day. They were denied that desire by nineteen people with a death wish and a determination to take as many innocent people with them as possible. It is to late to help the victims but they will not have died in vain if we learn from the massacre that took their lives.
There are three things we need to keep in mind about the perpetrators of these murders.
Firstly they both hated and feared capitalism - freedom, for those more comfortable with politically correct words. For too many years, we in the free world, in an attempt to avoid confrontation, have not pointed out that capitalism and freedom are irrevocably linked. To quote Kenneth Minogue ‘capitalism is what people do if you leave them alone.’ That is the reason why wealth follows capitalism, because it so closely matches human nature. When free of restrictions, each of us gives our support to the things we value the most and inevitably we support those people who give us things that enhance our freedom. Freedom gave us capitalism and capitalism continues to give us back ever more freedom. Cars, washers, airplanes, velcro, telephones, ball point pens, computers, zippers and endless other items, these are all things that free more of our one constant in life, time, to pursue in the most rewarding manner we can think of.
The murderers who brought down the World Trade Center towers pick their targets well. While the greatest symbol of freedom is the Statue of Liberty, the most visible symbol of capitalism was the Trade Center towers. These murderers problem with capitalism was two fold: they hated capitalism for the phenomenal goods and services it makes available, and they feared capitalism for what it does to the people of their own countries.
They try to hold their own people in the iron grip of an unforgiving and unmodifiable medieval religion that can’t compete with capitalism. They desire an impoverished quality of life for all. Bin Laden, who has enough money to live where and how he wants, chooses instead a prayer blanket, an AK-47 and a cave in a desolate gravel pit.
Secondly, they were so poor, they had to steal the tools they used for killing from the very people they are trying to destroy, from us. Without access to our technology, they would never have achieved any notoriety at all. They might have killed a few people with their bare hands but without access to capitalist technology, they would never be a problem. But instead of denying them access to harm us, we’ve now begun to dismantle our freedoms in a futile effort to defend ourselves.
Thirdly, they were very determined. They held their distorted values so dear, they had no difficulty dying for them. As Victor Hugo stated years ago ‘there is nothing as strong as an idea who’s time has come. Their ideas gave them the strength to destroy the WTC.
And that brings up the main question for us, do we believe as passionately that we have the right to defend our way of life from people who are determined to destroy that way of life? How strongly do we hold our ideals? Only by being outrage at what was done to us and becoming determined to fight tooth and nail to preserve our way of life will we win. Even with our somewhat crippled semi-capitalistic system we can easy produce far more than these barbarians could even think of destroying.
But we also need to remind our governments that a return to pre September 11th standards is not an option. Black Tuesday happened because our government’s main focus has become the redistribution of our wealth and, rather than protecting individuals from aggression, the focus has become tax and spend. That is one of the reasons why we keep hearing our leaders urge us to ‘get back to normal’ because they see no tax revenue coming in while they can’t stop what is going out.
Our inept political leaders consider that by installing more and more bureaucrats to monitor our every action and transaction, they can make society safe. They fail to remember, in North America some 400 million of us did largely live in peace before 9/11. More policing of the law abiding members of our world won't help.
Over-reacting and turning our society into a police state will not stop terrorism but the additional restrictions may well destroy our economy. It is physically impossible be everywhere and stop every destructive act but if we had simply kept nineteen people from having access to the cockpit’s of four airliners, 6000 people would be alive today.
We are concentrating too much effort on a result without addressing the cause. We know each terrorist was trained to believe in the moral correctness of his cause, a cause that justifies death for us even if it costs his own life. We also know his trainers value their own lives more for they send their disciples out to do the killing.
Self-preservation dictates that we focus our anger on those leaders and tell them to change or they will die.
Respect for life must be reciprocal. Someone with no respect for your life is your enemy and inevitably it becomes you or him. We have no choice but to be brutal to those who choose to be brutal to us. Until they change or are eliminated, we can never be truly safe.
Garret Seinen

desolving empires

2009-08-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

I found this on Bill Ayers’ site....

The end of an empire is messy at best
And this empire is ending
Like all the rest
Like the Spanish Armada adrift on the sea
We’re adrift in the land of the brave
And the home of the free.

Lyrics by Randy Newman, from “A Few Words in Defence of This country”. Seems obvious that both Mr Ayers and Newman see an America with a far smaller global influence, and just around the corner. I’d also say they aren’t sorry to see the empire label coming to an end. So why?

I caused me to think about what is happening in the US of A today. I’m sure most people regard the USA to be an empire, and depending on one’s morality, it’s either evil, or great. But before we talk about morality let’s define empire and talk about what others see.

The degree of influence a nation has on other nations is what makes a nation an empire. And the USA has indeed been a huge influence on the entire world, but is this empire the same as previous empires? Historically, the empires of the past have had their roots in the sharpest sword or the biggest canon but the US empire is a rather unique entity.

The free world’s common folk work to swill coke and cram down big Macs. Those who have them, need to protect their jeans from thieves, and the mindless electric guitar noise excites the youth around the world. Is this the empire that is crumbling, that many see as evil?

The American empire is unique in that it was not build with a club but rather it’s been held from spreading by a club. Whenever a group of people have been left free it’s the American model they build as their personal society. From Canada to France, to the now defunct USSR to China, the Muslim middle east and on around the world, Political and intellectual leaders demand restrictions to stop their own citizens from emulating the ‘good ol’ US of A.

This empires messy in the middle. The painful body piercing, the disfiguring facial tattoos , the shocking hairdos and outrages dress codes are all part of the messiness, as are the obnoxious language. The ipods and twittering and facebooking and bloggers are all part of this empire’s culture. As are highways and cars and airplanes and highrises. It’s still far from complete if we throw in space travel, atomic weapons and cell phones and oh so much more.

An empire like none before with something about it for anyone to hate, just as there are a multitude of thing to love. Truly a mixed bag that satisfies no one, yet attracts so very many.

From its inception some 240 years ago, the forceful individuals living in those 13 signing colonies, determined to fight unfair taxation and take their chances with forming a unique nation based on the ‘that all men are created equal’ thought, could hardly have predicted the social upheaval they would cause.
...more to come...

When ideas have consequences

2009-07-06T07:29:00.000-07:00

Individual rights -when ideas matter.

The origin - It all starts when the idea that we are created or born without sin, obligation, duty etc. become widespread in a culture. the view that equality is the rule, that none can be held to be more than any other, that a covenant of debt can not be placed on the life of any person.

The justification - By way of reason it is easily understood that slavery is the result of holding a belief that people can be slotted into different categories of worth, hence, to achieve freedom for ourselves we need to reject the notion

The consequences - an individual, holding the forgoing as basic truisms in their mind, will come to realize that with no guiding deity, no prebirth obligation, they are, like all persons everywhere, their own masters. As such, their actions are their own and cloak of responsibility for neither the good nor the bad can be draped over the shoulders of another. And while the mirror of responsibility can be a cruel reminder of mistakes if we hold the wrong attitude, accepting that life is a learning experience showers us with euphoric endorphins for the things we do right.
..more to come..

On pragmatism

2009-04-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

I’d never considered pragmatism to be anything much more than a non ideological outlook on life but after reading a post stressing how debilitating an effect it can have on the thought process, I can see that I’m mistaken and need to rethink the meaning clearly in my own mind. Doug Reich gave a great analysis here, http://dougreich.blogspot.com/2009/04/say-cheese.html .

I have difficulty accepting that a human mind can consistently hold a pragmatic outlook, deciding that reality is what everyone believes it to be. I can however, easily see that an inconsistent pragmatic approach with deviations allowing both reasoning and perceptual powers to smooth over the areas involving life and death rational decisions.

Because so much of the world we live in consists of applying manmade rules to human actions, the pragmatist is often able to function well and even to be financially successful. There are individuals who thrive in regulatory environments, where all the rules are laid out and memorization brings success. But the success would unfold only for the strongest minds as the economy of understanding complex things by way of cohesive ideas is not available to the consistent pragmatist and, only those people with exceptional memory skills could cope.

The economy of thinking made possible by using a rational, conceptual based system to integrate ideas into understandable pieces allows even the people with lesser intellectual capacity to fully understand complex thoughts.

But the pragmatist evaluation and its application to the sciences provides an explanation to a phenomena that has long troubled me. I often wondered at the absurdity of some of the flaky so-called scientific studies or reports, claiming proof for an idea that logic or induction proves without any statistical analysis. Something like an evening news report documenting that most obese people eat more than the people with no weight problems, or some similar fact totally reasonable with out any study.

I believe the researchers hold the view that a fact can only be discerned from observation, that for the experiment to be objective the researchers must be completely unbiased to the point of ignoring reason, until the results are tabulated and then, only statistical analysis constitutes proof.

Does the true pragmatist fully rejects induction as a means to knowledge?

I have always considered pragmatism to be a beneficial trait for a person in business and a despicable vote-gathering tool in a politician. I’m beginning to see the personal destruction that the inability to understand the world or the actions of people around oneself would bring to any questioning individual. We all require an understandable future to feel comfortable about the future.

Without the ability to do inductive thinking, all issues boil down to my poll verses your poll. To the pragmatist, numbers count, status of supporter count, even the sophistication of the presentation makes a difference. Only the facts, if not presented glamorously are ignored.

Is there any thinking going on or is every thing decided by the opinion of an other, an outsider because the individual has lost ability to discriminate? Does the pragmatist inevitably derive any sense of self-worth from the opinions of others? Is the modern belief that we need rules for everything the normal outcome of pragmatic thought? Is it responsible for the elitist idea, that the common guy lacks the ability to look after their own life and needs help?

I think it is the basis of the belief that only what has taken place before can be properly evaluated, the financial community's statement, " we're in new ground here. We've never tried this before so we don't know if the printing of this much money will work". And the pirate situation, where we fear the sailors may get hurt if the are given guns, or we don't know who to punish to stop the piracy.

More to come.

Earth day letter

2009-03-25T20:42:00.000-07:00

On Saturday at 8:00 pm we will once again, be asked to participate in Earth Hour. We will be asked to turn out our lights and reduce our use of energy. The goal is to have everyone shrink their ‘carbon footprint’ for an hour. The reason we are urge to do this; because the ‘green’ lobbyists tell us CO2 is causing global warming and destroying the earth.

Alternatively, we are also being urged by the Competitive Enterprise Institute to celebrate Human Achievement Hour by leaving the lights on. They are saying, by doing nothing and living as we normally do, we are paying homage to the human mind, the basis of all the inventions and discoveries that make our lives better.

The “CO2-is-deadly-and-killing-the-earth” crowd are having a tough time right now. The last ten years have seen the earth cooling rather than warming as correctly predicted by Willie Soon Phd., who made the case that the sun is responsible for the earth’s temperature. He claims that sunspots drive the temperature and presently we are in a very low solar activity cycle.

Two weeks ago the Heartland Institute assembled some 73 climate scientists and held a conference to discuss the non-issue of global warming. These scientists agreed that capping CO2 is both costly for us and have no net benefit for the earth.

Space prohibits me from fully explaining how irrational and wrong the ‘goofy green’ movement has become, how truly anti-life their policies are.

For those people who want to go along with earth hour, I urge you to see if you can stick it out for a month rather than that one easy hour. A month without power will give a person a clear perspective on what life would be like if they had to live with less energy, the agenda the ‘greens’ are pushing.

Consider that by turning off the lights you will be renouncing human achievement, rejecting the mind and all the innovation we depend on for life. You will be rejecting the gifts from the minds of greatest inventive geniuses to have lived on this earth, such as Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, and Nicola Tesla, inventor of the power grid. You will instead, be claiming that it is better for all mankind to return to the stone age.

On Saturday night I’ll have the lights on to celebrate Human Achievement Hour. I’ll be pouring a glass and proposing toast, “to technology and the geniuses who share the products of their minds with us.” Join me if you like.

GOVERNMENTIUM

2009-03-16T22:52:00.000-07:00

A major research institution has discovered the heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element, for now, has been named, "Governmentium."
Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons and 11 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an "atomic mess" of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected and it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. The minutest amount of Governmentium can cause one reaction to take four to six weeks to complete when it would normally take less than one second.
Governmentium has a normal half-life of 4 years; it does not decay, but every four years undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientist to speculate that Governmentium formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass". You will know it when you encounter it. I don't know for sure, but I think we're there!

water exports

2009-01-30T07:06:00.000-08:00

Over the last however any years, British Columbia has been debating water exports with any number of people who applied for permits to fill tankers and send then off to a thirsty world. Most of these proposals involve parking the tanker near an ocean terminating river, hooking up a pipe to the supply and driving away when the tanker is full. When the tanker shows up where thirst guys are, the water is traded for money and off they go for another load.
I always thought of these schemes as a license to print money and well worth pursuing, but lo-and-behold was I in for a surprise. A cacophony of voices howled in protest, the loudest belonging to Maude Barlow. All sorts of reasons have been aired to prevent the export of water, and to me none of them make any real sense as we're talking about water that simply flows into the ocean. Does it make any difference to the ocean if the water makes a trip to California before it finally reaches the oceans? The water still makes it into the ocean sometime.
However, after some serious discussion over a couple of beer, we did figured out what the problem was - pollution. Think of this from a 'green' perspective. Here we have a product being shipped on the open ocean and, heaven forbid, the loaded tanker strikes an empty returning tanker and we now have an enormous spill. The true environmentalist recognizes the near impossibility of cleaning up the polluting spill. Now a normal human being might say water is water, what's the big deal, but that isn't how the environmental mind works. In their minds the water in the tanker has become a pollutant - the reason - its' been tainted with the profit motive.
Now you might think this is far-fetched and I'm seeing double ogres, but hear me out. As a example, think of Yellowstone National Park. Day after day, thousands of gallons of sulfur laden water bubble up out of the earth and, doing what gravity tells it top do, flows over the earth, into the Missouri river then the Mississippi and on to the gulf of Mexico.
Now if you had a business and dropped a tablespoon of sulfuric acid into the same river system the EPA would have a conniption. The local Sierra Club would write letters of condemnation and launch a lawsuit to get loot to cover everybody's perceived damages. The school teachers would get the eight years olds 'go public' with their newly learned anxieties. The television crew will be out in force filming geriatricly expired fish and claiming sulfur poisoning.
All it took was a couple of beer to finally see that to the goofy green environmentalist, profit = pollution. And Ben Franklin was right when he said, "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy".

jobs, work, effort

2009-01-28T20:15:00.000-08:00

Have you heard the profound slogan "unemployment is not working"? That catchy sentence is usually followed by, "We demand more jobs". The two statements taken together, show clearly the ignorance associated with the meaning of the term "jobs".

And from the high level of unemployment in Canada we can deduce that few people really understand what is required to promote "jobs". Our political leaders make statements such as; "job sharing may be the only answer" and "the prosperity of the seventies is gone forever". No cure will ever come from people who make those kind of statements, statements that simply show economic ignorance.

Much of the confusion at the root of our unemployment problem stems from a misunderstanding of three terms or concepts. The terms effort and work must be clearly defined in order to understand the concept "job".

Let's begin with effort. Effort can be any kind of activity, mental or physical, that requires energy. Effort can be either productive or nonproductive, beneficial to our lives or detrimental. It can be work or play, both for ourselves or for others, but effort is totally self-generated. By that I mean, your effort can only be mentally directed by you.

Work is constructive effort, effort expended to support life. Work is a goal oriented and thought directed activity. And we all know when we are doing work for work is an activity that is distinctly different from play or exercise or entertainment.

The term job describes a type of work, work that someone else is willing to pay you to do. A job is an activity or a task that someone wants done and they are prepared to pay you to do that task.

Often the term job and occupation are interchanged, yet reason tells us this is not really true. One may have an occupation, but no job and one may have a job outside of one's occupation.

The term "job" is also incorrectly used to describe personal possession with regard to work. As a example, the phrase; "my job is ___" or "it's my job to ___". In actual fact, the owner of a piece of work is usually not the person being paid to do the work. This becomes very obvious if you quit a job, for the job doesn't stop. The boss simply hires someone else to finish the job.

There is still more confusion because jobs are often equated with the term duty. Many persons continue to fulfill a perceived obligation, sometimes after the pay stops and often after any pleasure for doing the task is gone.

Simply put, a job is nothing more than work or effort that is directed to satisfy another person. Your concern is payment, but a job appears when someone is willing to pay for time spent doing a particular piece of work. The prime concern of the person willing to pay for the work is always to get the work done or the product out.

Very few people comfortably accept this glaring fact. The prime concern of the person paying is not the economic well-being of the person employed. This is not due to any malicious or uncaring aspect in an employer's attitude - it's strictly reality. On a one-to-one basis this is easy to see. When you hire a person, say a plumber, your only concern is to get the job done, to get the toilet unplugged or the faucet to stop dripping. Someone who hires a thousand people concerns themselves with exactly the same thing, getting the product out.

Often needless personal devastation takes place when a man is fired or "his" job terminated yet jobs are terminated because of market conditions. To take personal offense at a market condition makes absolutely no sense.

The market is the sum total of all voluntary exchanges, all the trading that takes place in the entire world. The loss of a job means that an employer can't make money selling that particular effort on the world market. This may show a lack of accuracy on the part of an employer in assessing the market correctly and in desperation he cuts out work that costs too much. The market is refusing to pay.

A fact to keep in mind is that all persons pay on a voluntary basis. Be it product or work, everyone is faced with three choices. They can; (a) pay the price, (b) do the work or make the product themselves, and (c) do without.

If an employer is unable to sell our effort at a profit , we must look to the market ourselves and find a place where we can exchange our effort for the things we require for life. We will have to sell a product or our time ourselves. Selling directly into the market is the fastest way to learn just how much your time is valued by everyone else, and establishes a realistic view of personal worth.

It's the willingness of exchange that is too often forgotten. Pay does not come from unwilling employers. Expecting too much pay for work is the cause of unemployment.

Most people forget that effort is individual and self-directed. It requires thought and our effort, if constructive is called work. Can we wait for someone else to solve our problems, especially when the cure probably must come from within ourselves? Our effort is really the only commodity that we do control.

On a daily basis, time is the single commodity we all receive equally. Our personal sense of worth, our egos, depend on personal accomplishments. It is the effectiveness of our time utilization that governs our personal satisfaction with life. The power to use our time constructively comes from our own minds, the rational thinking process all of us are capable of following if we try.

Yes, unemployment is not working, but to demand a job is to demand a willingness beyond our control, a mythological impossibility. Recognizing that exchange is voluntary is the first step back to the affluence that we had and yes, can have again. Work is truly unlimited and does not need to be shared. The market supports anyone that offers a value for sale, but only if the price is right. Jobs are plentiful when a person's efforts are valued. The market is there and the choice is up each of us.

The Rational Capitalist: Houses Are Not Investments

2009-01-24T06:53:00.000-08:00

The Rational Capitalist: Houses Are Not Investments
If, as you imply, houses are not investments then my definition of investment differs from your. I can see the consumable rule applying to a hamburger but not to a 'good' that retains value in the market place. The house, while possibly of eroding value, retains value to other purchasers. In that sense, I see a house to be a money substitute, something that an individual may choose to invest time and energy into rather, especially when faced with fiat currency, than something akin to a Madoff investment scheme.
Would you grant that to a builder or a developer, a house is an investment? In the sense that an Ipod is the reason we build the factory, a capitalist will purchase the necessary 'bricks and mortar' to build a factory to produce a consumer good, anticipating a future return on the original investment. In that sense, I can see the house to be rather similar to a few crates of Ipods. Do you consider the investment characteristic to end when something is not able to produce futher goods?
If I choose to build a hotel with my 'bricks and motar' does the hotel become an investment? If that is the case, renting the house to someone should also recatigorize the house as an investment.
Confused.

budget advise

2009-01-13T10:10:00.000-08:00

The Prime Minister, The Honorable Stephen Harper:

Please consider this, my voice as to what I consider to be appropriate actions for my government to take, actions to constructively address the current financial instability.

I support a free market solution to the problem. I hold the viewpoint that the country is far better off with less monetary interference by government. I see monetary intervention by the government as an attempt to counter the decisions already made by the market and that the intervention will only exacerbate the problems in the long run. The market, being the response to the accumulated decisions of every acting human being, remains beyond the control of the government and the best that could be done is to help people make wiser decisions.

Firstly, we need to agree that a viable economy is not an accident. The combined, rational, productive actions of a lot of people add up to make a sustainable economy. The current crisis developed because poor decisions were made. We have blamed investment banks and other financial players but these people made their decisions based on the rules that are in place in our society. The rules are made by our governments, mainly to channel the efforts of the citizens into directions that government officialdom deems to be best and when the results don’t measure up to the expectations, the rules are to blame, not the people.

I have yet to see government officials acknowledge any responsibility for making poor rules and that is a complete abdication of truth and responsibility. I cannot see the end of the fiscal debacle until the true causes are openly identified and addressed.

The inappropriate American administration response to the fiscal dilemma is a wasteful path I urge my government to not follow. The billions of dollars distributed in an irresponsible, cavalier attitude must be repaid by the common citizen in taxes or reduced purchasing power. It is criminal to see tin-pot dictatorship tactics taking place in what was once the greatest, freest country in history.

Clearly, the money system is in serious trouble. Governments all around the world have taken on an ever increasing burden of obligations in order to collect votes. Most people know, because there is insufficient revenue from taxation, governments have resorted to fiscal manipulation to make up the shortfall. The less informed people support the entitlement programs because they have been convinced someone else will supply the funds. The wisest people know better and make certain the bulk of their wealth is inaccessible to the government. If this wealth is ever to be available for investment in our country again there are a number of things the government must do.

The government must stop spending taxpayer’s money to prop up institutions and organizations the taxpayer will not fund voluntarily. By that I mean everything from the CBC through to Bombardier. That also includes any bailout for the auto industry.

The government must reduce the number of restrictions it places on business activity. The recycling mandates and other useless environmental restrictions are both costly and discourage the development of resources. Investment discouraging rules drive mobile wealth out of the country.

The government must stabilize the value of our currency. The erratic float of our dollar for the past year has shown us just how unhealthy the investment climate has become. Rational business decisions are impossible without financial and regulatory stability. I realize the Canadian dollar is rather a small time player in the world of currency but I believe that the government is not without power to stabilize our own dollar. Below is a suggestion made by Walter Williams, economic professor, George Mason University, that, if implemented would serve as a solid start.

“ It is not wise for us to permit a few people on the Federal Reserve Board to have life and death power over our economy. My recommendation for reducing some of that power is to repeal legal tender laws and eliminate all taxes on gold, silver and platinum transactions. That way there would be money substitutes and the government money monopoly would be reduced and hence the ability to tax — some people would say steals from — us through inflation.”

Clearly, if we are to retain an affluent society, something must be done to repair the world’s financial system, something beyond the scope of this letter. As a member of the G7, Canada has a voice and I would urge the government to consider the work of Judy Shelton, documented in Money Meltdown, as a thoughtful starting point for a return to financial sanity.

The paper dollars printed by the government are IOU’s on the goods and service offered for sale in this country. The people who produce those goods and services are the only people entitled to hold those dollars, the rest are counterfeit claims to goods and services that have not been earned. If we are to consider the long term viability of Canada, the inflated printing of money must stop and all distributed entitlements must be financed out of taxes. The budgets must balance.

The role of government needs to be redefined. The present mind-set, that the purpose of government is to redistribute the wealth of the land into the hand of all who need it, is wrong and impossible to sustain. The government must provide an atmosphere of trust that investments will be honoured, physical force and fraud will be punished and promise to let the peaceful citizens decide for themselves, how they choose to spend their lives.

The best role is for the government to thoroughly review all the restrictions that have been imposed on the activities of the citizens of this country. By rationalizing laws, a wealth of funding that is now absorbed in the court system could be better employed for economic activity to enrich the lives of people presently defending themselves from bad laws. The various human right commissions come immediately to mind.

I am aware that my suggestions do not coincide with the strident voices urging the government to spend its way out of the financial quagmire but anyone prepared to think, knows the way out of a debt crisis is not by taking on ever more debt. I believe a clear appeal to the thinking public can overcome all the irrational arguments in favour of further destruction of the wealth of our country.

Gary Seinen, seine44@gmail.com

free markets

2009-01-06T12:56:00.000-08:00

I was having a thought the other day and concluded that a person who believes in free markets as a solution to economic problems, will inevitably develop a positive outlook on life.

An integrated view of how a free market works means that one makes the fundamental assumption that each individual has a better idea of what they want than some central controlling body. Now if an individual can have control of their own actions but are denied the ability to control the actions of someone else, we're going to see a different world. Things never get better when everyone is focused on what someone else wants and with each person's limited knowledge of what is best for the other guy, forces the other guy to accept their standard.

On the other hand, the people who what to fine tune our society can only wind up frustrated. Its never possible to find a leader who give exactly what some meddler thinks is the right amount or form of meddle. Even when the so-called right amount of meddling is proposed the victim often squirts out from under the dominating thumb and doesn't do what they were supposed to do. So the controller usually draw the conclusion that the leaders are corrupt, that his fellow man is ungrateful or that the world just isn't fair.

In the end, a believer in free market realizes that economic problems tend to disappear when the intervention is reduced while the controllers remain forever frustrated as nothing ever seems to work the way they believe it should.

The free marketer's biggest problem remains cutting through all the bs and selling capitalism.

conrad black

2008-12-28T20:02:00.000-08:00

The Editor:

On this day, the tenth anniversary of Conrad Black offspring, The National Post, I’m remembering the man’s current ordeal and I’d like share my thoughts, if not with the NP readership, at least with the editorial board.

I wonder if, when some three years ago those disgruntled Hollinger shareholders who asked the courts to help them get more money, had any idea of the events they would set in motion. And when the courts deemed Conrad Black’s management team to be evil and removed control from the majority owners, were these shareholders rubbing their hands in anticipation of huge profits now that the evil Conrad Black couldn’t get any more non compete payments? I wonder if those same shareholders now have any second thoughts about the wisdom of bring charges against Conrad Black, especially after seeing what kind of people the courts appointed to temporarily ‘mismanage’ the company. Its become rather easy to see that much of what has transpired since the Black management team was removed has not been of any benefit to the people who originally thought they were being short-changed.

Its also become obvious that the legal industry, both the court appointed directors and the other representatives from the legal system, have been very successful in filling their own wallets while emptying those of the shareholders and Conrad Black’s and making sure that very little actual justice was done.

Now, after confiscating as much of Conrad Black’s assets are they were able to, probably with the intent of limiting his ability to defend himself, the courts have sentenced him to serve 6 ½ years in prison for failing to share non compete payments with those envious Hollinger shareholders. So does that vindicate the launching of the lawsuit by Hollinger shareholders? Is justice being served by upholding their claim and penalizing Conrad Black?

I personally believe we have before us one of the most glaring examples of a legal industry completely out of touch with justice. The proof of this to be found in looking at the value of Hollinger stock since the courts took over. When Conrad Black was removed from control, the stock’s value plummeted. With this in mind, it becomes easy to see how the individuals that choose to buy any news publishing assets from Conrad Black would pay to keep him from re-entering as a competitor. It has always been obvious that non compete promises only needed to be extracted from one individual, Conrad Black, not from other Hollinger shareholders, so why should the undeserving get paid?

In the competitive world of newspaper publishing, the Black controlled Hollinger was considered the third largest newspaper chain in the world, a far cry from its insignificant status today. Clearly, no investors can be found who see the court-appointed opportunistic directors or the envy-riddled Hollinger shareholders as having any competence in the newspaper publishing field. I’m sure that if any members of that forlorn group, suggested they were prepared to publish anything, the competitors would laugh hysterically.

Despite the above, some twelve jurors considering that shareholders of Hollinger do have a legitimate claim to remuneration from the non-compete payments made to Conrad Black. Truth be told, even the company share values were based on Mr. Black’s ability to make newspapers profitable. Its easy to see that the financial community doesn’t agree with the jury and considers the remnants of Hollinger to be of rather insignificant value as compared to it worth before Mr. Black disappeared from the board of directors .

I cannot think of a more clear example, showing explicitly what ratio of value a good CEO has to a company in relation to the shareholders who just put up a little money. ‘Riding on the shoulders of giants’ comes to mind as an apt description.

But what of the legal system that laid the charges and encouraged a group of reason-challenged jurors to bring forth a guilty charge on Conrad Black? Is there no one to sit in judgment of the real thieves, the group of people who deliberately destroyed Conrad Black and in doing so, successfully destroyed the company and squandered the shareholder’s assets, all the while handsomely rewarding themselves, the huge tax-collector financed legal industry with the clout to impoverish anyone?

At this stage of the fiasco, I’d say the shareholders got what they deserved and only Conrad Black is paying any penalty. If the judge had sought to help the shareholders while penalizing Mr. Black, she’d have ignored giving jail time. She’d have ordered Conrad Black to manage Hollinger for the five years for a token salary of possibly a dollar a year, while only retaining his own shares and the profits from them. I’d say that’s probably the only way Hollinger shareholders would ever have gotten a financial return on their soured investment.

When he is released, Conrad Black will be some seventy years old and, thanks to Jean Cretien, without Canadian citizenship. If we want to do something for the man that started this paper, the only Canadian paper with which I have a good deal of agreement, each of us can lobby this government as hard as possible, to reinstate Conrad Black’s citizenship. We couldn’t add a better citizen to this country.

Gary Seinen

truth

2008-11-22T16:46:00.001-08:00

Truth:
As human beings, the most significant problem we face today is the same problem all of our ancestors have faced throughout history - how can we be certain a particular thing is true or false. How can we know when we’re being misled?

Each of us, as individuals, must be able to see what to reject and what to accept in order to get the most out of life, to use our time to support things we won’t later regret, to avoid looking back at life and saying “I’d have done better if I’d realized “that” was nothing but a lie.”

Some of us are lucky enough to have parents who give much thought to truth and falsehood, who have consistent beliefs and pass their evaluative tools on to their children.

Other lucky members of society may, when going through school, meet an exceptional instructor who teaches them to reject all learning by rote, to question the validity of all things, especially that for which questionable proof is offered.

Largely though, the vast majority of people, myself no exception, fail to learn that many of the things we are taught early in life to be true, are in fact false. Some ideas (like santa claus) were never meant to be taken very seriously as the originator knew them to be false and was very aware that the society regarded them as false as well. These kind of lies aren’t real dangerous. The very dangerous ideas are those ideas believed to be true by the person feeding us the information.

The importance of learning a reliable method to determine truth can’t be overstated yet we will not, at present, be able to find a significant number of people who even agree on what is an appropriate method to determine the validity of an idea. Some will tell you to believe the bible. Some will say trust the experts. Some will say believe nothing.

For myself, the fog finally lifted after studying the philosophy of objectivism and learning that reality doesn’t lie. If facts observed in the real world are rejected to prove an argument then the argument is necessarily false.

contractor dictionary

2008-11-22T16:24:00.000-08:00

A CONTRACTOR’S DICTIONARY
(Courtesy of the Windsor Construction Association)

CONTRACTOR: A gambler who never gets to shuffle, cut or deal.

BID OPENING: A poker game in which the losing hand wins.

BID: A wild guess carried out to two decimal points.

LOW BIDDER: A contractor who is wondering just what he left out.

ENGINEER’S ESTIMATE: The cost of construction in heaven.

PROJECT MANAGER: A conductor of an orchestra in which every musician belongs to a different union.

CRITICAL PATH METHOD: a management technique for losing your shirt under perfect control.

STRIKE: An effort to increase egg production by strangling the chicken.

DELAYED PAYMENT: A tourniquet applied at the pockets.

COMPLETION DATE: The point at which the liquidation damages start.

AUDITOR: A person who goes in after the war is lost and bayonets the wounded.

LAWYER: A person who goes in after the auditors and strips the bodies.

fishing

2008-10-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

Open letter to the Sierra Legal Defense Fund:

Thank you for bringing to my attention the Department of Fisheries and Oceans study that claims to prove silt is at the root of the disappearing salmon problem and that in particular, logging road construction produces the silt that is causing the devastation experienced by the fishing industry.

I personally do not believe this to be true. Logging roads, not to mention an number of other roads, have been around far longer than the fish have been missing. For many years, when no consideration was given to silting or erosion at all, we saw some of the largest returns of fish. As well, the mighty, muddy Fraser river has enticed significant numbers of returning salmon over the last ever so many centuries. No, I think there is a different cause for the fish loss.

Some people say that the El Nino overheated water is the problem - that predatory fish that follow the warmer water north are enjoying juvenile salmon for breakfast, lunch and diner.
However, I disagree with that as well. I think the DFO’s “environmentally friendly” catch and release policies are the cause and definitely warrant much more research.

Consider the experience from a fishy perspective, of being hooked - the sensation of total shock when that insignificant meal turns out to be attached to your lower lip and it is now controlling you. And regardless of how hard you fight the excruciating pain you aren’t powerful enough to resist the relentless pull in a direction you don’t want to go. As you weaken, you’re being dragged away from all of your acquaintances and in the periphery of your senses you detect this huge plastic object with a bunch of yelling and waving humans in it. With the last feeble shwish of your tail, in the last desperate effort to escape, you experience the final indignity - the net.

Now, totally trapped, you are dragged from the net, some contaminating fingers are inserted in your gills and while you’re held in the most degrading position you’ve ever been in, a flash of light blinds you. All your dreams of spawning and leaving a million descendants to carry on for you come to an end.

But such is not yet the case, for you’ve been caught by a fisherperson who, by law, must follow the practice of “catch and release” for all salmon caught. Terrified, in pain, blind and disoriented, this individual drops you back in the water.

As a human being, consider the psychological damage incurred by a four year old cold blooded creature that has spent it’s entire life gulping down things that don’t do it any harm - suddenly to have a bait fish return such a horrific bite.

But it doesn’t end there. After this fish fully comprehends that he/she is once more free, a second psychological blow truly destroys the fish’s ego. Now waves of self doubt and inadequacy overwhelm this rejected fish. Yes, this fish now concludes that he/she was judged not worthy of retention, not even fit to be eaten, for while you may be able to see life from a fishy perspective, no fish has the ability to see life from a human perspective. This fish doesn’t view being released as an act of benevolent consideration; it simply feels rejected.

I’m sure that this fish, surviving such a traumatic experience, will, after a time of reflection, decide not to reproduce. A fish having knowledge of being caught and then rejected would want to spare their offspring a similar fate.

I’m convinced that the “catch and release” survivors have become sterile, probably by choice, or from psychological damage - something only further research could tell us. Quite possibly these fish are even presenting a convincing argument to their “in school” peers in favor of celibacy.

My theory also explains why the Department of Fisheries and Oceans officials do such an abysmal job of predicting numbers of returning salmon accurately. These celibate fish are counted and expected to reproduce by DFO officialdom but when reaching the spawning grounds they don’t deliver the goods - their eggs don’t hatch , so no fingerlings and four years later, no adults.

However, I’m sure the DFO is doing its best to protect the fish from the fish’s greatest source of predation - humans. Fisherpersons are in fact, disappearing faster than are the fish and to the DFO’s credit, though it took a few years longer on the west coast, they’ve managed both sides of Canada equally well.

I regret that my presentation lacks the polish of the study by the DFO , but I happen to be a taxpayer rather than a tax spender and can only afford a simple letter to the editor. If the public were to contribute as generously to me as they do to the DFO, I would be able to hire the appropriate help and conduct a thorough study. My thesis could then have at least as much credibility as theirs.