Working in Montréal today --Worn out cassettes of The Grateful Dead

Good morning folks, 

I am working in Montréal today.

Sometimes the world conspires against a good Pulp.   Last night at racquetball in game 1 I experienced a 'twang' in my back, mid left, middle of the pack of the Latissimus Dorsi, like a stitch but more like a knife stabbed in almost to the lung.

This was irritating as hell, as Bob and I were down 10-2 against Tony and Larry.   So played through I did.  Some magic ace serves, several high arc heartbreakers, a few pinch kill shots and we tied it up 10-10.  Now just so you know, play is to 11 but you need to win by 2.

We got up to 11-11, but then it just became brutal. Side out, side out, side out, side out, no points ether side, and then finally during my serve I just.. quit.  I could not move another inch.

Tried hitting the stretch room, felt a bit better after 20 minutes of stretching figured I'd be able to at least drive home, sat in the steam room for another 20, went home, popped a couple Ibprophin, had a way hot Epsom Salt bath and slept.

Woke up late, hot shower and shave, had a very interesting time putting my socks on, back is still sore, but it's survivable. Left the house around the same time that most ppl on flight 402 were at the gate.  Made great time on the drive, parked, tossed some seniors, small children and one guy with a walker out of my way at security and promptly went to the wrong gate.

Now in fairness to me, I did receive a text msg from a colleague that told me the flight was at gate 31 so I did not check myself, but nonetheless.. VITAL Pulp topic picking time was lost.

After a brisk walk to the correct gate, board, some banter with colleagues and here we are.

The newspaper is less than inspiring.  Oil is down, election bullcrap is up, Former President Jimmy Carter has cancer and the Chinese yuan has dropped value.. again.

Yawn.  Except the cancer part, sorry to hear about that Jimmy.

Oh, the Conservative ads that claim that legalizing pot will result in high use among teens, will result in addictions, and causes mental illness are all bunk.

This while the latest Conservative word is that the majority of Canadians don't want pot legalization (yes, they do, more than 60% want it), Harper will spend even more $$ in fighting pot and will seek stiffer penalties.  Yeah, spending tax payer money on something the tax payers clearly don't want and turning 1 in 5 high school students into criminals.

The Toronto based International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP) released a report of 11 campaign myths.  Seems there is no correlative increase in mental illness despite the global rise in pot use, less than 10% of users will ever experience addiction as apposed to 20% for cocaine and 67% for tobacco, and the claim that pot today is 300% stronger than the stuff we smoked? Yeah.. No it's not.  And.. In Colorado, since legalization, pot use has dropped in teens from 22% to 20%.

I can explain that last number, it might be less cool to smoke pot in the park when the seniors are grabbing all of the benches, smoking doobies and listening to worn out cassettes of The Grateful Dead.

Have a great day, practice good posture and eat healthy.

Working in Montréal today --Smoke, mirrors and iron bars

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

Crime is falling in Canada.  Falls each year.

Since 2009 murder has fallen from 600 and change to 505 in 2013.  In fact that is the lowest rate of murders in Canada since 1966.

Yet, the Harper gov't continues to shove crime bills down our throats.   The latest bill is the 'life-without-parole' bill which calls for 35 years before parole instead of the current 25, but it also includes something else.  The role of Cabinet in release decisions.

Figure I would let that sink in a bit.

In 1959 Canada created the National Parole Board.  It is the Board that administers, reviews, enforces, revokes and monitors parole releases and those releasees.  It is non political, their  mandate is public safety and offender rehabilitation.  The gov't passes laws (those tend to be political) and the Judiciary applies those laws and when applicable sentences offenders to punishment.  Now the gov't will get a routine second pass at individuals found guilty of crimes.

It will be a bit off for Cabinet.  A few bills to discuss, lunch in the cafeteria --are they still serving seal meat? -- and an inmate gets dragged in wearing shackles for a parole hearing.  What a waste of time and what a step backwards from division of powers and responsibility.

But what can we expect from Harper?  I recall back in 2010 they socked the taxpayers with a large tax bill to build more prisons, yet it is not just murder that is down, crime overall is down in Canada.  Back in 2010 Stockwell Day ..

Hey wait a second Uncle Daniel, wasn't there suppose to be a plebiscite or referendum to determine if Stockwell Day was to be renamed Doris Day?

Yeah, there was .. I'll need to check with Rick Mercer.

Anyway, back to 2010.  Day explained that we needed more prisons because although crime was down, it was only reported crime that was down but unreported crime was up.

Huh?

Uh.. Doris, did we end up locking away any perps of unreported crimes?  Do the police investigate unreported crimes?  Is this a future world where three psychics lay in a tank of water and get visions of future unreported crimes?

I can't be sure but I think it was a CBC survey that found at 70% of those victims of unreported crime surveyed did not report because the crime or the impact was not important enough.  I'll ask the question, if the vic doesn't care, why would society build a prison to lock the perp up?

Harper explained that this new bill is targeted at those most dangerous of offenders and rattled off a bunch of crimes that make us all shutter, but those offenders are already denied parole as a matter of routine by the Board.

No statistics of reoffenders have been provided, no stats on how this would improve anything, protect anyone.  There are currently 200 convicted murders living in Canada in the community on parole.  Their release is determined by the Board based on the risk the individual poses to other members of the community.  The Board does not make the decision based on when an election may take place. 

This is just a big PR move for Harper coming into what will likely be an October election.  Waste of time, money and my attention.

Have a good day.  Spring is almost here.

Working in Ottawa today --Free trade, locked up citizens

Be afraid, be very afraid.

But first an apology.  I really set up my readers, last week a satirical (and dammed funny according to you) look at home reno and self help TV shows and then this week, BAM! Back to scary political shit.

Under way right now are negotiations that will sell your soul to the multinational corporations or at the very least sell away all of your rights to privacy, anonymity, and perhaps even your freedom.  Oh yeah, and guarantee profit to corps when they can't pursue activity because its been ruled as dangerous to the environment or human health.. boo hoo.

The TPP.  The Trans Pacific Partnership is a 12 nation free trade and corporate rights partnership spearheaded by the U.S. and includes Canada, Australia, Japan, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

Interesting it is called a trade agreement but only 2 or 26 chapters of negotiation have to do with trade, the rest deal with things like the criminalization of copyright infringement.  Also things like holding ISP executives (like me) criminally liable for customer and third party content and copyright infringement.  Wouldn't it be nice to lock me up because customer Billy threatens his ex-wife in an email where he also included a jpeg of Itchy and Scratchy?

I suppose holding ISP accountable is cheaper than dealing with the root issues of copyright infringement of Intellectual Property which is that the movie houses and other content producers have failed business models and although they pay no property tax on IP, they want the cops (funded by prop. tax) to chase down infringers (see:  http://pulp.puckett.ca/2012/12/working-in-montreal-today-tax-bastards.html) .  ISP executives are easy to find, society can just hold them accountable and have them develop (and pay for?) systems to stop copyright infringement and let Disney benefit from 120 years of copyright protection (yeah, the TPP provides for even more years of protection).  

Is 120 years enough?  I mean without 120 years of copyright protection we risk actors saying, "oh the hell with this, why should I act if someone can copy me in 70 years!".  Same thing with poets and musicians. :p

Carefull if little Johnny starts drawing crayon pictures of Mickey Mouse, that blantant disregard for the intellectual property rights of Disney can land him straight into Juvie!

To continue.. The TPP would eclipse the current the North America Free Trade agreement and constrain democracy in the interests of the multinationals.  We are already seeing this with the secret negotiations by Harper and what remaining staff he has (lost a few to resignations lately :).  The Canadian trade negotiator has stated that he would not say how the agreement will cause changes to Canadian laws.

This is a very dangerous treaty that will impose a corporate globalization on Canadians without a single vote from the electorate.  The TPP will allow the transfer of your private information including banking and tax data without regard to our current privacy laws.

I cannot stress enough how much Canadians should be against this selling off of your rights to the U.S. and the multinationals all so the U.S. can block China into a corner and impede alternative and sustainable laws and business models.

Have a good day.