murraysovereign

So we're only allowed to cover our faces at Hallowe'en? Since when? And "not rascist"? I call bullshit. That's clearly intended to tell observant Muslims they're not permitted to wear the hijab, whether they want to or not. Who else is that aimed at? Certainly not the Mayor, or any of the Coucillors, or any of the other white residents of the town who, like people all across Canada and the northern States regularly wrap their faces in scarves and balaclavas and the like when it's 30-below-freezing and the wind is howling, regardless of whether it's Hallowe'en or not. And I presume the residents of this good Catholic town permit brides to wear veils on their wedding day, even if it isn't Hallowe'en. And the kid playing goal out on the local hockey pond is allowed to wear a mask, even though it isn't Hallowe'en. How about the burn victim, who covers his face either out of his own self-consciousness, or out of concern for the sensitivities of those around him? Is he going to be run out of town? Not bloody likely. This "prohibition" they have against covering one's face applies only to persons who adhere to a particular religion, and yes, that's clearly rascist. I'm surprised Jay is supportive of this. Since when are you so in favour of government restrictions on your own - perfectly legal - behaviour, Jay? If I want to cover my face I should be allowed to do so, and these clowns have absolutely no right to tell me I can't. You usually come across as the poster boy for libertarianism, Jay, and I've always respected you for that. How come you're so quick to set those principles aside when a bunch of ignorant, xenophobic hillbillies start taking pot-shots at the muslims?

Mentos/Diet Coke Domino Theory

COOL!! Road Curling - what will you guys think of next?? But seriously, that second vehicle, the van, just started sliding straight sideways from a near complete stop. If the road's that slick I don't think you can really blame the driver. And that first one must have had something jamming the throttle open. Either that, or the driver was doing it on purpose.

There's some good updated information, mostly regarding highway improvements and resulting changes to parking and access routes etc. etc.

There's a new book out this fall - The Disaster on Mount Slesse: Harbour Publishing. It's written by a couple of reporters from the Vancouver Sun and/or Province who covered the story at the time. I'm trying to order a few copies for the shop, but the publisher hasn't replied to my e-mail yet.

Given the field, he was certainly the "Green"est candidate, at least in his rhetoric. But as Environment Minister his walk didn't quite measure up to his talk. Ken Dryden would have been fun, just because I liked watching the opposition during Question Period when he was in cabinet. When he got up to answer questions during one of the more heated debates, the Tories started chanting "Pull the Goalie" until the whole House collapsed giggling like school kids - it was one of the finest moments in Parliamentary history. And I couldn't agree more, Dru. I wish the Conservatives would put aside their moral objections and get started on cloning Chuck Strahl. Why do all the halfway decent and honorable politicians lately seem to be dying of cancer? First Chuck Cadman, then Ray Peters here in Squamish, and now Strahl - it's like personal integrity is a death sentence nowadays.

Today was awesome! I took a walk out through the estuary and around the Nexen lands, and it was pretty cool. Lots of water in places where it isn't supposed to be, and all the marshes were completely underwater. I wish I'd grabbed the canoe and gone for a paddle out there, but I would have spent more time bailing out rainwater than paddling. Mamquam FSR is blocked by a mud-slide fairly low down, apparently, but that's heresay at this point. Valleycliff was cut off due to the creek washing out the road just below the hospital. Also Ring Creek/Diamond Head road was washing out just above the university lands - there's a crew up there now attempting to restore order, but it could be a while. Looks like there's a few more days of the same coming, too.

What do they do the rest of the time? Gardening, mostly, I think. Play Bridge if it's raining, maybe the odd hand of Crib; go to hockey games; Curling - you know, the usual stuff. But seriously, the permanent staff is only a relative handful of people. Between general elections they oversee the audits of candidates' spending from the previous elections, review and update the voters lists, manage any by-elections that may come up due to deaths, resignations etc. And this being a parliamentary democracy, they have to be ready to fire up the full election machinery at a moment's notice, because our elections are not pre-scheduled. We could have one called tomorrow, if the government loses a confidence vote in the House of Commons or if the Prime Minister decides he wants to "seek a new mandate" (ie catch the Opposition at a disadvantage in hopes of returning with an increased majority). The vast majority of elections offices are part-time local positions, and are only activated in the event of a general election, or a by-election in that riding.

Jeez, I sure do envy you Americans and all your high-tech super-advanced methods of doing everything. Up here we're still using stone-age voting systems. Get this - our ballots are printed on mere paper, and all they have is the names of the candidates listed from top to bottom, and right next to each name there's a little square box. What you do is, you make an "X" in the little box next to the name of the person you want to vote for (using a little pencil they provide you with in the voting booth ), and then you fold the ballot in half and drop it into a cardboard box near the exit, just before you leave the polling place. How lame is that? It's embarassing, really. And then to add insult to injury, all those ballots are counted - get this - by people for chrissakes. It's positively medieval. Sometimes it can take, like, two or three hours to get the final vote tally - who's got time to wait two or three hours for voting results? I can't wait for us to adopt some sort of Rube Goldberg gee-whiz computerized system - it'll be so much faster and easier and more reliable. Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot the best part. Federal elections in Canada are managed by something called "Elections Canada" - it's like a permanent body in Ottawa whose only purpose is to run federal elections. There's a piece of legislation that sets out all the rules, like eligibility for candidates and voters, campaign spending limits, the design of the ballots and the ballot boxes, all that stuff right down to the type of pencil they put in the voting booth, and this Elections Canada office is charged with ensuring that all the rules are followed, all across Canada, regardless of which party is in charge in this or that province, or whose brother is premier, or how much money some computer company donated to which party. Can you imagine?

I would love to be able to, but Intrawest has had an exclusive deal with Southlands Corp (parent company or licensee of 7-11, at least in this area) for many years, so unless Southlands gives it up, there's no possibility of me snagging it. Besides, I think it's a case of Southlands buying, months in advance, a huge number of passes at a discount. Then they mark them up and sell them at a profit over the course of the season. I don't know if I could finance a purchase of that magnitude on my cash flow.

I haven't done the math lately to check, but it used to be that the 7-11 tix were cheaper unless you were staying long enough to buy a 10-day pass. I suspect that's still the case. Also, the degree of savings varies depending on the time of year, proximity of major holidays and stuff like that. April is starting to get into shoulder season, so you may find tickets at the mountain are discounted enough that the 7-11 tickets aren't that great a deal, if any. I'll try to get over to 7-11 in the next day or two and ask them what happens with their prices through the season, just to make sure.

I've employed a variety of transportation strategies over the years, including just driving everywhere, and cyling everywhere, and a mix of driving and cycling, to now where I hardly drive or cycle anywhere because almost everything is within walking distance. My commute now consists of walking about 1 1/2 blocks from home to work. It's about 2 blocks to the bank, 4 blocks to the pub, there are two grocery stores within 2 blocks, as are my accountant's office and the hardware store and the library and... I'm in the process of retiring my 4X4 pick-up, and replacing it with a Smart car. It's only a two-seater, but probably 95 percent of my driving is done alone anyhow, so I seldom even need the passenger seat. On those rare occasions when I need a truck, or a station wagon, or a van, or whatever, I can walk 2 blocks to the local Hertz outlet and rent whatever I need for the day, for less than it used to cost to fill the gas tank of my truck. And this last, I think, is where a lot of people could realize a lot of savings and efficiency. Most people, when deciding on a new vehicle, look for the one that can do everything they need it to do, even if a lot of those uses are only occasional. For instance, you commute to work, for which a small econo car is adequate. But sometimes you need to haul a load of garbage or yard waste to the dump, so you need a pick-up or at least something that can tow a loaded utility trailer. And once or twice a year you like to go on a ski trip with some of your buddies, so you need a van that can carry 5 people and all their gear. So you buy the van, but because you need to haul the utility trailer once in a while, you buy the one with the bigger engine. So now you've got a full-sized van with a V-8 that can seat 6 or 8 people, and 80 or 90 percent of the time you drive it to work and back, alone. But you have no choice, right? Because once in a while you need the capacity of the larger vehicle. But do you need to own the larger vehicle? No, you just need access to the larger vehicle from time to time. So buy the commuter car, or whatever is the lightest, most economical vehicle you can get away with for 80 or 90 percent of your driving. And on those occasions when you need the larger capacity of a truck or a van, then rent one for the day, and take it back when you're done.

FYI: At least two map distributors are going to be printing 1:50,000 topos. MapTown will be running standard NTS maps on a plotter - lighter paper than at present, but same map. Some sort of waterproof paper version is also being researched, but not tyvek. Once they've been running for a while I suspect they may upgrade their equipment to run heavier grades of paper. I know of some people in Ottawa who will be selling some good quality used printing equipment in the next little while, so maybe they'll put in a bid? Another company tells me they will be running 1:50,000 topos for all of Canada using a different data base than the NTS, fully updated to at least the millenium. They're still developing the product, but it shouldn't be too long before they're ready to go - next spring some time? I don't know if they have waterproof options in the works, but I've suggested they look into it.

Currently the paper 1:50,000 topos retail for $11.45, and the tyvek versions retail for $14.95. I would expect any privately produced topos would reflect a similar price differential between paper and tyvek, for the simple reason that tyvek maps cost more to produce than the paper ones. I have no idea what the actual price will be. All I can say with any certainty is that it won't be anywhere near $50 - $100 per sheet. But as I keep pointing out, paper topo maps at 1:20,000 scale, 20m contours, and full colour, can be produced privately at low enough cost that they retail for $17.95. So it shouldn't require massive government subsidies for someone to produce a smaller, less-detailed map that retails for less than $17.95, probably somewhere in the $12 - $15 dollar range. Add tyvek to the equation, and the retail price would be somewhat higher, maybe an extra 20 - 25%, but again, nowhere near $50 - $100. Why are MapTown and other distributors fighting this? I don't know. Probably because much like people everywhere, they don't like change. None of us do - we all prefer whenever possible to continue doing exactly whatever it is we're doing right now. Until we start doing something else, that is, and then we want to continue doing that. Right now, the distributors have it pretty easy - wait for a retailer like myself to e-mail them an order (they don't even have to answer the phone, for chrissakes), pull the order off the shelf, and send it out in the mail. Then they wait for my cheque to arrive. It's easy money. Once in a while they have to make a list of the maps they've sold out of, and place an order with the office in Ottawa. But if they have to start printing the maps themselves, well that's just more work, isn't it? It's also more profit for them, and deep down inside they know that, but it's just such a hassle, you know? Even if some else starts printing the maps and they continue just acting as the middle-man, they still have to set up a new account with the new publisher, and change all the addresses in their supplier files, and then the new guys will do things slightly differently than the government guys do things, so they'll have to adjust to that, and they'll use different forms than the government, and they'll have to train their staff how to fill in the new forms, and it's all just such a hassle, you know? Imagine if the present situation was reversed, if the maps were presently being printed by private companies, and the federal government announced they were going to go into the business of printing topos. The private map companies would be screaming and howling just as loudly that the government is going to squeeze them out of business and the consumer will be left with no choice but to buy government-issued maps, and there'll be no competition, and no selection, and prices will rise, and quality will go down, and oh my God we're all going to die lost and starving in the woods because we'll have no way of knowing where we are. Basically the same arguments they're using now in the face of the government's announcement that they're getting out of the map-printing business.

I can have a 1:20,000 topo (20m contours) of any location in BC ready for you to pick up on Thursday, maybe even Wednesday. Just tell me which sheet to order. $17.95 for a map with 2 1/2 times the detail of the NTS sheets is not a bad deal. And for considerably less than $50 - $100 per sheet. I don't know if they have access to data files for other provinces because the question has never come up, but when I place my fill-in order on Tuesday I'll ask them. The over-riding point here is that if Clover Point can produce good-quality 1:20,000 maps that retail for $17.95, then they or someone like them can produce 1:50,000 maps for something in the $12 - $15 range. Are they doing it yet? No, of course not. As long as the government was producing them (apparently at a staggering loss), no private publisher would bother duplicating the product. But with the government out of the map-printing business, I predict it won't take long for someone to start.

Private map publishers? -International Travel Maps and Books (ITMB) in Vancouver -GemTrek in Calgary -Clover Point Cartographics in Victoria to name a few. John Baldwin does a waterproof, tear-resistant 1:25,000 topo map of the Spearhead Traverse area (for a good example of a very specialized, small volume niche product) that retails for $19.95 Elaho Publishing distributes a 1:25,000 topo of the Waddington area - another good example of a small-market niche product - that retails for $19.95 We sell Clover Point's 1:20,000 topos for $17.95 I won't be surprised if the 1:50,000 topos end up costing more than $11.45, but I'm pretty certain they won't be anywhere near the $50 - $100 range. And if it's true that the government loses $42.00 on every topo they sell , then - speaking on behalf of taxpayers everywhere - the sooner they stop, the better.

Yeah, but it's not a very efficient light souce - look at how much heat that thing throws off. How much longer would it last if it was replaced with LEDs?

But it's hard to beat the 4-watt bulb at the firehall in Livermore, CA - going steady since 1901. Check out the "Bulb-Cam"

And just for a bit of first-hand experience, I'm replacing a few bulbs in the store right now, and one that burned out last week was installed on Sept 3, 2003 (I write the dates on them, so I can track which brands/styles last the longest). That bulb is on a circuit that stays on 24 hrs a day, so it burned continuously for over 25,000 hours. There are a few CFLs that were installed in the first batch back in February '03 that are still burning 3 1/2 years later. For comparison's sake, the incandescents and halogens we formerly used lasted, on average, about 6 months. And the electrical bill is about 30% lower than it used to be.

All valid questions. Regarding the mercury content: treehugger.com and further zerowaste.org PCBs are not used in CFLs - apparently PCBs were a component of magnetic ballasts, but they have been replaced by electronic ballasts in CFLs. That's according to buildinggreen.com I don't know about energy used in production - I imagine it's higher, but by how much? I constantly see references to CFLs using less energy "over the life of the bulb" which may refer to production as well as working life - I don't know. Presumably all the environmental organisations that are encouraging the use of CFLs have looked into the total life span, and have found a net energy saving, or they wouldn't be promoting them so enthusiastically. And as for Mall-Wart, when you get right down to it, they're just one possible source. I've bought a couple hundred CFLs over the past few years in the course of converting the store over from halogens, and I've never bought a single one from Mall-Wart. Home Depot, Rona, the local Home Hardware and Mountain Building Supplies, even the local grocery store all sell CFLs. Sure they may cost a bit more than at Mall-Wart, but if you don't want to buy them there, no-one's forcing you to.

...and prior to Clinton there was 4 years of another Bush during which the US bases were established in Saudi Arabia, which pissed off Osama. And the 8 years prior to that saw Reagan and his VP Bush and some guy named "Rumsfeld" selling WMDs to a guy named Saddam, and around and around it goes...

I agree it will take a while for new suppliers to emerge, and in the transition it will be a PITA, but I doubt we'll be without access to paper topos for very long. Your Clover Point example is for the 1:30,000 amalgamation of 4 TRIM sheets into one. The regular 1:20,000 TRIM sheets retail at $17.95, vs $11.45 for the current 1:50,000 from Ottawa. So you pay about 50% more for TRIM, which is not bad considering you're getting more than twice as much detail. I wouldn't be surprised if they could produce 1:50,000 topos for pretty close to current retails, assuming the government doesn't soak them for the rights to the data.

I don't doubt it: that's the sheet for Whistler. You can get, like, sooo stoned just standing next to the Whistler map - ask Ross Rebagliatti.

Maybe the headline should read "The end of government-produced paper topo maps in Canada"? As long as the data files are available, and there's sufficient demand for paper topo maps, someone (Clover Point Cartographics, for instance, or Map Connection, or ...) will probably provide them. Hell, I might invest in a large-format printer for the shop and start producing them myself if there's enough demand. So I wouldn't worry about paper topos disappearing altogether - I'll just have to buy them from a different supplier. Government used to have a monopoly on distributing alcohol, too, but since they gave it up I haven't noticed a shortage of beer, wine and spirits. In fact, the stuff is more readily available now than it ever was under provincial control.

FDR fought the war he was confronted with, and fought it through to its conclusion. GWB started to fight the war he was confronted with, by going after Al Quaeda and their Taliban allies in Afghanistan. But then he backed off and went after some side-show of a family grudge match in... Iraq? WTF? That's like FDR starting to go after the Axis, but then just letting that slide and diverting the Allies' energies toward some place like Kenya, or Brazil maybe.