murraysovereign

Our GST, by law, must be shown separately on the receipt. The government of the day wanted to ensure everyone was always aware of how much tax was being added to the bill. This makes it much more difficult for future governments to increase the tax rate than would be the case if it was hidden in the price. If it's hidden in the price, people eventually forget that it's there, and it's easier for governments to add a quarter-point here and a half-point there. Out of sight, out of mind. Because it's added on at the till every time you buy something, people are constantly reminded of it, and consequently there's constant pressure on the government to reduce the tax or eliminate it altogether. Anyone attempting to increase the rate might as well just go straight to Rideau Hall and ask the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament.

How did the two parties' colours get reversed? Everywhere else that I can think of, red is associated with the left (Communists, Social Democrats, Tony Blair's Labour Party...), and blue with the right. And I think it used to be that way in the US, as well. When did the switch happen, and why?

Mandatory voting would work better if you could also somehow make it mandatory to pay attention and get properly informed on the issues. We may be implementing a transferrable vote system up here (1st choice, 2nd choice, etc...) in a few years - there's going to be a referendum on it at the next provincial election. If it passes, the following election would be run under the new system - sometime in 2009 or 2010.

"Evidence Mounts"?? You've cited one instance of speculation - it's neither "evidence" nor "mounting". And if this is the same type of scanner we use here in Squamish for municipal elections, the ballot ends up in a sealed bin below the machine after it's been scanned. So a manual recount is quite easy. So it seems an odd system to target for rigging the vote, since the tampering is so easy to verify. Maybe lots of Democrats just voted for Bush?

No need to do that: Washington = George I, Bush Sr = George II, Bush Jr = George III

But Iran needs the income from petroleum sales as badly as the West needs the oil, so the likelihood of them turning off the tap is pretty remote.

In their final home game prior to the election, the Washington Redskins today were were defeated by the Green Bay Packers 28-14. That would indicate a Kerry victory on Tuesday.

Hawaiians must have suddenly realized that a large part of their state's economy revolves around sending big ships around the world to blow up stuff. Voting for Bush is clearly in their economic interest - "jobs for the boys", and all that.

Actually, the backlog is due to the US Postal Service deciding to send all Canadian-bound mail to only three centres - Vancouver, Toronto, and Halifax I think - instead of the six or seven they used to send things to. So the Vancouver mail sorting and customs clearance centre saw its incoming volume more than double a few weeks ago. Customs has sent additional people to help clear the resulting backlog, but it's going to take a while yet. Not sure why the US post office decided to stop sending mail through Calgary, Winnipeg, etc... Oh, and I've just started reading "Alexander the Great", and am about half-way through Shakespeare's "Henry V" - should finish it tonight, as I'm just about at the battle of Agincourt.

One of my favourite descriptions of Italian drivers was that they all drive "as if it's illegal to be behind someone."

I see - it's because the candidate selection process runs off the voters list, so you have to indicate which party's primary you want to participate in - correct? We've always kept the two processes separate. If you want to vote in the election you have to make sure you're on the voters list, which is pretty easy to do. If you want to have a say in candidate selection, you have to buy a membership in whichever party you're interested in before you're allowed to vote in their candidate selection. There are still lots of games played at that party level, and some candidate selection meetings can get pretty ugly, but at least it can be argued that they're all willing participants - kind of like hockey players acceding to a degree of physical violence when they step onto the ice. But when the general election comes around there are very few instances of eligible voters being disenfranchised, because the parties have no part in registering voters, and there's no link between party affiliation and voters list.

I've always wondered why you guys declare a party affiliation when you register to vote - can someone explain the reason to me? Up here in our oppressive Stalinist Gulag, we just have to produce proof of citizenship, and something showing our current residential address. No-one asks what party we're affiliated with, because there's no earthly reason for them to want to know. It's simply none of their God-damned business. Are you eligible to vote - yes or no. That's it. It seems a similar approach in the US would eliminate an awful lot of these games and dirty tricks, so I'm genuinely curious why the present system persists.

They've included Canada in the present coalition - maybe they're including Afghanistan operations to pad the list?

We do. We're a net petroleum exporting country (the US imports more of its oil from Canada than from Saudi Arabia) and the rising price of oil is one of the main factors behind the rising value of the Canadian dollar relative to the greenback. So not only are you Americans helping to subsidize us godless communists and all our inherently evil social programs, but you're also helping to bring down the retail price of all our US-sourced climbing gear like Five-Tens and the new Camalots and so on. But because the exchange rate is dropping along with the retail prices, you won't benefit because you're still ultimately paying in US dollars. Ain't economics fun?

Squamish Council last night voted to not support a gondola on the Chief, but that they would be willing to consider plans for an alternate location. In all likelihood, the proponents will be back soon with a proposal to align the lift so it runs up into the Shannon Creek drainage somewhere. So it will still be based in the gravel pit, but will run to a terminus somewhere south of the Chief, and probably higher. More details will emerge once they draw up their new plans, so stay tuned.

I've switched the store over to WiFi because I didn't want to bother stringing a new cable for the public internet terminal after the old cable shorted out. Setting up WiFi cost not much more than the new cable would have been, and I didn't have to spend an entire day up on a ladder. So if you're looking for free access points in Squamish, there are now two that I know of - ~Valhalla Pure~ Outfitters, and the Howe Sound Inn.

Sorry to hear about this - we seem to have had a really quiet summer for B&Es this year, until the long weekend. In the future, don't hesitate to stop by the store and if we have room we'll gladly stash your surplus gear in the back room - especially the real valuables that are hard to replace. On the day these break-ins happened, we were babysitting three windsurfers and a violin while their owners hiked the Chief before heading home after their holiday. It's too late this time, but in the future remember that it's an option.

Really? I haven't watched in ages, so wasn't aware of this. The system used in Halifax was an artificial carpet - how do they run current through grass?

Chris Everett and Martina Navratilova played a demonstration match in Halifax some 6 or 7 (?) years ago, testing an automatic line-call system. There was an electronic grid laid along the side and base lines, and the ball had fine copper wires mixed in with the usual fuzzy stuff. If the ball landed out of bounds a bell rang or a red light flashed or something - pretty simple, really. As I recall, it worked well, and there was talk of employing it in tournaments on a trial basis, but nothing seems to have come of it. But maybe it's just as well - there's no enjoyment in watching John McEnroe screaming at a little black box next to the water cooler.

After hearing so much about this outfit, today I actually checked out their site, and there's some pretty cutting-edge journalism going on there. For instance, this headline caught my eye: Now, I don't know all the ins and outs of how the media work, but you have to figure that in-depth, comprehensive election analysis doesn't come cheap. So cut them some slack, will you? After all, explaining current affairs to an audience of two-year-olds probably isn't as easy as you might think.

Maybe it's a steroid flashback?

This news came as a bit of a surprise - the last couple of times I've seen him on the tv talk-show book-flog circuit he looked to be in great shape. He's lost a good deal of weight, seemed really energetic and upbeat, and was basically the picture of good health.

It's worth remembering, too, that we've been asked to show ID at check-in for years now, long before 9/11. It's just that, prior to the Patriot Act, no-one saw it as a sinister government plot to imprison us all. But in the paranoid atmosphere these days, every little thing casts a much longer shadow and looks far scarier than it used to.

I especially liked when the Australians went postal and burned down the French Consulate. Who's Greg gonna side with on that one: the Aussie Pinko Liberal Pussy Anti-Nuke demonstrators who lit the fire, or the poor misunderstood French who were visciously attacked just for wanting to blow up a couple more Pacific atolls?

Oops! Sorry about that, Saddam. It was Rummy's idea, honest. No hard feelings?