Read some satire and win a free trip to Cuba

Go read this hilarious article by Barbara Ehrenreich, Rolling Stone journalist Peter Biskind and scientist Michio Kaku that claims that a nuclear weapon can be made ‘using a bicycle pump’ and with liquid uranium ‘poured into a bucket and swung round’.

Did you enjoy it? Good, I thought you might. Oh, and congratulation, you may have just won a free eight -year trip to a glamourous CIA prison in an exotic location like picaresque Pakistan, historic Poland, exciting Afghanistan or everyone's favorite extra-territorial dungeon of the disappeared, Guantanmo Bay. Waterboarding, stress positions and sleep deprivation all included free of charge.

If you're so smart, how come you're not rich

Since I've been resting here in my undisclosed location in the aftermath of the Canadian parliamentary crisis and the U.S. presidential inauguration, I've been very busy lately reading the conservative blogs and listening to the talk radio they pump into the lounge 24/7 to get the truth that the liberal MSM won't tell - you know about the victory in Iraq and how Barack Hussien Obama is really Malcom X's love child - that kinda stuff. This post started, as so many posts do, as a comment over on RossK's Gazetteer, so if it seems I am repeating myself, rest assured I am and that your engraved apology is on its way from the Woodshed's department of redundancy department.



One of the members of our blogging posse, RossK, is troubled lately. Troubled because grant money for research is drying up fast and as a researcher, that grant money not only pays for him to further humankind's knowledge and probably save lives in the future, but it also allows him to "put food on his family."

Science, bah! What has science ever done for us? Okay, the Internet, but what else? The only things more useless than science are liberals and maybe the roman empire.


Fund basic research to encourage breakthroughs that might lead to new technologies as a way to stimulate the economy? That's crazy talk! Everyone knows that is the moneymen - the brokers, the bankers, the leverage and arbitrage artistes - that drive economic innovation and deserve all the stimulus money! Who else could come up with a way to sell loans made to people who had no hope of paying them back as a AAA investment! Hooray for capitalism! If only government could be run like a business.

Come on RossK, science has its place in high school and stuff, but do you think those freewheeling capitalist Masters of the Universe can get by on a measly half a million dollars a year (plus whatever they can steal) without a big fat bonus? Do you think those Lexuses and 3,000 square foot ski condos are going to buy themselves?

Don't you realize that if the government takes the $120,000 grant that supports your biomedical research and pays the salaries of the three people you work with, and instead gives that money to a needy bank, brokerage or multinational corporation, those companies can pay the bonuses they need to pay to keep the kind of executive talent around that got them where they are today. And that money filters down into the economy through sports car dealerships, caviar importers and expensive escort agencies. That bonus money plays a vital role in the economy in other ways too. Do you really want the banker in charge of asset-stripping a borderline profitable small manufacturer that the bank has foreclosed on being distracted by wondering if he can afford another Rolex or a third country club membership? Do you want the people who run our economy stressed out over not being able to get a decent tee-off time just so your "research assistants" can squander the money that could have been spent building a private company golf course on bulk lentils, bus passes and cheap instant ramen noodles and clothing imported from China (a nation of communists)? Do you RossK? All in the name of "learning" and "scientific inquiry" and all that other egghead stuff? My god, you science geeks are a selfish bunch!

Any conservative will tell you that science is overrated. Whether its climate scientists yammer on about melting ice caps and drowning polar bears or biologists with all their "Darwin this" and "evolution that" -- don't they know it snowed in Delisle, Sask. just the other day and that God made the world -- as is -- in 168 hours. Just look at the success the new government of Canada has had removing science from such areas as food inspection and nuclear regulation. Industry can take care of itself, why can't science? If you Pointedexters are so smart, how come you're not rich?

huh? What's that nurse? It's time for my medication? NO! NO! NO! I like the voices in my head, they are my friends! They want me to be a success, just like the other blogging tories here on the ward! Don't come any closer! PUT DOWN THAT NEEDLE! I'M GONNA REPORT YOU TO STEPHEN HARPE........zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

* * *

In all seriousness, Astro, one of the commenters over at RossK 's joint, suggests its time to stop letting the economists run things and start listening to the scientists. He's right, but I'll go him one better.

It isn't just time to listen to the scientists instead of the economists and moneymen, it's time to take most of econmists out behind the barn and put them down like diseased cattle. And it's long past time to take most of the moneymen and other latter-day would-be robber barons, strip them naked, and kick them out of the back of a moving van in Kabul or Dhaka or Port-au-Prince or Kitcisakik and see how far the Harvard MBA and the old boys clubs get them then. As far as I'm concerned, every single one of these bonus babies should be put in the stocks and the government should subsidize truck farmers by buy all their rotten produce and handing out to people to throw.

Yes, why don't we say the Pledge of Allegiance in Canadian schools?

"First we lost saying the Lord's Prayer in school, then the Pledge of Allegiance, and now the singing of O Canada..."

So complained the aunt of a student at the centre of the New Brunswick controversy over a primary school principal reducing the daily O Canada ritual to once a month and special occasions. I watched her say it on CBC National tonight.

Good grief, lady, what the fuck country do you think you're living in?
Canadian students don't stand up in class every morning and put their hands over their hearts and think up new and amusing ways to riff off "My friends are leeches ... in a bag ... "
New Brunswick is still in Canada, isn't it?

CBC National didn't tag the pledge gaffe in their otherwise sympathetic report into the savaging of Erik Millett, the school principal who tried to balance the conflicting demands of three sets of parents. He decided to change the playing of "O Canada" to once a month during assembly instead of piping it into every classroom every morning to avoid singling out the students whose parents objected to the anthem by pulling them out of class. Instead he had the student of the pro-anthem parents lead the school in singing it at assembly once a month.

That was back in 2007 and that should have been the end of it.

Instead Millet has been recently pilloried in the media for "banning the national anthem in school", a number of ill-informed Con MPs denounced him in the House of Commons, and he received death threats from local parents who took sides. Death threats.
After being inundated by emails criticizing the principal's decision, the local school superintendent ordered that the anthem be placed back in daily rotation.

Tonight on CBC Millett tearfully recounted how this witch hunt all began when the Con federal minister he ran against as a Green in the election slagged him about his anthem dilemma in a newspaper article.
Millett's now in therapy and doubts he will return to teaching.

Read that quote at the top again.
Then go and help Liberal Arts and Minds figure out how we can stop this kind of dangerous right wing jingoistic nonsense in Canada.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Gimmicks?

The Harperites are all about gimmicks. (My emphasis)

It was obvious from the outset that the federal tax credit for users of public transit was more about political aims than environmental ones. The initiative seemed to be more about wooing suburban commuters than about easing “traffic congestion and the harmful greenhouse gas emissions that come with it,” as the government claimed in its 2006 budget. A report by the federal environment commissioner, released last week, has given substance to this impression. [...] If the Conservatives wanted to reduce emissions, there were far more effective measures available to them – including funding for public-transit development to make it a more attractive option. And if they wished to provide savings to “hard-working Canadians,” which Environment Minister Jim Prentice said last week was the credit's second purpose, they should have focused on comprehensive tax cuts – not social spending dressed up as tax relief. Devised with the apparent sole purpose of putting money in the hands of a targeted group of voters, the public-transit tax credit is a failure as public policy and an example of what happens when governments fall back on gimmicks.

I might make a prediction here: You ain't seen nothin' yet.

A little something for the Monday blahs

(With a grateful tip of the Fez to Rocky Torok from the Second Life posse.)

For added hilarity, read the comments and see 1)how some people can manage to get outraged by just about anything; and 2) why the vast majority of people who comment on YouTube posts should at the very least be marooned on an island somewhere if not just put up against a wall with blindfold and a last cigarette and Pop! goes the weasel. Honestly, sometimes I think the herd needs to be thinned.

This video is the second funniest thing I've seen this week, the funniest is here, (read it bottom to top) made even funnier by Harper fluffer Sandy Crux missing the boat entirely. I'm waiting for her outraged post about how This Hour Has 22 Minutes and SNL's Weekend Update are "using negative spin" and "disinformation."

Crossposted from the Woodshed, today with fresh family guest-blogging goodness.

Australia is burning

You know it's hot when a Koala decides to crawl out of a Eucalyptus tree in favour of someone's out building.

Mind you any smart Koala would want to get clear of a tree which not only sucks up tremendous amounts of water but has been known to explode when the temperature gets too high. (On a hot day the blue Eucalyptus gas haze overcomes the Oz landscape).

You don't have to take my word for it. Ask Rex.

If you listen to him, this isn't happening because it snowed in Vancouver.

Numbers don't lie unless you don't use them

Dan Gardner figures that Stats Canada has some explaining to do regarding their January unemployment figures.

[T]he numbers are not as bad as they've been made out to be.

In one news story after another, we were told that the monthly job loss figure was worse than any in the recessions of the early 1990s or the early 1980s. This isn't just bad, we were effectively told. This is unprecendentedly bad.

But that conclusion is based on a grade-school mistake: The labour market isn't the same size today as it was in the early 1990s or early 1980s. It's bigger. A lot bigger. For the stat to tell us how bad this drop was relative to those in other recessions, it has to take that into account.

Do that and it's not the worst drop since the data were first gathered in 1976. It's the third worst.

Says who?! And where's the math?

Look Dan, I would love to agree with you here. I too believe the media is doing a pretty good job of fomenting a greater level of fear than really needs to exist. It works for them. It's the greatest disaster story since the earthquake that hasn't happened in Victoria. And we all know that disaster, shock, bad news and disaster is what big news media is all about. It's why they hate independent bloggers; we often call bullshit on their hype.

But we can't get away with that without doing the work.

And now, Dan, I point to the work. Stats Can seems to have it right. Travis has done the work. It's now up to you to demonstrate how you came to your conslusion. Because if the Ottawa Citizen wants you to be a blogger it's got to be accompanied by... you know... research and work.

Yes... we bend and we twist and we pound an oversized reaction into a small factual hole, but we do it with resource information. When we found out that the media quoted out of context, we made a deal out of putting the entire quote up. Then we employed quoting out of context to embarrass our political opponents.

This time though... Travis has you.

You're back in grade 10. Prove your work.

Harper's Senate puppet

It was during one of my infrequent expeditions to Ottawa that I first encountered Mike Duffy... live. Years ago.

We, a group of servicemen in uniform, had completed the final day of our headquarters temporary duty and had found a place to down a few ales with our more permanently assigned NDHQ brethren. I can't remember the name of the place but I believe it was one of those Elgin Street establishments.

I do remember a sense of awe. The crowd contained a mix of personalities from politicians to journalists, none of whom I had ever seen in person before and all of whom I recognized from the insular distance of national television. But what truly snagged my attention was the fact that the politicians and the journalists seemed to a homogeneous group. There was no apparent division in the patrons, save us in our uniforms which were no less than a neon sign announcing We don't belong amongst this crowd. (Not that we were planning on leaving.) Journalists and politicians were fraternizing in a spirit of good fellowship I did not think existed nor did I think was possible. It suggested that perhaps the adversarial vision provided in 90 second news items of "reporter versus politician" was an act. And chief among those enjoying an apparent comradeship with those whose feet he would hold to the fire of public scrutiny was none other than Mike Duffy.

I might leave it there if it were not for the fact that Duffy took it upon himself to come over and ask what we were all about. We had been warned by our NDHQ hosts that being in uniform in a drinking establishment on a Friday after a certain evening hour might attract some attention - and was frowned upon by those who occupied the upper floors of headquarters. Not that we cared. We were leaving in the morning for our respective coasts and our mission in Ottawa was routine if not benign. We expressed the same to Duffy, who never freed his right hand enough to offer it in either welcome or acknowledgement. He simply dismissed us and returned to those he could comfortably address by their first names. End of encounter.

While not a significant event, it did change how I viewed the relationship between politicians and journalists who faced those politicians. And I did not consider it healthy.

So then Saturday, newly minted Conservative Senator Mike Duffy railed against those he might once have considered his media brethren for continuing to pelt him with questions regarding his "inappropriate" metaphor when commenting on PEI Premier Robert Ghiz and NL Premier Danny Williams.

Once again, Mike Duffy's behaviour provides an awakening.

The relationship between senators and most Canadians is relatively calm. We usually don't hear much from senators. That may be to their detriment at times since the actual work they do is more than a mystery to a large percentage of the population. What isn't a mystery however, is that they are virtually bullet-proof. Regardless of which prime minister submitted their name for appointment, once they take their seat in the red chamber, they are beholden to no single master nor are they bound by party ideology. Even if, as a result of the nature of their arrival in the upper house of Parliament, they can only voice opposition to any particular policy of government, at least it is a voice - for the country.

Whenever I start to lean in favour of an elected, (and thus much more powerful Senate), something happens to shake that inclination. This time it was the tone and meaning of Mike Duffy's maiden speech in the Senate and his subsequent snapping at the hands of those who are pressing him on its content.

What Duffy demonstrated is what we could expect from elected senators: An endless stream of partisan diarrhea acting as the mouthpiece for their party leader because the only way they would get there is by being an active supporter of a particular party.

What Duffy hasn't gathered in is that the substantial shield he enjoys from his Senate seat protects him from the likes of Harper - not the Canadian public. The whole idea is that a senator rises above the partisan fray - not joins it.

In that Duffy's presence in the Senate is yet another reminder of Harper's broken promises is bad enough. To re-emphasize that fact by mouthing Harper's words and behaviour, issuing insults and creating division suggests that Duffy is no more qualified to engage in sober second judgement than he was to critically question the powerful as an advocate of the fourth estate.

You will now go read Pretty Shaved Ape, for none has said it all better than he.

"Giving the finger" - now officially less obnoxious than urinating on bystanders

The Ontario Film Review Board has added "giving the finger", as demonstrated here in the Canadian House of Commons, to its list of infractions that contribute to a film being reclassified "from a General (G) designation into the Parental Guidance (PG) category".

But wait! Here's the best part. According to the guidelines in the 32-page manual, "the gesture ... is rated the equivalent of an animal humping someone's leg - more obnoxious than "a little bit of farting, belching", but "less obnoxious than a teenager vomiting and his friend urinating onto bystanders".
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Unfortunately I don't have a HoC photo to illustrate that.
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Cross-posted at Creekside

Gail Vaz-Oxlade! The MBAs of Wall Street need you!

Pale gazes upon the bubble that is the world of those who created today's current financial mess and chokes.

Yes, the New York Times has given us a rough breakdown of the expenses of the Ivy League class of '96. How will they survive on the $500,000 annually prescribed by President Obama?

Well, without some retraining, they won't. They don't know how. Give up the nanny, the chauffeur, the house in the Hamptons? How?!

Perhaps it's time to point out that there are people out there who have different advice than Candace Bushnell. After all, it's not the New York it used to be.

Bring on Gail Vaz-Oxlade and her famous cash jars!

Hey! Lots of people are doing it. Doesn't look like much fun, does it? Except that it works, unlike the mutated financial sewage New Yorks bankers were peddling as "investments".

Now, most of us would just buy Gail's book and a few Mason jars; something which might come to about Canadian $35. However, if that doesn't meet the elevated tastes of CEOs who now find themselves on an allowance of mere presidential proportions, they can always buy custom-made jars on an attractive polymer base for US $59.

Update: Polly, in comments, points out that Gail Vaz-Oxlade has a blog and, (as Polly points out), Gail is a hoot. Go take a look.

Mr. Dithers may have saved the Canadian banks

Reach way back, a decade or so, and recall the battle that suddenly erupted when the Royal Bank of Canada announced that it was merging with the Bank of Montreal. It's not that then RBC chairman John Cleghorn asked whether he could merge his federally chartered and regulated bank with the federally chartered and regulated Bank of Montreal. He simply let it be known that it was going to happen.

There was something of an "I say, old boy, you won't stand in the way of things we know are perfectly logical and much too complicated for the plebes and you government types," attachment to the pronouncement given that no Canadian chartered bank could actually do such a thing without the permission of the federal government.

Then federal finance minister, Paul Martin, was having none of it. And it may be that his reaction and decision to rein in the merger-hungry chartered banks set a tone which would save Canadian banks from future disaster.

In one swoop, the finance minister made it clear that government, not business, will decide what shape the country’s banking sector is allowed to take in the years ahead.

Martin's decision had nothing to do with the current financial wreckage in specific terms but it did send a message: Banks will continue to toe the regulatory line and that line will be drawn by government.

Indeed, Canadian banks, through their investment arms, were dealing in US subprime mortgaged-backed bad paper in varying degrees, but their core banking practices had to meet the requirements of the Bank Act and that may well have saved them, and us, from an unmitigated disaster. While Canadian bankers drooled over the idea that they could make tons of money if only they didn't have to bear the burden of excess government regulation, (which bankers claim is politically driven rather than a means to protect financial consumers,) US and European banks were enjoying increased de-regulation, something Canadian bankers point at as putting Canadian banks in an uncompetitive position.

What the Canadian chartered bankers don't tell you, however, is that the position they hold, (and have held,) in the Canadian market is somewhat unique. Unlike some of the regulated US banks they point at (well, used to point at) longingly, Canadian federally chartered banks are already branched. Many US banks were confined by state regulations which denied them opportunities across state boundaries. De-regulation in the US allowed consumer banks to merge and branch in several states, something Canadian banks already enjoyed. What Canadian chartered bankers won't point at is that during the height of the US bank merger-fest, many of those banks were grossly under-capitalized and some were carrying paper which would turn out to be worth less than the cost of the ink on the page.

It should come as no surprize then that suddenly the so-called over-regulated Canadian banking system is the envy of the global consumer banking sector and considered one of the most stable in the world. In fact, when Canadian banks have attracted the attention of the editor of Newsweek International, Fareed Zakaria, you might say they're a force to be reckoned with because they're so well regulated.

Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn't grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

So what accounts for the genius of the Canadians? Common sense. Over the past 15 years, as the United States and Europe loosened regulations on their financial industries, the Canadians refused to follow suit, seeing the old rules as useful shock absorbers. Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1—compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1 and European banks at a frightening 61 to 1. Partly this reflects Canada's more risk-averse business culture, but it is also a product of old-fashioned rules on banking.

Old-fashioned rules. Although I don't suppose any of the chairs of Canada's chartered banks will be sending any "thank you" notes out to Paul Martin any time soon.

-------------------------

If you need to do a historical catch up, try these:

Blake, Cassels & Graydon, LLP

Susan Munroe

MacLean's Magazine

Headline clinic

As a professional word-using and language-rearranging guy I'm often called upon to listen to Japanese explain to me what the nuances of various English words are and why my 40+ years of speaking and writing my native tongue cannot possibly equal the fact that they went to a very famous Japanese university. Despite this, I still have yet to be arrested for assault and battery with a dictionary, so clearly I am a patient person. However, I am losing patience with my colleagues at CTV and Canadian Press. They seem to consistently grab the wrong end of the stick when reporting on political matters. Now I have to fix their headlines and copy too.

Departure of Tory strategist-- leaves 'massive hole leaves'
Updated Thu. Feb. 5 2009 6:53 PM ET
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA -- He was considered so critical to Stephen Harper's success that mere chatter about a possible election once forced him to cut short his honeymoon -- leaving his new bride alone in Japan.
Now Patrick Muttart is leaving Canadian politics.
The rarely seen, never-heard political strategist who left his stamp on the TV ads the Tories ran, the tax cuts they introduced, the slogans they uttered, and on their strategy for defending Canada's Arctic, has informed colleagues of his exit.
His objectives were consistent: win overconvince the middle class to screw themselves, use consistent messages and images to create a branddo whatever Karl Rove would do, and make the Conservatives the party of Canadian patriotism mouthbreathing knuckledraggers.
Publicly, his colleagues were loath to assess the impact of his departure. Privately, they said his influence was incalculable.
"This leaves a massive hole," said one government official.
"He taught the conservative movement in Canada how to win electionslie, cheat and steal again."
Friends expect that Muttart and his American wife may leave for the United Statescrawl back into the slime from whence they came, a place with myriad opportunities for a conservative political operative with a winning track record who is willing to lie, villify, cheat, and generally throw mud in ways that would embarass Joe McCarthy.

Update : 14-year-old girl zapped in jail cell

for picking at paint on the wall. See post below.

Ban stun gun use on young people, Ontario child advocate urges
Ontario Child Advocate Irwin Elman :

"When I saw the tape, we had a young person who was peeling paint off the wall of a police holding cell with her fingernail and she was quiet and on a cot," he said. "And our estimation, the use of a Taser was not proportional to the need to protect, I guess, the paint on the wall."

"We're asking for a moratorium on the use of Tasers on children and youth, certainly in our province, until there's established, full research about their use on children and youth," he said.

Ontario rejects call for banning taser use on minors
Community Safety Minister Rick Bartolucci :

"... police officers should be able to use all the tools in their arsenal when dealing with a dangerous situation.

And he says age should not be a factor in deciding how to deal with an individual.
"That police officer should have all the tools necessary to ensure that he or she chooses a course of action that protects the individual, protects the public and protects the police officer — regardless of age," Mr. Bartolucci said.

Well that's just crap.
The "dangerous situation" was a 14-year-old girl lying on a cot in a police cell.
You're protecting paint here, Rick.
Paint, and the right to use a TASER™ on children for pain compliance.

According to a recent RCMP audit, 90 minors were shocked by stun guns between 2001-2008.

Cross-posted at Creekside

14-year-old mentally challenged girl in jail cell TASER™ed

for peeling paint off the wall.
Her father is suing the Ontario Provincial Police on her behalf.

"Ontario's provincial advocate for children and youth, Irwin Elman, who has reviewed a videotape of the incident and the OPP's internal investigation, said he can't understand why police needed to stun the girl, who was lying on a cot when the two officers entered her cell and allegedly zapped her."

"I can tell you from what I saw there was no harm to herself or to any other person. It's not proportional to use a Taser... . It's a 14-year-old child in a cell, not harming herself or anybody else," said Elman, Ontario's independent children's advocate."

"The lawsuit, filed Jan. 23 at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Kenora, says the officers entered the cell without warning, "violently" pulled the girl to the ground and applied the Taser to her right upper thigh for three to five seconds."

"A doctor who examined the girl in the hours after the incident reportedly observed twin burn marks on her thigh."

"OPP spokesman Insp. Dave Ross said yesterday the force was not contesting that the girl had been Tasered, but that the OPP's professional standards bureau completed an investigation in December 2008 and cleared officers of any wrongdoing.

You're shocked and surprised at the results of the OPP professional standards bureau investigation I'm sure.
Did I mention she is First Nations?

Cross-posted at Creekside

When you're $45-billion into federal taxpayer bailout funds

there's nothing like sponsoring a five day multi-million dollar Super Bowl funfest with "850,000 square feet of sports games and interactive entertainment attractions" to take the edge off. Call it a "growth strategy" if you have to.

Or you could just buy yourself a nice $1,400 trash can for your office.

Mike shows the restraint of a prince...

Remember that "sense of entitlement" that the horde of overfed, overpaid, MBA-totin', Wall Street trough-dwellers were always telling us was a threat to our way of life?

Yeah.

Well... they were right.

Battling the Banks . . . .

There's something about this story that gives great satisfaction . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

If you spend $10,000... Flaherty will give you coffee money. CORRECTED

Updated and corrected below:

First, re-read the CBC item reporting Flaherty's much touted home renovation tax credit scheme.

A home renovation tax credit would give up to $1,350 in tax relief on home improvement projects. Eligible expenses would have to total at least $1,000, but not more than $10,000, and the work would have to be done between Jan. 27, 2009, and Feb. 1, 2010.

Tax credit... not Tax Refund.

Now read this.

A quick number crunch. If you spend a full $10,000 on home renovations... in the specified 12 month period... (that means NOW!)... you will get a non-refundable tax credit (not a refund) which means you might reduce your annual income tax bill by about $200. (About $16 a month).

If you spend the minimum ($1,000), and hand over your Home Depot receipts to the government, you will reduce the total amount of your annual federal income tax payable by about $20. (About $1.66 a month).

Oh yes... and don't forget... the amounts required to be spent to qualify are before any sales taxes are applied.

Now what have you saved?

May the power of Annette Verschuren be with you.

Personal Safety Violation: The fat little egotist really needs to have someone read him the safety instructions that come with every power tool sold in Canada. As Charles, JimBobby, Sven, Boris and Niles noticed.

MY BAD... Correction: Jim and Aaron in comments point out that I have seriously misread the information in the budget document.

On closer examination, it would appear that they are quite correct. As they point out the calculation, according to the Budget Plan, is the actual amount of eligible expenditures, minus $1,000 then multiplied by 15 percent. The resultant figure would be the actual credit subtracted from federal tax owing. (Checked and verified with TGB accounting dept.)

That's significant and, if it all actually happens as advertised, the actual maximum credit would indeed be the full $1,350.

So, two items: First, an apology to Flaherty for suggesting he was operating from his usual dishonest position.
Second, there were other comments which have disappeared. I didn't disappear them but who knows what destruction haloscan hath wrought? In any case one keyed the words "tax deduction" and it simply isn't that. This program does not reduce a taxpayer's taxable income - it reduces the amount of federal tax payable.

I'll add another comment. You've got to be prepared to spend $10,000 to get the maximum tax credit. Given that people are worried about the stability of their incomes, unless someone had actually scheduled a renovation prior to the announcement of this idea or has a spare bank account sitting around doing nothing the assumption that 4.6 million taxpayers will be able to take advantage in 2009 seems more than a little optimistic. I suspect in this economic environment the idea of carrying out a major renovation on credit isn't viewed as a palatable option by many.

Given that this idea is being handled through income taxes there is a marginal chance that it won't turn into the fiasco that was the now defunct Harper green-automobile rebate program.

In any case, thanks to Jim and Aaron for a sharp tug on the stern-sheets.

Next. Let's hire a witch-finder.

There's a buzz coming out of Coweta County, Georgia. (Warning. Slow PDF. But I'll explain if you're impatient.)

First though, take a look at this Google search using the term sex toy laws. You might notice the direction it takes. The vast majority of the responses on the first page of that search will lead you to stories of laws in the US banning the sale of sex toys; putting people on trial for selling sex toys and even, (yes, because there's nothing more important), the US Supreme Court telling its citizens that what they do in the privacy of their own homes is the business of the government if that thing that buzzes and uses a pair of AA batteries vibrates off the counter and towards any region of one's body that might find it... stimulating.

Why?

Because if a person is going to get pleasure from some rapidly moving mechanical device, especially if that person is a woman, it must be wrong.

So let's say you actually agree with that absurd notion. Let's go with the unpowered stuff. You know. Warming goo, ribbed condoms and confectionary flavoured lubes.

No harm... right?

Wrong! In Coweta County it's against the law!

The sale of sex toys, and perhaps even the sale of some condoms and lubricants, is now prohibited in Coweta County.

The Coweta County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to approve a new obscenity ordinance and a new ordinance regulating sexually-oriented businesses at a specially-called meeting Monday afternoon.

The obscenity ordinance prohibits sale or distribution of obscenity, and prohibits anyone from “knowingly” selling, or possessing with the intent to sell, “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.”

Quick discussion.... most devices designed to provide stimulation are designed to stimulate which of the sexes?

Bingo!

The Board of Commissioners is comprised of how many women? ZERO!

They're all men. Funny how that works, isn't it?

So, given this new ordinance the fat old men running Coweta County seem so intent on passing it begs a question. Given that sildenafil citrate is sold in drug stores, does that mean the pharmacies have to stop selling it? I mean, it is designed and marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs and is the active ingredient in Viagra. Let's face it, sildenafil citrate is marketed for one purpose and one purpose only.

Or were the Coweta County commissioners only referring to items which would be useful for the stimulation of female human genital organs?

Oh the horrors! That women, especially the women of Coweta County, Georgia, might actually be having it on... in private... alone... without their man!!! By passing an ordinance, women will have to get all their sexual pleasure from their men... directly. Because if those men know what they're doing, sexually I mean, those women won't need any of those obscene, genitial stimulatin' thangies.

(Yes, women, I will enlighten the fat, old, sexually unenlightened commissioners.)

Note to commissioners: Even if you were voted stud of the year not one of you can do what a vibrator does. Not one of you. And I'll take odds that this comment was written by a man.

Makes you wonder what happens in places where how hot to make the fire is the decision of those who are naked. One change to the Google search term... sex toy laws canada.

Anyone notice the difference?

Too good to pass up: On the 26th of January, the Commissioners of Coweta County passed their ordinance making pocket rockets illegal. On the 29th of January something out there replied. Oral Roberts might have something to say about that. Coincidence?

Hat tip Cheryl for some stimulating input.

Force zero*

It's been a while.

I have only one regret and that is that I told my co-bloggers that I would resume contributing to these pages by early December 2008. I don't need to point out today's date and the fact that I failed to meet that chronological commitment.

All failures require an excuse and mine is easily constructed.

From the point of view of those who would visit intent on reading the jumble of words I might produce it might appear that I withdrew from the world. That would be an erroneous position. In fact, my world became unbelievably large and, at points along the past few months, highly frenetic.

Details would be worthless. And boring.

Suffice to say that a long-distance physical move, (and all the accompanying financial, administrative and domestic headaches), a work-life that required as much concentration as I could muster and the need to occasionally sleep took a deep gouge out of the free time available to comment on "larger issues". Far from withdrawing from the world, or finding life some kind of misery, I actually found I had re-entered the real world with an energetic need to explore it more closely.

No less than those who restrict their horizons to the homey outlets and mediocre coffee of a corporate giant, living too much life in blogtopia (Thank you Skippy!) can become just as limiting.

There was and still is, much to do. Recovering Cheryl from expeditions after declaring herself "lost" is more fun than most might imagine. Living a life amongst five local wineries is more than a little delightful. Being able to actually buy a large portion of daily food directly from the farm gate has less to do with ethics than it does with improved taste and a our new reality.

And those things are just the markers at the base of a rather large mountain. One I intend to climb. For while I am very familiar with this "new" home, I have learned to appreciate more of what it has to offer, seeing it through the eyes of another and viewing when compared to other places I have lived.

So, I'll be here occasionally to contribute. Not often, not long. I look forward to a lesser commitment.

I ponder what events I think require comment. Not many actually.

Harper? Painted himself into a corner in room he built too small for his ego. He is now owned by the opposition and ideology he so despises. Those who suggest otherwise are fools. I look forward to the comments of those who would continue to support him.

The departure of Bush? Bah! He's gone... and he got away with it. That he didn't envelope himself in the pastoral bliss of Crawford and opted for secluded opulence instead was completely predictable. That it isn't quite the same as the community as that which had existed when he was the governor of Texas might yet drive him back to his chain-saw.

The pillaging of the taxpayers by corporate failures? Right. They keep their jobs, their bonuses and their obscene lifestyle. Who pays for what they did? (And they did it with malice aforethought.) No need to comment further.

The meltdown? The media spreads the gloom as often and as hard as possible because IT sells copy. That sells advertising and advertising dollars are becoming harder to find. And if they keep the gloom alive, they may well become their own executioners as they spread the horror. Does that make me a skeptic?

No, there's something else. It'll be my next post and it might take a bit of time to get to it. There are other things to do at the moment.

* To help you with the title.