Tag: Non-partisan blog posts

Do We Work Too Hard?

An interesting article in this morning’s Toronto Star on Canada’s combination of relative low productivity and low levels of time off compared to Europe:

Sweden’s very high productivity levels — it boasts the highest ratio of industrial robots in the world — allow the society to value leisure time, Schonning said. Based on total economic output, adjusted by population and purchasing power, Canada’s gross domestic product is very similar to that of many European countries, and below some. The Irish, for example, work 6 per cent fewer hours, on average, yet the economic output per person beats ours by 14 per cent. Most Canadian provinces require employers to provide only two weeks of vacation per year.

While we know that Europe is a fraud, a liar and evil and stuff…they sure do make good wages, get sweet vacations and drive nice cars. Maybe we have it all wrong.

Thinking About Stuff As I Wait

I try to organize my life so as to not think about stuff too much. Ben is in that unhappy phase of life when he has to think too much and such consequences resulted that I felt compelled to give the advice that Oldie Olsons always give. But here in the moment when there are ribs basted enough for now, one kid having the nap he needed and the other of to learn another smidge about the piano there is that moment to think. And what do I think about? The high cost of banjos, that’s what. I go looking for a decent one to buy for a fella and we are looking at $600 price tags. Dear oh dear. How is the world going to be moved to take on the plunkity-plunk as its own universal voice of peace if we are looking at $600 bucks a pop when there are decent enough $125 start-up models to be had for the wise internationalist shopper. So I will defer again and buy south. And why not when the currency exchange is going in the right direction.

After I thought about that for a while, I realized I have mislaid my copy of Lew Bryson’s New York Breweries. I hate that, not having a work of that importance right at hand just when I was going to make a pithy observation about it in my review of A Good Beer Guide To New England, as important a work of art as I have come across in these few years the Lord has spared for me. Worst of all, Lew knows I have read it so I can’t hit him up for a review copy. Dang nab it. Cornered myself. By the way, each of you really ought to go buy these books.

So then I was done thinking about that and had a nap and then basted the ribs again and I was pretty much done thinking and I was checking out blogs I like and I noted that Junk Store Cowgirl, my favorite Rochesterian read, is truly down for the count – sad I thought…unless it is not sad, unless packing it in was good. Maybe she was able to see something ahead that Ben can’t yet see for him. And then I thought about the ribs again. Fine looking ribs.

So what do you do with all this? I say build upon it. I’ve been in places where you find an end or a corner but I much prefer the times I find a foundation of the next thing. Something is going to come of those ribs and something is going to come of that beer review. I’ll likely find that copy of Lew’s book as well. Maybe even something’ll come of the banjo. Yesterday or the day before, driving in rain and listening to American Routes I heard a jug band recording that featured not only a banjo but a trombone and banjo – maybe it was “Bring It With You When You Come” by Cannon’s Jug Stompers now that I check the playlist. Worse ways to head towards the mid-forties as we pass on though the mid-decade than to build on those two new things plus the ribs and the beer…though a mute for the trombone might be in order.

One Question

Only one question popped into my mind when I read this:

French scientists who explored the Coral Sea said Friday they discovered a new species of crustacean that was thought to have become extinct 60 million years ago. The “living fossil,” 12-centimetre female that the scientists baptized Neoglyphea neocaledonica, was discovered at a depth of 400 metres during an expedition in the Chesterfield Islands, northwest of New Caledonia, the National Museum of Natural History and the Research Institute for Development said in a statement.

The question, of course, is what does it taste like with a squirt of lemon juice.

Friday Post-Spam Clean-Up Chat

Nothing like waking to a manual spammer who has left 47 identical comments on 47 separate posts. The decent spammers, the ones you would kick in the shin rather than higher if you had the chance, post a bunch of comments on one post so they are easy to delete. But no, the Romanian spam sweatshop has a new keener and he wants to comment on separate posts. Anyway, eleven minutes of my life gone but at least the place is clear and tidy again. That is what they say about me: he sure keeps a tidy blog.

  • I will not see The Di Vinci Code and not because it is trendier not to that to go. I really see no movies, considering such evenings an opportunity to go to pubs or practice lawn bowls. But this is weird:

    The 23-year-old University of Guelph graduate is one of a hundred or so Campus Crusade for Christ volunteers who’ll be visiting theatres across the country trying to get moviegoers to listen to a “Christian response” to Dan Brown’s bestselling book and the blockbuster movie it has spawned. “We’re not out to protest the movie at all,” Mr. Bellingham says. “We think this movie gives us a great opportunity to talk about Jesus Christ.”

    Jesus would be pleased. As He was pleased by the swarming to Mel’s movie as some sort of authorized version. Would the time not be better spent shoeing the children and feeing the poor and doing justice as the actual directions given might suggest? Harass movie goers…which letter of the apostles was that in exactly?

  • Coffee going. What else is going on? The Globe’s Harper kissy-kissy didn’t last long. I think the guy’s is getting a raw deal. Seeing as he campaigned on the “Government of One” slogan, we should not now be saying that the one desk in the PMO running everything is bad. Here, however, is what I think is going to happen. Sooner or later at question period, questions directed at anyone other than the PM will have the tag line at the end “sure you do not want to check with your boss?” Sooner or later his own backbench and cabinet will stop liking being treated like children. But that will be rude buecause there was that slogan…right?
  • Dang spammers. I hate being behind on Friday mornings. What else is going on? Here is a somewhat Canadian headline, though perhaps sharable with Norwegians and Wisconsinianians:

    Beware of moose, mayhem on holiday drive

    More than a million vehicles will hit Highway 400 alone this weekend in one of the busiest — and deadliest — weekends of the year, police say…

    I tend to beware of moose every weekend. But this is the holiday weekend that does start off the whole summer thing. We have no access to cottages but will be going to Ottawa to praise our rural overlords in the streets check out the trains at the Museum of Science and Technology. I have never understood why in a country so many thousands of miles across all the Federal museums are in one spot but there you have it. I can see the big trains so I will see the big trains. I will also have to find a statue of Queen Victoria and leave a few nickles at the base. I strongly highly urge you to do likewise just in case.

  • Mr. Lovery is apparently going to stay at Arsenal for the next four years, years of his prime, which is good. I missed the Champions’ League final this week in which we was robbed but as Morton has missed that game once again my expectation of disappointment has long been commonplace.
  • This is good breaking news but I wish we had Taleban and Al Queda packs o’ cards like we did for Saddammy and his pals back in 2003. It was a great PR piece as well as informational and wonderfully foreshadowed the growth of poker as a TV spectator sport. So can the power of the internet tell me who Mullah Dadullah is and what he did? This clip from the front page of the Google search is almost bad James Bond rip-off:

    Two of the council members, Akhtar Mohammad Usmani, a confidante of Mullah Omar and the one-legged former intelligence chief Mullah Dadullah, are also names…

    He is also former two-legged. Anyway, nice to see him in a tiny cage.

That is it for today. Dang spammers. Get me on the nerves.

Friday Chat Or The Chat For The Day After The Red Sox Win!!!

Eight AM meeting across town so I may be brief today. Rainy Friday in May here, by the way. It’s close enough to winter still that you think rain is great.

  • Yes, the Red Sox took the Yankees in the final game of this series and did so in high style 5-3. It was a close game even if the Yanks got two of their three in the first inning when Wakefield’s knucklebal was wonky. After that is was all horsetails and flies. But the Red Soxs left the bases loaded three times so it could have been a bust out but for some good defence by the Yankees at the right times. Big outing for Loretta, the Sox second, who went 4/5.
  • I am inordinately fixated on baseball this weekend with the first GX40 Rewards ProgramTM Event at Cooperstown when Gary and I and maybe even portland will converge for the Hall of Fame Game as I got tickets. There have been rumours of later events such as a Thousand Island BBQ and the Flea says we can all go to Toronto one day and play with his vintage Twister games.
  • You know, I probably believe George when he says the government wasn’t “trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans” but should you really put yourself in the position where you have to say that? I believe him in the sense that the technology and personnel are simply not there to listen to everything and make coherent sense out of it all. And telephone records are always compellable by the courts on a subpoena issued on the request of a lawyer as opposed to by a judge upon a hearing. This is not really the stuff of privacy anymore than the internet is. Yet…there is that whole appearance thing and, more importantly, the mishandling of the appearance thing. Will he lose Congress to a hapless opposition. Will he be look back on one day as the US’s Paul Martin?
  • Apparently nice is the new cool. You have to look who is behind these sorts of studies, though, and I have it on good authority that the money for this bit of work came from the Association of Grannies and Librarians of Maine as well as the Cardigan Manufacturers Association of Indiana.

    He said fewer people identify with the classic image of cool than one would expect. For most, the new cool is someone who possesses more “socially desirable” characteristics. “I don’t know if I can blame marketers, or if there is even anyone to blame, but the mainstream got a hold of coolness and turned it into a mainstream version of coolness,” he said. “People now identify passionate and warm as cool, which is almost oxymoronic.”

    This, of course, is the leading edge of the new neo-socialist movement that will whip neo-cons off the map from 2008 to 2022. It’ll start with nice, move through additional arts classes in high school and end up in news papers dropping their business sections. Mark my words.

  • My Google – because I own one share – is getting more open. Hoo-ray!

    Talking to the BBC, Mr Schmidt also reflected on Google’s decision to adhere to Chinese government censorship rules in order to launch its new site in China. He said the decision was “the hardest the company has ever made” but added that, despite it being heavily criticised, he still felt it was the correct move. Mr Schmidt also believed that competition in the internet search business, especially from Microsoft and Yahoo would drive up prices and increase revenue rather than threaten them. Google appeared to be benefiting from its “limitless growth model”, he said, adding that more users, more advertisers and more content would fuel further demand.

    Excellent. More kowtowing to totalitarians and bizarre enununciations on economics please. These are the snippets you cherish after the bubble bursts.

Gotta run. Someone spell check this thing, wouldja?

Reader’s Survey: How’s It Going?

Time for a readers’ survey to give me an update:

  • Where are you?
  • How often do you read?
  • Do you think I am a bit manic?
  • What are your favorite topics?
  • Should I encourage portland to write more?
  • Which topics do you prefer: food and drink, politics, disdain for blogging, sports?
  • Do I go on and on?
  • No, really…where are you?
  • Do you follow the comments?
  • Are you a stalker?
  • Should I delete the wacko comments or let them ride?
  • Do you also read our sister station A Good Beer Blog
  • Do you read as many blogs as you did two years ago?
  • Is your time with blogs time you later regret giving to blogs?
  • Is the Flea right or me?
  • Is David Janes right or me?
  • Anything else?

The Yankees Lose!!!

There really isn’t a ball in their hands. The now Small Unit just needed a little squeeze after blowing another game.

I could go into why I tell myself I dislike the Yankees but it is really an arbitrary facade I have assigned to myself. Yet hearing things like Jason Giambi, the DHer who gets to stand near first, blowing a few defensive plays again warms my tiny little heart. Not quite as much as the joy I knew when Partick Roy quit the Habs mid-game after reaming out the GM in front of the entire Hockey Night in Canada audience.

But close.

Wednesday…Thursday…Chatday…

Tra la! It’s May, the lusty month of May!
That lovely month when ev’ryone goes blissfully astray
Tra la! It’s here, that shocking time of year!
When tons of wicked little thoughts merrily appear.

It’s May! It’s May, that gorgeous holiday
When ev’ry maiden prays that her lad will be a cad!
It’s mad! It’s gay, a libelous display
Those dreary vows that ev’ryone takes, ev’ryone breaks
Ev’ryone makes divine mistakes
The lusty month of May!

A little something for the Broadway set amongst you.

Time is flying, is it not? A few short moments ago I was in winter’s grip and now the weather is all July in Halifax – mid-20s and sunshine. Fabulous. You know all those people who say October is the best time of year? They are nuts. May is. Pre-bug, pre-smog, pre-heat, pre-kids-at-home-every-day-with-nothing-to-do. It’s been a busy week following on a couple of busy weeks but at least it is May:

  • I have been contacted by the Asparagus Growers of America to remind you to eat asparagus. Asparagus is one of the two foods that kids won’t want to eat until they find out that it makes your pee change colour and then they can’t get enough. My trick? A little orange juice in the steamer.
  • In other public service news, send your kind thoughts for portland who is waylayed by a unshakable nasty bug these days. And one for the Junk Store Cowgirl, Linda, who has been in radio silence for almost a month now. You will recall her good lad received a shipment of Marmite from the office workers here.
  • Nice to see that radio is confirming the lack of practical support for podcasting:

    Commercial FM radio has reached the billion-dollar revenue milestone in Canada, at a time when they are also preparing to sing the blues in Ottawa this month. Industry data released Thursday show Canada’s commercial FM stations collectively pulled in $1.03-billion in revenue last year, with pretax profits of $247-million. Those numbers are up substantially from 2004, and when combined with earnings from AM stations, helped drive commercial radio to an unprecedented $1.33-billion in revenue. Pretax profits also soared 24 per cent to more than $255-million.

    Radio really is the miracle medium, providing all your wireless needs for a wee $7.99 transistor rig from Radio Shack. If I were you , I’d think about a career in radio.

  • It has been a week when I have re-evaluated Mr. Harper to a degree. His budget was not a bad budget, keeping in mind that I disagree with both the Tory child bonus voter attraction scheme and the murky Grit shadow plan that really never was. If I was a booster of the military more than I am I might be a little offended by something of a gap between word and deed but otherwise it was pretty middle of the road and is not going to undermine the tidy little boom we are enjoying. The most troublesome part of it is the continued de-Federalization of the nation that really has been tripping along since Joe Clark fist uttered “community of communities” back in ’79. Where will it all end? Who gets the “D” in Canada when it is utterly disassembled?
  • BLork is a wizard but more so a person of intestinal fortitude as I have had such jars but dipped into said jars.
  • This bit from a memo obtained under access to information is a tad odd:

    The percentage of Canadians who hold a valid passport has steadily risen — to 36 per cent in 2004-05 from less than 28 per cent in 2000-01 — in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The passport office expects the figure to reach 48 per cent of Canadians by 2008-09. “Since 9/11, passports are being seen as secure identity documents rather than just travel documents,” the notes say. “Passport Canada is now as much a security agency as a service agency, in keeping with the new international norm.”

    Does my government think I need a secure identity document other than for travel? I certainly do not. My me-ness is mine wherever I am and I don’t need no state papers to prove that. Sounds more like Passport Canada just bigging itself up. Silly puffery as I’d like to think, generally, that I am much more in keeping with the new international norm.

  • Update: Why the heck is a company in PEI importing workers from Russia? Even with a 1.5% unemployment drop from March to April, there is still 10.5% unemployed in the province.