In an earlier postI asked my military and ex-military friends to tell me what they thought of the non-operational use of government and military (guess they’re the same really) aircraft by military officials… Stuff like being flown to Caribbean holiday spots and hockey games, for example. I didn’t get much feedback. But one chap whose opinion I respect (don’t always agree with, but that’s different) opined that its use – within certain parameters – is perfectly appropriate. He defends this saying that senior government and military officials need to be able to respond at all times in all places and that there could be circumstances that call for the immediate return of an official to HQ… in the event of a military or humanitarian crisis, for instance. Now, I can see his argument, but only to a point. If we accept the premise that senior military – or other government officials – need the travel flexibility to be able to get home in a hurry, then does this in effect give blanket approval to use these publicly paid-for jets at their discretion? Show me that there are checks and balances here and I’ll go along. Sure, there are approvals required by those higher up the food chain, but still, isn’t this a bit too much latitude? I think so. Besides, say a General goes to a hockey game on an armed forces night and he needs to get back to Ottawa in a hurry. OK, don’t we have airbases around the country that could scramble a jet pretty quickly in the event of something like this? ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Those other Jets: congrats on your return! I still hate your sweaters, but Winnipegers deserve this and judging by the noise in the arena on opening night (of the exhibition sked), the Jets are gonna have a man-advantage at home this season! ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. My neighbourhood rox, and I like to brag about it! We have an engaged and active Community Association that provides recreation and athletic programs to kids and adults in the Alta Vista area of Ottawa.  And, except for the instructors,  it is run by completely by a volunteer Board (of which I am now proudly a member).  Follow us on Twitter at @ccaaltavista. AND, there is also our equally engaged and active Parent Council at Pleasant Park PS (on which I also now serve).  Our newest project is to raise funds to build a new play area for the junior students and to basically re-vamp the rest of the playground if we have the funding. Yes, I will be hitting readers up for $$$ in the future… just don’t know how yet. Yup. Nothing like an active community. I and my family am lucky. —————————————————————————————————————————————————– New Facebook set-up? Yeah, I don’t like it either. But don’t forget that this is a free service offered by a private company whose motive is ROI. They are not in biz to keep the teenager whine factor to a minimum. ÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇ Washington DC: gotta spend a whole week there sometime before I die. Way to much to see in only a day or two. One thing that did stick in my mind about the place was the extreme poverty of the city’s homeless. On the surface, it looked like that city and Ottawa were pretty close in terms of numbers, but those in DC seemed poorer- if that is possible. No shoes or socks, torn clothes… they just seemed much worse off.  Less access to social services, maybe? ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Harperite crime bill. I don’t get the need to bundle up all of these crime bills into one big omnibus bill. They have their freakin’ majority, so what’s the point? They can split them up and slice and dice all they want and the bills will still be passed!

The sad thing is that some of the initiatives are actually worthwhile but are being mixed up with some truly boneheaded legislation. For example, why is there a mandatory minimum for the cultivation of a half-dozen pot plants? Seriously, that is NOT a grow-op! If there was a threshold of, oh, say… 20 or 30 then that is clearly not just for personal consumption… but bear in mind that I think it should be legalised anyways… BUT. You can do all sorts of sick porno things with a minor and the punishment is not as severe! To me, it shows that the Cons’ policy directions are shaped more by Old Testament thinking than concerns about public protection.

Producing six to 200 pot plants nets an automatic six-month sentence, with an extra three months if it’s done in a rental or is deemed a public-safety hazard. Growing 201 to 500 plants brings a one-year sentence, or 1½ years if it’s in a rental or poses a safety risk. The omnibus legislation imposes one-year mandatory minimums for sexually assaulting a child, luring a child via the Internet or involving a child in bestiality. All three of these offences carry lighter automatic sentences than those for people running medium-sized grow-ops in rental property or on someone else’s land. A pedophile who gets a child to watch pornography with him, or a pervert exposing himself to kids at a playground, would receive a minimum 90-day sentence, half the term of a man convicted of growing six pot plants in his own home.

Of course, from the CPC’s perspective, this will provide new residents for their new prisons, right? What a crock. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Question for you tekkies out there: can anyone advise me on the do’s and don’ts, lessons learned, reference material, etc. for someone who is setting up an online registration and payment system. The CCA (see above) is looking to go online with registration next year and any advice would be appreciated. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++And how about this little ditty? The Cons have hired Deloitte – at 90K per diem – to come up with some ways to trim that non-existent“fat” from the PS. I can help.And here is my recommendation:

Stop contracting to 90K / diem consultants.

You’re welcome. ==================================================================================== REM: Thank-you, gentlemen. ====================================================================================

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Warren Kinsella thinks so.

Do you?

Has the blog been surpassed by Twitter and Facebook as the communication tool of choice? Already?

Food for thought.

My take is that blogs will go back to being what they were in the early years (10ish years ago) – very narrowly-focused issue-based discussion forums – rather than rambling prose wandering  across all levels of subject matter and quality.

Blogs are not dead but will undergo quite a transformation in the next few years.

But my crystal ball is in the shop for repairs right now…

And I’m not quite ready to pack in Trashy’s World just yet…

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Is Hosni Mubarak the first Dictator to be ousted with the help of social media?

The Twitterverse has been rife with updates on the uprisings – Tweets from within Egypt. The authorities tried to shut down information networks but to no avail. Protesters used social media to get the word out to each other and the rest of the world. Popular uprisings succeed only if momentum is maintained, and the social media fed into this momentum.

Yet this is indeed great news. But questions remain.

Will the Army relinquish control when free elections are held?

Dictators are often replaced by dictators – will this be the case in Egypt?

What country is next?

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

The Onion Ring besting the PM is still getting attention.

95,544 fans as of the writing of this post.

Hee-hee. I love it.

Of course, someone has started a counter group: Can this Doorknob get more fans than Michael Ignatieff. I might join the one other fan. Just to show I’m truly non-partisan.

In other news: Colts over Saints – 45-42 (OT)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Craziness abounds… the Onion Ring fan club has grown to beyond 44K!

Like I said before, this is a great example of how quickly a message – however a bit silly – can move along the social media stream.

I will be interested to see how the mainstream media and politicians respond to this. My guess is that it will be more or less ignored. But really, Iggy or Harpy really SHOULD show up at a photo op with a box of onion rings!

More than 44 thousand voters (or would-be voters) would get a kick outta that!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Earlier this morning, I posted a scribble about the Facebook movement to sign up more “fans” for an onion ring than Stephen Harper can claim - and it looks like the goal may be met by the end of the day. – 20,246 – the last time I refreshed the page.

And it is getting some attention in the mainstream media – albeit on a blog…

From thestar.blogs.com

Harper vs. the onion ring

An odd new campaign began in the last 24 hours on Facebook.  The challenge: to pit an onion ring against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and see who gets more fans. As I write this, the onion ring is a good deal behind the Prime Minister — around 14,000 fans, compared to the nearly 30,000 fans of Harper.

And what is the end game of this contest? I have no idea. Perhaps the gold ring has something to do with the Olympics. Or not.

One comment on the site criticises this as “silliness reduces the seriousness of Facebook and can hurt their democracy campaign a tad.”

Huh? Of course it is silly! But I really don’t think it is hurting anyone! If Harper was smart, at his first photo op he should bring along a box of onion rings…

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

There’s a fun little thing going on over at Facebook. Someone got the bright idea to see if an onion ring could garner more “fans” than Stevo. As of this morning, The Ring has  11,121 fans while the PM has over 29,000. And this “fan club” started just yesterday – as far as I can tell.

This is, of course, all in good fun and one shouldn’t try to read too much into this unprecedented groundswell of Onionosity in Canada. But this does should how viral the new media really can be and should be a cautionary note to public figures who do not recognize its power.

For the record, I predict that The Great and Wondrous Onion will have double the number of fans by the weekend.

It’s also a good laugh to scroll through some of the comments being posted on the site. Here’s a sampling:

Even though both make people cry, onions do it without intent!!!

Do you think A & W would give us corporate sponsorship? I’ve always liked their onion rings… mmmmm

This onion ring would NEVER take a 2-month holiday in the middle of my meal!

I think anything can get more fans than Stephen Harper. Harper does what he wants, leaving a horrible taste in our mouths. The onion ring is battered than fried and leaves a wonderful taste in our mouths.

One day, I wanted to buy a coffee, but I was 14 cents short, and this onion ring gave me a quarter … and even said ‘keep the change’ … that’s why I’m a fan!

This onion ring has suspended the production of all other onion rings until after the Olympics

Oh, and in the time it took for me to write this, His Whole-liness’s fan base has grown to 11,460.

ALL HAIL THE RING!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

I’m not one to buy into sinister rumours about unwanted intrusions into one’s on-line privacy, but this seems to be legit.

One of the things that I try to trust about Facebook is that they do protect my privacy according to the settings that I stipulate – i.e., who can see my “stuff”. But there is a little tick-box in one’s privacy settings that should be unticked unless you want your profile info to appear in Google searches.

Latest rumors suggest Facebook is up to compromise users privacy by automatically indexing all users info on Google. Facebook’s privacy features has been one of its strong suits since it began and millions of users trust that the personal information will not be shared with anyone unless permission is granted.

So will Facebook index all your info on Google?

In response to the “rumour”, Facebook posted the following response

There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile.

In case you think that this is an unwanted intrusion into your privacy and don’t want your name to be indexed by Facebook and pop up on Google there is simple solution -  just follow the steps below:

Step 1

Go to the Settings>Privacy Settings>Search

Step 2

If the Allow indexing box is checked for search engines, just uncheck it

In case you have already unchecked the privacy setting feature in past, recheck to ensure if it has changed with the new Privacy settings.

Thanks to cousin Christopher as well as the folks at Simple Thoughts, by Gaea Times for this info.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

As promised, I will be posting regular thoughts on why giving the Harperites a second mandate – and likely a majority – is a very bad idea for Canada. I will not endorse one alternative over another – but will make the case for ABH – Anyone But Harper.

These will be in no particular order of importance.

#1 Politics of fear

In continuing with the “hard on crime” theme and the need for a solid leader for the troops in Afghanistan, Harper is following the Karl Rove strategy of using fear to win support.

I remember bookmarking this page a few years ago and I think that it applies equally now as it did then:

Stephen Harper knows a good trick when he sees it: the fear tactic. It has worked wonders for George Bush for five years – with yellow alerts, hints of danger and the passing of new draconian laws that convince many Americans that such laws are really necessary.

Harper is doing the same thing with a string of new laws to “fight crime.” This kind of politics is truly despicable not just for deliberately misleading people about how much crime there is in Canada and providing false solutions but for consciously and strategically trying to corrupt the political culture.

As we have witnessed for years in the US, a country afraid of its own shadow is a country that ignores the many far more important issues of everyday life: economic security, health care, the environment, energy costs, the collapse of American public schools, the erosion of pensions, child care, etc.

Keep them scared – and you can keep them distracted.

Unfortunately, the politics of fear works. It worked for the Republicans when a bumbling fool was RE-elected as president. And it may work this time in Canada unless the other parties can somehow counter this message.

I found this Facebook group - and if you share these options, join up and let our opinions be heard!

Next time – the politics of fear and the invention of the “crime” issue.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario