Possibly Deep Thoughts

A no-fly list is a complete waste of money, people and other resources.  The list is easily available to any terrorists.  If their name is on the list they’ll just make a fake ID.  Having the list will ensure that the alias won’t be on the list.  It’s actually helpful to terrorists.

It might catch stupid potential terrorists, like Richard Reed. If they somehow manage to get on the list first.

What the list is really good is causing havoc in the lives of people who have a similar  name to someone on the list, or even worse, the same name.  If you somehow end up on the list, you’re in a world of problems.   It’s nearly impossible to get off the list.  There is a "procedure" to get your name expunged, but in practice it doesn’t really exist.  It’s probably one very overloaded person, working part time.  In the basement, behind a "Beware of Leopard" sign.

The list is also good for politicians who want to appear to be "doing something" about the problem. They will also say that it’s easy for innocent people to get off the list.  In reality, that’s the lowest priority.  It’s just a buzzword, and helps the politician to "stay on message".  It’s like the argument that innocent non-criminals shouldn’t be against whatever legal rights that are taken away by the latest crime bill.

It gets worse when our no-fly list gets merged into other countries compiled lists.  The US list casts a notoriously wide net, and it’s even harder to get off their list.  If you end up on the list, you can forget about ever flying again.

The no-fly list is sham, for appearances only.  Why doesn’t the government stop wasting money on this, and put it to use where it might have a possible result.  The Conservatives are always pointing out ways that the Liberals wasted money when they were in charge, yet this idea is folly too.

 

 

Reporter:  (Shouted) Can we have a couple of words from you?

Black: No. 

For non-Canadians, British Columbia is like the California of Canada. Maybe it’s something about the Pacific, or maybe it’s just the proximity of California, but something definitely gives B.C. and its politics a strange tilt. Just about every Premier is forced out by a scandal of some sort.

We have the usual sorts of parties slagging each other, and a big scandal that started the whole thing.

Earlier this week a Conservative candidate was dumped because he was charged with trying to smuggle a Mercedes-Benze and 112 bottles of liqour in July 2004. I’m pretty sure the party will be doing better background checks on candidates.

Just to even things up, a Liberal candidate was booted because he offered the NDP candidate a job (or two). One of the jobs was in Ottawa, and the other was City Council seat that they’d “fix” somehow.

Just a little diversion from boring speeches.

I had CNN on in the background, and I heard Wolf Blitzer say something like “we’ll be showing President Bush’s speech after Kofi Annan has finished.” The US media aren’t even paying lip service to the UN. Even the journalists don’t consider it important at all. Not that such an American-centric view of the world isn’t a surprise.

Most Canadian media led off with Annan’s remarks, and then went to Bush. And Paul Martin claimed a small victory too, which has to be covered here.

The bombings in London, plus a security conference in Toronto have got people talking about the possiblity of terrorist attacks here in Canada. Just a week before London, I was at the Canada Day fireworks in downtown Ottawa. Perhaps 100,000 people bunched together would be a good target; it crossed my mind a couple of times. Despite the obvious police presence, they couldn’t have done anything to stop a determined bomber.

Canada’s defence has always been “nobody would attack a nice country like us.” The Deputy Prime Minister, Anne McClelland, said that Canada wasn’t “psychologically prepared” for a terrorist attack. This is certainly true. The root of the word terrorism is terror. Maybe the world will soon be saying “if they attacked Canada, no one is safe.” I’m glad I rarely go to downtown Ottawa.

Belinda Stronach recently caused quite a stir here in Canada when she switched parties and likely saved the government from being voted out of office. She just made her first appearance in her home riding, and there were lots of people there to boo her. Some of them yelled “Boolinda”, which means they were Simpson’s fans.

From the episode “A Star Is Burns”, in which Mr. Burns entered a biographical picture in the Springfield Film Festival:

Burns: Smithers, are they booing me?
Smithers: Uh, no sir. They are saying, “Boo-Urns. Boo-Urns”.

The phrase Model NATO brings to mind the episode of The Simpsons with the Model UN. According to snpp.com, that episode was named Das Bus. The bus trip rapidly turns into Lord of the Flies.

Unfortunately, Canada was represented by Ralph Wiggum. On the bright side, this episode has my favourite Ralph quote.
Ralph: I ated the purple berries!

[Within moments, he collapses to the ground, groaning in pain.]
Bart: How are they, Ralph? Good?
Ralph: They taste like.. burning!

Somebody in my house says this at least once a week. And for buzzword bingo, we have Compuglobalhypermeganet.

I don’t actually have anything to say about the Model NATO…

I wonder if he would have done it if "The Economist" hadn’t called him Mr. Dithers.

He’s further ahead than Jean Chretien, who continually avoided making a an actual decision about Iraq until it was waay too large. (I agreed with not going to Iraq, but I would have preferred some body to be explicit about it.(

It’s the usual suspects: greed and stupidity.

Mad Cow Disease (BSE) got started when the brains and nerves of sheep with scrapie were fed to cows. It seems that the prions that cause it weren’t killed by the heat of processing.

The disease spread because the brains and nerves of the cows also went back into cattle food. This spread the prions throughout the British cattle herds.

After it was determined that feeding herbivores to each other was a problem, the rules for cattle feed were changed. The rules then disallowed the feeding of ruminants (grazing animals including cows and sheep) with food that contained remants of other ruminants.

However, the feeding of rendered animal protein to ruminants was not stopped. Cattle feed could contains the remains of pig or chickens, for example. And pig and chicken food could still contain cow remains. This still allowed the prions to make a longer circular journey, which might be one of the problems here in Canada.

Why wasn’t the sensible rule of not feed animals protein to herbivores instituted? This protein allows the animals who eat it to grow faster. It’s also cheap to make. Completely banning leftover animal parts from cattle feed would eliminate any questions on the probability of BSE spreading through food, but for political and capitalist reasons it wasn’t done. Canada cattle producers may continue to bay a huge price.

On the other hand, one working on the latest BSE infected cow, which was born after the ban on ruminant cannibalism, was that it may have been fed leftover food from the previous year.

Still, wouldn’t you feed safer if the cows you eat were fed only plants, like they would eat in nature? I would.