The Blog of Harald

The north eyewall (what’s left of it) is less than 40 miles south of us, according to Channel 13’s spiffy doppler radar. The storm has lost quite a bit of strength; it’s impressive out there, but no flying alligators yet!

The big hassle with this storm is its size; we’ve been under it for over 18 hours now, and it’ll be at least another 18 before it calms down enough for emergency crews to start opening everything up again. Fortunately we have power, and Footloose is on VH1 right now :-)

So I’m staring out the window at rain falling at 45° and the trees starting to lean over… Part of me wishes Frances would just _get_ here already; the suspense is wearing. It was supposed to arrive Friday, then Saturday, now Sunday early morning.

Our hotel is open, and packed with people who have fled their homes, both from Orlando and farther east. We still have power; we’ll see how long it lasts, as they’re predicting that most of Florida will be darkened by this storm. The hotel is currently planning a curfew at 10PM tonight, until at least 10AM tomorrow. But the storm has stalled, so I’m not sure if they’ll change those times.

On the plus side, the storm track has moved; we’re no longer centered in her sights :). The hurricane is predicted to move across Florida and keep going west. That means that there is _some_ chance that our airplane will actually leave Toronto on Monday, so that we can go home again!

These days it is stories like these that keep me awake at night.

* “China – An Energy Timebomb?”:http://alt-e.blogspot.com/2004/08/china-energy-timebomb.html
* “Basic Choices and Constraints on Long−Term Energy Supplies”:http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-57/iss-7/p47.html

Basically: We’ll run out of oil in my lifetime; long before that, it will be expensive, and then rationed. Alternative sources simply can’t fill the gap; we do not have the capability to replace just our electricity needs with renewable energy, never mind our other energy needs. Even if North America switched to nuclear power, we’d run out of fuel in 35-58 years, a mere band-aid for the problem.

Meanwhile, SUVs are the fastest growing market segment in China, and GM is actively marketing them.

I haven’t the faintest idea what we’re going to do about this looming crisis; I do know that our current technique (hiding our heads in the sand) isn’t going to cut it.

Yuck!

Yahoo! News – Kids Plus Rocks Equals 120,000 Angry Bees

Reminds me of watching “The Swarm”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078350/ when I was a kid. Not so amusing is that African “killer” bees are “slowly moving north”:http://www.txtwriter.com/Onscience/Articles/killerbees.html across the USA, and interbreeding with our European honey bees…

<tongue-in-cheek>

Quebec has 75 seats in the House of Commons. Quebec has the Bloc Québécois, a Federal party that really serves Quebec interests over those of the country (if you believe their critics, anyway :-).

Ontario has 106 seats in the House. I think we should form and elect the Ontario party and get _our_ special interests taken care of at the Federal level…

</tongue-in-cheek>

I thought I was being funny, but then I went digging around on the “Elections Canada”:http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=pol&document=index&dir=par&lang=e&textonly=false website, and found that “The Ontario Party of Canada” does/did exist, but lost their eligibility to be registered. I found a “canoe article”:http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/05/01/442912.html describing the party and its brief history.

I guess I’m not as original as I thought :-)

A Kansas company wants to export beef to Japan, despite the Japanese ban on all American beef. The Japanese have said they will accept beef that has been tested using a $20/head, government approved, “rapid test”. The USDA told them not to.

bq. The rationale for the USDA decision was that the rapid testing was only approved as a measure for surveillance of animal health and that Creekstone’s 100% testing proposal would have “implied a consumer safety aspect that is not scientifically warranted.”

There is apparently _way_ too much cattle money in Washington…

(via “Plastic”:http://www.plastic.com/article.html;sid=04/04/11/16342611 )

* “Phil Ringnalda”:http://philringnalda.com/ has a “good comment”:http://philringnalda.com/blog/2004/03/i_want_a_new_country.php on “this village voice article”:http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0409/conaway.php on Bush’s anti-gay constitution ruckus by Laura Conaway.

* “chuqui”:http://www.plaidworks.com has “a rant about the NHL”:http://www.plaidworks.com/chuqui/blog/001374.html and the whole Bertuzzi thing.

Health – canada.com network

bq. New research suggests that the human form of mad cow disease is a lot more complicated than originally thought, and, potentially, much scarier.

bq. Scientists have long agreed that eating cattle tissue infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy – mad cow disease – can cause the human form of the disease, known as variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease.

bq. But recent animal tests indicate that eating infected beef may also cause another form of the disease, classical CJD, forcing scientists to re-examine assumptions about the nature of the deadly disease and raising fears that it may be more widespread than previously thought.

bq. The accepted wisdom has been that classical CJD has nothing to do with mad cows. It affects older people, those over 55, and generally occurs spontaneously at the rate of about one person per million per year.

bq. It has been confused with Alzheimer’s disease and there is some concern that because of misdiagnosis, it may be more widespread than the confirmed numbers indicate.

CJD may be going undetected because budget cutbacks mean fewer autopsies, and in many cases that’s the only way to diagnose CJD. Still, I think you’re more likely to get hit by a beef delivery truck than contract CJD from beef, at least here…

bq. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

bq. — General Herman Goering, President of German Reichstag and Nazi Party

(via “Reid”:http://rae.tnir.org/archives/2004_01.html#000446)

Oh brother. (Or is that Big Brother?) The FBI has “issued an alert against almanac carriers”:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=5&u=/ap/20031230/ap_on_re_us/fbi_almanacs

bq. The FBI said information typically found in almanacs that could be useful for terrorists includes profiles of cities and states and information about waterways, bridges, dams, reservoirs, tunnels, buildings and landmarks. It said this information is often accompanied by photographs and maps.

I guess that means tourists with Rand-McNally road atlases and cameras should be pulled over too.

The nicest thing that can be said about this directive is that it is pointless; the net is too wide. There are nastier things I could say…

(via “Perverse Access Memory”:http://www.whiterose.org/pam/archives/005015.html)

In a move that is eerily familiar, it looks like the USDA is more interested in convincing people that US beef is safe than it is in actually making it safe, according to “United Press International: USDA refused to release mad cow records”:http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031223-103657-3424r

And naturally, they’re still “blaming Canada”:http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docID=516712 .

Maybe it really is time to stop eating hamburger, or to be truly safe, all beef. That would suck, but then so would variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease…

We can have interesting incidents involving fear of the unknown. In this case, one of the better variations on “the dog ate my homework” almost happened to a UofT Comp.Eng. student. Read all about it:

ECE496 And Terrorism!!

(via Karen Reid).

Canada and the USA have had their share of differences in the past (softwood lumber, for example :-), but things appear to be getting worse:

h3. Maher Arar:

bq. U.S. Attorney-General John Ashcroft insisted Wednesday [November 19th, 2003] American law enforcement officers acted properly when they deported Canadian Maher Arar to Syria last year on suspicion of terror links.

bq. During an hour-long meeting Wednesday with Solicitor-General Wayne Easter, Ashcroft said U.S. security officials followed U.S. law in the Arar case despite protests from Ottawa that American authorities should have returned the man to Canada.

bq. “Mr. Ashcroft assured us that, from his perspective, the decisions that were made were certainly made within the context of the laws within the United States and he feels that there were no laws broken in that regard,” Easter said following the meeting.

h3. ” U.S. won’t change policy on deportations to third country”:http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/12/04/cellucci_passport031204

bq. The U.S. government will continue to deport Canadian citizens to third countries if they pose a risk to American national security, said Paul Cellucci, U.S. ambassador to Canada.

bq. He emphasized that the U.S respects the Canadian passport, but homeland security comes first.

bq. Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty Canada said he found Cellucci’s comments troubling.

bq. “It contravenes international law and should, and can play, no part in any effort to increase security,” said Neve. “If anything, (he) is fostering greater insecurity in the world.”

( Maher Arar, a Syrian born Canadian citizen, was deported to Syria when he landed in the USA en-route to Canada from a routine business trip. There he was tortured and forced to sign confessions about his (non-existent) connections to terrorism).

h3. “Canadian flag causes flap in the U.S.”:http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/story.asp?id=066271BE-AC4A-4322-B23D-6E7B44C2B575 Maple Leaf on baggage irks ‘sensitive’ Americans

bq. Canadians should be careful not to appear “boastful” to Americans, who are insecure because of the war in Iraq and admit they are annoyed by northerners showing off the red maple leaf on their luggage when they travel, a recent federal report warns.

bq. “Some participants expressed a certain amount of annoyance at what is perceived as a systematic attempt by Canadians to make the statement that they are not Americans by sporting the maple leaf,” said the recently released report. “This underscores the American sensitivity at feeling rejected by the rest of the world ….”

Wow; this from the country that “waves the flag” more than pretty much anyone else. How many US flag bikinis have you seen recently? :-)

which leads into:

h3. “Are You A Closet Canadian?”:http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2003/12/03.html#a541

bq. far from being Americans ‘lite’, Canadians have fundamentally different values and worldviews from Americans, and those differences are increasing. Canadians are now much closer to their European contemporaries than to Americans, closer to Europeans, in fact, than are the British. America is now largely isolated in its prevailing worldview from the rest of the developed world. Its values are closer to those of autocractic developing nations than to those of other nations that have made the transition to democracy and constitutional liberalism.

I took the “survey at environics”:http://fireandice.environics.net/surveys/fireandice/main/fireandice.asp?surveyID=1, and came out quite firmly in the bottom right-hand corner, the “Idealism and Autonomy” Quadrant. I’m sure you’re all shocked by this…

Philip Greenspun’s Weblog:

bq. It turns out that most of the content editing and all of the programming work for OpenCourseware was done in India, either by Sapient, MIT’s main contractor for the project, or by a handful of Microsoft India employees who helped set up the Content Management Server.

Population: One: Stats and figures

This weblog entry is cute. Reminds me of a book I own, “How to Lie With Statistics”…

“Job Cuts More Than Double in October”:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=&e=5&u=/ap/20031104/ap_on_bi_ge/job_cuts_1

bq. Job cuts announced by U.S. companies more than doubled in October from the previous month, providing more evidence that the nation’s economy is in a period of jobless expansion

(via “Halley’s Comment”:http://halleyscomment.blogspot.com/archives/2003_11_02_halleyscomment_archive.html#106798164757107862 again).

And today “How to Save the World”:http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2003/11/04.html#a504 brings us:

bq. What is left of the large corporation though? A small management team and an army of lawyers who contract all of the risky functions of the company to outside organizations. Assets that are all intellectual — patents, trademarks, contracts, etc. Essentially no front-line employees, no liabilities, and no risks. And no direct contact with those pesky customers.

bq. In a world of ends, where the network is everything and all the knowledge resides in the network at these ends, there is no longer any need for a middle-man, especially one as costly as the executive in today’s large corporation.

This is starting to sound eerily like the cyberpunk novels I was reading a decade ago…

My RSS feed aggregator had two similarly themed articles side by side today. The first was “Economist NewSpeak”:http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2003/11/02.html#a502 from “Dave Pollard”:http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/, in which he says:

bq. The newspapers were full of ‘joyous’ and ‘encouraging’ news about the economy this past week, and there was little mention of the fact that, on the heels of this ‘good news’, several businesses announced another round of layoffs.

Followed by an interesting “What they said / what they meant” analysis that boils down to a simple truth: the current economic good news is only good news for _businesses_, not _people_ (at least, not North American people :-). Go read it, it’s short but sweet.

This was followed by “Halley Suitt”:http://halleyscomment.blogspot.com/’s “Neutron Bomb Economy”:http://halleyscomment.blogspot.com/archives/2003_11_02_halleyscomment_archive.html#106776771491216947 which says (in part):

bq. This is a the neutron bomb economy — easy to look profitable when your building is still standing but you’ve nuked your entire workforce. Soon we’ll be forced to hail the new worker-less enterprise, it’s sure to be the Next Big Thing.

This reminded me of a certain CEO’s response to an outsourcing question. So far Canada is a net _receiver_ of outsourcing jobs. I wonder how long that is going to last, especially now that our dollar has skyrocketed (compared to the US dollar)…

I’m not really sure what to think or say or do about the whole situation. Both of us make our living in highly skilled positions, so in theory we’ll be able to ride out the continuing global restructuring. We all know the difference between theory and practice, though.

Plastic: The Tragedy Of Common Cod

It’s nice to see that the Europeans have finally figured out that over-fishing cod tends to destroy the population. They’ve been ignoring Canada’s desire to protect our cod stocks, and have kept fishing (just outside our territorial limit) even after we asked them to stop, contributing to the destruction of our cod.

To be fair, the _fisherman_ apparently still don’t believe it. Fools.

Scientists are beginning to thing that the population will _never_ recover, even with a complete moratorium on fishing; the remaining population is simply too small…

“More Secure, Colorful $20 Bill Makes Its Debut”:http://www.moneyfactory.com/newmoney/main.cfm/media/releases102003newyork

bq. we want to emphasize that older-design $20 notes are still in circulation, and still maintain their value,” said Marsha Reidhill, the Federal Reserve Board’s assistant director for cash and fiscal agency. A genuine U.S. $20 bill – whether it has the new background colors or the familiar green and black – is legal tender, worth $20.

“Treasury will spend $53 million over 5 years to market new pink greenbacks”:http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/16/pf/banking/marketing_new_money/

bq. The Department of the Treasury will spend $53 million over the next five years on a public relations campaign to market new money. […] the BEP wants to make sure nobody is confused into questioning the authenticity of the bills, despite their radically altered look.

I’m glad to see that the USA is upgrading their money. It is apparently the most counterfeited bill on the planet, and that’s not only because it is a popular international currency; it’s also because it is easy to copy.

I was amused that people need to be _told_ that the new bill really is legal tender. I have two different $5 bills in my pocket right now, and I remember once having _three_ different $20 bills, so I’m used to regularly changing currency. As I recall, US paper money hasn’t changed much during my lifetime. On the other hand, Canada also advertises currency changes, so I guess I can’t really complain :-)

As for “radically altered look”? _This_ is “radically altered look”:

* 1972: “!http://blog.cfrq.net/chk/files/1273a.gif(1972 $5 bill)!”:http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/banknotes/general/character/1969-79_5.htm
* 1986: “!http://blog.cfrq.net/chk/files/1282.gif(1986 $5 bill)!”:http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/banknotes/general/character/1986_5.htm
* 2002: “!http://blog.cfrq.net/chk/files/05-med.gif(2002 $5 bill)!”:http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/banknotes/general/character/2001_05f.htm

Also from the CNN article:

bq. In an age of media saturation, no publicity campaign is complete without some sort of Hollywood spin. “We did a lot of research,” said Haley. “The focus groups all told us that if you want broad reach, you have to be on TV.”

Which translates to _product placements_ on Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and even America’s Funniest Home Videos. Yikes!

What are these guys smoking?

“Meat consumption up 1st time in 20 years”:http://www.cincypost.com/news/2000/beef011100.html

bq. Analysts also say the renewed popularity of high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets such as Dr. Robert Atkins’ new ”diet revolution” is helping to boost beef consumption.

“Dieters in Hog Heaven”:http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/porkrinds.html

bq. starting in 1997, sales of pork rinds have risen from around $300 million to $400 million, increasing 15 percent or more every year — the same year that Dr. Robert Atkins’ New Diet Revolution hit the best-seller lists, advocating that dieters swap protein for carbs. Coincidence? Many think not.

“Wheat Farmers Beef About Atkins Diet”:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/28/health/main551336.shtml

bq. Popular low-carbohydrate diets have helped millions of people lose weight. But U.S. grain farmers say that as a result, their own wallets are getting slimmer.

This last article at least has some counter-claims too:

bq. Judi Adams, a registered dietitian who heads the Wheat Foods Council, said perceptions are disturbing. Adams pointed out obesity rates are lower in Italy, Germany and China, which consume more pasta, bread or rice than Americans do.

bq. “When you look at it from a commonsense approach, you cannot blame it on carbohydrates,” she said. “We’re eating too many calories.”

Now go to “The Bull About the Beef”:http://slate.msn.com/id/2088210/

bq. But Atkins is winning more credit than it deserves, say economists. It’s an example of how media excitement about a cultural trend leads to misinterpretation of an economic trend.

bq. The evidence most commonly cited to prove the Atkins diet is roiling the economy is a study by the Natural Marketing Institute that claims 25.4 million Americans—12 percent of the adult population—have tried the Atkins diet. […] under the methodology used by NMI in its survey of 2,000 families, anyone who forgoes bread for a few days in an attempt to lose a few pounds is considered an Atkins dieter.

bq. The Research Institute on Livestock Pricing reports that the average American per-capita consumption of beef has increased 1.8 pounds per year since 1997—another 525 million pounds per year. If the 6 million Atkins dieters are consuming all that additional beef, then they are eating 87.5 pounds more meat per year than they previously did, which would mean they’re now eating steak and burgers at every meal except breakfast. And that’s just beef. Pork, chicken, eggs—if all the increases in Atkins-friendly foods are due to Atkins dieters, it’s a wonder anyone has lost weight: They would have to be eating almost nonstop. (And those who note the surge in Atkins-friendly food tend to ignore an equally vigorous countertrend: Sales of Krispy Kreme donuts grew an amazing 25 percent last year, to $492 million, with cookies, potato chips, and other Atkins-verboten products following suit.)

Ok, that’s a whole lot of quoted text. The reason I wanted to blog about this are contained within the last article. Relatively simple number crunching shows that Atkins _cannot_ be solely responsible for the trend changes, and yet the news media, quoting “Wall Street Analysts”, are spouting the story everywhere. Are the analysts now so lazy that they’ll say anything? Or are the “analysts” merely PR and marketing flacks on retainer, their voices drowning out real analysis? Or are the newpapers simply making it all up, because any story with “Atkins” in it sells papers? It doesn’t really matter which; they’re all bad for us…

links via Plastic: Meat