Way back in the days of vinyl a Vancouver singer named John White (or Whyte?) recorded a song called “Let’s Hear It For The BC Ferries.”

Chorus: Let’s Hear It For The BC Ferries!  PFFFFFBPT

That raspberry is at least as appropriate as it was thirty years ago.

What other service charges $17.50 for a reservation then insist that you show up a half  hour early to claim it?  Except that most ferry terminals are in places where traffic can delay you an extra half hour without warning, so really you need to arrive an hour early. Except your reservation isn’t valid of you’re MORE than an hour early.

Any way you slice it, you’re going to be stuck in a BC Ferries parking lot for an hour.  There is no place more desolate.

What other business refuses to install debit card terminals in their kiosks?  In an age where most people I know never carry more than $20 in cash, BC Ferries still insists that only paper money or credit cards are acceptable forms of payment.  In Canada everyone uses debit cards to pay for everything.  McDonalds accepts debit cards for Egg McMuffins for God sake!

The fact that there are ATM cash machines at the terminals and even on the ships, (At a rip-off bar price of $2 a transaction!!) shows that they could easily have debit service.

What other service – aside from public transit since it was semi-privatized – figures that the best way to solve declines in ridership is by REDUCING service and RAISING rates.   Maybe this makes sense to the guy being paid a million dollars a year to run the company, but no-one who actually rides the ferries can see the sense in that idea.

Until this year it had been a very long time since I rode the BC Ferries.  I’m fairly well disgusted. Nearly $100 each way for two people plus a truck.  Food prices on board that are nearly double what they would be on dry land.  Signage (see above) that defies all logic or intelligence.  Scheduling that offers less spaces than customers want, and no allowance for the seemingly inevitable equipment problems.

I guess that the best summary of why BC Ferries is losing traffic is this: If you’re travelling from Vancouver to Nanaimo it’s actually CHEAPER to fly with Harbour Air!

Boy, try to find an e-mail address on a corporate web site – thank god for Investor Relations, there’s always one there!

To: board@telus.com

CC: andrew.mackay@ledcor.com

I couldn’t find any other e-mail address on the Telus web site, so I’ll address this to the Board. (Likewise the Ledcor site)

Today while driving along the Dollarton Highway in North Vancouver I was passed by one of your drivers in a very unsafe manner.  A photo of the truck is attached below.  I was heading for the Ravenwoods development north of the highway, and was about 300m away from the turn.

This road is primarily a 50 kmh speed zone, except for a residential area which is posted at 40 kmh. These speeds are regularly enforced by both RCMP and Tsleil-Waututh Nation tribal police.

I was at the point where the 40 kmh zone ends, and the 50 kmh resumes when your driver flew past me, while still in a no passing zone.  He was certainly moving well above the limit.

What’s truly annoying though is that he had only 300 m further to travel before turning off of the Dollarton highway.  I know this because I was going to the same place, and turned right behind him.

His aggressive driving allowed him to arrive literally 5 seconds before I did!

Once at Ravenwoods he parked his van on the sidewalk in a fire zone!  Heaven forbid he had to walk a few feet!

I’ve driven professionally for years, and am generally very forgiving of people who do so, but this guy is giving your companies a bad name.

Let’s see what comes back!

I’m choosing to ignore most of the BS and hyperbole, and decided to take a look at the differences between Harper and Ignatieff.  If education is a consideration, much less a background that indicates intelligence and thoughtfulness, there’s not too much to say.

Iggy (via Wikipedia)

• Son of a Canadian diplomat , Ignatieff’s family moved abroad regularly in his early childhood.
• At the age of 11, Ignatieff was sent back to Toronto to attend Upper Canada College.
• Studied history at the University of Toronto‘s Trinity College (B.A., 1969).
• At University of Oxford, studied under the famous liberal philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin,
• Ph.D in History at Harvard University.
• Granted a Cambridge M.A. by incorporation in 1978 on taking up a fellowship at King’s College there.
• Assistant professor of history at the University of British Columbia
• Senior research fellowship at King’s College, Cambridge
• Lectured at universities in Europe and North America, and held teaching posts at Oxford, the University of London, the London School of Economics, the University of California and in France.
• Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
• Chancellor Jackman Professor in Human Rights Policy at the University of Toronto and a senior fellow of the university’s Munk Centre for International Studies.

Steve-o (also via Wikipedia)

• Attended Northlea Public School and, later, John G. Althouse Middle School and Richview Collegiate Institute, both in Central Etobicoke. He graduated in 1978.
• Enrolled at the University of Toronto but dropped out after two months.
• Worked in the mail room at Imperial Oil.
• University of Calgary, a bachelor’s degree in economics.
• University of Calgary,  a master’s degree in economics.
• Vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition (NCC), a conservative think-tank and advocacy group.

Once again the political goons in the Prime-Minister’s Office have overruled the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.

And once again the usual suspects (Internet Geeks and various Big Business interests) are cheering this action as if it’s some kind of democratic conquest.  Hurrah! Hurrah! Unlimited downloads!

I haven’t even bothered to follow this story in detail, but I’ll tell you one thing: this heavy handed move by the Harper regime has nothing to do with democracy, nothing to do with the consumer revolt that preceded it, and nothing whatsoever to do with the idea that the Internet has become a necessity instead of a novelty.

In simple terms Harper has sold a big chunk of the business of Internet to the highest bidder.  Some corporate entity, probably American, offered him a better deal than Bell or Rogers did.  To think otherwise is naïve to the extreme.

Canada remains a country awash in American media.  Television, radio, movies, music, and publishing – including the Internet – are overwhelmed by product from that foreign country to the south.  Perhaps more dangerous is the increasing influence that American media goons like the RIAA and MPAA have in Ottawa.  In simple terms their goal is to force US intellectual property laws onto Canadians, regardless of whether or not they are to our own benefit.

This is a bad thing.  Canada is a sovereign nation, and a country with distinct and identifiable cultural and legislative histories. We are not just a second rate copy of the US.

So why does out government act as if we are?

This decision is not about the CRTC, or about how Internet users are billed. It’s about a government that will overrule traditionally arms-length agencies to suit the demands of their American masters.

Despite efforts by successive Liberal and Conservative governments to undermine them, the CRTC remains one of the very few institutions that tries to support the development of a Canadian voice and Canadian artists.  It may be imperfect, and certainly the politically appointed Commissioners are uneven in their quality, but for better or worse it was one tool that Canadians could use to ensure that our TVs offer more than endless Law and Order re-runs.

And what of Usage Based Billing for Internet? The monopolistic solution proposed by the CRTC was obviously not a good idea, but should Internet users face no cap on their usage? Should high volume users expect to pay an extra amount?

Isn’t there some reasonable balance that can be found, where the price you pay is somehow reflective of how you use the ‘Net?

My prediction: the geeks who are dancing the streets will be crying in their beer once the Harperites are finished.  However bad the Bell/Rogers deal was, there’s probably something much worse in the works.

And without the CRTC it would seem that only Facebook is available to fight back.

We recently lost an old friend named William. William was a big black tomcat who came from the shelter after spending way too long there, and who was fearless in the extreme.  Between walking and boarding a lot of dogs come through our house, not a few of which were alleged to be dangerous for cats.  None of them would go near William – at least not twice.

In any event it turns out that James Keelaghan was right, and eventually William passed away after a long illness.

In the time leading up to that day we dealt with the Animal Medical Clinic in West Vancouver.  It’s no understatement to say that Dr. Cathy Wilkie and her staff Susan, Clare, and Janelle were nothing short of amazing, in their support, their help and suggestions, and in their understanding that like it or not, there is only so much money that you can spend on a pet.

What I liked about them was that although they were grounded in traditional veterinary science, they were still respectful of other ideas, whether it be raw food, alternate treatment possibilities, or even just the more general concerns that you have when having a pet treated.  I always felt respected.

This experience was enough to encourage us to bring our other animals to them, and to recommend them to friends and clients.

Then today a letter arrived from the University of Saskatchewan.

Am I impressed?  Am I very impressed?  You bet.

Did I know that they would make this donation? Not at all.  They didn’t mention it, and their web site doesn’t either.

Which tells me that they do this because it’s just plain a good thing to do, and an acknowledgment that their clients have suffered a loss.

So kudos to the Animal Medical Clinic, and to the University of Saskatchewan, for a wonderful gesture.

Via George and The Onion:

Details at the National Wildlife Federation.

Click the banjo squirrel for more fun!

Delta Montreal Hotel.  Remember back in the days before WIFI, when better hotels had ethernet jacks on their desk lamp so that you could hook up your laptop computers? And phone jacks for those who still relied on a modem?  So that you could fire up Netscape Navigator?

Those days live on!

Although it seems that Data Valet does offer somewhat more up to date options, I guess that the Delta figured it wasn’t worth the effort or investment.

Shame I didn’t bring along a network cable.

(Linux note: used the default Simple Scan program that comes with Ubuntu and found that it only saves files to TIFF! Which apparently no common application recognizes anymore.  I will though recommend the online photo editor at http://pixlr.com/editor/ which is really pretty good, and shows just why Microsoft should be so scared of Google’s plan for cloud based everything.)

Signs like this don’t appear without a reason.  Use your imagination.

It’s been many years since I threw my lot in with a political party.  Regular readers will know that it’s been several elections since I did anything but wring my hands in despair over the paucity of candidates or platforms that I could believe in.

So it may come as a surprise to some that I’m publicly endorsing BC First, a new provincial party that has risen from the ranks of the dissatisfied voters who are forcing a referendum on the Harmonized Sales Tax.

Even at this early stage, before their first general meeting, BC First has been drafting policies that more or less fit what I think is right; suggesting directions that are sensible, balanced, practical, and – dare I say it – progressive.

A good example is their “People Friendly” Environment Policy.  Instead of meaningless kow-towing to either business or mild environmentalism, BC First takes a pretty balanced approach that recognizes that we have growing energy (read: electricity) needs, and makes a number of suggestions how we can meet that need. The Site C dam is not among them, but natural gas, bio fuels, wind and tidal are.  How about moving fish-farming on-shore, urban forests, and a “Clean Re-Industrialization Strategy” to replace “Cap and Trade” legislation?  Along with their Energy Policy (Which includes a promise to restore BC Hydro as a fully publicly owned and controlled crown corporation) I can see real and healthy growth without sacrificing half the province.

Taking a page from Einstein’s famous quote that “the definition of insanity is repeating the same things over and over again and expecting a different result”, the BC First Party has unveiled a new Health Care policy.  The main features of the plan will include changes in how health care is funded from a “block funding” system to a “per patient funding” system that will create greater accountability, efficiency, and competition within a universal, publicly funded plan.  Plus an end to MSP premiums.

BC First can see that our current tax systems are mess, so proposes to launch a province-wide overhaul of our entire tax system (sales taxes and income taxes) involving industry, small business, labour, consumers and citizens to create a more competitive, fair and equitable tax structure for all.  Read the Tax Policy here.

It’s early days for the Party, and policies are still being developed, with an inaugural board of directors to be elected at the first Party meeting later this spring.

I have volunteered as Constituency Organizer for the North Vancouver-Seymour riding, and have the wonderful task of signing up the first 25 members in the riding.  You can contact me directly, or log onto the BC First website and pay your $10 membership on-line.

No matter how you join, I hope you’ll be as excited by this new Party as I am.

I don’t lie. I don’t cheat. I don’t steal*.  It’s not that I sit down and decide not to do these things, it’s more that it just doesn’t occur to me to do any of them until well after the fact.

Am I really that unusual? Is it really true that the bulk of western society has adopted a Gordon Gecko-esque philosophy towards their lives?  Is it really the case that the only way to succeed in business, government, or any other endeavor is to outwit, out-cheat, and out-maneuver the Other Guy?

If this is true, then I have to agree with the people who see our western society as being in sharp decline.  A culture built on deceit cannot survive.

The basis of day to day interaction has been, and I believe should be, trust.

• Trust that the guy you work with will pay back the $20 that he borrowed.
• Trust that the companies you deal with will deliver what you pay for.
• Trust that the water in your tap is safe to drink, and the air safe to breathe.
• Trust that government will look out for your interests, and take care of you if you need help.
• Trust that we all play by the same rules.

In other words, we assume a Social Contract, not just with government, but with each other.  That mutual level of trust, that assumption that everyone will behave politely and honestly, is the proverbial grease that allows society to function.  Without it things will surely grind to a halt.

If ethics and trust are crucial to our society there are troubling questions that need to be examined.

Why do so few people trust the people that they elect to office?

Why do so many people feel that they are being mistreated and cheated by the companies that the do business with?

Why do corporations insist that the simplest interaction requires a dense legal document that requires customers a to sign away all rights?

Why do so many employers feel no loyalty to their employees, and no obligation to treat them with honesty or respect?

Why do so many employees feel that they have no choice but to accept this treatment?

Why do so many people live in fear – that they will lose their job, that they will retire penniless, that they’ll be arrested and locked up for no reason?

Is it any surprise that under these conditions a great number of people will adopt a similarly adversarial outlook, and will try to out-smart they other guy before they themselves are harmed? Even when there’s no evidence that the other guy intendeds to cheat them?

It has become too apparent to me that I can’t work with sketchy ethics. I can’t be part of systems and companies that will bend the rules to fit their situation, or pad the bill to make a little more from the customer.

Similarly I stopped being involved in party politics for many of the same reasons.  For me, at least, the ends don’t always justify the means.

The challenge this year to take that realization and use it to frame a career.

The events of the last few days have been nothing short of astonishing. If anything they give a small glimpse of what’s coming in the near future.

What we do know is that:

• Wikileaks is releasing a large volume of formerly secret US government documents. This is the second time they’ve done so.
• The US Government is going ballistic, with right wing media drones rattling their sabers, and the government pressuring major corporations to do whatever it takes to block the site. Which is not entirely unlike the kind of things that happens in say China.
• Under pressure from the US Government, Amazon.com kicks Wikileaks off of their servers, and Wikileaks’ DNS registrar pulls the plug on their domain name.
• Next eBay subsidiary PayPal suddenly refuses to accept credit card payments on behalf of Wikileaks, with Mastercard following suit soon after.

What’s amazing, and likely terrifying the White House and corporate America, is what has been happening next.

• Within hours of the Amazon and DNS attacks, the Wikileaks’ site is found at not one or two but hundreds of addresses, as people around the globe donate their addresses for mirrors.
• Within hours Paypal, banks, and other corporations that have acceded to White House pressure have found their own sites under attack, with Anonymous hackers launching DDOS attacks to take them off the web.

What is so amazing about all of this?  To a large degree this course of events was described by English author John Brunner in his 1975 novel Shockwave Rider.  In that book a clever computer hacker named Nick Haflinger uses the global network system to reinvent his identity at regular intervals, does things that the government doesn’t like, and eventually creates a self replicating worm that travels though all government computer systems and systematically makes every bit of data public.

In that book the government attempts to launch a nuclear strike to stop Haflinger.  Although it’s doubtful that anyone would go that far to stop Julian Assange, it’s certainly obvious that at least few governments, including the US, are prepared to go to any lengths to stop or arrest him.  Or as far too many right wing pundits have shrieked - to kill him.

The question that has to follow is how far the cyber community will go to fight back?  Just how powerful can they be in attacking corporations or governments?

We’ve seen the underworld of spammers and hackers and bot-nets grow increasingly powerful, complex, and sophisticated. Can those same tools be turned against the entities that are trying so hard to stop Wikileaks?

And if it comes down to war between governments and the shadowy side of the cyber world, who will win?

Almost a year after the earthquake over a million people in Haiti are homeless.  Since they were living in tents when the hurricane showed up (A hurricane? In the Caribbean? How could they not see THAT coming?) things just nosedived from horrible to worse than hellish.

Plus cholera. (Cholera? In a million people living without sewers? How could they not see THAT coming?)

Canada promised $135 million. (Although in Harper’s Canada a promise and what is actually delivered are usually quite different.)

So, how about this?

1 million people homeless = say 250,000 families.

Over the course of those nine months since the earthquake, how many unemployed Canadian carpenters, trades, and foremen could have been hired, shipped to Haiti along with boatloads of Canadian lumber, drywall, and fittings, and put to work building houses and laying sewer and water lines?

Can you build a house in Haiti for $25,000?  Would 5000 or 6000 houses make a difference?

If ten countries each contributed 5000 simple houses – one story, two bedrooms, running water and sewer hookups – wouldn’t that help to solve a whole bunch of other problems – like cholera?

Well folks, after several years of blogging, followed by a fair bit of Facebooking, I’ve found that life, love, dogs, work, and school just don’t leave time for the kind of long thoughtful posts that a blog deserves.

Over the last couple of months I’ve found that likely 95% of what I send out to the world travels via Twitter – mostly links, connections, forwarded items of note – and the occasional oh so clever comment.

All of which is my way of saying that for the foreseeable future you find me much more on Twitter, and much less on RSS.

Having spent a lot of time in recent weeks job hunting in this recession which is now over, and which really never entirely existed except for the losers who lack entrepreneurial spirit, I have to say that some things are broken in the way that employers handle this process.

Transparency: In the day, when I was doing the hiring, I always was upfront about compensation, and about the job itself.   If you won’t say exactly what the job entails, what it pays, and what your expectations are you’re likely wasting my time, and your own as you filter through stacks of resumes that don’t fit.  In other words, if you only pay $8 and hour, say so up front.

Transparency, Craiglist:  If you list no company name, no phone number, no real e-mail address, then most people assume you’re a scammer or identity thief - and not without good reason.  That’s why you get messages that say “Tell me who you are and I’ll send you a resume.”  Take that as a sign of intelligence and encourage them.

Courtesy: Yes you should respond to everyone who applies, even if it’s just a bulk e-mail saying “The job has been filled.”  It only takes five minutes, and it just the polite thing to do.

Follow-up e-mails: Yup, I’ll pepper you with follow-ups specifically because you aren’t telling me the job is filled.

Legality, SIN numbers: It’s still the law in Canada that you aren’t allowed to demand my Social Insurance Number until after you’ve hired me.  Yes, I’m talking to you U-Haul.  Even though I’ll go to great pains to avoid annoying possible employers, I will complain if you refuse my application on these grounds.

Legality, contracting: It started in the construction trades, and now it’s everywhere.  No-one is an employee any more, they’re “contractors,” or piece work employees.   No benefits, no paid vacation or stat holidays, no protection under labour laws.  Yup, that’s the mark of great employer.

Be open to new ideas and people: Guess what – it’s possible to be old enough that employers won’t even consider you.  It’s still possible to be of the wrong gender.  It’s still possible that you might think I’m over-qualified.

I’ll tell you what – I can walk into your job and do it today, not after a month of training.  Yes I’m at school part time upgrading my skills, but that doesn’t stop me from being a great employee, or even better a long term one.  If anything it shows that I’m serious, intelligent, and committed.

Instead of looking for the reasons to not hire me, how about looking for the reasons why you should?