Various people on Parliament Hill are looking askance at the Harper government’s edict that the Government of Canada is no longer to be referred to as “The Government of Canada.”

Really, CTV’s David Akin reports that:

One of the, erm, amusing directives to emanate from the Prime Minister’s Office has been an instruction that federal government bureaucrats, when reporting any new initiative in a press release or other document intended for public consumption, is to refer to the government as “Canada’s New Government” rather than the “the Government of Canada.”

I’ll leave it to readers to attribute whatever Orwellian spin they prefer to this nomenclature.

If you run a business you should be reading Seth Godin…

Dear Seth,

As I sit here reading your extraordinarily customer oriented advice I am awaiting a call back from DHL couriers. For two weeks I have been trying in vain to have them deliver a package to me from Apple computer with a new PowerBook battery.

The first time they tried to deliver the package it had the wrong Apartment number on it – 450 instead of 405. The non-delivery notice was left literally two inches from the buzzer button with my name on it. Did the driver not look and see it? Did he not think to maybe push the button and see if I was the person he was looking for?

Since then there have been four or five phone calls, different information every time, all of the story repeated every time, and my address corrected at least twice.

There was also a message on my voice mail promising delivery between 9 and 4, which may explain why the driver came here at 7:30 AM.

The point though is this…

I am my business. I don’t have staff on hand to sit around waiting for deliveries. I also do a lot of work at hours outside of 9 to 5, or on weekends.

I know that there are literally millions of other people in the same situation.

The courier companies – Fedex, UPS, DHL, or in Canada Purolator – seem to have no interest whatsoever in our business.

Delivery times are random and arbitrary, pickups happen only from 9 to 5, or if outside that window include exorbitant surcharges. If you miss a delivery you’re faced with a three quarter hour drive to some far flung depot to get your package.

The courier companies just don’t work for people like me.

These companies are high tech. They are barcoded, computer tracked, GPSed. Why can’t at least one of them find a way to accommodate the small businesses that need flexibility?

I’d pay a reasonable premium to have packages delivered within a four hour window, or to be able to schedule pickups for a time when I knew I wasn’t out of the office at a meeting.

Or, even better, to receive a call before delivery asking for a convenient time.

Barry Rueger

Followup: As expected DHL did not call back, but a very nice driver showed up with the package not too much later.  And told me that he felt very sorry for anyone who had to deal with DHL’s phone crew…

DHL – do you really want your employees saying things like that?

Five years and a day ago you couldn’t make this stuff up.

From The Register:

A number of CBS affiliates decided not to broadcast award-winning documentary 9/11 on Sunday amid concerns that “airing profanity, primarily by firefighters during the crisis” might attract the unwanted attention of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Reuters reports. …

The film was scheduled to go out at 8pm yesterday. However, any station airing it before 10pm could be fined for breaching “broadcast decency standards”. CBS confirmed that affiliates representing about 10 per cent of the US had elected “not broadcast the program or would show it late at night”.

Or this from Britain:

Humiliated cancer survivor Jean Hand claims a travel company told her she could not fly wearing her fake breast – because it posed a security risk.

Mrs Hand was close to cancelling a flight to Majorca after she was told by First Choice holidays that her gel-filled breast would need to be checked in with baggage.

The matter was resolved by airport officials, but the 57-yearold was left feeling ‘horrified and humiliated’.

‘The thought of having to go for hours looking like a lopsided freak filled me with horror,’ she said.

Airport staff claim the mixup may have happened because gel bras had been banned in the wake of the alleged plot to blow up airliners.

It is a day to be dreaded. An anniversary that I approached with a certain unease.

Yes, I am trembling in anticipation of the orgy of media and political activity which is planned to take advantage of the fifth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon.

Already I have heard endless repetitions of the now hackneyed “It Was a Day That Changed The World™.” (Always spoken in your best Voice of Doom intonations).

If your definition of “The World” includes only New York, Hollywood, Washington, Iraq, and Afghanistan this would be true.

I doubt that homeless children in Rio de Janeiro either know or care about the few thousand Americans killed in NYC. I find it unlikely that the unfortunates trapped in any of a dozen African hotspots think that their lot is any better or worse because of the actions of Al Quaeda.

And I am sure that the great population of the world’s most populous countries – India and China – don’t really see this as having any relevance at all.

Still, I live in the shadow of The United States of America, that controller of all North American language media, so I am supposed to Remember Where I Was on That Day™, and Swear That We Will Root out Terrorism™, and Back Our Ally, the U.S., in Their Fight For Democracy™.

As I sit here I am wondering just how 9/11 Changed The World™ for Americans. I was in the U.S on that day, and know that much of the population was struck dumb by fear and lack of understanding.

Still, in practical terms I can see only two things that have happened to the people of that country.

The first is that air travel has become a nightmare of bizarre and largely ineffective restrictions, where travel consultants suggest wearing flip flops to the airport to avoid delays.

The second, more insidious, is the rapid and unyielding campaign by the American establishment to strip away civil liberties and long held rights. It seems that in the eyes of the current U.S. administration there is no liberty so sacred that it cannot be limited or eliminated in the name the Fight against Terrorism™.

I would be tempted to suggest that 9/11 also gave the U.S. government the freedom to invade foreign countries and overthrow governments, but am currently reading The Best and The Brightest, and an reminded that this attitude is one that is decades old. 9/11 may have made them bolder, but Afghanistan and Iraq are hardly the first countries to fall under the heel of the American military.

The beauty of the War on Terrorism™ is it’s vagueness. It can be applied to anyone, in any place, in retribution for almost any action. And because of that vagueness it will never, ever end.

Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible. … And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ … All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’.

If you wish to commemorate 9/11 break out your dogeared copy of 1984 and be chilled by the parallels.