Sugar sugar

I got this in my mailbox today:

Fact is, when taken correctly, Viagra works for most men. Studies show that it works for up to 4 out of 5 men (versus 1 out of 4 on sugar pill).

Three comments:

1. How, exactly, do you take Viagra incorrectly? Do you shove it up your nose, or what?
2. “Up to 4 out of 5 men” includes 0 out of 5 men. I’m just sayin’, is all.
3. One out of four men obtain increased performance from a sugar pill? “I’ve got a hot date tonight – I think I’d better go pick up some sucrose tablets and some chocolate glazed Timbits.”

Think big, butt out, and death to toads!

Just got this message in my email:

Do you want to possess the whole world?
Try our Penis Enlarge Patch and you will be the master of the universe.
[URL deleted]

Make your dick longer than the Great China Wall with Penis Enlarge Patch.
Who writes this stuff?

According to the Globe, the latest anti-smoking crusade calls for a ban on all smoking in multi-unit apartment buildings. This would mean that apartment dwellers would not be able to smoke in their own homes. A survey, mentioned in the article, stated that half of all apartment residents have been subjected to second-hand smoke, and 70% of those people objected to it.

I feel sorry for people who are subjected to second-hand smoke. (I feel even more sorry for people who are subjected to second-hand late-night noise. I am so grateful that I have quiet neighbours.) But how can you enforce this legislation? Will every smoker have to move to a single-family home? How is this going to work?

The Globe also had an article about an Australian group dedicated to the killing of cane toads, which were introduced there in the 1930s and have caused considerable damage to the environment. The article also had a link to a cane toad website, which proudly announces (at the time of writing) that 27857 toads have been captured.

Big Brother Bill is watching you

I updated my copy of Windows XP this morning. It seems to have installed “Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications”. The screen that appeared at the end of the installation process greeted me with this grim message:

Thank you for validating your copy of Windows! Validating allows you to enjoy the full capabilities of Windows and helps you confirm that the software installed on your PC is authentic and properly licensed.

Microsoft is continually improving our anti-piracy technology. Your system may be revalidated periodically in order to take advantage of new information available from Microsoft that can help protect you against new forms of counterfeiting.

Wow. They install software to detect piracy, plan on snooping regularly, and try to claim that this benefits me? That takes nerve. (Erm… I was enjoying the full capabilities of Windows already. Unless this provides access to new hidden capabilities of Windows that I didn’t know about.)

Look, I see where they’re coming from. If you make your living selling software, you don’t want pirated copies floating about, and I don’t blame them for wanting to try to detect copyright violations. But to try to pretend that this actually benefits the consumer? Why not just be up front about it? “We want to track down and eradicate copies of Windows that haven’t been paid for. If you want to use Windows, you have to let us do this. Take it or leave it.”

And you have to wonder: what happens if something goes wrong with their piracy detection software, and it starts falsely flagging legit copies of Windows as pirated?

I don’t have any pirated software on my machine, which is why I let this particular vampire into my home. (Why pirate software when there’s so much good open-source software out there for free?) But I wonder what Microsoft will try to do next, and how it will affect my computer’s performance. Oh well – eventually, I will be able to afford a Mac, and all will be well.

I just started reading Planet India, by Mira Kumdar, and ran across the following:

The world economy is undergoing a major reorganization that is rebalancing jobs and capital investment toward Asia. Information and communications technologies have created an environment where the only jobs that have to remain local are those that require face-to-face interaction. All others can be outsourced to a remote location leveraging digital technologies. Alan S. Blinder, a professor of economics at Princeton University, calls this the third industrial revolution. [...]

Blinder believes that the ultimate dimensions of the third industrial revolution “may be staggering.” Though it is neither possible nor desirable to reverse a revolution, I share Blinder’s conviction that “the governments and societies of the developed world must face up to the massive, complex, and multifaceted challenges that offshoring will bring.” At this point, they are not. In the United States, workers whose jobs have been lost due to offshoring are left largely to their own devices.

Confess! Confess!

Today, I saw this fascinating sentence in a long article in the Globe and Mail on the effects of alcohol:

In 2004, 79.3 per cent of Canadians confessed to drinking, which, contrary to our growing obsession with fitness and diet, is nearly a 10-per-cent jump from a decade ago.

Confessed? What the? Yes, I admit it! I have consumed the evil grape! I have affected my brain chemistry by ingesting mind-altering liquid substances! Oh the shame of it all!

More seriously: it’s true that alcohol-related accidents and deaths are no joke. And it’s sobering (so to speak) to read that even moderate amounts of alcohol lead to an increased likelihood of breast, colorectal, mouth, larynx, throat, esophageal and liver cancer. Oh, joy. But perhaps some of the more preachy health professionals might want to remember one fact: even if we take perfect care of ourselves, we’re all going to die eventually anyway.

Or as someone I was talking with once put it recently: “Every hundred years – all new people!”

The world has gone mad, Part CXXII

According to USA Today, Boston Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez is apparently auctioning his barbecue grill on eBay. It’s a JENN-AIR grill, and it cost Manny $4000. According to the article, the highest bid is over $20,000. Bidding was scheduled to close on March 28th.

I just checked, and eBay has removed the grill from their web site – possibly because the bidding was getting too frenzied. But, fear not, Manny fans: other enterprising capitalists are offering a photo of Manny beside his ex-grill (personally signed by the seller!) and an I Bought Manny Ramirez’s Grill T-shirt.

If anyone is looking for me, I’ll be hiding quietly in the corner, whimpering.

I was in a cranky mood today when heading home on the subway, and I was thinking: if Stephen Harper was given the chance to redesign the Canadian flag, what would it be? My first thought:

• He’d replace that horrible Liberal red with safe, reassuring Conservative blue. A deep blue, representing the many appealing lakes and rivers that abound in our great nation.
• And the maple leaf would be replaced by a silhouette of a happy family next to their suburban home, providing a pictorial rendition of the Tories’ ideal swing voter.

Some political commentators, more cynical than I am, believe that the Tories’ new budget is part of an election ploy. This plot goes something like this:

1. Produce reasonable budget. (Okay, it’s a bit too heavily skewed towards working-class families, but what the heck: they deserve the break.)
2. Find excuse to call election: a vote on the Clean Air Act would do it.
3. Use planned budget as talking point in election platform.
4. Obtain majority government.
5. Implement the real budget, whatever it is.

I don’t believe this conspiracy theory, as I think that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty really wants to help out working-class families (since his riding, Whitby, contains a lot of them). But the problem with too much of an emphasis on tactics is that everything starts to appear tactical – even honest attempts to actually govern the country.

Bah. I think it’s time for me to go take my brain for a wash. I’m altogether too grumpy today.

The way they were

Found a wonderful link today, courtesy of Metafilter: Shorpy, The 100-Year-Old Photo Blog. This is a collection of photographs from the past, usually of people at work. Many of these people are very young.

Here is the caption for this picture of Eugene Dalton, taken in November, 1913, in Fort Worth, Texas:

For nine years this 16-year-old boy has been newsboy and messenger for drug stores and telegraph companies. He was recently brought before the Judge of the Juvenile Court for incorrigibility at home. Is now out on parole, and was working again for drug company when he got a job carrying grips in the Union Depot. He is on the job from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. (17 hours a day) for seven days in the week. His mother and the judge think he uses cocaine, and yet they let him put in these long hours every day. He told me “There ain’t a house in ‘The Acre’ (red-light district) that I ain’t been in. At the drug store, all my deliveries were down there.” Says he makes $15 to $18 a week.

17 hours a day, seven days a week. For $15 to $18.

First the Greens, then the Blues

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion has spent a lot of time thinking about and talking about the environment. According to a recent Globe and Mail story, Dion’s newest climate change plan calls for a cap on industrial greenhouse gas emissions, with companies being fined for every tonne they emit above the cap.

My first thought when I read this story was that Dion was making a tactical error. By producing a plan so soon, he was just providing ammunition for Stephen Harper and his band of tacticians. The Tories will now have weeks to craft exactly the right flavour of spin. (If spin can have flavours. Mixing metaphors is fun for the whole family.)

But then I realized that the Tories aren’t the Liberals’ only enemy right now (if you want to look at it from that perspective). The Liberals are also worried about the potential rise of the Green Party. The Greens are far more likely to take votes from the Liberals and NDP than they are from the Conservatives. A surging Green Party would split the liberal-progressive vote, which could lead to more seats for Harper.

Recall that the Ontario PCs never managed to obtain 50% of the vote in either of their majority wins. The non-conservative vote was split between the NDP and the Liberals, while there was no significant conservative alternative to the Tories.

When you look at it this way, emphasizing the environment makes perfect sense for the Liberals. Before they can take on the Conservatives, they first have to neutralize the Greens. Coming up with a tough climate change policy could do just that.

Your bank is not your buddy

So I got a statement this week from TD Canada Trust, where I keep my RRSP and my chequing account. Apparently, they’re changing some fees as of May 1 of this year; needless to say, these fees aren’t decreasing. For example, stop payment fees are rising from $10 and $15 to $12.50 and $17.50. And the cost of a small safety deposit box is rising from $35.00 a year to $42.50, which is an increase of 21.4%.

You can’t really expect banks to behave in any way other than they do; as author Walter Stewart once put it, your bank is not your buddy. Still, I’d be happier to live in a world where bank service fees rose at a rate less than or equal to the rate of inflation. Right now, we’re living in a world where money is being transferred at an increasing rate from ordinary consumers to banks (or to the owners of bank stocks). Oh well. As the old saying goes: them that has, gets.

One of us needs to get out more

An article in today’s Globe about Finance Minister Jim Flaherty contained this fascinating comment: “Among my Toronto friends, I don’t know anyone who worries about paying their monthly bills; I do in Whitby.”

Clearly, Mr. Flaherty and I are in different social circles. I know a whole bunch of people living in Toronto who worry about paying their monthly bills – or, to be accurate, not paying their monthly bills. One of us needs to get out more. Probably me.

The Globe also reported that the Toronto Transit Commission has announced plans to build light rail all over the city. If other levels of government come through with funding, the city hopes to build light rail along Kingston Road, Yonge from Finch to Steeles, Eglinton west from the St. Clair line to the airport and Don Mills Road from Steeles to the city centre, and from the Sheppard subway to the Scarborough Town Centre.

My first thought: I like the idea, but I don’t see the federal government paying for any of this, and I’m not sure that the provincial government will either. It’s worth noting that the TTC pays more of its expenses with revenue from the fare box than any other public transit system in North America does: according to a 1999 article in Eye magazine, 80% of the TTC’s costs are paid for from fares. Comparable percentages for Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles are 50%, 35% and 33%.

Okay, that makes it better

I discovered a new euphemism today. A job posting for a short-term contract for a technical writer stated that one of the writer’s duties would be taking notes at process meetings. In an attempt to make this sound more appealing, this was referred to as “scribing”.