Important court decision on personal files stored on employer's computers

A recent ruling by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice may have turned some traditional wisdom on its head.

The ruling says that personal e-mails stored on a government computer are not subject to Freedom of Information legislation. The correspondence concerned the employee’s volunteer activities with a community organization. The employee in question works for the City of Ottawa.

The question put to the court was whether a citizen had the right to request access to e-mail files on a civil servant’s computer, including e-mails which the employee had designated as personal. The court said no. “It is not reasonable for e-mails belonging to a private individual to be subject to access by members of the public merely because they are sent or received on a government owned e-mail server.” The judges ruled the legislation does not cover public servants’ private messages – even if they are stored on government computers.

The court went even further saying that the e-mails, which were unrelated to city business and kept in a separate folder, were not in the municipality’s control or custody. The decision overturns a 2009 ruling by an Information and Privacy Commissioner adjudicator, which ordered the city to release the documents.

Traditional wisdom has held that regardless of the nature of the documents, anything stored on your employer’s computer is indirectly the property of the employer and therefore subject to various pieces of legislation including Freedom of Information provisions.

The National Post is reporting today that “Ontario’s privacy commissioner is seeking leave to appeal a recent court ruling that says private emails on workplace email systems are not covered by freedom of information laws.”   Surprise, surprise.

Entertain-me-right-this-second generation

The old maxim that industry must evolve to meet its customers needs is so true in the entertainment business and leading the edge of that wedge is Disney World in Florida. A recent article in the online New York Times shows just how much Disney is a leader in customer service innovation.

As an example, there are more than 40 rides available in the Magic Kingdom but customers generally get to ride only nine because of lengthy waits and crowded walkways and restaurants. So Disney looked at the problem, developed what they call the “operational command centre” and now the customer gets to ride ten of them. When you realize that more than 30-million people a year visit Disney World, you realize just how significant that number can be.

The goal for the modern Disney incarnation is profit. Disney wants to raise per-capita spending so if they can get you onto your favorite ride faster, then the thinking is you’re more inclined to spend on those ancillary things like restaurant meals, bobble heads, bumper stickers, t-shirts, etc.

One idea they’re exploring is using wrist bands encoded with personal information for the customers, including credit card numbers, favorite rides and more. That way, a wave of the wrist band would secure your purchase at a souvenir shop and animatronic characters might recognize that you’ve been through a particular ride three times that day and greet you by your first name.

The question then becomes what level of personal privacy are you willing to sacrifice in order to get a better entertainment experience? Chances are that harried parents would see it as a boon and accept the inevitable data mining as the price to pay for convenience.

It raises some interesting issues.

Only for those who need a laugh ... Homeopathic E.R.

Cleary cracks ankle - gone for a month

The Detroit Red Wings will have to get along for at least a month without leading goal scorer Danny Cleary from Harbour Grace who suffered a broken ankle in Sunday’s 4-1 victory over Minnesota. The 32-year old Cleary was hit by a shot from teammate Brad Stuart in the third period and limped to the bench. He returned for two more shifts but was in obvious pain after the game. “I didn’t know what was going on,” Cleary told the Detroit Free Press when explaining his return to the ice. “Sometimes in the boot, it can stay. It was sore, but I knew after the game something was wrong.” Cleary, whose injury was confirmed by X-rays, estimated he would miss “a month at least. I don’t know the terms, but there’s a fracture in my ankle.”

Cleary, who struggled for most of last season with a knee injury, scored his 16th goal in the first period. The right winger has become an integral part of Detroit’s offense and his consistency and energy will be missed. "Cleary is one of those … I don't think he really maybe gets the credit he deserves," defenseman Niklas Kronwall told the newspaper. "He's doing a really, really good job for us, and I think he's been one of our most important guys so far. He's one of our leaders. It's tough to lose him."

The feeling is shared by Cleary, who will be replaced in the lineup by callup Jan Mursak. "I'm really upset about it," he told the newspaper. "I don't know what to say. No bright side. Just, four or five weeks, make sure I get back to playing the way I was, that'll be the goal."

In the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs on May 14, 2009, Cleary scored the tie breaking, Western Conference semi-final series winning goal for the Detroit Red Wings against the Anaheim Ducks with 3 minutes left in Game 7. With the win the Red Wings moved on to face the Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference Final. Cleary scored 5 goals against his former team in a 4-1 series win clinching the Western Conference title before succumbing to the Pittsburgh Penguins in 7 games in a rematch of the previous Stanley Cup finals.

Cleary's stats

S'more Christmas Day pictures from around the Avalon ...

S'more Christmas Day pictures from around the Avalon ...

Happy Boxing Day! :-)

Did a little touring around the Avalon yesterday and used the new camera to take some pictures of the RDF Christmas Day.  This one is from Flatrock ...

To one and all ...

A story to brighten your day ...

If you want to read an absolutely incredible Christmas story that speaks of the real spirit of Christmas, check out this story in fellow blogger "Brain Droppings"  http://ringkeeper.blogspot.com/2010/12/merry-and-bright.html

My favourite line: "It looked to us like someone had gathered the night stars and scattered them on every bough. Dad had done that for us."

Thanks for a wonderful story that brightened my day!

Blah

Don’t know about you, but am I the only one who is getting awfully friggin’ depressed with this weather? You go to bed in the fog, you wake up in the fog and throughout there is the incessant rain beating against everything. All you see is gray, gray and more gray. The pharmacies must be doing a great business in anti-depressant medications.  Maybe it's trying to reconcile the notion of Christmas with this weather that has a downer effect as well.  Christmas is supposed to be white snow with happy feelings and freshness.  Blah is about the best description I can come up with to describe the weather outside and the mood of many people I meet.

Move over Jesus, Julian is here

I suspect I’m not the only one who is getting a bit tired of reading about Julian Assange’s delusions of grandeur.

For those who have just emerged from their Platonic cave in time for Christmas, Assange is one of the founders of Wikileaks, an online website that specializes in releasing information that has been classified secret by most governments. He has also been charged with two sexual misconduct allegations in Sweden. He’s presently under house arrest in England while extradition proceedings to move him to Sweden play out.

Assange is certainly a top-notch self-promoter. He portrays himself in various interviews as either a champion for freedom, a high-tech journalist, a victim and/or a martyr. Reports suggest that he is also fairly well-off having developed a cult like following among some wealthy people including American movie maker Michael Moore.

In recent interviews, one could get the impression that his ethics are slightly above that of a copper head rattler.

Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times report of an interview with the Times of London:

[Assange] compared himself to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., saying that when he was jailed at Wandsworth Prison in London, a black guard handed him a card saying, “I only have two heroes in the world, Dr. King and you.” Mr. Assange added, “That is representative of 50 percent of people.”

In the interview, he also compared the obloquy directed at WikiLeaks by the Obama administration and other critics with the “persecution” endured by American Jews in the 1950s. He added, “I’m not the Jewish people,” but suggested that the common thread was that supporters of WikiLeaks and American Jews were “people who believe in freedom of speech and accountability.”

Assange also spoke of his “feeling of betrayal” toward the two women in Sweden, who have said he forced sex on them without using a condom, and in one case while the woman, according to her account, was asleep. Over the weekend, The Guardian and The New York Times obtained copies of a 68-page police document detailing the accusations against Mr. Assange, leaks he said were “clearly designed to undermine” his bail arrangements.  “Somebody in authority clearly intended to keep Julian in prison,” he said of himself.

At times in the interviews, he seemed conflicted about the impact of the Swedish allegations. Speaking to the BBC, he said he thought they could be “quite helpful to our organization” because “it will expose a tremendous abuse of power.” But he also rued the impact on his own reputation, saying that his name was now linked widely on the Internet with the rape allegation.  Using Google, he said, and “searching for my name and the word ‘rape,’ there are some 30 million Web pages. So this has been a very successful smear.”

Clearly this guy has a ginormous ego and is starting to sound like his meds are wearing off.

I’m starting to hope that his 15 minutes soon will be up.

The treasure of the blogosphere

Earlier this week, I waxed poetically about the Newfoundland & Labrador Blog Roll and the work done by Stephen Eli Harris to connect the Newfoundland blogging community. After I wrote that post, I began thinking of how much I enjoy exploring other blogs originating in Newfoundland or written by ex-pat Newfoundlanders. There is a treasure trove of content to read when you have the time.

Some of my personal favourites include: Bitstop;  Charlie's Hash;  Desktop_Gourmet;  Hands Across the Sea, Deschappelles, Haiti;  John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot;  Nain Bay; Polemic & Paradox;  Random Thoughts...From Clarenville, Newfoundland;  Rant and Roar;  Rock Solid Politics;   The Other Side of Sixty;  Townie Bastard. (Note careful alphabetical ordering!)

I also enjoy a few non-Newfoundland blogs as well (heresy I know): Official Blog for the Detroit Red Wings;  Sad Catholic 101;   Homeless Man Speaks;  Doorey's Workplace Law Blog and many others.

A good discussion is going on in Polemic & Paradox at the moment regarding the appropriateness of employees posting to blogs while at work. Check out the comments here.

Bottom line in all of this is to say thank you to everyone who labours in the blogosphere.  My world is richer because of you.

A thug is a thug is a thug ...

The headline reads, “Mohawk Warriors to get military apology.”

I guess I’m weary of all of these apologies that are offered to various groups in a pathetic attempt to satisfy some sort of need for self-flagellation.

In this case, it deals with a document issued by the Canadian military in the wake of what was described as “the Oka crisis” in 1990 which lasted for 78-days and resulted in the death of 31-year old Quebec police officer, Corporal Marcel Lemay, who was killed in a gun battle between the so-called warriors and the police.

The issue was some wooded property which the Oka town council had agreed to bulldoze to expand a golf course. The Mohawks claimed it as sacred ground and the fight was on. The image that most of us remember from that incident was one of the Mohawks trying to stare down a young Canadian soldier who stood his ground and never lost his cool, unlike the masked thug in front of him. (Strange how these anarchists seem to wear masks all the time. Are they afraid that someone will recognize them?)

Anyway, sometime later, the Canadian military issued a draft form training manual in which terrorist groups, including some international groups are discussed and the Mohawks are mentioned. In particular, groups like the Mohawk Warriors "seek particular political concessions in their relationship with national governments, and control (either overt or covert) of political affairs at a local/reserve ('First Nation') level," the draft manual says.

It’s a statement of the fact. The Mohawks were upset that they were called terrorists although in a broad definition of the term, they did bring very real terror to the people in Oka during those 78-days when public property was destroyed and a police officer was killed. The methods and extent may be different, but terror is terror. Domestic terrorism is just as nasty as the international variety. Now, once again, we’re trying to rewrite history to sanitize it and ensure that a spade is not called a spade.

So the military is going to apologize. The political masters in Ottawa – Harper, et al – have ensured they’ll have a feel good ceremony where all will be whitewashed and those who broke the law will be called law-abiding citizens who were simply protecting their cultural sovereignty.

Meanwhile, Corporal Marcel Lemay would be 51-years old if he was still alive today. Did the Mohawks apologize to his family for his death?

Gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes

There seems to be a lot of time spent in media lately weeping and moaning with considerable gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes over delays in international and domestic travel.

It seems that I’ve heard more than a fair share of people affected by these delays suggesting that the planes should be flying out of Europe and that the ferries should be sailing across the Cabot Strait - 30 tons of snow and 9 metre waves be damned. In some cases, these are the same people who will be photographed naked in order to get on an airplane, all in the name of safety … but when it’s a simple matter like a lack of de-icing fluid, they want to fly anyway.

There’s a sense of entitlement on the part of travellers this time of year that boggles my mind. They will set out on long journeys without considering the potential consequences and then when things don’t go quite the way they planned, they will demand that the service providers look after their needs. They never seem to expect the unexpected.

As an example, I’ve heard of people stranded by the winds in Cabot Strait suggesting that Marine Atlantic is responsible for their well-being while they wait. No, Marine Atlantic is responsible for getting them safely across the Strait – the rest is up to the passenger – how you get to the ferry terminal and what happens if there is a delay. Packing along a blanket or two and some food might not be a bad place to start, not only because of possible delays, but what happens if you get stuck in a snowstorm like they did in Ontario? Being winter ready in this climate is not just a good idea, it’s an essential idea that could end up saving your life.

We take travel for granted in this day and age – that we can cross continents in a matter of hours or sail across a significant chunk of the Atlantic Ocean in about six hours. From time to time, there are going to be delays whether it’s an act of God or an energy imbalance in our collective karma. Whatever the cause, taking on the role of victim only provides for good tabloid coverage.

Happy Holidays! :-)

Arbitration no replacement for responsible negotiation

Binding arbitration seems to be the new catchword for labour relations in Newfoundland lately. The doctors who recently reached a tentative agreement with government want to enshrine binding arbitration in the next contract and now there’s word that MetroBus employees in St. Johns want to go in the same direction.

It would appear that binding arbitration is being viewed by some at least as a panacea to difficult labour negotiations. The only problem is that it can go either way – you might get want you want or you might get what the other side wants; the one sure thing about arbitration is that there is a winner and a loser.

A few years back, I had a chance to work with one of the top labour lawyers in Canada and joined him in some negotiations. His perspective, with which I agree, is that labour negotiations have become completely adversarial to the extent that the parties are often left in the position of not being to compromise for fear of losing face with their constituency. The approach is no longer one of negotiation but more of demand and counter demand with raised voices, slammed doors and intransigence on the part of both sides.

From what I can tell in the government-doctors dispute, the government pretty much caved and gave the doctors whatever they wanted. Not hard to see in that scenario why Jerome Kennedy would opt not to offer for the Tory party leadership. You can be guaranteed that a smart opposition would make him wear that through any election campaign. Everyone knows that the doctors stooped way low to use public health as a bargaining chip in the negotiations and they won – largely because they made people afraid. It is called the HYPOCRITICAL oath, isn’t it?

Now the bus drivers are apparently looking for arbitration as well, to settle a seven-week old dispute with the city of St. Johns. The fact that the two sides haven’t been able to come to an agreement speaks of that same intransigence and again, the public are being used as pawns. A lot of people in this community depend on the bus and I suspect when the bus drivers’ union leadership decided to call a strike, they felt that because it was so close to Christmas, the city would cave and give them what they wanted or wanted to take away. It didn’t work out that way and seven weeks later, with Christmas in a few days, those employees are on strike pay – which is enough to afford Kraft dinner but not the ketchup to go with it.

All that binding arbitration does is take away the responsibility of the parties to negotiate in good faith. Why should they bother when they know that an arbitrator or arbitration panel will come in and solve their dispute for them? It’s like two kids fighting on the playground. The teacher can break it up and send them both back to their classroom, but until they have to look one another in the eye and say they’re sorry and shake hands, all that happens is the dispute simmers and they’ll be fighting again after school. The handshake is symbolic but if they can make that first move, there’s hope.

Binding arbitration is not and never will be the answer to intransigence in labour negotiations. It is only the answer for those who don’t have the fortitude to act like adults in negotiations.

Kathy for Premier?

Kathy Dunderdale says she might be interested in taking a crack at the Tory leadership once the leadership race is officially underway. CBC is running a straw poll to see how many might support that idea. If you’re interested, check out the poll here: http://tinyurl.com/2ufapvm

We have it pretty good on this old rock

I took my life in my hands and went for a drive in both downtown and uptown St. John’s yesterday morning to see how retail is doing in this run-up to Christmas. Finding a place to park at one of the malls was nearly impossible and some restaurants had people lined up to get in. Conspicuous consumption is roaring right along.

But what are we celebrating? Clearly, it is not the birth of the Christ child some two thousand years ago; rather, we’re equating happiness with the number and quality of gifts to be found under the tree. In this case, quality often means cost. Separate surveys by two organizations have come to the conclusion that Canadians will spend about $600 on Christmas gifts this year. That’s a long way from days of yore when some fruit and candy were considered to be Christmas luxuries. I had a chance to talk to an elderly woman in the line-up at a Wal-Mart checkout the other day and she shared some of her early Christmas memories. None of them had to do with expensive gifts; all of them had to do with family.

Again this year, on Christmas Day, St. Thomas’ Church at 8 Military Road in St. John's is offering its traditional Christmas dinner. Two sittings: 11:45am and 1:00pm.  If you are interested in volunteering with this ministry, or if you wish to make a dinner reservation, please contact the church office at 709-576-6632, ext. 401 and leave a message or via e-mail to christmas_dinner(at)hotmail.com   They can always use extra volunteers, so if you can spare some time to help, it would be gratefully received. Donations come in handy too!

I was reading through the online edition of the New York Times this morning and came across a story about health care in rural Zimbabwe, entitled “Zimbabwe Health Care, Paid With Peanuts”. Here’s a brief excerpt: “It’s very difficult to get this famous dollar that people are talking about,” said Esther Chirasasa, 30, who hiked eight miles through the bush to the hospital for treatment of debilitating arthritis. Her son, Cain, 13, walked at her side carrying a sack of peanuts to pay for her care. Mrs. Chirasasa said her family of seven was nearly out of the food they grew on their small plot, so she needed to get her pain under control to work in other farmers’ fields to feed her children.”

When you think about that, you realize how good we have it here on this rock in the Atlantic.

Six more sleeps to go before Christmas Day. It sounds like a cliché but maybe this year is the time we reconnect with the roots of Christmas and whether or not we believe the Bible story, the reason for Christmas is far, far away from debit cards and credit cards.

Freedom of the press means something to me

There’s a disturbing trend developing in this country when it comes to freedom of the press. It seems that whenever any identifiable group feels slighted, they immediately attack the media. There’s almost a subsequent knee-jerk from the political sector to join in the media bashing. Witness the recent controversy over the story in Maclean’s magazine about corruption in Quebec. No one bothered to ask if the story was true; all the politicians were concerned about was protecting the French factor.

Maclean’s is again in the spotlight, this time for an article about the number of Asian students at Canadian universities and the effect their presence is having on the character of the universities. The original story was entitled “Too Asian?” – a phrase used during a conference in the USA dealing with that specific issue. Immediately, the pressure from the Asian community and the political sector started anew led, in part, by a Canadian senator who blasts the magazine and calls for an end to the federal subsidy paid to all Canadian magazines. Dr. Vivienne Poy says the public outcry over the article is enough to justify axing $1.5-million. I didn’t hear her once question the accuracy or truthfulness of the article, despite a rather impressive academic resume which would suggest some talent at academic research.

Canada's Constitution of 1982 provides protection for freedom of expression, including freedom of the press. I had the good fortune along with thousands of other Canadians to stand on Parliament Hill the day the new Constitution was signed into law. I think Dr. Poy needs to go back and read that document from start to finish. The reason freedom of the press is entrenched into the Constitution is to protect our press from the sort of political pressure that is so common in less developed parts of the world such as Zimbabwe. Dr. Poy sits on a senate committee, “the MP/Senator Zimbabwe Twinning Initiative”, so she should have a decent understanding of how freedom of the press is not tolerated in Mugabeland. Nor in China.

Over the last years, there has been a steady decline in freedom enjoyed by the press.  “The journalism profession today is up against the ropes and fighting to stay alive, as pressures from governments, other powerful actors and the global economic crisis take an enormous toll,” the Freedom House executive director Jennifer Windsor said in discussing the world press.  She is so very right and it is unacceptable in this country.

Because you don’t agree with a magazine’s perspective doesn’t mean, in this country at least, that you can use your political clout to punish the publication, but that is exactly what Dr. Poy is proposing. It is a slippery slope from there to fear on the part of media to report only what the political and social elite of the country wants to hear. The senate is supposed to be the chamber of sober second thought. I don’t see much evidence of that in this situation.

Newfoundland and Labrador Blog Roll is back & better

I am very happy to see a rejuvenated Newfoundland and Labrador Blog Roll.  I thought that with the demise of the original blog roll website that the Newfoundland and Labrador Blog Roll had closed up shop, but Stephen Eli Harris has risen like the phoenix with a nicely redesigned website and some new features. He’s making use of the “Blogs I Follow” feature that a number of us moved on to when the blog rolling service shut down. Stephen deserves much credit for his work in promoting Newfoundland blogs; I wouldn’t have met a quarter of the interesting people I’ve come to know in the blogosphere if it wasn’t for Stephen’s work.  So to Stephen and all those who are participating in the Newfoundland and Labrador Blog Roll, job well done!

A celebration of greed

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We’ve been talking about that over on Peter Whittle’s blog Polemic & Paradox. When I heard the announcement yesterday that the government had reached an agreement with the doctors, I thought that what we’re celebrating here is greed. Doctors who now earn multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars each year are now going to earn more and the $100million settlement is only the tip of the iceberg. You can be sure there’s more we don’t know about.

And, of course, as anyone with a brain predicted, the resignations have been withdrawn. It was a bluff and hospital staff knew it, doctors knew it, the politicians knew it … but who didn’t know it were the parents of sick children who were fearing for their children’s lives while the doctors played their high-stakes games. The next time someone talks to me about “caring” doctors who always put their patients first, it will be hard for me to get it out of my mind that those pediatricians used the children as bargaining chips.

The other game of course is that the doctors complained about too much work. So Eastern Health took away administrative work from at least one doctor and maybe more. Today the Eastern Health CEO Vicki Kaminski said those responsibilities have been restored. I guess the doctor who complained about being tired and not able to get all of her work done has been drinking large quantifies of Boost or something because now that $95thousand dollars will be flowing back into her bank account. Amazing the difference that more money can make to your energy levels.

And, don’t forget, as Kaminski pointed out this morning, that many of these doctors have teaching appointments to the medical school which mean additional tens of thousands of dollars into those bank accounts. 

Oh, it’s a tough life and it’s hard to make a buck but I’m sure those vacations in Paris, Rome, and other exotic places will help to heal the wounds of having had to negotiate with that nasty government.

As for the seniors in the Corner Brook nursing home who have to wait three hours to get their diapers changed … well, it soon may be four hours because the government won’t be able to afford to hire additional attendants due to the cost of the settlement with the doctors. I’m sure most of the doctors will be crying about that ... all the way to the bank.

Today, we celebrate greed.

Sad commentary.

An article in the December 6 issue of Maclean’s magazine is entitled “Don’t be sabotaged by a selfish partner”. It’s a discussion of a book written by psychologist Jane Greer - What About Me?: Stop Selfishness from Ruining Your Relationship.

Greer says that young couples are bringing the me generation mindset into their relationships in such a way that many of them are doomed. “Never before has the lament ‘You’re not listening to me’ rung so true. In fact, people are listening to and paying attention to everyone and everything except their partner and their relationship,” she writes. “Porn is a click away, old flames are waiting on Facebook.” The new selfishness is changing even the way people think about their relationships: “When it comes down to giving time to your partner, it can feel like a loss of your personal needs rather than an expression of love,” writes Greer.

I remember when the reality TV show phenomena was just starting. Everyone wanted to get a look into the lives of the rich and famous – but basically all you got to see was selfishness and greed, which of course satisfied most of the tweens and 20-something viewers. It confirmed for them that it was “all about me” and to hell with the rest of the world. It’s only gotten worse.

I know a young woman who told me that at their wedding about a year ago, while they were walking down the aisle after the marriage ceremony, her new husband was checking text messages. Her concern was that he wasn’t focused on her. In the meantime, it seems she’s never heard of the word “our”; everything is “my”. Perhaps it’s the new way of being a couple.

What it seems to mean is that two spoiled brats are coming together in a relationship that has minimal chance for success. About the only ones who will be enjoying the spoils are the divorce lawyers. Sad commentary.

Bust a bunch of the idiots

This must be “rant week” around my homestead.

Today’s topic: lousy drivers in St. John’s. (Why is that apostrophe there anyway? I’m going to start a movement today to eliminate the apostrophe in St. Johns! Join me in the “freedom from needless punctuation” REVOLUTION!!!)

I saw what could have been a nasty accident yesterday if it hadn’t been for the quick action of a Bugden’s taxi driver. He was heading into an intersection in the new subdivision at the top of New Pennywell, with the right of way, when a big truck with a Boland’s sign on the side and a crane apparatus on the back came barrelling through the stop sign without stopping. The taxi driver hit the brakes and blew the horn, but it didn’t seem to matter to the truck driver – the vehicle kept going. Quite honestly, although buddy apparently drives for a living, he should have lost his license on the spot. At the speed he was going, if he had hit that taxi on the driver’s side, the driver would have suffered injury – perhaps life threatening.

St. Johns drivers simply do not obey traffic rules. They travel at considerably above posted speed limits, go through stop signs without stopping, assume that a yellow light about to turn red means go faster and the list goes on and on. It is absolutely no wonder when we have a heavy rain that so many idiots end up in the ditch. The idea of reducing their speed to match the conditions of the road seems to be a lesson mommy and daddy forgot to teach them and they obviously haven’t learned anything since.

I have been cut off so many times that it now seems almost normal.

My question in all of this is where are the RNC traffic patrols? I drive enough in this city that I would notice an unmarked car if it’s around but I never see them, let alone a marked car sitting by the side of the road. It’s almost as if there are no traffic patrols in the city, unless they all spend their time in the downtown core.

A lot of energy is spent on talking about “traffic calming” – the new phrase for what used to be discouraging idiots from speeding through residential areas where there are children. To me the best traffic calming device in the world is a police car parked on the side of the road with a radar gun visible. Bust a bunch of the idiots, give them hefty fines, take away their license for a few days and the word will get around. Simple: go fast and you will pay.

“We blew it”

Those are the words I want to hear from the Mounties in relation to Leo Crockwell.

55-year old Crockwell is the fellow in Bay Bulls who was supposedly barricaded in his house on Friday night with who knows how many Mounties including snipers surrounding the building. While the Mounties were setting off flashbangs and apparently trying to drown the guy, he went out a side window and headed off to the Goulds for a pack of smokes. Frankly, it would be funny if it wasn’t such an indictment of the incompetence of the scene commander.

I read somewhere the Mounties pumped more than 225,000 litres of water into his home late Friday night and that’s when Crockwell decided to move to dryer ground. Can’t blame him. The house is probably destroyed. Now he’s facing sixteen charges, including five counts of attempted murder.

I can’t help but think in reading the press accounts of how the Mounties tried to cover up their failure. Their spokesman said something about how, after cutting off the power, using the flashbangs and flooding the house, they arrested the guy. They failed to note that he was down the road quite a way at his brother’s place. As a matter of fact, it took them six hours to mention that little fact.

There’s a tarnish on the serge and this doesn’t help it in the least.

What's going wrong with cops?

There’s a profoundly dark side to policing in Canada and, as more and more light is being cast on it by commissions and public inquiries, even more evidence surfaces.

Consider the recent videos of the Ottawa police brutally kneeing and kicking people in custody. There was the case of Robert Dziekanski dying after being shot up to four times by a Taser at the Vancouver airport. Now, there is the report of a respected Nova Scotia judge into the death of Howard Hyde, a man in police custody in Halifax who was shot with a Taser gun multiple times. Judge Anne Derrick raised serious questions about the actions of the Halifax police.

There are police officers in this country who have been presented with the evidence that multiple shots from a Taser gun can contribute to someone’s death, but they ignore that and happily continue to pull the trigger.

It seems in many ways as if the police are placing themselves above the very law which they are paid to enforce. 

(Personal disclaimer here: I have several very good friends who are cops and I would trust my life with them and I know the reverse is true.  It's just that I get the feeling they're slowly becoming a minority.)

We know that policing attracts certain personality types – many of them are control freaks in much the same way as professional fire fighters are often adrenalin junkies. They will be the first to jump into the water to save someone from drowning and will put their own lives at risk to rescue someone, but it’s not always altruism that drives them. It’s the rush and you don’t have to peel back very many layers to discover that.

Once upon a time, the caricature of a pot-bellied US southern sheriff being judge, jury and sometimes executioner was just that – a caricature. Unfortunately as we see more instances of police brutality and of people dying while in police custody, I have to wonder where we’re headed in terms of justice and law enforcement in this country.

Think of the Toronto cop who, during the G20 demonstrations, said he would charge a young woman with assault if she blew bubbles at him. Or think of the plastic cops working as security screeners in the airports and how many stories there are about them acting like jerks. Or think about that female special constable in Ottawa repeatedly kneeing a young woman in custody without any of her fellow “officers” stopping her.

It doesn’t make any difference if you’re a drunk, a druggie, a bank president, a surgeon or someone with mental illness, you have rights and the first one is that you deserve to be treated with respect.

I’m sure there were just as many jerks in cops of previous generations; it’s just that now we see it every day and quite frankly it’s becoming sickening. Some of the stuff we’re seeing now is the behaviour of thugs, not supposedly professional police officers.

Rob & Don - tea party heaven

Many people see the election of Rob Ford as the mayor of Toronto as being a bit of a joke gone wrong. Ford is a combination of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Rodney Dangerfield and maybe Don Cherry. There are probably a few more stereotypes you can throw in there, but why bother when that stellar cast paints the picture?

One thing Ford shares in common with them is none of them are what we would call “deep”. But they all are millionaires – including Ford!

As Mayor of Canada’s largest city, Ford wants to abandon buses and street cars and bicycles and give the streets back to cars and trucks. Doh! Where’s Homer with his radioactive butt? As a matter of fact, Ford wants to ignore millions of dollars in research on how to improve public transit in that city. He figures you just dig some more subway lines and the world will be a better place.

Which brings me to Don Cherry. Ford chose Cherry to be his special guest at council’s ceremonial first meeting. Cherry spent most of his time at the mic berating the media for daring to criticize him for being front and center at the first council meeting.

Sayeth the cherry bomb: “I am befuddled because I just thought I was doing a good thing coming down with Ron, Rob and I thought it was going to be nice and the whole deal. I’ve been being ripped to shreds by the left-wing pinko newspapers out there. It’s unbelievable,” Cherry said. Some think Cherry is unbelievable.

So, true to form, he takes an event that should have been focused on the new mayor and council and twists it around so that he’s the focus of attention. Surprise, surprise!

Oh well, it’s really only left-wing intellectual pinkos who read this blog anyway, so I guess we wouldn’t have been surprised.

The point? They deserve one another.

Wikileaks hounded?

Statement from Reporters Without Borders regarding Wikileaks
Published on 4 December 2010

"Reporters Without Borders condemns the blocking, cyber-attacks and political pressure being directed at cablegate.wikileaks.org, the website dedicated to the US diplomatic cables. The organization is also concerned by some of the extreme comments made by American authorities concerning WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.

Earlier this week, after the publishing several hundred of the 250.000 cables it says it has in its possession, WikiLeaks had to move its site from its servers in Sweden to servers in the United States controlled by online retailer Amazon. Amazon quickly came under pressure to stop hosting WikiLeaks from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and its chairman, Sen. Joe Lieberman, in particular.

After being ousted from Amazon, WikiLeaks found a refuge for part of its content with the French Internet company OVH. But French digital economy minister Eric Besson today said the French government was looking at ways to ban hosting of the site. WikiLeaks was also recently dropped by its domain name provider EveryDNS. Meanwhile, several countries well known for for their disregard of freedom of expression and information, including Thailand and China, have blocked access to http://www.cablegate.wikileaks.org/ 

This is the first time we have seen an attempt at the international community level to censor a website dedicated to the principle of transparency. We are shocked to find countries such as France and the United States suddenly bringing their policies on freedom of expression into line with those of China. We point out that in France and the United States, it is up to the courts, not politicians, to decide whether or not a website should be closed.

Meanwhile, two Republican senators, John Ensign and Scott Brown, and an independent Lieberman, have introduced a bill that would make it illegal to publish the names of U.S. military and intelligence agency informants. This could facilitate future prosecutions against WikiLeaks and its founder. But a criminal investigation is already under way and many U.S. politicians are calling vociferously for Assange’s arrest.

Reporters Without Borders can only condemn this determination to hound Assange and reiterates its conviction that WikiLeaks has a right under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment to publish these documents and is even playing a useful role by making them available to journalists and the greater public.

We stress that any restriction on the freedom to disseminate this body of documents will affect the entire press, which has given detailed coverage to the information made available by WikiLeaks, with five leading international newspapers actively cooperating in preparing it for publication.

Reporters Without Borders would also like to stress that it has always defended online freedom and the principle of “Net neutrality,” according to which Internet Service Providers and hosting companies should play no role in choosing the content that is placed online."

Frightening diabetes statistics

Diabetes rates in Newfoundland and Labrador are the highest in Canada and they don’t show any signs of letting up.

It doesn’t surprise me. Look at our diet. Here in St. John’s, unless you want to go to one of the more expensive restaurants downtown, it seems the most you can hope for is deep fried food. I was out to a well known diner in the Goulds last week and asked if I could get my fish grilled and was told that all they do is deep fry. Same for just about every other place. No wonder we’re fat and diabetic with high blood pressure. Don’t get me going about the amount of salt we use.

The Canadian Diabetes Association released a report this week showing that we lead the pack in terms of diabetes numbers for Canada. The report says, “It’s estimated the direct and indirect financial impact of diabetes in Newfoundland and Labrador currently costs the province $254 million per year. By 2020, these costs will increase to over $322 million per year if we don’t take action.”  (See the The Cost of Diabetes in Newfoundland and Labrador report here).

So what do we do? Well the CDA is recommending that the government move towards establishing a provincial Diabetes Program with the specific responsibility and accountability for addressing diabetes issues in the province. Either that or we can continue to bury our heads in the sand and hope that it goes away.

The personal challenge though is not to wait for government to act.  Instead, each one of us can do our part.  Lose weight.  Best way known to do that is through increased physical activity (used to be called exercise) and reduced food intake.  If you take in less and expend more, your fat will go down.  While you're at it, throw out the salt shaker.

Won’t be long before it’s not only our heads being buried.

(Personal disclaimer: I'm a Type 2, insulin-dependent diabetic)

Will someone please give Stephen Harper and his Tories the boot?

Harper talks out of both sides of his mouth, often at the same time. He preaches frugality, less government in our lives, restraint ... and then spends $100 MILLION on polling over the past five years. His defence? They're spending less than the other guys did.  (It's like the kid who steals the cookie and then justifies it by saying everyone else is doing it.)

Documents tabled in the House of Commons in response to an official question show the feds forked over $99,924,234 to ask Canadians their thoughts on everything from fish to museums to what should be in the budget. The polling was conducted between 2006 and 2010.

Canada’s Treasury Board President Stockwell Day excuses the spending by saying that the Tories are spending less than the Grits did. Does that speak of sophistication in government or does it more clearly speak of a government that has run out of gas?  It's also speaks of a government with variable values.  If they're caught with their hands in the cookie jar (Parliament Hill renovations anyone?) they blame someone else.  Would you buy a used government from these guys????

Interesting to see the Wikileaks documents showing that the Americans think of us as Robin as compared to Batman. The sooner Harper gets a lift out of Ottawa in the Batmobile, the better. Maybe Peter MacKay will drive it.