Double Blind

The Bev Oda scandal involving the altered document should be an embarrassment to her. A quick summary is that two years ago, her department recommended funding an aid group to the tune of about $8 million, but she wrote “not” before the word “recommend”. When news came out that funding was rejected, she denied that she put the “not” in the document. Fast forward in 2011, it was revealed that it was indeed her that changed the document.

The opposition is trying to make it look like that Stephen Harper penned in the “not” but this attack is not sticking. They are trying a slightly more plausible route saying that the Conservative benches are all full of liars, but the public realizes that calling a politician a liar is like the proverbial tea kettle being black.

It is pretty clear that Bev Oda is looking foolish after this incident (why not just admit denying the funding up-front back in 2009?), but this is the wrong type of scandal for the opposition. Why? Because it involves the minister going out of her way to deny funding to a religious aid group.

If the scandal instead was the minister overruling a staff recommendation so that she could fund a religious aid group, this scandal would have much more traction than the current version of events.

Hence, the wrong type of scandal for the opposition.

This will not shelter Bev Oda from the inevitable repercussions involving parliamentary privilege, which the speaker will likely judge that she violated. In terms of this being able to smear the whole government, it is unlikely to occur.

The big game changing events in Ottawa will involve one of two matters which are always the downfall of politicians: sex or corruption. So far, the only item of note in the “sex” category has been Maxime Bernier’s fling with Julie Coulliard (and realizing that this is Quebec politics, which is a whole different game), and very little on the corruption side.

After getting jerked around by Virgin Mobile (see prior October 2010 post), I managed to find a new phone and cheaper plan with Rogers last November.

Much to my absolute shock and amazement, over the past four months of service, I have not had any problems with them since the time I ported my number over. I am very happy for switching and making sure my money does not go to Bell Canada (who acquired the remaining 51% of Virgin Mobile sometime two years ago).

The phone I chose was the Samsung Corby Pro, which is a “dumb-phone” that is used primarily for messaging. I chose this phone because it was the only one available had built-in WiFi, and was not considered a “smart” phone – I am just not ready in the stage of my life for a smart phone yet (nor do I subscribe to a data package). The cost would have been around $300 for the phone but I signed up for a 3-year plan, so my out-of-pocket expense was zero (although over the next three years, the subscription will be about $25/month after HST).

Although it was a radical change from my previous phone, the new phone generally works well – now that I have unlimited text, I am getting used to the notion of sending text messages as a means of communication. I know this might sound funny to those that have been doing it for the last five years, but I have previously found text messages to be generally useless, but am now finding functionality with them (probably due to the zero cost nature).

The flip-phone feature works quite well, it is physically easy to doing so, but not overly so where it inadvertently flips. The screen changes from portrait to landscape promptly when doing so. The button placement is relatively optimal, although one minor quibble is when the phone is ringing in your pocket you may inadvertently take or reject a phone call by accidentally pressing the main buttons on the bottom. I’ve learned to take the phone out of my pocket more carefully when it is ringing.

One big complaint is that Rogers loads up the menu interface with lots of crap that I do not need – for example, I do not care about Facebook, Myspace, the Weather Network, etc. I wish I could completely remove them off of my phone.

The internet browser is very basic, but it enables you to view Gmail from a hotspot, which is all that I really needed. It also saves you from having to whip out the netbook or even the requirement to carry it with you for quick emailing. There is a “mobile mail” function which would cost an extra $5/month to use which I may consider in the future.

The camera on the phone, to put it mildly, is poor. There is a one-second respond time from pressing the trigger to when the actual photo is taken. It is very poor in low-light situations. It is very poor when you have to take a “moving” snapshot. If all you need to do is take pictures of store shelves or something, it will do, but the camera otherwise is pretty poor. Viewing pictures on the phone, however, is easy and iPhone-like.

Battery charge appears to be fine – typically once every four or five days I have to plug the thing in.

The phone locking feature is very functional and does not appear obtrusive in any way, except for the accidental time or two when the phone is angled in your pocket and pressing the unlock button.

The date/time display on the phone is perfect. It shows whenever you lock the phone or tap the lock button.

Contact management is simple – names and numbers get entered in manually, saved to either phone or SIM card. I had to manually import my old contacts from my old dinosaur phone, but the keypad made it quick.

The keyboard itself works “well”. The key placement and tapping seems to be rather well designed, especially for people with large fingers like mine.

I wish the speed of the phone could be more snappier, when pressing the menu keys or flicking through the contact list – there is a slight (200ms) delay which is not bad, but I wish things could be a little “quicker”. It is not to the point where it is annoying, but it is something I wish would be better.

Sound volume is fine, both in an automobile and in silent environments. The speaker is loud enough, and the person on the other end seems to be able to hear OK. I still wish phones existed today that had a feature where you could automatically record conversations.

Not having experienced a huge baseline of phones to work with, I believe I can work with this phone for the next 32 months.

In theory, having to work with a 10″ computer screen (or an iPad) should make no difference with respect to how productive you are in terms of writing. However, I notice that when I am in front of a larger screen, I tend to write more and “think” better. Why is this the case?

This leads me to my next thought, mainly, is the miniaturization of computer electronics making us into more consumers of internet discourse than creators? I couldn’t imagine, for example, writing this essay on my cell phone.

Saw this article:

Chilliwack, B.C. – Chilliwack RCMP are investigating after a midafternoon silver bullion robbery.

At around 1:40pm on February 9th, Mounties says two men entered a house on the 10000 block of Imperial. They roughed up the person who lived there, and made off with $750 thousand dollars in silver bullion. RCMP figure it took them 15 to 20 minutes to load it all into their car.

The victim ended up with several bruises after he tried to stop the two men. He told RCMP that he thinks they may have been wearing uniforms. “Police are in the preliminary stages of investigating this incident,” said Cst. Tracy Wolbeck. “We are hopeful that given the time of day, someone saw something and can give us some helpful information.” The victim didn’t think he knew the suspects.

Wolbeck says it was made up of bars and other items. She says the homeowner preferred to invest in precious metals, and kept them in his house because he thought it would be safe. She says it was his life savings and he had no insurance.

Mounties are pretty sure the suspects cased the place pretty thoroughly before going in. The two males are described as white, medium build, both in their early 30′s, dark hair with facial hair. The suspects may have been associated to a white Sedan type vehicle, possibly either a Toyota Camry or Pontiac G6.

If you have any information regarding this incident, please contact the Chilliwack RCMP at 604 792-4611 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).

This is an impressive robbery.

First of all, $750,000 of silver bullion is approximately 24,500 troy ounces at current market values. 24,500 troy ounces is equal to about 1,680 pounds of metal. The thieves must have been in good shape.

Assuming this guy kept his silver in 500 troy ounce bars (or approximately 34.3 pounds each, slightly lighter than a curling rock, or about as heavy as three light bowling balls), there would be 49 bars to lift out of the house.

Here’s the lesson of the day: if you have enough money to spend on $750,000 of raw precious metals, perhaps you might wish to spend the $300/year it would take to keep them safe.

The other thought is that anybody hauling 1,680 pounds of metal might need something better than a Toyota Camry to take them away. I have no idea what the weight capacity of these vehicles are, but it can’t be much more than this.

Finally, it is a rare precious metal fanatic that puts their networth in silver than gold. The equivalent market value of gold would be about 37.4 pounds and require a safety deposit box less than $100/year to maintain.

The only source of any product innovation these days appears to be from McDonalds – a sad statement on today’s society. Their most recent invention was the “Buttermilk Biscuit”, of which there are two choices – bacon and egg, or sausage and egg.

I say “invention” here jokingly since buttermilk biscuits have existed since the dawn of tea brewing.

They had a promotion where yesterday and today you could pick one up for free to try it out. So I exercised this right and got the egg and bacon one.

The corporation typically field tests the products amongst smaller audience samples before introducing them to the larger public. I am not sure why this one made it through, mainly because I don’t think it will be a good seller compared to their competing products (Egg McMuffins and McGriddles). The main problem is that although the fattiness of the product works very well with the drier nature of the biscuit, the biscuit itself is too crumbly. It did taste very “fresh”, much to my delight. It was a good tasting product.

Nutritionally, it is not that damaging compared to others – 290 calories, 14 grams of fat, 480mg of sodium. (Update: check out the comments for the proper nutrition information.)

That said, I don’t think this product will sell too well. It would almost be better for marketing if they took out all of the stuff inside and sold biscuits as an addition to coffee.