Wondering where I could live if I wanted to be cycling 30 mins from downtown Ottawa, I made a public google map. Enjoy!

Amnesty International is reporting that there are more empty homes than homeless people in the states:

“Since 2007, banks have foreclosed around eight million homes. It is estimated that another eight to ten million homes will be foreclosed before the financial crisis is over. This approach to resolving one part of the financial crisis means many, many families are living without adequate and secure housing. In addition, approximately 3.5 million people in the U.S. are homeless, many of them veterans. It is worth noting that, at the same time, there are 18.5 million vacant homes in the country.”

I remember going into a corner store (large enough to be a small grocery) of my home town, which is surrounded by farms. All the products sold were processed foods and shipped from far away. But the figures above just beats everything else in terms of non-sense.

Sometimes north american economics just doesn’t stick to common sense.

An article in the New York Times underlines that while the US has seen more whether extremes in a short time span, some republicans continue to refute the existence of climate change.

Many of the individual events in 2011 do have precedents in the historical record. And the nation’s climate has featured other concentrated periods of extreme weather, including severe cold snaps in the early 20th century and devastating droughts and heat waves in the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s.

But it is unusual, if not unprecedented, for so many extremes to occur in such a short span. [...]

This year, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tried to push through a reorganization that would have provided better climate forecasts to businesses, citizens and local governments, Republicans in the House of Representatives blocked it. The idea had originated in the Bush administration, was strongly endorsed by an outside review panel and would have cost no extra money. But the House Republicans, many of whom reject the overwhelming scientific consensus about the causes of global warming, labeled the plan an attempt by the Obama administration to start a “propaganda” arm on climate.

– New York Times, Harsh Political Reality Slows Climate Studies Despite Extreme Year, Justin Gilis

Canada has not been left untouched by the willful ignorance of science, deliberately targeting climate change scientists in its budget cuts.

I was cycling in the freezing rain yesterday. A short commute from my house on Preston to l’Université du Québec en Outaouais where the offices of CREDIL are located, and back.

Nothing happened.

Like fellow cyclist Robert Schmidt has noted, I felt safer on the road with studded tires than walking on the sidewalk:

“It was much safer biking with studs than walking without. Many pedestrians couldn’t stand up on the sidewalks.

I did take a route that avoided riding on the road as much as possible. I know the car drivers are stressed and probably assume I had worse traction than I did. The route I took on the Ottawa River Path on the Hull side was mostly unsalted but was no problem.”

Personally, though risk I acknowledge, I find there is an interesting symbiotic relationship between cars and winter cyclists: the roads frequented by the most cars are the driest. In fact, the only point where I almost slipped was at home in the backyard once I got off my bike. Studded front and rear tires made for a safe journey.

An often cited fear of proportional representation is that small parties will hold larger parties “hostage”. In other words, a group of small people will enforce their agenda on a larger group of people, no matter how ridiculous the ideas may sound to the larger group.

Those fears are questionable. But regardless, I would argue that this is already happening with our current system.

To win an extra seat, what does the governing party need to do? Carter to the majority? No, we’ve already shown time and time again that you do not need a majority of voters to win a majority government. The last majority government supported by a majority of voters was in 1984 federally and 1937 for the provincial Ontario legislature.

To win a good chunk of seats, you need to carter to a fairly large chunk of the population, preferably in one geographic area of the country.

But that wasn’t my question.

What do you need to do to win an extra seat?

You need to win a few more votes than your opponent. That is not the same thing as catering to a chunk of the population.

Removing the long census form, building more prisons, removing the veil for taking the oath of citizenship. It doesn’t make sense if you would think they are trying to carter to as many Canadians as possible. I can’t even think most conservatives in positions of authority, private or public, would be very fond of loosing the demographic data provided by the long census form.

But if you were trying to win a few thousands votes here and there to give you extra seats…… As X-Ray magazine so eloquently pointed out, it took 6201 votes for the conservatives to win the 14 seats that make up their majority. The majority was even slimmer in 1997.

Under a proportional system, 6201 votes wouldn’t even get you one seat. 6201 votes out of 14 720 580 voters is 0,04%. One seat out of 308 is 0,32%.

But since this voting system only requires you one more vote than your opponent to win a seat, well, a few thousands votes could mean 10 extra seats.

There’s no common sense in this voting system…. and that’s why our politician’s policies don’t require it either.

May I interest you in a fairvote.ca membership?

Paul Krugman’s opinion on Occupy Wall Street stikes an interesting balance:

Now, it’s true that some of the protesters are oddly dressed or have silly-sounding slogans [...] But so what? I, at least, am a lot more offended by the sight of exquisitely tailored plutocrats, who owe their continued wealth to government guarantees, whining that President Obama has said mean things about them than I am by the sight of ragtag young people denouncing consumerism. [...] When talking heads on, say, CNBC mock the protesters as unserious, remember how many serious people assured us that there was no housing bubble, that Alan Greenspan was an oracle and that budget deficits would send interest rates soaring. A better critique of the protests is the absence of specific policy demands. It would probably be helpful if protesters could agree on at least a few main policy changes they would like to see enacted.

That last sentence brings a nice introduction to a blog post I was already drafting: watching a video from Occupy Wall Street, I’m wondering what would be my demands if I was there. The poster of the protest on the related Wikipedia article reads:

“What is our one demand?”

Here’s 12 with a much too quick effort, I admit, of describing why:

1. No corporate or union funding of political campaigns: I think this one is a no brainer. Reducing the influence of the rich over politics is a must. If I could only make one demand this would be it.
2. Proportional representation: You know what I volunteer for, so this one had to be in the list. Political parties represent the priorities and values of different groups of people. If the legislature’s representation of those priorities are distorted, then who are we to think we live in a democracy?
3. Reform of patent law: Current the law is “Everything is patentable except Y & Z”. The law needs to be changed to “Only A & B are patentable”. If we want to make things cheaper, especially medication and medical services, then the knowledge behind those products needs to be cheaper, not scarce. I suspect its one of the reason a puffer in Michael’s Moore’s Sicko costed 5 cents in Cuba and $170 in the US. Patents are stifling innovation and creating artificial scarcity at the expense of people who have the most dire need for that innovation.
4. Implement single payer universal health care in the US: The US is the only OECD country without single payer health care yet with the highest per capital spending on health care & with the most barriers to access. Point made.
5. Reduce medical professional protectionism: Going into a dentist office or a hospital, its ridiculous how much the dental assistant or nurses will know, but need to check with a dentist or doctor first. The more nurse practitioners can do, the more services will be available, the cheaper such services will be.
6. Implement a building and energy efficiency retrofit plan, similar in scale to a wartime effort. This will create jobs and make meeting our basic needs cheaper. Also upgrade the grid to allow feed-in, creating new possibilities for local ownership of electricity production.
7. Implement cap & dividend: A cap & dividend is similar to carbon tax, except the wealth is redistributed to the public rather than the coffers of government. Not only will the hummer driver pay extra for his lifestyle, but we all get a check in the mail for his expensive lifestyle. Probably the best wealth redistribution system so far.
8. Repeal the DMCA: It has been used to criminalize legitimate research and innovation activity , heaves the usage of open source software and makes the sharing of culture, the fabric of a civilization, more difficult.
9. Liberate bio-technology research: Don’t put patents on life, but do allow the research to happen in laboratories. Though I am hesitant on the widespread use of GMOs, bio-tech is, I believe, the next revolution that will get us out of this recession. My concern over GMOs is more the patenting than the product itself, though I do believe more scrutinized testing should have been done before spreading out in the open field.
10. Implement a nation wide micro-payment system: There are two reason why the mobile app market is flourishing: it is filling a need and the apps are dirt cheap. Why are they dirt cheap? Because the app stores can aggregate micro-payments. Blogs and on-line newspapers fill a need: the need to be entertained and to be informed. So what would happen if people could pay 1/100 or a 1/10 of a cent for this content? Would people pay up? Only behavioural economists could tell. I don’t think it would create jobs on the industrial scale that we need. But I think it would solve some dilemmas media and open source workers are facing.
11. Regulate urban sprawl: If you have a city where you would die without a car, then you are imposing a tax on citizens. Impose minimum density rules around cities.
12. Redo building code There’s some pretty amazing innovations in buildings happening, but building codes are getting in the way. Impose standards to achieve, not building methods.

So what would be your one demand?

You are right to be indignant. The fact is the system is not working right. It is not right that we have so many people without jobs when we have so many needs that we have to fulfill. It’s not right that we are throwing people out of their houses when we have so many homeless people.

Our financial markets have an important role to play. They’re supposed to allocate capital, manage risks. But they misallocated capital, and they created risk. We are bearing the cost of their misdeeds. There’s a system where we’ve socialized losses and privatized gains. That’s not capitalism; that’s not a market economy. That’s a distorted economy, and if we continue with that, we won’t succeed in growing, and we won’t succeed in creating a just society.
– Economist Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate, speaking to Occupy Wall Street protesters

You know who I’m the most angry with after this cyclist death?

The Ottawa Sun. Specifically, the editors, because of their huge slant against the Laurier bike lane in a previous edition.

They had the decency to at least acknowledge their position today. But I want to take that further. Here’s what they said in their October 12th paper:

We at the Ottawa Sun have been tough on the expenses the city spends on cycling infrastructure. But we’ve also tough on careless driving. While little can come out of this tragic death, it at least serves as a reminder that we must always be aware of our surroundings and be respectful of other vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians. Small actions can have large consequences

Lets take this one by one:

We at the Ottawa Sun have been tough on the expenses the city spends on cycling infrastructure.

You’ve been more than tough. You have been biased and irresponsible in your coverage….. as always. You say you sell opinion? Fine. Sell the opinion of cyclists too.

But we’ve also tough on careless driving.

There was no careless driving here. According to the Metro, witnesses said that traffic was moving slowly.

While little can come out of this tragic death, it at least serves as a reminder that we must always be aware of our surroundings and be respectful of other vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians.

Not true. There is much that could come out of this and you could help:

• Cyclists can learn about the CAN BIKE cycling courses which teaches them how to handle urban traffic. Can you talk about that in your paper? Or will you complain about that spending too?
• Drivers will maybe learn by doing a bit of research that cyclists are entitled to the whole lane and thus should not honk at cyclists. They are slow moving vehicles entitled to the whole lane. This is mentioned in the above cycling courses. You could help by talking about it in your paper.
• Citizens could ask their representative for more cycling infrastructure and vote in the next municipal election. There’s a reason why pedestrians feel safe downtown: sidewalks. So, why aren’t there more segregated bike lanes? More segregated lanes means cyclists being treated as equal citizens. Ultimately that’s what I want: not to have less cars, but to be treated equally. In fact, I think of car-centric cities as a tax on citizens that forces them to buy a car. Perhaps you could be a little more balanced in your coverage next time?

Finally, you wrote:

Small actions can have large consequences.

Yes. Remember that the next time you write against spending on cycling. Cycling education and infrastructure are the two top ways of increasing the safety of cycling. A cheap way of getting around, both for the rider and the tax payer.

So what will it be Mr. Axelrad (Editor-In-Chief at Ottawa Sun)? Will you use this opportunity to cover things the right way?

….. and the best marketing I’ve seen for one.

Energy prices are set to rise one way or another…… so do you want a dividend now or wait until we are forced to adapt? I’d rather adapt now then be forced by a shortnening supply.

I’ll be looking for employment opportunities starting October 24th.

Ideally I would like a position on a quality assurance team. In my previous programming positions, I’ve really enjoyed using the QA process to make sure I am delivering quality code. I was a quick adopter of documentation and unit testing tools.

Given my experience in programming and as an executive member of the Ottawa chapter of Fair Vote Canada, I am also looking at positions requiring experience in:

• Programming
• Event coordination
• Volunteer / Human resources coordination / management
• Leadership

Here are two résumés: one for programming positions and one for management positions.

I can also be found on LinkedIn.