Excited Delirium

Stories about Excited Delirium, the Shock Economy and a little fiction here and there.

Monthly Archives: November 2008

Organizing a Bell / Rogers Media Boycott

The CRTC recently announced that it will not take action against Bell Canada and Rogers as they throttle users of the Canadian Internet.  They have failed Canadian consumers and the thousands of small businesses and technology concerns that rely on the Internet for their success.

And this article goes so far as to question whether or not Canada’s newly emerging social media network will be able to survive such tactics.

I like to think we are beyond the tipping point and that we WILL be able to overcome this myopic view of the Internet as a cash-cow for Bell and Rogers and not a tool for the wide array of people and organizations that are actively seeking social change.

This issue requires action on behalf of all of us:

  1. Make a donation to SaveOurNet.ca
  2. Contact your MP or Finckenstein at the CRTC
  3. Track efforts to throttle your connection (a wonderful application of the social web)
  4. Update the Canadian Wiki which tracks throttling efforts
  5. Boycott any Bell or Rogers products

It’s the last option that I would like to talk about.

Bell, Rogers and other media companies don’t just deliver Internet, but they also own a wide array of publications and web sites that represent a critical source of revenue for them.

With that in mind, we all have to him them where it will really hurt:  the bottom line.

Eliminating Sympatico, TSN, CTV, MSN, Rogers magazine sites (eg. Chatelaine.com), Yahoo Canada and other affiliated sites is an easy and painless maneuvre and will send a very clear signal that we are very pissed off about this nonsense.  If you’re a buyer or planner and make decisionsof this nature, it’s as easy as deleting a line from your Excel spreadsheet.

Let’s start with this blog, but post your suggestions about the following:

  1. A full list of media properties that these companies control
  2. Products and services that you can cancel
  3. Social actions that will have the greatest impact

Thanks for your help.

Newsladder: For the info-junkies in all of us

In the US, a group called the Media Consortium has recently launched a product called ‘Newsladder ‘.

If you’re a news junkie, be careful.  There are 22 news feeds and this is likely to grow now that they’ve launched their product.  I didn’t notice a feed devoted to Canada or Canadian publishers, but I’m sure it won’t be long before there is one.  Maybe one for ProgressiveBloggers.ca ?

And if you want the speedball version:  real time feeds going to Twitter!  Click here to follow all updates with Newsladder. Phew!!  Honestly, this feels like one of the first genuine applications for Twitter that I can imagine.

What are your thoughts?

Using Melamine to Boost Protein

This site offers some background information concerning the use of melamine in foods made and delivered from China.

The ‘bottom line’ provided sums everything up nicely:

Know where your food comes from and how it’s produced. This may sound like an impossible task, and in many cases it will be. Particularly if you depend on processed and commercially farmed foods.

However, if you purchase your raw dairy , grass-fed meats , and free-range eggs from local farmers that adhere to organic farming practices, you can eliminate much of these worries since their livestock must be put out to pasture and eat what God intended for most part of the year, instead of relying on potentially contaminated animal feed.

This reference page contains links to a long list of organizations that can help you find local sources for high quality organic foods.

In other words, when shopping for food, always ask these three questions:

  1. Why should I trust any food from China?
  2. Why should I purchase any food that has been processed?
  3. Why would I buy anything but food from people I know?

As the author admits, there are obvious challenges to these questions.  Sometimes, people simply need basic processed food to get them through a busy day.  I appreciate that because we’re all time-pressed.  And getting to know everyone on your food supply chain?  Pretty much impossible, isn’t it?

Well, I think it’s worth the effort when faced the risk of being poisoned for profit.

GM: The Ultimate Robin Hood? Or Scammer?

Some people are questioning the decisions of GM executives to fly in their Jetstreams to Washington to whine about how broke the North American company is, but are few people even aware that GM is planning on spending more than $1 billion in Brazil on a manufacturing plant?

They just earned a resounding NO from me.  Let’s try to aggregate that though and send a message to US decision-makers:

http://www.facebook.com/friends/?ref=tn#/group.php?gid=58516252288

Cheney, Gonzales Indicted in Texas

Thanks to Cryptogon.com .

It seems the law is catching up (albeit painfully slowly) to the antics of Dick Cheney and Albert Gonazales.  With any luck, the rest of the world’s lawmakers will chip away at the list of other pirates and crooks.

Original story here .

Most uneducated quote of the day

I live in London, Ontario and the local council just made an extremely embarassing decision to NOT proceed with the collection or compostable waste .  The City of London will be one of the last cities in Ontario to have a green-bin recycling program, and this is already on top of our embarassing record with respect to regular trash pickup (every 6 business days, not a regular cycle).

Normally, I do everything I can to rave up my home town, but the folks that currently lead the City of London have failed to get with the 19th century and it’s going to cost all of us substantially in the long run (and most likely in the short run as well).

When local councillors declare things like the following , I hang my head in shame:

‘A head of lettuce, a pumpkin or that chicken you ate last night, it collapses onto itself, it decays, it doesn’t take up that much space at the landfill.’

~ Ward 10 Councillor Paul Van Meerbergen explaining one of his reasons for opposing the Green Bin program on Steve Garrison’s London-in-the-Morning Show on Newstalk 1290-CJBK-AM, Nov. 17, 2008.

From altlondon.org:  "With such homespun wisdom, Paulie would have made an outstanding minister of agriculture in Stephen Harper’s government — if only he had been elected in London North-Centre."

Here’s the full story from the London Free Press:

Recycling delay trashed
Wed, November 19, 2008
London’s roomy landfill, with 15 years left before it’s full, has stalled several recycling programs

By KELLY PEDRO

Green bin, yellow light Council shows true colours Garbage: pay now, or pay for it later Faster green-bin start urged Mayor worried about timing of diversion plan

Nearly 20 years ago, London was one of Ontario’s last cities to start a recycling program.

Today, it looks again like London will be one of the province’s last major cities to start a green bin program for kitchen scraps.

Then, as now, it had one thing other cities didn’t — a large landfill.

Unlike places such as Toronto, Hamilton, Peel and Niagara — all of which started green bin programs because they had limited landfill space — London isn’t under the same pressure to do so because it has 15 years of life left before it’s full.

The space has become the subject known to all but rarely mentioned when new recycling and composting programs are discussed at city hall.

"They know there’s not an immediate threat to space and we’re not in the same position as other cities," said Stephen Turner, chairperson of the Urban League of London.

He warns the city’s complacent attitude is "a dangerous way to govern.

"This has been put off for quite some time," Turner said of the green bin program.

The province asked municipalities to divert 60 per cent of waste from landfills by 2008.

"Here we are at the end of 2008 and the city is just starting to talk about what we can do to reach that goal," Turner said.

Turner added the economy is being used as a scapegoat by councillors balking at the program.

Councillors voted Monday to have city staff come up with a business plan outlining the projected costs of the green bin program and reducing the number of garbage pickups.

The city’s waste-diversion rate is 40 per cent. The green bin, when fully implemented, could divert 22,000 tonnes of table scraps from the landfill, increasing the city’s waste-diversion to 55 per cent.

"They don’t view it as a crisis, but to wait until a crisis is circling is the wrong step and that’s when it’ll cost you a lot more," Turner said.

Because the city isn’t in a crisis, it can take the time to make wise decisions, said Jay Stanford, the city’s environmental director.

"We can learn from all the other municipalities and put in place here best practices," he said, adding the green bin program would create capacity in the landfill.

Controller Tom Gosnell, who was on council at the time the blue box program was added, said the green bin would only divert a small amount from the landfill and the city should instead boost its recycling.

"The green box is sort of an ideological tool. It’s a reminder that we have to do diversion . . . but I think we need to look at it in a much bigger way than just focusing on green boxes."

It’s the same argument critics of curbside recycling made in the late 1980s before the city instituted its blue box program in 1990.

When the city launched a $20,000 recycling study, some argued the program, if successful, would only divert less than one per cent of waste from the landfill, adding 10 days to its life during five years. Others said it was destined to fail.

The city’s landfill on Manning Drive was supposed to close in 2006, until the city extended its life.

Gosnell said the province has a responsibility to show leadership on the issue.

"Sure they give directions to divert, but they don’t give really too many good ideas on how to do it."

Coun. Susan Eagle said council knows the issues and its constituents, and shouldn’t wait for the province to lead. She said the city should move more quickly on waste diversion.

The environment was a priority for Londoners when she was campaigning two years ago, and though the economy has usurped that, the two were not separate things, Eagle said.

"They’re integrated. . . You don’t do one at the expense of the other. You omit one at the expense of the other."

—

W12A LANDFILL

- South of Highway 401 on Manning Drive

- Opened in 1977

- Set to close in August 2006, before the city extended its life

- About 15 years left before it’s full

- In 2007, the city sent 225,000 tonnes of garbage to the landfill, including sewage sludge.

Auto Bailout: Whither the ZENN Car?

Everyone is talking about doling out more cash to a bunch of lame-duck capitalists, and yet we’ve got a perfect Made-In-Canada solution.

The ZENN car , or Zero Emission No Noise car, is an electric vehicle that is being manufactured in Quebec for Quebecers.  The sticker price starts around $15,000 and the extras (AC/radio/etc) would put you at about $20,000.

But we’re not supporting it.  Nor do I think our current government ever will.

You can’t buy a ZENN car outside of Quebec and I don’t’ know what would happen if you bought one and then drove it to your home outside of Quebec.

Transport Canada is sitting on this thing, not approving the ZENN car for road travel.  I guess they expect that electric cars will go the way of the dodo … or the GM EV1 electric car that was forced into extinction in the late 1990s.  See "Who killed the electric car " for details.

Why is it that Transport Canada will not approve the ZENN car for personal use?  Why is that people in Canada do not really have a choice when it comes to solutions, particularly when THEY’RE MADE BY A 100%-OWNED CANADIAN COMPANY?

Is this the Avro Arrow all over again?

Who Are the Architects of the Economic Collapse

Michael Chossudovsky clearly establishes in this article that we should expect more of the same, despite a President-elect who is promising ‘change’.

By the way, if you’ve read Shock Doctrine , you’ll appreciate the section on ’1997 Asian Crisis:  Dress Rehearsal’.

Who is Gerald Celente? Someone to Listen To?

Here’s a Fox clip (of all sources, yes) from InfoWars, that showcases an interview with Gerald Celente .

Summary of his predictions for America:

  • America, the first ‘undeveloped’ country (no swift solution to economic issues, the steaming turd of a platform that Bush left for Obama)
  • Revolution, riots, rebellion, marches
  • Holidays 2012:  food more important than gifts

I’d like to explore a few of his ‘ideas’ in a little more detail.  Feel free to comment as we move along.

With most people still avoiding the word ‘recession’ in their dialogue, it’s hard to assume that Conservatives will do anything but cut back, cut budgets, and raise taxes as they ‘pretend’ to be surprised by changes in the economy.  I actually count Obama in that camp, despite Reagan-like accusations that he’s a socialist.

The killer question:  what do we do to anticipate these changes?  Don’t spend on wasteful things.

A self-fulfilling prophecy?  Kind of.  The smart thing to do?  Absolutely.

It’s important for people to understand that they don’t have to spend in order to preserve the health of the economy.  It’s important for all of us to appreciate that saving money is not a recent phenomenon.  My parents and their parents did it.  They kept their financial houses in order.  And they are (or were) never ashamed to admit it.  Saving instead of spending still ensures that GOOD jobs are created.  Spending usually ensures that more demand is placed on short-term, low-wage jobs that offer no benefits and no future.

All we have to do is a little more of the same and avoid the ads, the hype and the mania of the holiday season.  I say ‘why wait until 2012′?  Why not stop buying crap from thousands of kilometres away today and start saving it or donating what we have left over to local non-profits and charities that are trying to make a different for people?

When we start really understanding the roots of the economic and financial crisis – that people aren’t buying the big-box globalized market structure that’s being rammed down our throat – only then will we realize that things are actually ok.  For most of us.  The ones that are panicking are the Wal-Marts and the MacDonald’s of the world that might be making money now, but have no hope of a future as we learn how to respect our neighbours again and buy local, build community and pay attention to politics.