Can someone explain, by any chance, why, when moments ago I logged out of the Canada Revenue Agency Web site after filing an HST return, I was greeted with a German-language message announcing that my logout was successful?
I mean, a French-language message, sure. Inuit, sure. Aber Deutsch? Ja, ich kann ein bisschen Deutsch sprechen, aber woher wissen sie das?
I first bought a hybrid (a Honda Civic) in 2004. I loved that car; it served us faithfully for 10 years. Our more recent Hondas were not hybrids, but the reasons were eminently practical: hybrids were in short supply, conventional gasoline cars were cheaper, and we use the car very little in any case, so…
Having said that, I certainly contemplated the idea of buying an all electric vehicle, but every time I think it through, I decide against it. Today, I saw a map that perfectly illustrates my lack of enthusiasm. Here it is:
This map shows the locations of supercharger stations where you’d have to stop for a 20-30 minute recharge, in order to complete a cross-country trip across the United States in a Tesla automobile.
In contrast, here’s a map of an actual trip I took in my Civic Hybrid back in 2005, along with the approximate locations where I stopped for gas (reconstructed from old receipts):
What can I say? I think EVs are great when you live in the suburbs and use your car for shopping and commuting to work. If I lived, say, in Kanata and commuted daily to work at, say, Place du Portage in Gatineau, purchasing an EV would make an awful lot of sense. But that’s not where we live or how we commute. We live on Ottawa Lowertown, which is to say almost downtown, we work at home, we use the car only occasionally, but as this example demonstrates, sometimes for lengthy road trips. EVs are not great for lengthy road trips. I am used to the idea of driving to Montreal Airport and back without worrying about stopping for gas. Or driving to Toronto non-stop.
And then, of course, there are the dreaded Canadian winters. It’s one thing to use waste heat from a gasoline engine to heat the interior of a car. It’s another thing to waste electric power stored in a battery for this, converting electricity inefficiently into heat, at the expense of range already reduced by the effect of cold weather on the batteries. And while heat pumps can help, there are no miracles when the outside air temperature is closer to -40 than -30 Centigrade, which is a not altogether uncommon occurrence (though it is certainly becoming less common) in these parts of Canada.
And then there’s the question of where the electric energy comes from. Renewables are okay, nuclear would be great. But too much of the electricity, even here in nuclear-rich Ontario, comes from natural gas fired plants. That’s not so great.
So for now, it’s either gasoline-powered or hybrid vehicles for us. EVs may be in our future, but I am not yet too keen on them, to be honest.
The fate of animals in wars was often tragic. They served their human masters (and all too often, died with their human masters) faithfully.
One of the most touching war memorials I ever came across was the Animals in War memorial in Hyde Park, London, that I stumbled upon completely by accident, unaware of its existence. Not that the animals themselves care, but it’s nice that they are remembered. And as of 2012, Ottawa has its very own Animals in War memorial, in Confederation Park.
Neither of these memorials specifically mention cats, though, despite the fact that cats played no small a role in making the otherwise unbearable conditions a teeny bit more tolerable. Many were killed. Occasionally, they even helped save their masters’ lives.
Long story short, last night I asked Midjourney to depict a gentlecat, thinking about his lost comrades.
Last night, I received notification from the CRA about an upcoming small tax refund.
When I logged on with my business account, it appeared to show that I had 3 unread messages, though there was a funny smudge before the ‘3’ in the notification icon.
When I clicked, I saw only one unread message. When I went back to the main screen, I now saw a ‘4’. That’s when I realized that the smudge was… a minus sign.
Indeed I had four messages shown in the mail interface, all read. So instead of counting the number of unread messages as a positive number, the UI showed the number of read messages as a negative number.
I have not yet received the refund. I hope that when (if?) it shows up in my bank account, it will have the correct sign.
It is unfair! How dare social media companies and search engines profit from taking Canadian news content!
Fear no more: Bill C-18 is enacted and from now on, these evildoers will be mandated to pay for any news content they republish.
Oops, but there’s a fly in the proverbial ointment. It appears nobody asked the simplest of questions: What if they don’t?
Not “what if they don’t pay” but rather, “what if they don’t republish?”
This is capitalism after all. These companies are free to choose what purchases they make, what services they buy. Or, as the case might be, what services they opt not to buy.
“Unfair!” came the outcry. “A disaster for Canadian news providers!” Or even, “Irresponsible!” during some natural disaster or other emergency.
Wait. I thought what social media companies were doing was, ahem, bad for you? So you wanted them to either cease and desist or pay up?
Now you are telling me that all along, you were benefiting from social media and the traffic they directed to your content sites, and you don’t want to lose this?
Oh, but you also wanted some extra dough. Well, guess what. As the old proverb goes, he who chases two rabbits catches none.
To be clear, I don’t like Facebook/Meta. I am only marginally more fond of Google. But stupid is stupid, and Bill C-18 is the perfect legislative example of shooting oneself in the foot.
I find it mildly annoying that Facebook rejects posts that contain direct news media links but it doesn’t bother me much. And if Canadian news organizations want a better deal, perhaps they can ask the government to get rid of this stupid legislation first instead of doubling down, compounding stupidity with more stupidity.
Yellowknife is not a large city by Ontario standards, but it is the capital city and the largest community in the Northwest Territories of Canada, with over 20,000 inhabitants.
And it is about to be evacuated entirely today, because of the imminent wildfire threat.
Yes, it’s a faraway place but it is still incredibly scary that tens of thousands of Canadians are uprooted, some taking their cars, some boarding evacuation buses or flights, fleeing their homes, traveling through landscapes that are like warzones, with burned buildings and burnt-out vehicles often in sight.
No, I won’t rant about climate change. There can be other contributing reasons behind this unprecedented wildfire season, though I bet climate change is by far the most significant contributor.
I wonder what prompted N.W.T. authorities to take this drastic step. I may be wrong but I have a feeling that the devastation in Maui was a wake-up call, and they wanted to avoid a similar disaster. Having said that, I sincerely hope that Yellowknife will be spared and its inhabitants can return in a few days.
The new tonight is that notorious murderer Paul Bernardo was lawfully transferred to a medium security prison and shall remain there.
And that’s the way it should be.
No, I am not a friend of Bernardo. He deserves to remain behind bars for the rest of his life and then some.
But he also deserves to be treated exactly like any other criminal in Canada’s justice system. We don’t do mob justice in this country.
Keeping him in a maximum security establishment just to satisfy the public’s demands, just to further the political interests of those in charge would be an appalling thing to do, and I am very glad that Canada has not chosen this path.
In her famous 1984 song, German singer-songwriter Nena sang about 99 balloons that trigger World War III.
Here is the ending of the song, along with my less-than-perfect translation:
| Neunundneunzig Jahre Krieg Ließen keinen Platz für Sieger Kriegsminister gibt’s nicht mehr Und auch keine DüsenfliegerHeute zieh’ ich meine Runden Seh die Welt in Trümmern liegen Hab ‘n Luftballon gefunden Denk’ an Dich und lass’ ihn fliegen |
Ninety-nine years of war Left no room for a victor There are no more war ministers Also no more fighter bombersToday as I took a stroll Saw a world, ruined by war There, I just found a balloon Thinking of you, I let it fly soon |
What can I say? A few more Chinese balloons over North America, a few more large-scale exchanges in Ukraine, and perhaps we’ll no longer need any war ministers anymore.
So this is 2023. And suddenly I am reminded of the year 1973. A different world, 50 years ago, and not necessarily a happy one.
It was the year the Vietnam War officially ended for the United States. It was the year marking the beginning of the OPEC crisis.
The Apollo program was canceled but the United States launched Skylab, America’s short-lived space station.
Iconic buildings, including the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Sydney Opera House, were completed.
A tumultuous year in politics, 1973 saw the US Supreme Court decide in Roe vs. Wade, a decision that was overturned 49 years later by a conservative court majority. The year also marks the beginning of Watergate. Meanwhile, vice president Spiro Agnew resigns and Gerald Ford takes his place, paving his way to become America’s first, and to date only, unelected president.
NASA launches Pioneer 11; and before the year is out, Pioneer 10 (launched earlier, in 1972) reaches Jupiter.
But what makes this year especially memorable for me was that in the summer, my Mom and I traveled to Ferihegy Airport in Budapest and boarded a Swissair DC-8 taking us to Zurich, where we switched planes, boarding another Swissair flight, a DC-10, taking us to Montreal. We were visiting my aunt, here in Ottawa.
That visit was beyond incredible. Canada! Of course as a child, I was most impressed by superficial things, such as the number of channels even my aunt’s old black-and-white television set was able to pick up through a rooftop antenna. (Saturday morning cartoons!) Still, superficial or not, what I saw I suppose thoroughly inoculated me against communist propaganda. And, needless to say, this experience played a major role in my decision to leave Hungary 13 years later, eventually settling right here in Ottawa, a beautiful city that — thanks in no small part to that childhood visit — feels like my true hometown.
One of the many images from an extraordinary album by “Busman Extraordinaire” Paul A. Bateson on Flickr, showing Confederation Square as it appeared in the summer of 1973, when my Mom and I were visiting. I remember these sightseeing buses, imported from the UK, complete with right-hand drive.
And that visit was (almost) 50 years ago.
In the wake of the passing of Elizabeth II, there are once again voices advocating that Canada should shed its “colonial past”, get rid of the institution of monarchy, and transform itself into a republic.
I think it’s an absolutely horrible idea. Why? Well… let me present the ten countries at the top of the 2021 Freedom in the World index:
| Finland | Parliamentary Republic |
| Norway | Constitutional Monarchy |
| Sweden | Constitutional Monarchy |
| New Zealand | Constitutional Monarchy |
| Canada | Constitutional Monarchy |
| Netherlands | Constitutional Monarchy |
| Uruguay | Presidential Republic |
| Australia | Constitutional Monarchy |
| Denmark | Constitutional Monarchy |
| Ireland | Parliamentary Republic |
Notice that seven out of these ten countries are constitutional monarchies (four of them, in fact, under the same monarch.)
Let me present, in contrast, the ten countries at the bottom of the list:
| Central African Republic | Presidential Republic |
| Tajikistan | Presidential Republic |
| Somalia | Parliamentary Republic |
| Saudi Arabia | Absolute Monarchy |
| Equatorial Guinea | Presidential Republic |
| North Korea | Socialist Republic |
| Turkmenistan | Presidential Republic |
| South Sudan | Federal Republic |
| Eritrea | Presidential Republic |
| Syria | Presidential Republic |
With the sole exception of Saudi Arabia (an absolute monarchy) all of them are republics.
I think these lists speak for themselves.
Thankfully, changing the Canadian constitution is a monumental task and I doubt any major political party would have the appetite to initiate something like this.
As for the “colonial past”, this excessive wokeness is beginning to sound almost as crazy as the convoy nutbags’ cries for “freedom”. Enough with the insanity already. Stop trying to turn this wonderful country into a battleground between two competing insane asylums.
Queen Elizabeth II has died.
Another thing I’ve been meaning to mention all the way back in May: This new national security policy document, produced by a task force at the University of Ottawa.
It is a sobering read, coming on top of earlier concerns raised by CSIS. The main theme is a degenerating international security environment. But a key concern is democratic backsliding in the United States.
In a section titled Democracy under siege, the authors note that “[w]e are witnessing a renewed contest of ideologies, pitting liberal democracy against autocracy”. Mentioning the protests in Ottawa and elsewhere early in the year, they observe that “[t]he protestors were non-state actors, some of whom advocated for the overthrow of the democratically elected government. […] The protests also involved widespread intimidation of the media […] It also quickly became apparent that there were ties between far-right extremists in Canada and the United States.”
Continuing, they assert that “[t]he protests also pointed to a broader and potentially existential question for Canada: the implications of democratic backsliding in the United States. Should scenarios of widespread political violence in our southern neighbour materialize, how should Canada respond? This question would have been fanciful only a few years ago, but it is very real today.”
So there we have it. Long a de facto guarantor of Canada’s national security, the United States has become a potential source of concern. How can Canada respond? The authors’ conclusions offer little comfort: “We live in an increasingly dangerous and unpredictable world, a reality driven home by recent events like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the pandemic, and domestic protests against government health measures. Canada cannot isolate itself from the many and varied security threats facing the world. Our ‘fire-proof’ house has vanished.”
Well, someone broke the Internet this morning.
To be more precise, someone broke a large part of the Internet in Canada. The network of Rogers has been down since about 4:30 this morning. When I woke up, I saw several e-mails from my own server complaining about its failure to connect to remote hosts; I also saw an e-mail from our family doctor’s office informing us that their phone lines are down and what to do in case of a medical emergency.
The fact that a major provider can have such a nationwide outage in 2022 is clearly unacceptable. Many are calling for the appropriate regulatory agencies to take action, and I fully approve.
In my case, there are backups and backups of backups. I am affected (we have no mobile data, and my highest-bandwidth network connection is down) but the outage also offered an opportunity to sort out an issue with network failover.
But I find it mind-boggling that more than 9 hours into the outage, Rogers still has no explanation and no ETA.
And now I accidentally hit Ctrl-Alt-Del while the KVM was connected to my main server instead of the device that I was trying to reboot. Oh well, no real harm down, the server rebooted cleanly, I just feel stupid.
All in all, this Friday is shaping up to be a rather unpleasant one. And here I thought I was looking forward to a nice, quiet, productive day.
Hungary’s elections are coming to a close. All indications are that not only did Viktor Orban win, he won big: it appears he will retain his two -thirds constitutional supermajority in Hungary’s parliament. Yey-ho, illiberal democracy!
And they had the audacity to campaign as the party of peace: by confronting Putin, they argued, the opposition wants war and it is the government’s cowardly attitude that will somehow save the country from getting bogged down in conflict. (Because, you know, this attitude worked so well in the last major war in Europe, which witnessed Hungary as Hitler’s last ally, deporting over 600,000 of its own citizens to Nazi death camps, and having much of the country destroyed when the frontlines finally reached it in 1944-45.)
Meanwhile, Putin’s popularity in Russia is through the roof: The “Nazis” of Ukraine must be crushed, say people on the streets, and perhaps then Poland is next!
In America, Trump’s followers are regrouping, hoping to take back the House, the Senate, and eventually the White House, lining up behind their authoritarian leader to whom the rule of law means nothing unless it serves his personal interests.
Even here in Canada, all in the name of democracy of course, hundreds of unruly truckers blocked my city for nearly a month, and what is worse, their effort was (and remains) supported by millions. Perhaps still a small minority but still: It is a minority that is supporting a movement that is openly unconstitutional and insurrectionist.
And the sad thing is, we’ve all seen this before. The world went through something eerily similar a century ago. The Bolsheviks were popular in Soviet Russia. Mussolini was popular in Italy. Franco was popular in Spain. Hitler was popular in Germany. Even in places like the US and the UK, the likes of Charles Lindbergh or Oswald Mosley had considerable following.
I could ask the pointless question, why? Social scientists and historians probably offer sensible answers. But that doesn’t help. So long as people, even well-educated people, are willing to believe pseudoscience, ridiculous conspiracy theories, half truths, insinuations, and above all messages of hate: the compulsion to hate (or at least fear or distrust) someone, anyone, be it Ukrainians (or Russians), hate “migrants”, hate liberals, hate homosexuals, hate “others” however their other-ness is defined…
Screw you, world. I’m going back to physics. Just leave me alone, please.
I first heard about it from a friend, though he didn’t call it by this name.
It was a few days ago. Another convoy of trucks was approaching downtown Ottawa, to join their freedom-loving brethren to promote their message of love, peace, and, ahem, “fuck Trudeau”, “Trump 2024”, “Make America Canada Great Again” and other wonderfully delightful things representing our shared Canadian values.
But some evil, selfish Ottawa citizens, like my friend, had enough. Enough of the noise, the disruption, the lawlessness, the mob rule. And since the police were nowhere to be found, they took matters into their own hands.
Quite simply, they blocked the convoy’s path. They did exactly what free citizens are supposed to do when their community is threatened by a lawless mob: they defended it. The convoy turned back. And this event now has a name: The Battle of Billings Bridge.
Thank you, neighbors. And finally, a few days later (and arguably, three weeks late) our police are doing what they are supposed to do, and by all indication, they are doing a good job. Of course there are the inevitable cries, complaints about the abuse of power, the end of democracy, the tyranny of Trudeau. Never mind that it’s our city police (of course with help from other police agencies) and they are not doing it for Trudeau. They are doing it for us, citizens of Ottawa. To help us get our city back.
No, I do not enjoy the thought of a city under lockdown, with checkpoints all over downtown. And once the thugs with their weaponized transport trucks are gone, I hope our city will come back to normal, and that the lessons learned will not include turning Wellington Street into a copy of Pennsylvania Avenue, blocked from traffic with permanent concrete barriers, with ever present police armed with military gear. This spring, I hope I’ll be able to walk on Parliament Hill again, a free citizen, not prevented by the authorities but also not intimidated by thuggish occupiers and their vehicles.
In the first season of Amazon’s political thriller series Jack Ryan, a terrorist cell releases poison gas in a crowded church after chaining the doors on the outside, to ensure that the victims are locked in and suffocate.
Amidst all the news unfolding in our fine city, it escaped my attention that something similar almost took place two weeks ago on Lisgar street in the downtown core: two criminals, apparently associated with the “freedom convoy”, attempted to set the lobby of an apartment building on fire while taping its front door shut on the outside.
In case anyone wonders what grants us the right to ask our police force to defend our city from those who occupied its downtown core for more than three weeks, this is your answer.
Had this attempt succeeded, it might have entered the history books as one of the worst incidents of terrorism in the history of Canada. Thankfully, the door was freed up and the fire was extinguished by a good Samaritan. The police are still looking for the perpetrators.
Protesters here in Ottawa claim that the public supports them, but surveys say otherwise. In fact, apparently some two thirds of Canadians support the use of the military to end the illegal occupations.
I am fed up to my eyeballs with these insurgents, these seditionists who think mob rule is the way to resolve what could be a rational discussion about the value and validity of certain pandemic measures. (Of course we all know that it’s not about the mandates, it never was. The protesters might think that they are here on account of the mandates but in reality, they are just pawns, the forces behind them are much more sinister.)
But using the military? Talk about turning the propaganda into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The protesters may think of themselves as peaceful, perhaps even law-abiding, but the forces behind them actually covet violence: To them, success is measured by the number of dead cops and dead protesters that will be left on Wellington Street.
Which is why I sincerely hope that the military stays put in their barracks, and once this madness is resolved, the only thing that will need to be cleaned up on Wellington Street will be some litter and debris, and perhaps some doggie poo.
Some random thoughts concerning this siege and occupation by an astroturfed movement.
Some of the occupiers holding our city hostage are demanding an end to the “unscientific” mask and vaccine mandates.
I was wondering how to react, but then I came across this New Yorker cartoon. It. Just. Nails. It.
