Ranting and Roaring

We were watching Futurama — Bender’s Big Score — this morning and Trinity-Anne asked me “Is there really an Al Gore?”. Answer: “Nobody knows, Trinity, nobody knows”.

My brother made a lengthy reply (that’s the only kind he does, I’m afraid) to my post on Catholic education rights in Ontario. Youcan go read it in it’s entirety, I shan’t quibble on legal points, that’s for sure. However, he misreads my intentionre: protection of Catholic rights.

I’m not overly fearful for Catholic rights in Ontario, Canada, or elsewhere nearby. What I do like is all the weird stuff inour system: funny wigs, QCs, “God” in the constitution, a free pig and two comely lasses of virtue true for the police chiefs, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, etc.. It’s good to givethe Svends, Jacks and Justins frequent reminders — preferably up the side of the head — that none-of Mike Pearson, FidelCastro or Tommy Douglas were Fathers of Confederation.

I prefer cities laid out like St.John’s to that of Toronto also.

Heh: “…Lessing’s words should be taken somewhat in context: the ditherings of an ignorant old women…”

Robert on Latimer:

My own view is that the Court arrived at the right decision when it held that Mr. Latimer’s conviction and sentence had to be upheld. In Canada we have not even come to a societal consensus on the issue of assisting a person of full mind commit suicide (see the Sue Rodriguez case). The issues around a parental killing of child who is disabled and unable to communicate her wishes on an informed basis are hopelessly more thorny. The fact of the matter is that it is impossible to genuinely appreciate the true significance of the genuinely held belief “I must kill her because I can not bear to watch her suffer any more” — who is truly being shown mercy when that sentiment is acted upon? Is it mercy for the suffering child or is it mercy for the suffering caregiver? Moreover, there is a strong sense of ownership over a child that is being asserted in such cases — “This is my child so I can decide whether she lives or dies.”

This, however, does not make the Parole Board’s decision right. Our society has sent a clear message about Mr. Latimer: he murdered his daughter contrary to the law and was given the full sentence mandated by the law. Now he is going through the process that every criminal in Canada is entitled to go through to ease their re-introduction to society.

Wow, I’ll let others worry more about the “one laptop per terrorist supporter” issues and say, WTF? They city’s spending almost $11,000,000 / year to give computers and high-speed Internet to 3000 families? That’s about $3500 / family! Who are they buying these things from, Dash Domi? Why not just give half to the schools and half to the local libraries to put computers for everyone?

Now, this sounds more like a “social justice” program — i.e. Bucks for Buzz and his Boys — than it does a meaningful attempt to help anyone, but I’ve got a better deal for the city and the disadvantaged: outsource it to me and I’ll save the city lots of money and double the number of disadvantaged kids getting computers.

• For $22.95 / month I can get Rogers Ultralight Internet.
• For $450 I can get Dell Inspiron 531 with plenty of everything and a 17″ LCD Monitor

The logistics are fairly simple. Dell will ship directly to their apartment and I’ll handle the Rogers billing from here. I’ll assume I can get Rogers and Dell to eat GST & PST given the size of the order we’re making, plus the potential for a tax write off for everyone. Rogers and Dell will also handle tech support directly, which is a reasonable part of becoming computer literate. The city will provide the names and addresses who to ship to. I’ll need 5 people at say $50,000 / each to handle paperwork and logistics. One person will be dedicated to Googling names to weed out friends-of-terrorists. Let’s also posit that I’ll maintain another 6000 Internet accounts for people who have already got their computers.

So here’s the budget:

• Internet connection: $1.65 million (6000 @ 22.95/month * 12 months)
• Legacy internet: $1.65 million (6000 @ 22.95/month * 12 months)
• Computers: $2.7 million (6000 @ $450 / each)
• Employees: $250,000 (5 @ $50,000)
• Offices: $150,000
• Subtotal: $6.4 million
• Management fee: 1.28 million (20%)
• Grand total: $7.68 million
• Savings to City of Toronto: $3.08 million

That’ll buy Dave Miller a lot of food carts. I’m available on my cell during normal working hours.

La la la