Pie Palace

Drunken Master Revue presents Night of the Comet on March 31st. It’s a late night show (11:30) at the Mayfair. Looks like it should be fun.

More on ogWifi. As I noted before, I’ve asked for the privilege of setting up a free wireless router so that others could have access to my unused bandwidth. Their response was “sure! but you’ll have to pay $50/year“. They hemmed and hawed and eventually said they would consider the fee at their next meeting.

They considered. And decided to keep the fee.

Which means I’m signing up with Fon. No annual fee, a free router, and a small chance of my house burning down.

Back to our regularly scheduled hiatus.

Some of my more astute readers may have noticed that I haven’t been posting a lot recently. I should be able to rectify that in a few weeks. In the meantime, here’s a quick roundup of recent events, as seen through Erigami’s Lens of Absolute Correctness:

Federal Budget: didn’t do enough to shrink the gap between rich and poor. The tax breaks offered to Canadians should have been scaled by income. The environmental purchasing (dis)incentives were a joke, and should be replaced with a carbon tax. In principle, the rejiggering of the provincial equalization payments was a good thing, but I haven’t been able to do enough research to say whether I agree with them or not.

Quebec Election: On my way into work I heard giggling emanating from 24 Sussex Drive. Having a small-c conservative party get 30.8% of the popular vote in the ol’ QC bodes well for “Canada’s New Government”¹. It should be noted that 154,360 votes were cast for the Parti Vert, which would translate into at least 4 seats under a fairer electoral system.

Updates to MiniPosts: Should be coming in mid-April. Thanks to everyone who has been posting bug reports in the comments section. They have been noted.

1. The Conservatives have now been in power for over a year, brought forth two budgets, and broken a whole raft of promises. Isn’t it time they just start calling themselves “Canada’s other ruling party”? (back)

MG pointed me in the direction of Checkerspot Magazine. It’s a publication put out by the Canadian Wildlife Federation specifically dealing with climate change. For anyone interested in the mag, you can order a free copy of their first issue online.

Amnesty International is a great organization, which is why I’m quite pleased to hear that they have a Close Guantánamo Now campaign. Why do I care about Gitmo? Because the rule of law must work (and be seen to work) in every democracy. It doesn’t matter what the inmates are alleged to have done, the state must obey its own laws.

I really like the idea of a community WIFI project. The idea is pretty simple: people who already have internet connections set up WIFI hotspots and allow others to use their bandwidth for free (or a minor charge). I like this idea because I dislike my ISP, and I barely use my connection.

I wasn’t aware of a community WIFI project in Ottawa until yesterday, when CBC did a story on ogWifi. It’s a quasi-community group that is giving away free access to other people’s bandwidth. The only catch is that they are charging the hotspot owner $50/year. That’s on top of the $80 for the router.

C’mon ogWifi! I’m a private residence. I don’t want to pay to give away something I’m already paying for. If you want to charge for-profit agencies who stand to make money on their connections, fine. But I’m not a for-profit entity. By signing up with your service I would have to do a lot of work. And you want me to pay on top of that? Good luck.

On the other side of the coin, I just got my FON router. The thing is tiny (about the size of a pack of cards), and, most importantly, free. You hear that ogWifi? FREE!

Those crazy Glebe-ites¹ and their art. A local artist has this photo in the window of their studio.

At first I wasn’t so hot on the subject matter, but I must admit that it’s growing on me. Although I probably wouldn’t be able to afford it, even if I did want it hanging on one of my walls.

1. The Glebe is an Ottawa neighbourhood. It is known for its affluence, walkability, egocentrism, and poor fashion sense. It also happens to be our author’s adopted home. (back)

According to CBC’s As It Happens the Quebec Green Party is asking voters to loan the Party money. The party will pay that money back at 8% interest in a years’ time. According to the Party’s leader, Scott McKay, the high rate of return is necessary because of provincial legislation.

Raising money during an election is never easy. There’s stuff a party needs at the start, like signs, brochures, advertising, rent for offices, etc. Money usually does get donated, but it isn’t donated until later in the campaign, after the party shows the electorate that they’re serious about getting elected. So we’re left with a catch 22: the party can’t get money unless it has money, but it doesn’t have money so it can’t get money.

I can’t decide how I feel about this tactic. On the “pro” side we have:

• It gets the Party media attention
  
• It gives revenue to Party supporters instead of big banks who hold an effective monopoly
  
• It solves the Party’s immediate need for money

The “con” side is also well populated:

• It’s expensive. 8% of the principle is a lot.
  
• It seems to be predicated on the Party getting enough votes that it gets 50% of campaign expenses back. I’m not sure what the thresholds are in Quebec, but federally, each riding needs to get 10% of the popular in that riding to get 50% of the expenses spent in that riding paid back.
  
• If the Party can’t raise enough money to repay the loans after the election, they will have to default, screwing over their supporters, and making a bad, bad media story.
  
• Greens are supposed to stand for fiscal responsibility. Asking supporters for large loans at short notice seems to be at odds with our philosophy.

If all goes according to plan, this will be a nice love-in between the Party and its supporters. If the Party can’t raise enough money to pay back the loans, however, there will be a whole lot of pie¹ on the Party’s face.

1. Yum! (back)