The marvels of anonymous email

Got this a couple of days ago.
Ben ... you probably know this ... I heard from a very reliable source, quote, "The Emperor-in-waiting, Brocanier, has offered MacDonald 'any portfolio he wants' if he runs and is elected. It seems he wants some familiar support on the new council." Counting chickens? If you haven't heard it and can use it, unattributed, go ahead.

Kinda goes against what i had been hearing so I held on to it, then last night I heard that Sluggo - Councillor "why do I always come in last" Bill MacDonald - has decided to run again. Let the fun begin!

You know the Town is in trouble when the future depends on "continuity" provided by a guy that can only bombastically declare, "Will this set a precedent?".

Does an election by acclamation have to be approved by the membership?

Not knowing the real answer to this question I asked the supreme authority of all - Wikipedia for the answer. Ironically the answer came back this way.

The most frequent type of acclamation is a voice vote, in which the voting group is asked who favors and who opposes the proposed candidate. In the event of a lack of opposition, the candidate is considered elected.

This form of election is most commonly associated with papal elections, though this method was discontinued by Pope John Paul II's apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis.

The reason for the question is that now that the Board of the NHH has declared that only the sitting Directors, whose time is up, will be the recommended candidates in the Directors' election and the vote will be by acclamation I wondered just how that will go. But the second sentence of the answer is most revealing: this kind of election is usually associated with Papal elections - hmm sounds familiar.

Got the Summit Blues

For months now I've been ruminating about the escalating series of lies, screw ups and scandals perpetrated by our federal ruling party, and thought things were about as bad as they could get, but the advance media stories trickling out about the G-8 and G-20 Summits here in Ontario suggest it's only going to get worse.

Starting with the revelation that security alone for the two wank fests will cost a billion of our tax dollars, and will likely be much higher by the time it's all over, the whole thing becomes extremely anxiety provoking to contemplate what the entire tab will be.

With our intrepid RCMP in charge of security, they managed to find a company that isn't licensed in our province to do the work. Never mind, the provincial ministry will no doubt fast track the application process; they'd better, since hiring has already started and the fun starts rather soon.

The area around the Toronto event will be cordoned off, and even the Theatre District has given up and canceled performances that week, just as the CN Tower and Art Gallery will be closed to visitors. The University of Toronto, ever vigilant, closed down parts of the campus where it was deemed too close to potential protests. So has the Ontario College of Art & Design. The Blue Jays had to move their ball game out of town and even the much loved Steamwhistle Brewery will close its doors. Sounds more like a war zone than a conference.

But the icing on the cake has to be the artifical lake they are constructing down near the Exhibition grounds. When this story came out I thought I was dreaming. It's just too ridiculous, too bizarre, to be real. But, like the tories trumpeting maternal health while simultaneously banning funding for family planning, the fake lake is indeed true. And it is going to cost two million dollars!

This monument to wasteful spending and prime ministerial hubris is to include fake Muskoka chairs, a fake dock and fake back drop, all for the benefit of those journalists not chosen to head on up to the G-8 where the really important leaders will hang out. Maybe they can round up some of Mel Lastman's old life sized plastic mooses just to jazz it up even more. Perhaps along with them, a few fake fish in the water to add some realism. Hey, it's gonna need all the help it can get. Those journalists can get real snarky with their nasty comments.

It's a good thing our Auditor General, Sheila Fraser, will be on the job after the federal bank accounts have been emptied, to tell us all the juicy details about how our government, with a budget deficit this year of about 50 billion, blew all that dough on a party. It is to weep.

Now's the time for the lawyers

Here's an interesting quote from an email, "I just had a letter read to me by the Chair of the Nominating Committee indicating that there will be no election pursuant to the by-laws becuase only those accepted by the Board nominating committee as being qualified are eligible to stand for election and since the nominating committee felt that only their own candidates are eligible then the three of us are not going to be nominated as a member of the slate."
Funny how a hunch just became a fact. Now's the time to stop fooling around get a lawyer and have them get an injunction to delay the meeting until the procedures can be put in place for a 'free election'

A bit of fun this week

The 'World Cup" starts on Saturday, the game to be watched will be the opener between the USA and England. Today's odds at Ladbrokes are the same as they were in December when I picked up a couple of bets in Vegas - England 5-1 and the USA at 60-1. Pundits have proclaimed the USA as one of the teams to watch but the oddsmakers obviously don't agree.
England, the screamers that is, is already complaining that the referee assigned to the game is a bit of a flake and the Brazilian will be erratic and produce controversial rulings. But we will see and Toronto will be going nuts in the ethnic enclaves and St Clair Avenue will be a place to avoid for the next two weeks. Let the games begin.

What a turnaround

In every Army unit there is a F***up. Established in modern culture by the cartoonist who draws Beatle Bailey and perpetuated in every movie ever made about Armies. This FU is the guy who is late, never shines his boots, always fails his drill exercises, marches out of step and generally commits many small military crimes. The bane of his existance is the opposite; the Regimental Sergeant Major, the most feared man in the Unit. He is the man in charge despite what the Colonel thinks. He is the man who makes grown men quake in their boots and on his parades nobody slacks off. One of my recollections about an RSM is where a squad of apprentices, absolutely terrified of having to speak to the RSM, if he stopped in front of you when he was inspecting you and your kit, was the time he stopped in front of one fellow who after the RSM had spotted an error, "What's your name boy?" bellowed at top pitch. "Smith sir" "No it isn't you have just lost it - march him away Sergeant"
The inset picture shows the most famous RSM in history - John Lord. A beautiful pic that shows him at his most fiercest - on parade. However despite the obvious bluster most RSMs always had another side of humanity and most were courteous gentlement who because they demanded the highest of standards from all they dealt with were obviously confusing human beings.

So back to the point: where are the FUs in the Canadian Army. Examining the press reports about the Canadian Army's performance in Afghanistan all we know is that each and every casualty is a hero. So asking the question again it is obvious that the only known FU is the Commander of the Force - Brig-Gen Menard who has been sacked.

Only in Canada can we find the only acknowledged miscreant in the Army is its Commander!

Here's another opinion flying upwind

Mr Harper's vengeful streak struck again last week when he had his "lady on the broomstick" Diane Finlay, announce that a bill was being brought forward to disallow federal Pension payments to prisoners serving more than two years. Now this strikes me as meanspirited as how many prisoners other than Clifford Olsen are not married and may have family relyng on this money?

But that's not my main basis for objection. The equality argument is. Universal programs are just that - Universal. If Mr Harper wants to ride a wave of revenge and attack Clifford Olsen by removing his pension then do it another way. Try charging him a surcharge (for being a heinous criminal that we can't murder (no capital punishment left to apply), just because he did) that would be applied selectively to prisoners based on family need. This punishment just erodes Universality and I'm agin any of that!

Welcome to the site

Now just who are these people - Smart Systems for Health Agency? They appeared in the tracking stats around the time the BurdReport started to expose the machinations of the Hospital Board. IP lookup tells me they are based in Peterborough, and as of this morning they have hit the site 48 times, five times yesterday alone. But what do they do?





According to their website it is a Provincial Government Agency dedicated to finding IT solutions to Healthcare problems. Another interesting fact is that this Government Non-Profit is part of E-Health - Yikes.

Anyway all speculation aside, a message to the person who is assiduously tracking the site who is either a member of the organisation or is using a computer on the organisation's network - welcome and feel free to report back to your bosses just what the other side is thinking!

BTW don't bother clicking on their website - it doesn't work.

The law of unintended consequences

Newton's third law of motion states that for every action there is a reaction, so it is in the latest analysis of the fight to get the membership list from Mr Biron, the secretary of the NHH. In an exchange of emails with me he concludes that whilst the Hospital is governed by laws of privacy he was motivated to call on the Privacy Commissioner for a ruling; can he release a membership list to the public? by the plea from some members that they didn't want their personal information released.

So as one anonymous commentator has pointed out in the last thread, we are now in the situation of having shareholders rights trumped by privacy laws. This situation if allowed to develop is very dodgy. I would say to those members who don't want the contact information released - "If you want to stay private get the heck out of the Association". I would also say publically, to all who will listen and there are few of those around, "Please may I have the membership list without the contact information - just the names please?".

Because as it stands now the Board of the Hospital Association is acting just like a Klu-Klux Klan coven because of its insistence that the membership list remain secret. Public is public - give us the names.

This piece of local satire sums it up:

Imagine a day not too far in the future.  We are in a comfortable middle-class dining room--after dinner.  The talk, however, has been quite anxious.

A Father and son are talking.  They talk about the future.  The father is retired and although he has made many sound and wise investments--they are not doing so well.  He has no control over them. And although he and is fellow investors believe a small change in management in some of the companies they have invested in would change the value of their investments--they are powerless to act.

They can't act because the very management they wish to address are the only people who can speak to all the investors.  They as owners can not speak to their fellow owners--because they can not know them.  Only the proprietors of information may know them.  That being the government and, of course, the management of the companies.

This is because the "privacy" of the owners trumps their ability to communicate to each other.  Even if that ability to communicate with each other would enable them, as owners, to redirect the companies they own to a greater and more prosperous future.

The son asks: "Father, why is it you can not know or communicate with the fellow owners of your company?" "Because," says the Father (with a heavy sigh), "it was decided one day at a hospital, in Cobourg of all places, that this was not permissable."

"But," ask the son, "Is not a hospital a non-profit organization?"  "Well, yes," says the Father, "but at the time it was still technically a corporation and instead of owners it had members."

"And..." asks the son.

"Well, it was decided that to protect the identity of the members--they could not be allowed to communicate with each other.  Especially around the management of the organization"

"Why," asks the son.

"Well, its complicated" says the Father, "But nevertheless it set a precedent that the privacy of the members was more important than the ability of those members to call into account the management and governance of that organization"

"And," says the son.

"Well, since then, because of that precedent no owner or shareholder, and no member, can know who are the fellow members or fellow owners of an organization or corporation--only management can."

"Oh, I see." says the son.

But he doesn't.  Because he has never known any different.

Interesting

Is this just another stall?

I too received the same 'bedbug' letter that Bridget Campion received from Mr Biron, about the request for an association membership list; her's was on display last evening. In that letter shown on the right, click on the image to enlarge, he said that the release of the list depended on a ruling from the Privacy Commissioner. So when I called the Privacy Commission to see if they had a request on file and how long it would take for a response Karen Hale, a Privacy Officer, asked me, "Why would we make such a ruling, hospitals are not subject to the freedom of Information Act (FOI)?"

So is the request for a ruling just a stall or a move by a highly paid person who doesn't know the basics of FOI? I would prefer to think the former but then Mr Biron's motives may be questioned as an attempt to stall the release of the list until after the AGM.

This move doesn't pass 'the sniff test'. In an e-mail I have pointed this out to Mr Biron and asked for the list to be released.

Stay tuned.