Parkinson’s Law

While over at Chaos Manor tonight, I found a copy of Parkinson's Law-

Injelititis, or Palsied Paralysis recounts the life and death of corporate and government institutions. Injelititis is a word that Parkinson made up from Inferiority and Jealousy; it is a character deficiency in people that can bring about the decay and death of organizations they work for. The basic mechanism is that the carrier of Injelititis would try to move himself or herself into a position of authority (because of the inferiority complex), having obtained which he or she would try to surround oneself with individuals non-threatening intellectually or professionally (because of jealousy.) Parkinson thus formulates it succinctly, "If the head of the organization is second-rate, he will see to it that his immediate staff are all third-rate; and they will, in turn, see to it that their subordinates are fourth-rate." Parkinson describes the stages of the organizational disease, the symptoms from which they can be deduced, and the possible approaches to cure. These include medicinal (injecting people into the organization which possess qualities such as Intolerance, "... obtainable from the bloodstream of regimental sergeant majors and is found to comprise two chemical elements, namely: (a) the best is scarcely good enough (GGnth) and (b) there is no excuse for anything (NEnth)."; and surgical means. The last stage of the disease is terminal: "Infected personnel should be dispatched with a warm testimonial to such rival institutions as are regarded with particular hostility. All equipment and files should be destroyed without hesitation. [...] As for the buildings, the best plan is to insure them heavily and then set them alight."

Update Feb 24th.

Looking back on the past month, it seems eerily familiar somehow.

Blogging for Shane

Found this while stumbling around in the Great White North.

Bound by Gravity has this-


1053kissfm.com is running a birthday card drive for Shane

And from August 22/04-

Over at the InmanNews Blog Archives-
Pack em' in
Thirty-six units of new senior housing in San Francisco's Outer Mission. Is there demand? Well, 1600 people signed up to get a shot at the three dozen homes.
Options:
1. Turn away 1564 families or
2. Put 45 people per unit.
UGH, what an ugly housing market.
-- Bradley Inman

The Joys of a Small Market....

Captain Capitalism has a great post about the condo market in his area.

No More Condos
The party's over!

Every guy has had the experience at least once during his earlier days at college of sticking around till the party is all but completely dead, the good looking people hooked up long ago and in a half-drunken daze you wander aimlessly thinking that some babe is going to pop up out of nowhere.

The hosts of the party give you subtle hints to leave and are somewhat wary of your presence. But there you are, ignorantly blissful and optimistic that you're still going to get some play that night hoping the party continues on and re-ignites itself.

Such is the situation with our beloved real estate developers in this beloved nation in this beloved housing bubble, ESPECIALLY CONDOS

Dion and the GST

Seems Dion is at least willing to admit to being an eletist bloodsucking liberal for once.

National Post
Published: Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Stephane Dion visited Edmonton for the first time as Liberal leader on Thursday. What speaking venue, you may be wondering, did he select as a means of convincing Alberta Liberals that he can successfully reach out to anglophones? The Petroleum Club? The Royal Alberta Museum? Actually, he plunged into the heart of the city's francophone enclave to give a speech at the Faculte St.-Jean, the University of Alberta's French-language campus. Nice messaging, rookie.

But later in the day, Mr. Dion did make time for a visit with the editorial board of the Edmonton Journal. The Liberal leader told the Journal that he stands by his opposition to the GST cut from 6% to 5%, which the Conservative government has promised to implement within the maximum life of its mandate.

An Elloquent Defence of Suburbia

I stumbled across an excellent essay tonight at The American Enterprise Institute.

The author, architectural historian Robert Bruegmann is professor and chairman of art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and author of the new book Sprawl, from which this essay is adapted.

There is overwhelming evidence that urban sprawl has been beneficial for many people. Year after year, the vast majority of Americans respond to batteries of polls by saying that they are quite happy with where they live, whether it is a city, suburb, or elsewhere. Most objective indicators about American urban life are positive. We are more affluent than ever; home ownership is up; life spans are up; pollution is down; crime in most cities has declined. Even where sprawl has created negative consequences, it has not precipitated any crisis.

So what explains the power of today's anti-sprawl crusade? How is it possible that a prominent lawyer could open a recent book with the unqualified assertion that "sprawl is America's most lethal disease"? Worse than drug use, crime, unemployment, and poverty? Why has a campaign against sprawl expanded into a major political force across America and much of the economically advanced world?

I would argue that worries about sprawl have become so vivid not because conditions are really as bad as the critics suggest, but precisely because conditions are so good. During boom years, expectations can easily run far ahead of any possibility of fulfilling them. A fast-rising economy often produces a revolution of expectations. I believe these soaring expectations are responsible for many contemporary panics.

The essay is quite long, but is an excellent read, and clearly demonstrates that the anti-sprawl crowd are just snobs, plain and simple.

Global Warming, Malaria, Hairy Palms.....

Interesting article over at the



Dangers of disinformation
Paul Reiter
Thursday, January 11, 2007

PARIS

President George W. Bush's new international anti-malaria campaign has been greeted with enthusiasm by its victims, but with pseudoscience by commentators.

That is not unusual: Fallacies infect every debate about the environment and affect policy, taxpayers' money and victims' lives.

Scientists ask questions, formulate hypotheses, design experiments, look at the evidence, modify the hypotheses and probe further. Then activists, news media and politics take over.

the rest here....

Shaw pulls millions out of Canadian TV fund

Jim Shaw is pissed. I agree with him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Deirdre McMurdy, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, January 11, 2007

Jim Shaw is ticked off.

The CEO of Shaw Communications is tired of subsidizing the CBC. He's frustrated by spending five per cent of his company's annual revenues on television programs no one watches. He refuses to pay broadcasters a fee-for-carriage of their signals as well as part of the freight on their production costs. And he's prepared to blatantly breach CRTC regulations to make his point........

..... the rest here.

Dairy farmers make suckers of consumers

I found this over at the The Gazette-
Canadians are drinking 18 per cent less milk than they did in 1980, consuming 30 per cent less butter and 24 per cent less ice cream. Cheese production is barely holding steady. The Canadian dairy herd has dwindled.

Sounds like a disastrous portrait of a collapsing industry, doesn't it? In fact, these realities are all the result of careful manipulation of the dairy industry by federal and provincial governments and dairy producers themselves. This systematic conspiracy against consumers goes by the name of "orderly marketing," and it has resulted in an average profit margin for dairy farms of 25 per cent of operating revenue, almost double the figure for all farms in Canada.

Now, at the beginning of a new year, both the federal and provincial governments dipped into consumers' pockets yet again to fatten the profits of politically well-connected dairy farmers. Year after year this scandal goes on because consumers don't know how to fight back. Revenue, almost double the figure for all farms in Canada.

Now, at the beginning of a new year, both the federal and provincial governments dipped into consumers' pockets yet again to fatten the profits of politically well-connected dairy farmers. Year after year this scandal goes on because consumerdon't know how to fight back. ...for the rest of the story.......

Who'd a thunk it?

Photo by Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times
Ponds fed by geothermal waters from under the Negev teem with fish at Kibbutz Mashabbe Sade.


New meaning to 'desert bloom'

Whimsy........

Building bridges or tearing them down?

I read with interest in our local rag, Maple Ridge News that Peoples Republic of BC, after signing over the revenue from the new Golden Ears Bridge to a bunch of EUrotrash, now is trying to get the local taxpayers to subsidize the emergency services on the bridge.

One has to wonder if the responders will be expected to pay a toll as well.

We made it!

lived through another year. I remember, as a teen, not expecting to make it to 2001, family history supported that too. Here it is 2007, and I writing this amid gunshots in good old Mudville.

I'm off to the hot tub with a wee dram of Tamhdu.

Happy New year!