TravisHarder.ca

The Grant MacEwan College Board of Governors announced a while ago that the facility would maximize the tution increase for next year. Being a student at Grant MacEwan, this obviously resonates with me very strongly. Seeing as MacEwan is going to provide the Bachelor of Science degree and needs money for that, and the majority of the increase will go towards staff wages, I do not hold any ill will towards the college for the increase. Who I do blame for the massive increase, however, is the provincial government. The amount of funding that Alberta provides for post-secondary institutions is so miniscule that it is embarassing. There is no excuse for it.

Obviously, some will argue that with the economic recession starting to hit Alberta, we cannot afford to increase spending. Quite frankly, this is wrong. In a recession, we must have manageable deficits to minimize the effect of a recession, and pay it off when the economy picks up again. What should have happened was when we were in a boom, the government should have put the surplus into a savings account, so we could retroactively pay off the deficits that we would be forced to go into during the inevitable recession. Instead, our idiot former Premier Ralph Klein and his moronic successor Ed Stelmach decided to do nothing and let the province run on “autopilot*”. Only an eighth-grade dropout could come up with an idea so mind numbingly stupid. The second he came up with the idea of a government that does nothing, he should have forfeited his salary. He was never elected to do nothing. Where I work, if you do nothing, you get fired. In the next election, did we fire Klein? No, we re-elected him. This is a man who once insulted handicapped recipients of Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH), claiming that “…they didn’t look severely handicapped to me…”. No, Ralph, they didn’t. You know why? Because we don’t give M.D.’s to people who can’t even finish grade 9, never mind grade 12 or university.

When Ralph Klein finally retired, many thought that the era of doing nothing (other than slash-and-burn spending) was finally over. Oh how wrong we were. Instead, we got more inaction (if you don’t count giving himself and his cabinet a massive pay raise). To put that raise into perspective: the increase alone is almost as much as my mom makes in a year. It is over double what I make in a year. Stelmach justified this increase by saying that it would attract brighter people to politics. Ignoring the obvious jokes about him implying that his own cabinet (including himself) are not adequate for this province (they’re not), keep in mind what they get. $184,000/year for cabinet ministers and $213,450/year for the Premier. Think about that. Chances are very good that you did not make anywhere close to that. How can this man claim to represent you, and have any idea on the economic challenges that you face when he makes four times what you make? His bright idea for dealing with the recession is to have Ralph Klein era budget cuts. This begs the question: what is there left to cut? Rather than cut anything you can see, Stelmach, why not give yourself a pay cut? If the economy is so dire, give yourself a 50% pay cut. You’ll still make more than double what the rest of us make.

One has to wonder, how does this party keep getting elected? How is it possible that a party full of nothing but imbeciles and dunces can hold onto power for 38 years? Is this province really so collectively stupid that they are incapable of having any thought process other than “I’ve always voted conservative, so I’ll keep voting conservative”?  In 2011, when we go to the polls again, I urge everyone to remember this history of mental retardation when it comes to governing and strategically vote A.B.C. (Anything But Conservative). If we ever want to have a government that understands the people, we need to get involved and put this current on on the street. Until the next election, write both your current MLA and Ed Stelmach, and let them know about your displeasure with the current path of the government.

*It should be noted that, despite our common last name, I am not related to Dr. Lois Harder

Today, I write my most important blog post ever.

What the hell happened to Sodalicious? These were always my favorite snack when I was a kid. If anyone finds these in store, please let me know in the comments or email me at admin@travisharder.ca with the subject “Sodalicious!”. Seriously, people, not making these is the greatest atrocity man kind has ever committed. Ever. Gitmo isn’t even as bad as ending production on these wonderful candies.

P.S. How did “travesty” come to be a bad thing? damnit, I will not allow a derivitive of my name to be used in such a manner! I am taking it back. From here on out, the word “travesty” shall now mean great accomplishment! Think I can’t just change the meaning of a word? Oh YES I CAN!

According to a report by Ars Technica, four major Canadian ISPs, including Bell, Shaw and Rogers throttle P2P traffic via Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). According to a report done by University of Victoria grad student Christopher Parsons, most of the filings for submitted by the ISPs were submitted in confidence, thus hiding traffic numbers to the public.

This is just shameful. There is no reason for ISPs to throttle internet access and is simply counter-productive. Many Canadians wonder why we are always behind the rest of the world, technologically speaking, and this is out answer. The CRTC refuses to regulate our ISPs and enforce net neutrality, thus letting the companies do whatever they want. TV is dying, and new media is the future. Unfortuantly, new media access in Canada will be stunted due to the fact that P2P traffic, such as bit torrent will be restricted and bit torrent is a cheap way for people to distribute files, such as podcasts, Linux image files and WoW updates. Yes, it sucks that it’s going to cost the ISPs more money for upload, but so what? It’s a cost of business. If you never want to embrace changing technology, get out of the technology industry. It’s shameful that not only can these companies rule in a virtual monopoly, they can take advantage of that situation and screw over their customers, knowing that they will not be able to take their business elsewhere, unless they want to go back to dial up.

38: the percentage of the popular vote the Conservative Party of Canada recieved in the last election.

47: the percentage of seats won by the Conservative Party of Canada.

54: the percentage of the popular vote the members of the Progressive Coalition: the Liberal Party of Canada, the New Democratic Party of Canada and the Bloc Quebecois recieved.

53: the percentage of seats won by members of the Progressive Coalition.

Do you see anything wrong here?

59: the percentage of eligible voters who voted.

49: the percentage of Canadians who know that the Prime Minister is not directly elected.

24: the percentage of Canadians who know that the Queen if our Head of State.

41: the percentage of Canadians who know that our political system is a “Constitutional Monarchy”

Now do you see a problem?

These numbers come from the official Elections Canada website and the Dominion Institute, which conducted an Ipsos Reid poll on our understanding of our own political system.

The results are downright embarassing. How is it possible that 3/4 Canadians don’t even know who our Head of State is? How is it possible that a majority of Canadians don’t even realize what the hell they’re doing when they go to the voting station? Three months ago, we went to the polls and yet we’ve somehow already forgotten that Stephen Harper’s name wasn’t on the ballot? (Unless you lived in Calgary-Southwest, but even then, the lack of Stephane Dion and Jack Layton should’ve tipped you off). I used to think that this was evidence that something, somewhere has gone terribly wrong, but I now realize that it means the exact opposite. Our ignorance is pure gold to politicians. Stephen Harper has learned that he can minipulate us with lies, and we’ll fall for it time and time again. We have become a nation of sheep, falling for whatever we’re told. We blindly trust whatever our polticians tell us, instead of researching things for ourselves.

If we are to ever get a government worth having, we need to start thinking for ourselves and doing our own research, since we can’t trust our politicans.

Earlier today, Stephen Harper went to Rideau Hall asking Governer General Michaëlle Jean to progue, or suspend, parliment. To my suprise, she actually did. This is the first time in Canadian history where a sitting Prime Minister has suspended Parliament in order to avoid a non-confidence vote. By doing so, Stephen Harper has ignored the will of the majority of the democratically elected Parliament. And his media blitz has gone too far. He’s undoing all the good will he gathered from Quebec in his past few years by attempting to turn Canadians against the Bloc Quebecois, refusing to admit that the Frencophobia that he is pushing is nothing more than pure racism. On top of that, he’s also trying to revert Canada back to the 60s with Red Scare tactics such as refering the the NDP as socialists, as though it were a negative thing, calling this a “seperatist” coalition (refering to the Bloc) and so on to scare Canadians is simply unacceptable. I found out while writing this that pro-coalition protesters got attacked at the rally at Churchill Square. Good job, Mr. Harper, you managed to turn the citizens of this nation against each other. In any other country that would be called terrorism. I thought we were in Afghanistan to remove terrorists from power, not to install one in our own Parliment. Harper has shown that he is not fit to run the local McDonalds, nevermind this country. Stephen Harper, if you truly love Canada and democracy as much as you claim, do what’s right, nay, what’s nessecary to save this country: resign. Resign before you can do anymore damage, turn any more Canadians against eachother and scare more Canadians into blindly hating Quebec and anything left of centre. Resign because we do not let terrorists run Canada.

Goodnight and good luck

I decided that I’ll comment on the cover of the November 2, 2008 edition of the Edmonton Sun. The editorial section has always been notoriously right-wing. That’s ok, it’s expected for an editorial section to have a bias one way or another. In fact, that’s why I focus on getting letters published there, rather than elsewhere. I want to give the readers of the Edmonton Sun comments page a liberal persepctive. That being said, on November 2, the Edmonton Sun went too far and showed that it did not value what little journalistic integrity it had. The front page had a picture of the news confrence with Dion, Layton and Duceppe, with the words “NO, NO, NO” superimposed on it. How can you claim to be a news organization when you blatently interject your personal opinions and biases into a news story? This is absolutely shameful and I urge anyone who currently has a subscription to the Edmonton Sun to cancel their subscription. News organizations have a duty, especially during a time of political tumoil to present the facts in an unbiased manner, presenting all points of view, while passing judgement on none of them. If the editor has an opinion they want to share, they can do so in an editorial or start a blog. This shameless, partisan, reminicint of Fox News bias is unacceptable and we must send a clear message to the Edmonton Sun: we will not accept anything other than balanced stories and real headlines, rather than the sensationalist drivel we’re being fed. Cancel your subscriptions and boycott the paper and send them your letters to the editor letting them know that you’re sick of this garbage and that they will no longer get your money.

This is a letter to the editor I sent in to a couple of news papers. You can see an abridged version in the print and online November 4 editions of the Edmonton Sun and the full version on the Edmonton Journal website.

I fully support this Liberal-NDP coalition. It is important to remember a few things that Albertans seem to be forgetting. Stephen Harper was appointed Prime Minster, not elected. He only became Prime Minister based on the number of seats his party got and the majority of Canadians still voted for someone other than Harper. On top of that, we need to quit throwing around the Bloc as a reason to fear the coalition. The Bloc is not a member and has no cabinet seats. It will be no different than any other minority government where the Bloc holds the balance of power. On top of that, by referring to them only as separatists, we risk reigniting mostly extinguished calls for Quebec separatism and alienating an entire province. Stephen Harper brought this upon himself by acting as though he had a majority. This pompous, sad excuse for a leader needs to be removed before he can destroy our country.

I do find it interesting that the portions that got trimmed from the Edmonton Sun version were the section that deals with the Bloc and the second adjective describing Harper.

The Liberals and NDP have announced that they are planning on forming a coalition government with the support of the Bloc Quebecois. If their motion passes on December 8, Dion will become the next Prime Minister of Canada. Reading some of the comments in the Edmonton Sun today, as well as the editorial, it astounds me how little Canadians know about our political system.

In Canada, we do not elect the Prime Minister, we instead elect representatives who hold seats in Parliament. Most of these representatives are members of political parties. Whichever political party holds the most seats has their leader become the Prime Minister. Even though all the major parties have somewhat democratic elections to pick their leaders (I don’t consider requiring delegates, etc. to be really democratic), they don’t have to. If a party wanted to, they could randomly pick whoever they want to be the leader. It is important to keep this in mind, so that we realize that we did not, in fact, elect Stephen Harper to be out Prime Minister. Calgary elected him to be their representative, but he was appointed Prime Minister because he was leader of the party with the most seats (it’s also important to remember that they still do not have a majority).

With the new budget that was announced, Stephen Harper showed that he was not willing to act as the leader of a minority government, and will do whatever it takes to get a majority, even if it means forcing a new election only months after out last one. Thanks to this tyrant, we have had two elections in the span of two years. How anyone can think he has the interests of anyone other than himself is beyond me.

The opposition is right to attempt to remove Stephen Harper from power. He will ultimately destroy this nation if he is allowed to stay in power. To all those who say that we’re removing an elected leader, it is important to remember that the majority of Canadians did not vote for Harper. In fact, considering the political ideologies of the parties, it is likely that if Canada were a two party system, the Liberal Party would have formed the government. The majority of Canadians do not want Stephen Harper in power, he was only given his position with the mandate of working with the other parties. Like a school yard bully, he has shown that he is not willing to work with others and that he wants everything to be done his way. It’s time to kick him out and put in someone who can work with the other parties.

I realize that I have no visitors, but I’ll make this update anyways (I’m just that bored). I figure, no one is going to read a blog with no content. This means the first step is to add content, even if it’s mindless drivel that no one cares about.

I haven’t updated this blog since June. Wonderful stuff, eh? I’ve mainly just been too busy lately with school and work to write much. When I do have time, I’ll be sure to start posting more often, though don’t expect much beyond political rants (hey, what do you expect from a political science student?). I could add posts about my personal life, but the only people who really care, I already keep informed, so meh. In the mean time, I should really be going to bed.

Cheers.

P.S. I noticed I can now watch SNL clips from the NBC website, despite being in Canada. Partial win.

As you may have heard, Revision3 recently suffered a DDoS attack brought on by Media Defender. What happened is that Revision3 uses BitTorrent to host their files, giving viewers another way to obtain the show, and lessening the load on their servers. For one reason or another, they left their tracker open, allowing anyone to add torrent information to it. Many people ended up using this to their advantage, adding torrents which linked to copyrighted content. Media Defender, rather than contacting Revision3 about this, decided to host spoof files (files which appear to be copyrighted content such as the Iron Man movie) on the tracker. A member of the Revision3 forums discovered the illegal content one could obtain from Revision3′s tracker and let them know. Revision3 responded by locking up the tracker so only authorized Revision3 shows could be obtained via this tracker. Media Defender responded by sending out numerous SYN packets to Revision3 servers (approximately 8000 per second according to Revision3 CEO, Jim Louderback). This crippled the Revision3 servers, preventing access to the website and apparently even internal corporate email.

According to the latest episode of TWiT (this WEEK in TECH), the FBI is investigating this matter. While no one is arguing that Revision3 should not have made their tracker public, Media Defender should not have reacted this way. When Media Defender noticed that this tracker was open, and that one could obtain copyrighted content using it, they should have contacted Revision3, as the forum member did, and let them know about this. By DDoSing Revision3, Media Defender broke the law and caused Revision3 considerable financial harm.

Perhaps the most interesting thing, however, is not the attack that Media Defender committed, but rather when it committed the attack. Media Defender was silent for the five weeks when Revision3 was unknowingly providing access to copyrighted content, but the second that Revision3 cut off access to the illegal content, they attacked. It seems that they did not care so much about copyrighted content as they did to having access for their files. Once the tracker was locked down, they responded the same way a two year old would at the grocery store when you take away the candy he wants to buy, throwing a massive tantrum.

On TWiT, Jim and Leo Laporte speculated that perhaps this whole incident occurred because Media Defender and so-called old media companies that back it do not understand the concept of new media organizations such as Revision3, and cannot grasp the idea that BitTorrent would be used for anything other that piracy. This brings out a major problem with old media. Old media is a dinosaur losing out to new media. People are getting sick of paying $20-30 for a DVD or Blu-ray disk, then being told what they can and cannot do with it. Companies such as Revision3 give you their content and basically say “you can whatever you want with it as long as you aren’t making money with our work”, and people love this. A person can take the latest episode of Diggnation or The Totally Rad Show and put a copy on their iPod, a copy on a DVD and another copy on their laptop, and watch them wherever they want. Aside from their monthly internet bill and the time required to download the shows, there is no fee and you get high-definition and high-quality content. Even shows with advertising such as Diggnation, The Totally Rad Show, Hak5 and TWiT, the advertising is minimal compared to that of many television shows, which like layer it on in excessive amounts.

The only way for companies such as CBS, NBC, Fox and Disney to survive in the long run is for them to finally embrace new media, and remove many of the restrictions. Let the user download the latest episode of their favorite television show, even if they don’t live in the United States (hint, hint Comedy Central, NBC and MTV), DRM-Free, and let them do what they want with it. Restricting the rights of their customers is nothing short of suicide and will lead to the inevitable downfall of television, music and possible movies.