Phendrana Drifts

But I’m fairly uncertain what to do with it – I do need to feel better as in there is a lot of stuff to do at work, but I’m not so ill that I am confined to my bed moaning a lot. It’s kind of an odd place to be – although it may mean there is enough energy to do something work related but not all the way to doing “work”.

I wonder what other people do with their sick days. When you think of them while at work you romanticize them – imagining worlds conquered in video games, or movies watched, books read, but when you actually need to take one you lead a sedentary life that matches your pets.

Boo. Now I want to go to work.

I have agonized and agonized and today was the deadline to make the decision and I have decided to defer once again, but in all likelihood that deferral means I’ll take a pass.

I want to be gadget cool. I want to be surfing the internet in Starbucks on an iPad. Except I have no real idea what I’ll do on a iPad over my present iPhone or MacBook Pro.

I went to the Apple Store today and touched one for the first time in any meaningful way, and I can’t deny its very slick. Everything works and moves the way you expect Apple stuff to work. I’m sure it is everything Steve Jobs and friends claim it is, but for the life of me I still don’t know where I will use it over my other two primary devices. I can see surfing in bed with it over my iPhone. And I know at first I will take it to the coffee shop over the MacBook Pro. But I’m not so sure in the long run. The keyboard, while of course much better than the iPhone, was certainly not a typist’s dream. I tried a few times to touch type and failed. Of course there is a snazzy keyboard/dock, but that is a little expensive (although to be honest this exercize is already bourgeois, cost isn’t the major factor) and more importantly adds bulk and stuff to the package which enhances the value of the notebook.

I’ve quizzed people with one, read on the internet and asked random users what they use their iPad for and still haven’t come to a solid conclusion. As much as I hate to say it, until I come up with a use for it, I’m skipping the iPad.

I’ve abandoned Blogger, my home on the web since before Google owned it, back in the heady days when only true geeks had blogs, and Allie was the only blogger I knew in real life other than myself. The transition to WordPress shouldn’t be too difficult, but if a link or something doesn’t work have some patience!

Every time that chicken gets me. If it weren’t budget day tomorrow, I bet I’d be in line. Alas, too much work between 6:00am and 2:00pm.

Oh, and today’s secret code is:

EAVB_ISYKXFCCVQ

I just need to see if it works…

It was almost like the summer was this passive-aggressive pit of yuck when it came to hockey – instead of celebrating the coming of age of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury as they hoist the cup the headlines were strewn with the debris of Balsillie’s bid to buy and move the Coyotes. And I ate every minute of it, consuming every tidbit coming out of the Arizona bankruptcy court.

As the puck drops tonight on the 09/10 NHL season I’m glad that drama (or at least this chapter of the drama) is over – admittedly I was rooting for another Canadian franchise, and every time I see jobing.com Arena with only a couple thousand fans who likely paid $25 for the ticket I will shake my fist – it wasn’t healthy for me to focus on that over what was on the ice.

The redeeming post-script to Theo Fleury’s career was a good primer, and now I want the main course. No pressure boys, but it would be great if I didn’t have to take off this jersey until June.

Go Flames Go!

I’m not kidding, here are the headlines on the Globe and Mail mobile page while I am heading to work:

Jobless ranks swell by 7.8%
New York-sized ice cap collapses off Antarctica
WHO raises alert level as virus spreads its reach
Washington, union to own GM, Chrysler

A little down the page is this gem:

How to prepare for a pandemic

No word on locusts. Yet.

I donated blood for the seventh time last week – I really enjoy the act (short, meaningful, helpful, free cookies) and it saves three lives. I recently got into… well not a debate and certainly not an argument but a discussion with a colleague about the Canadian Blood Services (CBS) screening practices, which prohibits any man “who have had sex with another man, even once, since 1977.” They go on to say “This is based on current scientific knowledge and statistical information that shows that men who have had sex with other men are at greater risk for HIV/AIDS infection than other people.” I, to an extent, defended the screening, as they ask a bunch of other potentially insulting and certainly limiting questions: Have you ever lived in Africa? Have you ever used intravenous recreational drugs? Do you have one of a long list of diseases? Have you ever taken or given money or drugs for sex? Have you had sex with someone new recently? Have you had sex with someone whose sexual history you don’t know? All things that if you answer yes to you don’t donate.

In my mind the practice of voluntary blood donation has two important components: safety of the blood supply and availability of the blood supply. You can’t save people’s lives with unsafe blood and you can’t save people’s lives if you don’t have any blood. So, since we don’t pay people to donate in Canada we have to make certain the donation process is inviting and easy but we also need to take every possible step to ensure we are limiting the risk of passing on infectious diseases to blood donation recipients. Makes sense, no?

The rub comes when you recognize some questions during the pre-screening process is probably a good thing – questions like “Do you have or have you ever been diagnosed with HIV?” makes sense to me. Even if the tests for HIV are accurate say 99.9% of the time that still leaves 0.01% of the time where the test fails so screening helps ensure the relative safety of the blood supply. Also without getting too much into risk management, I imagine the Canadian Blood Services board has a very expensive insurance policy and that insurance policy is contingent on some pre-screening. If I ran an insurance company, I know I would not insure Canadian Blood Services if they simply allowed all who wanted to donate to donate. However, I also recognize answering 200 questions all geared towards exhaustively identifying any and all risky behaviour (blood-wise) an individual participates in would greatly inhibit donations and alienate donors. So we need to have some questions but not too many – this seems to be the current policy of Canadian Blood Services – so which questions?

It would make sense that you should ask say the 20 or 30 questions that have the most relevance to ensuring safe blood. And if it comes down to it, I am reasonably fine if being a man who has had sex with other men as one of the criteria – if it is a proven question that makes the blood supply safer. It also would mean that the criteria would have to be applied without exception to other demographic and charter-protected groups. What if the scientific evidence shows black individuals are far more likely to have HIV than the rest of the population? Do we then prohibit donations on the basis of race?

What shocked me most about this topic is how unwilling Canadian Blood Services is to making the data available on how much safer the Canadian blood supply is since they prohibit gay and bisexual men from donating blood. I’ve looked and looked and googled and googled (this topic was fairly active in the media about six months ago) and while the news stories are balanced with those who seek to change the policy and spokespeople from Canadian Blood Services and Health Canada, with a sprinkling of doctors, no one seems to be able to say how much safer. In the absence of data, and data that can be compared to other risk factors that are both on and off the eligibility list the policy seems bigoted. And shortsighted – fewer and fewer people are donating and shockingly few from my generation.

I’m a huge fan of alternate histories and speculative fiction – they are often fun and campy sojourns from reality and on the more intellectual side they allow you to look at some issues from a what-if basis and try and learn something about the impact of the decisions of yesterday and today on the present.

So I was excited to pick up Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 last night for my PS3 and start my campaign to rule the world under a Soviet flag in a world without nuclear weapons as well I loved watching the alternate universe of The Watchmen play itself out on the big screen. Man, I love alternate histories, especially ones about the Cold War.

If you’re going to write a Cold War speculative fiction novel, video game, graphic novel, film or whatever you often start off with playing with certain stereotypes – the United States is technologically superior, and invariably wealthier than the USSR but may lack a certain will or may lack the numbers to do the job. Also, since I only know the English language examples of the genre, they are usually the winners. The Russians on the other hand are poor, declining, authoritarian and possess tremendous military might. The kind of military might that could be used to address the other problems. And that’s how the war starts.

I was no fan of the George W. Bush administration – and for good reason. They tortured people. They started wars by lying. They polarized the American democratic system. They alienated allies and spent enormous amounts of political capital that had been earned over generations and paid for with the blood of American soldiers. But the biggest complaint I had with the group of essentially criminals in the White House was that they spent too much money. Billions. Trillions. Money borrowed from future generations and the impact of the borrowing hidden from the American public through more borrowing and an antiquated financial system that props up the value of the American dollar. At the end of Bush’s term of office that system came crashing down and the United Nations and most importantly China are considering taking steps that will allow the American dollar to fall to its real value. And the way out of it for the American people seems to be taking an incredible gamble – spending even more money.

I am no economist – it is not even my undergraduate degree – I have history and political science degrees. I cannot even pretend to claim I know how this will all turn out. Nations, even big and powerful ones like the United States, have borrowed vast sums of money in the past and ultimately been fine and even more powerful and obtained a better sustainable quality of life for their citizens. But I look at how much the Bush administration borrowed ($5 trillion, give or take) and how much the Obama administration has already or is planning to borrow ($1.7 trillion, again give or take) and I’m worried. The public debt of the United States is climbing towards 80% of their GDP and the deficit is close to 5% – these are all levels my economics professors would have sounded alarm bells over.

The point I am trying to make is this – the United States is gambling that after having borrowed more than half of their national debt to pay for a stupid military adventure in Iraq and stupid tax cuts without corresponding cuts to what the state does for its citizens, they are going to borrow another massive pot of money – a pot that looks to leave each working American with about $120,000 of public debt. Right now it is around $60,000, and the American economy is shrinking (meaning fewer people working and producing GDP). If this plan does not work, then the United States will fall in economic terms to a middle power. With such a large debt, the federal government will be poor – and realistically so will the large majority of the population.

However, militarily the United States for all the bluster of being beset on all sides by evil and hostile forces is by far the largest military force on Earth. They are spending vast quantities of money (where do you think that debt came from?) and time and effort on creating a military that can be anywhere at once and attack “America’s enemies” at will. Now, I don’t think the American population has the stomach to take over the world – and nor should it. It is not worth it frankly, and the quality of life of your citizens as well as the general happiness of humanity is best secured without military force. Indeed, the United States was unable to conquer relatively minor powers like Iraq and Afghanistan while maintaining acceptable casualty counts and preserving their need to be the good guy in the fight. But in the speculative future histories – which nation will now serve the role as the economically poor but militarily strong power looking to settle a perceived slight or grab for their former glory? I’m not sure it will be the Russians.

I’m going to start blogging again. I miss it – and perhaps more importantly it made me a better writer. The advent of twitter has started to make think in 140 character bites – which while useful is not the ideal for all things. So I’m going to establish a regular blogging schedule and do my best to keep to it.