Getting the best people
Hi again folks.
I know I haven't been gone for a month or two yet, and am setting a dangerous precedent- actually this ties into what I want to talk about today.
...
As I probably have mentioned before, one of the cute, patronizing goofy statements often regurgitated by our elected idiots is that they have to pay the best wages to get the best people. As I have also perhaps mentioned before (see the previous sentence), to me the best people would on some level include levels of talent, intelligence and honesty which surpass that of, for example, a crack-addicted lab rat.
Example #1: Nuclear Reactors.
We are told that nuclear reactors are the wave of the future, and are, in fact, that which will save us from the currently fashionable veiw of Global Warming, the energy crisis, and the spiralling out of control costs of the various power companies. Recently, the reactor we use to give us 60% of the world's medical isotopes was supposed to be replaced by 2 new ones. Actually it was supposed to be replaced by the 2 new ones 17 years ago, but who's counting. A private company, after spending $345 million dollars and 15 years alongside the government's $600 million, gave up in disgust on the project, which initially had a proposed budget of $40 million to be split between the private and public partners. The reason? Constant, repeated incompetence, going over budget, ignoring or reshuffling priorities, completely ignoring the project for years at a time, and eventually dismantling 7 years of construction for safety reasons (e.g.- it was falling apart with old age before being completed).
This was handled by the best people.
Example #2: A Justice System which is the Envy of the World
Now I know that technically judges and lawyers are independant of government control, despite the fact the government pays the majority of their bills, appoints them to thier positions, and develops and regulates the system of laws which they pass down to us in their wisdom. However, There are a number of flaws in this well-oiled machine.
A) Trials typically take over two years to come to a verdict; a recent trial of alleged police corruption took over 10. Let's say, for example, that I am charged for the murder of 16 people and I get caught. Typically what I can expect is to wait for, say, three years for the trial to be over, after which I can expect either to get off on a technicality or to get sentenced to life in prison, which in our country means 25 years. I cannot serve longer than 2/3 of that sentence- a little more than 16 years- but most likely will not have to serve more than 1/3 of that sentence (8 years), regardless of any 'without parole' stipulations, and additionally am eligable for unescorted day passes after only 1/6 of my sentence (4 years). Of course, it is currently common practice for judges to give triple credit for time spent in custody prior to a conviction... so technically I have already served 9 years and immediately upon conviction can get a couple of day passes and apply for early release. And it is a possibility that I was out on bail the whole time.
On the other hand, assume I didn't do it- then not only do I lose my job and have my kids seized by the Children's Aid Society for efficient transplanting into a state-sanctioned cage for convenient abuse (this only happens in a minority of cases, but the CAS is still being investigated for it), but in the meanwhile the real killer has enough time to kill another 16 people so long as he's careful enough to change his MO enough to keep me in jail. Either way the Canadian people lose out.
B) Much of our current day-to-day lives are run entirely for the benefit of lawyers- think about it... when you buy a car, common sense would suggest that you give them the agreed upon money, you in turn take the car, and if the car proves to be faulty, they must repair or replace it. Simple. However, the 40-page document and long list of charges, coupled with goofy and spuriously logical warranty agreements pretty much throw all that in the crapper.
C) Theoretically our judges are supposed to hand down the laws given to them by the government; however it appears that lately judges are actually making the law for themselves. Not only do they have a wide berth to declare a law unconstitutional, they also have free reign when it comes to ignoring minimum sentences, evidence, or other minor inconveniences (such as the guy who recently got off on drinking and driving charges 'cuz he's too cheap to have more than a couple of beers... like anyone caught drinking and driving has EVER admitted to having more than a couple of beers.
What's worse, is the only people who can stop them from getting carried away with this kind of thing are the politicians, who are too busy running up $500 bills at Starbucks to put on their office budgets.
Example #3: A one-tier, free for everyone medical system.
This is a really great idea that has recently been pretty heavily abused. It is common knowledge that we have a doctor shortage, and yet they do not increase funding to train more doctors, and when we get doctors from other countries to immigrate, they end up driving a cab when they discover it'll take 5 to 10 years to 're-certify' under our system. Hospitals get huge budgets, and yet appear to spend the majority of these budgets tearing down last years' upgrades so they can make a new set of upgrades which will be up and running (a year late and over budget) just in time to tear them down and build a new set of upgrades. My favourite idiot, McGuinty, has the audacity to levy the single largest tax increase in Ontario history and then does not deliver any results except those he gets from hiring people to manipulate the numbers. And of course, despite the politicians hooting about keeping free enterprise out of the medical industry for fear of a 'two-tier' system, any of THEIR family gets sick, they can be immediately flown anywhere in the world for the best possible doctors to massage their feet or perform plastic surgery on our dime.
...
I think I have proven my case. Don't mistake my meaning, I thnk Canada is a fantastic place to live, and our people are equally fantastic. Lately this appears to be in spite of our government's best efforts, not because of them; the government's main focus is no longer running the country or making Canada a better place to live, but rather to stay in power no matter the cost, to fleece the people of Canada out of as much as possible, and to make sure the citizenry stay as distracted as possible so we don't notice much. No wonder our voter turnouts are so low- who really cares which particular politician is voted in to embezzle and cheat us, so long as we remain cheated.
...
Whew! That was fun. Talk to ya later,
the Nonpartisan Lexiphage.
I know I haven't been gone for a month or two yet, and am setting a dangerous precedent- actually this ties into what I want to talk about today.
...
As I probably have mentioned before, one of the cute, patronizing goofy statements often regurgitated by our elected idiots is that they have to pay the best wages to get the best people. As I have also perhaps mentioned before (see the previous sentence), to me the best people would on some level include levels of talent, intelligence and honesty which surpass that of, for example, a crack-addicted lab rat.
Example #1: Nuclear Reactors.
We are told that nuclear reactors are the wave of the future, and are, in fact, that which will save us from the currently fashionable veiw of Global Warming, the energy crisis, and the spiralling out of control costs of the various power companies. Recently, the reactor we use to give us 60% of the world's medical isotopes was supposed to be replaced by 2 new ones. Actually it was supposed to be replaced by the 2 new ones 17 years ago, but who's counting. A private company, after spending $345 million dollars and 15 years alongside the government's $600 million, gave up in disgust on the project, which initially had a proposed budget of $40 million to be split between the private and public partners. The reason? Constant, repeated incompetence, going over budget, ignoring or reshuffling priorities, completely ignoring the project for years at a time, and eventually dismantling 7 years of construction for safety reasons (e.g.- it was falling apart with old age before being completed).
This was handled by the best people.
Example #2: A Justice System which is the Envy of the World
Now I know that technically judges and lawyers are independant of government control, despite the fact the government pays the majority of their bills, appoints them to thier positions, and develops and regulates the system of laws which they pass down to us in their wisdom. However, There are a number of flaws in this well-oiled machine.
A) Trials typically take over two years to come to a verdict; a recent trial of alleged police corruption took over 10. Let's say, for example, that I am charged for the murder of 16 people and I get caught. Typically what I can expect is to wait for, say, three years for the trial to be over, after which I can expect either to get off on a technicality or to get sentenced to life in prison, which in our country means 25 years. I cannot serve longer than 2/3 of that sentence- a little more than 16 years- but most likely will not have to serve more than 1/3 of that sentence (8 years), regardless of any 'without parole' stipulations, and additionally am eligable for unescorted day passes after only 1/6 of my sentence (4 years). Of course, it is currently common practice for judges to give triple credit for time spent in custody prior to a conviction... so technically I have already served 9 years and immediately upon conviction can get a couple of day passes and apply for early release. And it is a possibility that I was out on bail the whole time.
On the other hand, assume I didn't do it- then not only do I lose my job and have my kids seized by the Children's Aid Society for efficient transplanting into a state-sanctioned cage for convenient abuse (this only happens in a minority of cases, but the CAS is still being investigated for it), but in the meanwhile the real killer has enough time to kill another 16 people so long as he's careful enough to change his MO enough to keep me in jail. Either way the Canadian people lose out.
B) Much of our current day-to-day lives are run entirely for the benefit of lawyers- think about it... when you buy a car, common sense would suggest that you give them the agreed upon money, you in turn take the car, and if the car proves to be faulty, they must repair or replace it. Simple. However, the 40-page document and long list of charges, coupled with goofy and spuriously logical warranty agreements pretty much throw all that in the crapper.
C) Theoretically our judges are supposed to hand down the laws given to them by the government; however it appears that lately judges are actually making the law for themselves. Not only do they have a wide berth to declare a law unconstitutional, they also have free reign when it comes to ignoring minimum sentences, evidence, or other minor inconveniences (such as the guy who recently got off on drinking and driving charges 'cuz he's too cheap to have more than a couple of beers... like anyone caught drinking and driving has EVER admitted to having more than a couple of beers.
What's worse, is the only people who can stop them from getting carried away with this kind of thing are the politicians, who are too busy running up $500 bills at Starbucks to put on their office budgets.
Example #3: A one-tier, free for everyone medical system.
This is a really great idea that has recently been pretty heavily abused. It is common knowledge that we have a doctor shortage, and yet they do not increase funding to train more doctors, and when we get doctors from other countries to immigrate, they end up driving a cab when they discover it'll take 5 to 10 years to 're-certify' under our system. Hospitals get huge budgets, and yet appear to spend the majority of these budgets tearing down last years' upgrades so they can make a new set of upgrades which will be up and running (a year late and over budget) just in time to tear them down and build a new set of upgrades. My favourite idiot, McGuinty, has the audacity to levy the single largest tax increase in Ontario history and then does not deliver any results except those he gets from hiring people to manipulate the numbers. And of course, despite the politicians hooting about keeping free enterprise out of the medical industry for fear of a 'two-tier' system, any of THEIR family gets sick, they can be immediately flown anywhere in the world for the best possible doctors to massage their feet or perform plastic surgery on our dime.
...
I think I have proven my case. Don't mistake my meaning, I thnk Canada is a fantastic place to live, and our people are equally fantastic. Lately this appears to be in spite of our government's best efforts, not because of them; the government's main focus is no longer running the country or making Canada a better place to live, but rather to stay in power no matter the cost, to fleece the people of Canada out of as much as possible, and to make sure the citizenry stay as distracted as possible so we don't notice much. No wonder our voter turnouts are so low- who really cares which particular politician is voted in to embezzle and cheat us, so long as we remain cheated.
...
Whew! That was fun. Talk to ya later,
the Nonpartisan Lexiphage.
Labels: politics
posted by The Lexiphage at 7:24 a.m.
6 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
A further thought to the parole discussion.
Jessica Latimer's father came up for parole this year. (remember the Saskatchewan euthanasia story from some years ago?) He applied for parole and was denied because although he is not at risk of offending again, he does not believe that what he did was wrong. So he's still in jail not because he'll kill again but because he won't lie about what he believes.
Interesting that a multiple murderer goes before the parole board, has no reason not to offend again but tells the board he was wrong and has changed and get parole because he will tell a lie.
The liar gets rewarded.
Hey Lex ... I have an idea ... why don't you run for politics. You could straighten all the buggers out. I'll be your campaign manager. It'd be fun.
I'd love to see you in the debate against Weiner Boy.
In answer to susane's post, it is because the lie is the important thing as far as the parole board is concerned. If a parolee commits another crime while out, the parole board that released him will come under scrutiny, and so asking them to lie puts their 'concern' on the record, thus granting them a bit of ass-coverage. If they DIDN'T ask for the lie, that would end up being the focus of the resulting investigation, and the parole board might have to take responsibility for once or even loose the cushy job.
I'm pretty sure that politicians represent the lowest common denominator. That is, you must subtract the intelligence of every voter from the intelligence of the politician prior to his or her becoming a politician. That yields a political IQ which is a very large negative number. The only smart politicians are those who think for themselves and who ignore the polls. Of course, they are almost never elected, for example, Ron Paul or Ralph Nader in the US. In Canada, I think that Tommy Douglas was an independent thinker, and I don't have too many other suggestions.
"The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'."
- Larry Hardiman
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