David Akin's On the HillWorking notes, observations, links and other errata from a parliamentary bureau reporter in Ottawa, Canada.When Radio Shack asks for our phone number, one in 10 of us lie ...- July 4, 2008 You might want to buy two batteries for a grand total of two bucks and even if you had cash to pay for it, Radio Shack's clerks wanted to know your name, postal code, mailing address, home phone - and all sorts of stuff.... In retail speak, they want "a relationship" with you, which means they want to add you to their database of customers, a database which they might cross-reference with a host of other publicly and privately available databases so that they might more efficiently extract...http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2008/7/3/3774998.html Gene Spafford on Bittorrent and the lasting impact of quality- July 4, 2008 Gene Spafford is no Luddite (though he worries, below, he might sound like one with this rant he mailed in to Dave Farber's list) but he is a smart guy and a digital pioneer who worries about the implications of generations of students hooked up to Bittorrent never having to pay for a textbook: As noted, the whole mechanism of textbooks (and books in general) is changing.... I know all the arguments about the cyber revolution making knowledge quickly available, at how we can avoid cabals and..http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2008/7/3/3774955.html Annual financial returns for Canada's political parties- July 3, 2008 The Greens, in particular, are drawing support from all mainstream parties although the conventional thinking in Ottawa these days is that any Conservatives that were going to defect have already done so and new membership growth is coming at the expense of the uncommitted, former Liberals, former NDPers and former pquistes -- but not necessarily in that order. So, after downloading some of the numbers from Elections Canada Web site (I appreciate that they're trying and all the data is, in...http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2008/7/3/3774906.html It's allowance time ...- July 3, 2008 Elections Canada announced today that the five registered political parties who met the criteria for public funding laid down by Jean Chrtien are about to get their quarterly cheques: Bloc Qubcois $758,350.39 Conservative Party of Canada $2,623,890.17 Green Party of Canada $324,231.20 Liberal Party of Canada $2,187,074.37 New Democratic Party $1,264,370.74 Technorati Tags: election financeshttp://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2008/7/3/3774694.html Press release writing: Could there be another way- July 2, 2008 I have to read things like this for a living but do the folks who write these on behalf of their vainglorious masters really believe they're passing on important information with opening lines like this DISRAELI, QUEBEC--(Marketwire - June 30, 2008) - The Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, Secretary of State for Agriculture and MP for Megantic-L'Erable, the Honourable Christian Paradis, on behalf of the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, the...http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2008/7/2/3773228.html Tory MP Bruinooge questions "legitimacy" of Order of Canada- July 2, 2008 Conservative MP Rod Bruinooge (left) issued this statement, in the wake of Henry Morgentaler's appointment to the Order of Canada: MP Rejects Divisive Order of Canada Appointment June 30, 2008 Statement from Rod Bruinooge, MP, on the appointment of Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada.... I recently nominated a deserving citizen in my community, but I no longer feel I can associate with the Order and have asked to have my name disassociated with the nomination process. I urge Canadians to.http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2008/7/2/3773185.html And on Canada Day ...- July 2, 2008 ... I happened to be reading (or re-reading, I can't quite remember) Hugh MacLennan's Barometer Risingnnan, reading it as the wood smoke from our fire at Rainbow Falls Provincial Park high on Lake Superior's north shore swirled about it. I'd have posted this yesterday but Canada Day found me a few metres from the Trans-Canada Highway but kilometres away from a decent wireless signal that would have let me made a phone call let alone connect to the Internet (yes, Virginia, there are still...http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2008/7/2/3773159.html |