Is the Canada Revenue Agency serious?

CRA's My Account terms and conditions have been updated recently. They stuck this gem at the bottom:

• You agree that the CRA is not responsible for any losses or damages incurred by anyone because of: 
• any reliance upon the information available on My Account, as it is not official CRA documentation 
• any transfer of information to the CRA 
• the non-acceptance of information provided through My Account 
• any restriction, delay, malfunction, or unavailability of the My Account service.

The first two points blow my mind. My Account isn't official documentation? So CRA thinks we should live in the age of the typewriter forever? And not being responsible for transfer of information makes it sound like this isn't actually a valid way to submit documentation or changes of address.

Seriously guys, I'm glad you still support paper forms for the sake of our grandmothers, but get real, your website should be the official method of doing business with you. I hear it's almost 2013...

Oh, and they've federated their login with 3 of the big 5 banks. Guess how much responsibility for financial losses CRA is willing to take when that system inevitably turns out to have been coded by monkeys and tons of people's private data gets stolen? That's right, none! 

Let the good times roll!

SuperPac definition

A frothy mix of lube and campaign funding that is sometimes the byproduct of politics. Obviously

Put Canadian interests before oil company profits.

Please see below my submission to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project Joint Review Panel (modified from the stock LeadNow message):


Dear Minister Oliver and the Joint Review Panel,

I am gravely concerned about the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline, and the government’s recent attempt to silence the overwhelming local opposition to the pipeline and interfere with the pipeline review process.

Canadians deserve to be heard, and the construction of this pipeline will hurt Canada’s interests.

1. The Northern Gateway pipeline would severely impact Canada's efforts to bring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in line with global expectation and treaties negotiated in good faith. Canadians - especially those in the North - are already experiencing the impacts of climate destabilization brought on by our being unwilling to regulate GHG emitting industries, and we cannot imagine what runaway global warming would do to our country and way of life.

2. The Northern Gateway pipeline will kill Canadian jobs. The high dollar driven by tar sands expansion is hurting Canada’s manufacturing, consulting, entertainment, professional services and other export-driven sectors, and tens of thousands of jobs in fisheries and coastal recreation are directly threatened by oil spills. In addition, Northern Gateway is itself a gateway drug to further reckless development of the Athabasca Oil Sands, an industrial project lobbied for by the multinational oil cartel that severely hampers our country's ability to develop rational energy and environmental policies. A shift in these policies towards sustainable development and infrastructural renewal would employ far more Canadians than any expansion of the fossil fuel extraction industry possibly could.

3. The Northern Gateway pipeline would threaten ecological catastrophe on the BC coastline. The pipeline would bring 200+ super-tankers a year navigating the same rugged waters where the Queen of the North sank, bringing an unacceptable threat of a major oil spill. The inevitable uncontrolled leaks from the pipeline would destroy salmon streams.

4. Furthermore, over 70 First Nations in Alberta and BC have already made their decision to ban the pipeline and supertankers from crossing their territories. The Coastal First Nations and signatories to the Save the Fraser Declaration have made their position clear, and I support their right to refuse this project. Treaties with the First Nations were negotiated in good faith and cannot be disregarded without their consent.

For these reasons, I call on you to stop this reckless pipeline.

Comment to the Ontario Ministry of Environment's proposed Off-Shore Wind 5km exclusion zone

The Ontario MoE is currently proposing an exclusion zone that would prevent any off-shore wind projects from being built within 5km from the shore in all bodies of water in Ontario.

You can read the discussion paper here: http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/env_reg/er/documents/2010/011-0089.pdf

The argument basically boils down to two points:

- we draw drinking water from lakes, especially the great lakes. Water intake pipes can go up to 4km off-shore, and they don't want construction activities dredging up silt into these water intakes, so no construction 5km from shore
-5km would limit on-shore noise received

The arguments are both absurd, because the normal approval process considers these factors. But this regulation discounts these factors in favour of NIMBY critics who simply don't want to see wind turbines. This is made blatantly obvious by the fact that a 5km exclusion zone would kill the proposed Scarborough Bluffs project in Toronto, perhaps the highest profile project in Canada at the moment.

What if I could design a quieter turbine that you couldn't hear from 1km from shore in an area with no water intake pipes? Then Ontario isn't interested in building it our province. How can the green energy jobs that we've been promised under the Clean Energy Act happen if we hamstring projects with such thoughtless policy?

The Ministry of Environment is conducting a public comment period ending August 24th on this policy. If you support the development of wind and off-shore wind in Canada, please make your views heard here: http://bit.ly/byrF2d

For more information about wind development in the Toronto region, please seehttp://www.windshare.ca/ or follow @WindShare on twitter: http://twitter.com/windshare

I have posted below the text of my comment to the Ministry of Environment.




*************

Having read the Ministry's discussion paper, "OFF-SHORE WIND FACILITIES RENEWABLE ENERGY APPROVAL REQUIREMENTS", I am forced to conclude that political considerations have improperly influenced this policy position, specifically with respect to the proposed five kilometer shoreline exclusion zone.

It is clear that disruption to the environment surrounding an off-shore wind installation is accounted for during the REA process, for example impacts to drinking water intakes and sound levels at on-shore noise receptors. It is incomprehensible that these requirements must be satisfied by a project, yet they can be superseded by the exclusion zone.
Placing a blanket restriction of five kilometers on all off-shore wind projects will prevent innovation in wind turbine design to decrease noise, as well as the approval of projects that have no impact on drinking water intakes not present in or about the project area. To enforce this exclusion zone may disqualify many feasible project sites that would not unduly impact the on-shore environment. This is not the science-based policy that the public expects from the Ministry.

I also find it disturbing that the proposed Scarborough Bluffs project would essentially be killed under the proposed shoreline exclusion zone. This proposed project is arguably the highest profile project in Ontario at the moment, and to kill it by a blanket exclusion zone forces me to conclude that politics are the primary motivation behind this policy. As a former (and likely future) resident of Toronto, I think it is shameful that NIMBYism may be driving our province's environmental policy.

The Clean Energy Scam

From Time Magazine: Several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it.

read more | digg story

My website sucks

I really need to try to do something better with it...

Interesting that it's been almost exactly a year since I've posted to it!

Why would you WANT an iPod with wifi??

Ok, I'm officially sick and tired of posts about wifi in iPods. I simply can't think of a REASON for it to be. Adding Wifi as a bullet-point feature makes no sense to Apple, unless there is some sort of FEATURE that it will allow. What could Wifi give us?

All I can think of are:

- Wireless iTunes sync. Who cares; you still have to plug in your iPod to charge it.

- Wireless music purchase. Where exactly are the hotspots for this to be a big deal? If I'm at home, I'll just use iTunes on my computer to purchase. Also, how is the iTunes music store going to be shrunk down to the tiny screen on an iPod effectively?

- Wireless music sharing (like share tunes with friends/people you bump into on the street, even temporarily). While I think this would be pretty cool, the record companies were already able to get Apple to all but kill its iTunes library sharing. How likely is it that they'll allow this? Or even if they do, that you'll be able to share purchased music?