Monthly Archives: February 2007

Searching for Honourable Governance

Yes, I know dear reader, I’ve been neglecting you. My apologies. Many thoughts running around in my head; very little time to convert them into words. You’ll be glad to know, however, that I’ve had a busy and productive week. We had our first Toronto Centre campaign team meeting, and we’ve got a great group of people who are excited and ready to go, whenever the election comes. I’ve also been active at the national level as our shadow cabinet continues to gear up for a solid national campaign.

Internationally, this week a bunch of Toronto Greens met with Roberta Moreno, who works for one of thirteen elected Green Party of Brazil representatives (Partido Verde). We had several great conversations over two days, and discussed ways in which we can work together on global issues.

That being said, I still believe you deserve something of substance for waiting so patiently for a new post. For that, I leave you in the capable hands of Lawrence Martin, who will walk you through an efficient summary of this government’s hypocrisies and negativity (taken from yesterday’s globe column), and conclude with what I think is good advice. Enjoy!

The environment? [Stephen Harper] was a right-wing agnostic. Now, presto! He’s a leaf-licking true believer. Health care? He was once in with the privatization crowd. Now he is statist Stephen.

Gay rights? He used to hang out in social conservative precincts. Now, so long dinosaurs; he’s the moderate man. Quebec? He believed in no special status for the province. Presto, its people are suddenly a nation.

Iraq? He supported President George W. Bush’s war. Now, he wouldn’t touch it with a barge poll…

…The Liberals lost the last election because of regime fatigue and ugly ethics. Although winning fans with his clarity and resolve, Mr. Harper has lowered himself in the eyes of many by running a one-man uptight government steeped in the politics of negativity.

It was Margot Asquith who said of Lloyd George, “He could not see a belt without hitting below it.”

Mr. Harper and his ministers are incapable of answering a question in the House without resorting to the intellectually vacuous tactic of referencing the previous government’s record and claiming it was worse. Every government does this to a certain extent. None as much as this one…

…Canadians, having seen so much of the Grits, are pretty well fed up with the old-style political skulduggery and lack of civility. They’re looking for more honourable governance, and if the Conservatives want to get out of the big stall, they would be wise to demonstrate they are capable of it.

Open Up

When Microsoft released Vista (the latest version of Windows) this week, the general reaction from a usability standpoint was underwhelming. It’s been five years since Windows XP, so computer users were expecting a lot. Instead, most of the new features seem to focus on ensuring that it’s a little bit harder to steal Hollywood movies or Vista itself, causing thieves and non-thieves to respond with “damnit!” and “who cares?,” respectively.

Then, the more substantive criticisms emerged. First, from Canadian internet law expert Michael Geist, who points out that Vista’s fine print gives it the right to delete certain programs without the user’s knowledge, and provides that “this agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights.”

Also, Vista intentionally degrades the picture quality of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs when played on most computer monitors. In other words, you’ll pay more for less. And don’t bother trying to fix that, because the terms and conditions state that “you may not work around any technical limitations in the software.”

Then, the UK Green Party pointed out that Vista is also bad for the environment because, even though it doesn’t have many new features, it “requires more expensive and energy-hungry hardware, passing the cost on to consumers and the environment…Future archaeologists will be able to identify a ‘Vista Upgrade Layer’ when they go through our landfill sites.”

I didn’t think that was worth mentioning until I saw Microsoft’s ultra-lame response, which basically just said, “environmental issues are important to us.” Um, good to hear. What are you doing about it?

Taken together with Geist’s concerns about user rights, and the fact that Vista isn’t that great of an upgrade anyway, the case against using Microsoft’s new OS is strong. In addition, the critical importance that computers have to our lives and economy makes this a political issue.

Fortunately, there’s a ready alternative. Open source software is the democratic way of designing computer programs. This website, for example, runs on a free, open source programming language called PHP, instead of Microsoft’s almost identical (and much more expensive than free) ASP. There are also open source alternatives to Windows, Microsoft Office, and almost any other application you’d use on a day-to-day basis.

The Green Party of Canada has called for “federal departments and agencies to transition to open source or free software for general applications and provide free technical support to Canadian companies who use this software.” It’s one of our wackier ideas, but I like it. And, the more bloated and intrusive closed source products like Microsoft’s get, the less wacky it will seem.