I am reading Heat by George Monbiot. Its a good book, well researched, and well referenced. He has just introduced Carbon Rations, where the total amount of Carbon the earth can absorb is divided by the number of people to determine there ration (800kg/year). I the major problem I see with this system is it would encourage people to reproduce. presumably most people would be able to live on their personal ration, but for many the easiest way to obtain more rations would be to have a child and then control there rations, for your own benefit.

I would suggest something like only allowing adults 18+ to get a full ration, and all children get a partial ration stepped up to adjust for there age. it would need to be high enough to help with the child’s needs but low enough to discourage individuals from procreating, and prevent governments from forming policy that encourages reproduction.

A radical Idea on Senate reform that will never fly?

Let me first Say that this Idea is not mine, my girlfriend came up with it when ranting about how the senate should kill this bill and that bill and the people don’t want these things to happen, etc.

Any way, we discussed the matter and she came up with what I think is a brilliant idea, that maintains the idea of “sober second thought”, but it looks more closely at who should be doing the sober second thought, business Interests, and financial elite, elected representatives, the provinces, or the people of Canada .

So what would happen under this idea is the senate as it currently exists is destroyed.

We now have a single house that is able to create and pass legislation.
However, every piece of legislation passed by the house must undergo a “Trial”. This trial (for lack of a better word) would be analogous in many ways to a criminal trial. Having a judge/speaker/leader position to maintain decorum and order, making sure that the rules are followed. Additionally, it would have prosecution/defense/advocates both for and against the bill. It might have expert witnesses, scientific evidence, etc. It would also have a Jury of randomly selected citizens who decide the illegitimacy of the bill.

Like criminal trials each bill would have a separate jury so the length of your term would be determined by the complexity of evidence to be presented (”few weeks” -> “few years”).

There are obviously a lot more details to work out.
* how large is the jury
- my guess in the 100->350 range (high enough to get ride of statistical anomalies, low enough to keep down costs)
* Can the Jury Change the bill
- maybe, but my first thought is no. just a vote (Yes/No)
- maybe, let it vote yes/no, but also make recommendation to the house but which could be (pre-approved) so to speak, so the house could approve them or not.
* Can The house send the same bill back to the jury
- maybe, I would say yes, but a different jury is taken each time.
* Does the legislation come into temporary force while the jury deliberates.
- maybe, I have no Idea.
* What happens if a Buget bill is rejected by the Jury
- nothing (same as now), but the government must make it pass the jury eventually.

Why is this a good idea ?

Until now the government acted as a custodian to the laws of Canada. A sitting government has the ability to Initiate/Debate/Approve and bring into force legislation, with out any input from the people. This change forces the government to get a approval from the people for legislation is passed.

It shifts the role of “gate keeper” for new laws from elected officials who may “represent” Canadians, but are not “representative” of Canadians. to the people of Canada. We would then hold the keys so to speak to the safe the makes new laws.

This solution is not intended to address all aspects of the democratic deficit but I think it is an idea worthy of consideration, and I think it adequately address the issues of “sober second thought” and Citizen consultation.

Note : this is not the same thing as an Assembly and assembly looks at a problem and comes up with an appropriate solution, a jury looks at a solution and determines if it is appropriate.

This Is my plan to fix the Big problem that Ottawa is in with its LRT system.
I call it

The way forward with Light Rail

December
* delay
- Ensure Siemens that they are still the prefered contractor, for electric light rail
- but that if they actually want to do anythng they will need more negotiations

Jan and Feb
* Have each counciler, hold one or two town halls on
the current state of light rail, these meetings should
Focus on.
- Priorities of the people
- Plans that they think will meet these priorities

March and April
* Hold round table talks with the all 3 levels of goverment
and siemens, These meetings should focus on.
- value for the money of taxpayers
- meeting the demands of citizens (see above)
- Changes in relation to the current contract

* These meetings should not have direct public input,
but the public should be allowed to view them. and
the proceedings should be taped.

May
* Come up with a deal that nobody is going to like,
but that might be resonable enough to dig us out of the hole that we are in.
* show the people of ottawa the deal and tell them its this or nothing.
* have more town halls at the counciler level (feedback)

June
* Vote on this in City Hall

I like it so much, I am going to email it to a few people

First, let me say that I believe that the sovereignty of the state lies in the collected assembly of all its citizens.
The citizens are the ones that should have the power and the citizens should be able to exercise that power without reliance on the collective bodies of government.

To initiate this the citizens must be given 2 powers,
* The power to overrule the government
* The power to force the government to exercise its collective will.

These powers can be accomplished by putting into the States constitution 2 sentences

1. Should the Government be given a petition signed by X citizens and meeting criteria A, B, and C, regarding a law passed by the government. The government must within Time T hold a referendum on the subject.

2. Should the Government be given a petition signed by X citizens and meeting criteria A, B, and C.
The Government must bring forth a bill for a vote in the house within Time T on the subject of the petition.

My personal preference for X is 25% of the population, and at least 10% of that comes from two thirds of the ridings. Or 35% or the population with no geographical limits. My preference for time T in the initiative case would be 1 year or by the end of the current or next sitting of parliament which ever is more. In the case of over ruling the government I would say that the referendum should take place during the next election, if the next election is less more then 1 year away.

But when the referendum is held I don’t think it should be a simple 50%+1 majority, The problems arise when your margin for error is bigger then your victory/defeat (Quebec Referendum 1995, US presidential elections 2000, Charlottetown Accord see Ontario).

So here is my solution to the divided house problem of close referendum, define an iterative solution.

For every referendum held there are 3 possible solutions
1. It passes with an overwhelming majority and becomes law.
2. It fails with a Crushing majority and is forgotten.
3. It is “too close to call”, and a new referendum is auto-magically triggered scheduled for the time of the next government election.

This solution helps but is not yet perfect what if the same referendum consitantly passes time and time again with a slim yet significant margin? For this I would propose that there would be more then one way to pass a referendum.
1. Pass in a single referendum with super majority (2/3 majority)
2. If the average of 2 consecutive referendum is big majority (60%), and Both referendum were got a simple majority (50%+1)
3. If the average of 3 consecutive referendum is a small majority (55%), and all 3 got a simple majority (50%+1)
4. If 4 consecutive referendum get a simple majority on the same question (50%+1).

That just leaves the When to call another referendum, I would say if the results are between 40% and your super majority of 2/3rds, and it the has not yet hit one of the “Pass” criteria, you should call another.
Of course should you fail after 4 consecutive referendums it is probably a good idea to give the voters a break, and not call another one.

Any way I got this Idea when I was thinking about the way the Leaky Integrate and Fire model works, so I gotta give be props to everyone in the RC circuits field, and the Neural Networks Fields.

p.s. Alternatively (.ods, .xls) you could actually you know “USE” a leaky integrate and fire like equation to see if you pass a law .

gocarbonzero.org allows you to calculate your carbon impact. So I compared driving with a 2007 yaris (40mi/Gal) from NYC to SF, Thats a total of 2915 miles.
This works out to 0.73 tons of CO2. but if I fly its only 2575 miles and 0.57 tons of CO2.
I can conclude that for the lone traveler (buisness person) it is more environmentally frendly to fly then drive.

I found this post about trying to figure out what tom Cruise Foot Print would be. Any way I am sure Tom is not nearly as bad as his number would make him out to be.

Any way I for personal resons decided to take the test indicated.
My Results are :

If everyone lived like me we would need 1.7 planets. seeing as we only have one planet this is a problem.
So seeing as the guy above was bitching that tom would take 2700 earths which is retarded to say the least, I took the test on Toms behalf.
I filled in information based on what I thought it should be, but I am sure it is not calibrated based on his life style and even if it was. it would still be hard to guess at some of his information, even with the magical magical InterWeb.

If everyone lived like Tom we would need 14.4 planets.
Any way It is a good thing not everyone is Tom Cruise.

Note : (I guessed at a lot of things in Tom’s list like how much processed food he eats, and how much he flies.
but some of it was obvious, age, size of house, number living in house, location of home…etc.)

The Other Day I learned a few things about real estate.
most “Agents” use mls to list houses.
This means that most houses are all listed in a single database.
next I learned that there is this thing called the center for realter technology.
and they make mostly Open source software (here).
that does “Stuff” that Agents want to be able to do.

So, I was thinking I could use this software, to

1. download the mls DB and then
2. run it through some prediction software
3. profit!

obviously there are some problems with step 2. like what what factors most affect the price and when and how.
I need to look up some generalized prediction algorithoms.
given a set of N points in k dimentions, and given point N+1 with k-1 dimention estimate the value of the kth dim.

I added the rest of the pics from the old gallery.
At least all I am going to Add, this includes Rob, Snach, and a bunch from old vacations, weddings and canal skating…etc.

so we got some Linux stickers and put them on connies laptop you can view them in all there glory here.

YAY Tux!

Given that its September and that Ottawa is not going to have any more 40 degree Celcius days.
I have turned the server in my living room on again
gallery.
most of the pics from the old gallery arn’t there because I have changed computers, in the down time.
most except for marcs gallery. which he asked to be moved so like a good boy I did.

Pictures of my vacation can be found here

if your lazy and don’t want to look at them this one might be my fav