Comments for Wednesday-Night

Comment on World Economy 2013 by GS

GS — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 23:46:38 +0000

Re Plan B for Business
I note they are in favour of change. “the private sector has a responsibility and a unique opportunity to become a catalyst for fundamental change.”
I suppose they could enrich the progressive political lobbies in DC, Brussels and Berlin, integrate unions back into the work place–perhaps as co-owners of enterprise, and work to undo the last 20 years of gerrymandering to help return democracy to the Congress, while supporting some kind of family rights social programs and higher fuel prices to hasten the switch to green energy. Oh, yes, and get the IMF to do its job so the trillions locked up in official reserves could be liberated to serve productive investment needs. But somehow I’m not yet convinced that’s the sort of thing they have in mind. GS

Comment on Canada: Energy, environment & pipelines in 2013 by Diana Thebaud Nicholson

Diana Thebaud Nicholson — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 19:37:10 +0000

Re Keystone XL ‘Anomalies’, I asked an expert Friend of Wednesday Night for a definition of anomaly in this context: The response is too good not to share:
I don’t know that there is an official definition of a pipeline anomaly. I think it is code for “we forgot to put the gaskets in the joints” or “we forgot to properly seal the joints” or “we forgot to x-ray the joints” or “we didn’t x-ray the welding on the joints to save money and we got caught and now we have to do it”.
The same expert wonders whether the “small imperfections” in the pipe are like when a piece of concrete falls off a Montreal overpass or building and kills someone?

Comment on Aviation & Shipping Emissions by Diana Thebaud Nicholson

Diana Thebaud Nicholson — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 06:01:51 +0000

Wednesday Nighters not overly impressed by the IATA announcement, e.g.
“… at the ICAO meeting here in May … there was much talk of the measurement metric principles that have finally been agreed upon by CAEP (ICAO’s Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection). There is a lot riding on the ICAO general meeting to be held here in September. Of note in the materials sent out by IATA is that ultimately it is the ICAO council that will decide the direction aviation takes. So a lot of nice intentions, but it is all riding on the ICAO council meeting in September.”
and
“I glanced over the doc briefly,… seems so convoluted
1. The aviation industry awakens at last to establish “principles”, when there are already 60 other sets of sustainabiity principles articulated over the last decade, most of which have no teeth, and lack enforceability … …. still at least they are showing some concern.
2. Most of the principles deal with MBM (market based mechanisms) …. which they require to be…. “cost efficeint, … fair, … not reduce demand for air travel, … minimizing competitive distortion and administrative complexity, etc. a recipe for status quo.
3. Individual operator responsibility will be based on ,… “the collective industry emissions baseline for CNG2020 should be defined as the average annual total emissions over the period 2018-2020″…. what this means is they want a holiday from carbon control for next 5 to 7 years.
Calling it “Historic Agreement on Carbon-Neutral Growth” … hmmmm, … they must have a good PR agency.
and
Well congratulations! I think?

Comment on Kenya by Diana Thebaud Nicholson

Diana Thebaud Nicholson — Fri, 31 May 2013 15:20:36 +0000

Nick’s Gleanings: “Kenya’s MPs are upset. The country’s new 2010 Constitution took away their ability to set their own levels of remuneration & entrusted it instead to a Salaries & Remuneration Commission. The latter has now ruled that the US$126,000 annual pay (plus significant benefits) that the previous parliament had voted for itself was excessive & cut it to US$78,000, i.e. from roughly 79x to just 52x the official Nairobi minimum wage. To put this in perspective, relative to their minimum wage levels, the old scale was equivalent to US, Canadian & UK lawmakers getting US$1.15MM, C$1.6MM & £1.0MM respectively.”

Comment on Canada 2012 – 2013 Science & Technology by Diana Thebaud Nicholson

Diana Thebaud Nicholson — Wed, 29 May 2013 01:08:14 +0000

I think the point of complementarity between “basic” and “applied” science has been convincingly made many times. One of Canada’s many problems in making that complementarity more effective in terms of monetizable innovations is that unlike most OECD countries Canada maintains a bi-cephalic incentive system. There is no common framework for handling publicly funded intellectual property and two streams with different evaluation measures for academic and commercial research. There are also no overarching national industrial goals in relation to technology. The upshot is that many of the most productive ideas and entrepreneurs flow their activity southward to where the rules are clearer and encouragement is more coherent and effective. Among the paradoxical outcomes: Canada is exiting atomic energy and while continuing to invest heavily in tar sands, making little headway in biotech despite many excellent research projects and fighting to maintain a foothold in digital telecom, a field it pioneered not so long ago. Canada is a prominent player in Space research and perhaps others know about Canadian science going on at the international space lab. Several generations of management theory and experience shows that clear goals, appropriate metrics and rewards are essential to achievement. We don’t have these in relation to publicly funded technology innovation. The Harper “reforms” look very light in that department. He is basically just breaking up the NRC because he can’t figure out what to do with it. Its reorganization might make sense in a coherent national innovation policy framework. But if there is a real one, with results defined, partnerships , incentives and effective evaluation in place, I wish they would tell us about it. (place holder for tired metaphors about deck chairs and old boats etc.) – GS

Comment on Canada 2012 – 2013 Science & Technology by Diana Thebaud Nicholson

Diana Thebaud Nicholson — Mon, 27 May 2013 22:20:42 +0000

Re Finding middle ground in science funding no easy feat
My father was an academic mathematician, specialising in the theory of functions. He published research papers on the Fourier series in the 1930′s and 50′s. His oldest grandson, my nephew, inherited the gene, studied exactly the same subjects in the 70/80′s, got his PhD – and joined the cell phone industry. He is a consultant and is now the chairman of the Wireless World Research Forum.
The Fourier series? It and a host of other parts of the theory of functions are vital parts of handling and compressing data in computers, cell phones etc. When my father was publishing his academic papers in the 30′s, Alan Turing was publishing an academic paper that laid the foundations of the structure of the first digital computers that came along in the 40′s and 50′s…
Tom Haslam-Jones

Comment on Iran in 2012 – 2013 by From an Iranian friend

From an Iranian friend — Sun, 26 May 2013 06:04:32 +0000

Re: Iran’s Democracy of Small Differences
Indeed the Iran`s situation is not too complicated now as Khameni`s loyalists are just one step away from having almost every power source (The judiciary, the parliament and now the presidency) in their own hands. But I am not quite sure if the majority, or at least a considerable number of people would vote this time. I agree that the national media can push the people by its every means to vote, but the fact that Rafsanjani and Mashayi (the most popular candidates on – of course- two completely opposite sides) are disqualified would hugely discourage the voters.
Anyway, Iranian elections have always had a bit of surprise. We may still have some degree of surprise this time, though I am not sure what would that surprise be this time.

Comment on Canada & the Arctic 2013 by Nick's Gleanings #512

Nick's Gleanings #512 — Fri, 24 May 2013 05:03:08 +0000

Last fall Prime Minister Harper ordained that Health Minister Leona Aglukaqq, Canada’s first Minister of Inuk origin, would fill the Chairman’s position on Canada’s behalf. While generally speaking, and from his perspective, a logical choice, her performance as a Minister in the Health portfolio has been anything but awe-inspiring and the additional duties this post brings with it are unlikely to improve her performance in that capacity (but this may give the Prime Minister an easy way out to remove her from the Health portfolio in the widely-anticipated & much-needed major Cabinet shuffle expected this summer to strengthen its public image ahead of the next election, in two years’ time. And following her assumption of the Council’s Chairmanship Ms. Aglukaqq lost no time showing that as a faithful acolyte she would propagate the Prime Minister’s biases when she announced that during the next two years her focus will be on “creating economic development” (along the lines of the Republican war cry of the 2008 US Presidential Election campaign “Drill, baby, drill”?) & promised ‘big changes’ at the Council, one of which will be to end the practice of science for its own sake in favour of a business-oriented approach.

Comment on Wednesday Night #1629 with BCA’s Jim Mylonas by Herb Bercovitz

Herb Bercovitz — Fri, 24 May 2013 01:54:55 +0000

Scribe’s Monologue
Never in the near quarter-century or so memory of my history of Wednesday Nights have I witnessed a more fascinating discussion. What has been brought to mind in this instance is the paradoxical diversity and similarity in mankind as well as the brotherly love evident in the excursions of our Catherine Gillbert, contrasted with the evident greed and cruelty of the majority of humans. The technological revolution, in a sense, mirrors the industrial revolution. It is to be hoped that humanity will once again surmount the turbulence following the latter, without the subsequent suffering and human conflict so evident at the time of the former. It is to be hoped that mankind will for once prove to be, if not more humane, at least as humane as the other creatures with which we share the globe.
Many thanks to David, Diana and the super-intelligent, knowledgeable guests!

Comment on Canada economy by Diana Thebaud Nicholson

Diana Thebaud Nicholson — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:25:57 +0000

Ron Meisels responds to Economist prediction of housing bubble (22 May): The Economist has predicted 129 of the last 5 recessions. Maybe they will have a better record for house-prices!