Butt Activated Maple Money?
“I do think heat has something to do with activating the smell. … Scratching will create some heat friction but my friend’s warm butt is likely the activator.” I enjoyed…
Money
A Sense of Purpose is More Important Than Money for Workplaces
In this TED Talk Dan Ariely presents his research into what motivates people to do work and how they feel about their workplace. The findings are interesting because it’s not…
The Audit With a Twist #cdnpoli
$3.1 Billion is missing according to a damning audit of the Harper Government. Let’s see what political pundits recently have said about audit failure: Federal government audit ‘severely critical’ –…
the complicated problem of sweatshops
Have you ever heard of the island of Saipan? It is an American territory in the pacific, where I had never heard of it until an email arrived from Walt…
the complicated problem of sweatshops
Have you ever heard of the island of Saipan? It is an American territory in the pacific, which as a Canadian I had never heard of it until an email…
Liberals Should Blame Trudeau For Few Supporters
If Justin Trudeau was more concerned about winning the Liberal leadership than winning the next election, not only would his party have more registered supporters, but 2015 would almost certainly…
On Crappy Contractors – a Solar Powered RANT
I’m trying to get solar panels on my house under the MicroFIT program. It’s been a process so fraught with frustration, I’m thinking of forgetting the whole thing. A colleague…
an open-letter about social assistance in Ontario
The other day I sent off a bunch of handwritten letters. They varied depending on whom I wrote them to. The one to the Ontario NDP leader, Andrea Horwath, went…
Penny Wise, World Foolish: Pennies Never Cost A Cent
All the attention focused on how costly it is to make pennies is worth less than any piece of copper. For much of last year the most popular cited reason,…
What is social assistance really about anyway?
A few days ago I had a conversation with a woman on Ontario Works (welfare). She described what she goes through in order to get emergency dental care. She has…
Oh Canada – Our Bought And Sold Out Land (VIDEO)
Via YouTube: Dan Mathews has done us all a favor, with his educational documentary, as he reveals common misconception in how we deal with banks. Watch and laugh as Dan…
work: both paid and unpaid
One Model of How Things Work I’m thinking today about work, both productive work like building houses or caring for sick people, and less productive work like packaging bad mortgages…
Don’t Care About Penny Salami Slicing
There’s a bit of hand wringing going on around Facebook amongst typically the anti-Harper crowd. Normally I’d join in, because it’s worth wringing hands over practically everything our Prime Minister…
blogging about blogging
“Writers deserve to get paid for their work” says a popular blogger in defense of putting her blog behind a paywall. The arguments and comments made by her fans and…
Credit card size sheets of gold for uncertain times
A Swiss-based company has introduced credit card size sheets of gold that can be broken like a chocolate bar into 1 gram pieces, and they are rapidly growing in popularity…
thoughts after a visit to the social assistence offices
I went last week with some friends into the Ontario Disability Support Program office (ODSP) and the Ontario Works (OW) office. It was my first time being in the building.…
my thoughts on Paved With Good Intentions: Canada’s development NGOs from idealism to imperialism
I’m getting ready to return the book Paved With Good Intentions: Canada’s development NGOs from idealism to imperialism by Kikolas Barry-Shaw and Dru Oja Jay back to the friend who…
Climate Change as an Asteroid
Over the break, I got a Kindle app for my Macbook (free!) when I realized I could wait for morning to go to Wordsworth to get one of Paul Krugman’s…
On RESPs, EAPs, Grants, Gains, and Morons
Okay, maybe “moron” is a little harsh. I just finished a painful conversation with a banker. We argued for over an hour before he asked a superior and conceded that…
#AblegCares
So, myself, Joey Oberhoffner, Derrick Jacobson (@AlbertaAltruist), Marc Doll (@DollHouseYYC), and Stephen Anderson (@StephenDAnderso) got together to eat tacos. For charity. For every taco eaten we’d get our pledges to…