Yesterday I received an email from a co-worker that originated from the Ontario realtors association.  The email proclaimed all the bad things the HST would bring for those who wanted to buy a house.  It was obviously a biased email–BTW, I am still researching the HST, and don’t have a final answer on what I think of it yet–but what made it so interesting was how easy they made it for someone to write a letter to their MPP.

Letters to MPPs do work in that they show that the public is interested enough to voice their complaints directly.  This can be effective because it usually takes some effort to write something up and send it.  But this new method of making it very easy for people will have new consequences.  I did not see the site they had set up (unfortunately deleted the email) but can imagine that it would not have cost them too much in this age of ready-made web templates.  If this works, look for more email/web/form campaigns going forward.  I firmly believe that you can not stop the march of new technology, but I do believe people need  to be aware of how certain groups will be able to use it.

I’ve been hearing alot about Ayn Rand recently–Crackpot Adam Curry keeps trying to get Buzzkill to read Atlas Shrugged, while Chris Gondak has reviewed the Jessica Burns book “Goddess of the Market”, a biography of Ayn Rand.  With two of my favorite podcasts mentioning her, I decided to do a bit more research.   I found recent articles talking about the resurgence including:  Huffington Post,  The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, US News and World Report. 

My take on Ayn Rand is that she was definitely affected by her childhood and the injustice she saw with the Russian Revolution.  As a philosopher with intelligence (by all accounts she was intelligent), she probably had some very good ideas that were within her realm of understanding and experience.  But she could not fully grasp the entire understanding of free market economies and the role of government, mostly because I believe that it is practically impossible for one person to do so. (My new philosophy on philosophers!)

All being said, if I ever have time I just might have to read Atlas Shrugged–there are probably some interesting points in it.

The guys from No Agenda have made a few comments on what’s going on with the exceptionally large death toll for the flu in the Ukraine.  Some have pointed to a new virus that is called A/N1N1.  There still seems to be a lot of misinformation coming out of there.  And of course the conspiracy theorists are all over the Baxter International link (see article here).  Hopefully all these different flu viruses get sorted out without it being a free-for-all for the vaccine companies.

It’s staggering to think of the ways the internet has changed the world.  Information sharing, information storage, and various speeds of communication (from slow to very fast).  Anyone in the world with a half-decent internet connection and a terminal (I’ll define as smart phone, netbook, laptop, PC) has the ability to connect to these vast resources and directly to other users.  With this capability, does the internet not act like a large world brain?  I know I’m not the only one to make this analogy, but with recent activity of twitter and facebook the “neural” activity has defintely quickened.  Messages (electrical signals?) are travelling around faster than ever but as Loring Wirbel points out in an interesting blog post, is the world brain losing some of it’s memory capability?  Not memory some would think of (there are servers storing more information than ever) but a different type of memory function.  Definitely an interesting idea.

Kinda lost track of the Nortel /Avaya purchase, and so has the mainstream media.  A quick search on Nortel and I have found that everyone in North America has approved the acquisition.  Recent article here.

While reading an issue of MoneySense, the last page had a review of 5 recent DVD releases concerning the current state of capitalism, including Michael Moore’s new movie “Capitalism: A Love Story”.  Capitalism is certainly taking a hit right now, and maybe the lack of regulation has definitely caused some problems.  But I don’t think Communism is the answer, and I don’t think hardcore Libertarianism would really work either.  Some sort of free market economy with government regulations seem to be the answer. 

But what should that mix really be?  That is the eternal question all the nations of the world really face.  And it brings up a different phrasing of the question:  What is the role of government?  

…and that, my friends, is a question for another whole blog post (one that will take much time)!

The more I read and hear about the deaths caused by h1n1, it seems that pneumonia, or other lung infections do the major damage.  Which would make sense, a virus needs the host to live so that it can spread.  While bacteria just doesn’t care.  Should anti-biotics be given as opposed to anti-viral (tamiflu, etc.) to people fighting h1n1?  Let the body take care of the flu, but make sure that no secondary infections come up.  Something to explore.

The titles to this blog post partially summarize my current thinking about the H1N1 craze that is fully taking over.  I am still listening to No Agenda, and taking their words under advisement (not blindly following).  But where are the true stats that really say that this is worse than the seasonal flu?  Mainstream media jumps all over every death that occurs, and why not, it sells these days.  There are some scary stories out there of young healthy people dying with swine flu.  So maybe it is worse, but why is it worse?  Could someone (CDC, WHO, etc.) tell us exactly why it is worse than the regular flu–in scientific terms? 

When analyzing problems, one needs to isolate certain variables.  If something has changed, that change–that difference–should be visible.  When comparing the H1N1 virus to regular influenza these researchers should be able to point to something that would make it that much more dangerous–and justify this extreme response.  I just have not seen this yet.  I will continue to look.  Any suggestions on where to find this (web or otherwise)?

Just looking through a few blogs that I haven’t in a while and found this particular blog post from Loring Wirbel to be quite good.  It’s a real look at the problems that President Obama (and the American public) will face in the next little while, and why the it will be very hard to replicate the times when the Kennedy’s ran the show.

John C. Dvorak and Adam Curry of No Agenda certainly have it in for Goldman Sachs.  Whether it is micro-trading, or their ability to place ex-employees in high levels of government, there is a lot of suspicion around the company.  Now they have found something more to bash them about.  Check out Dvorak’s blog for an entry on Goldman selling off mortgage securities before the crash.  Full article from McClatchey found here.

The article contains some interesting observations about Goldman’s dealings.  But is it illegal–or are they just smarter than everyone else?