Psst!

Violence in Iraq is at its lowest level in four years - since right before terrorists flooded in.

Customer pie

More and more businesses are realizing the hidden secret to many successful businesses, both large and small: client retention is key, and taking a small hit in the teeth pays off. Good work follows good work.

Poor customer service can kill a company's reputation and sales, which is critical for small businesses since they can't always compete on price or selection. But delivering good service is more difficult than writing it into a mission statement ...

Gail Watson was surprised and delighted when she received a big apple/cherry pie and a note apologizing for a missed appointment from Nurse Next Door, a Vancouver-based elderly home health care company. While she was initially upset about the missed appointment, the company's prompt apology and "humble pie" helped turn Ms. Watson into a loyal customer.

...

John DeHart estimates that last year Nurse Next Door spent $1,500 on sending customers 'humble pies,’ but it saved the company about $100,000 in sales.

Indeed. Most people don't complain, so for every complaint that you get, there are likely ten more that go unreported. I'm sure most of us have been in a situation where some aspect of poor service changes our perceptions of a business. It's certainly one of those unwritten rules in law school and, I suspect, other professional schools: even if nobody wants to have to avail themselves of your services, making it bearable for the client means they might be so impressed that they recommend you to someone else. Every time the major political parties hire publicity companies for an election campaign, for instance, do you think they're just googling publicity companies? You better believe they're not.

In defence of the internet

There's a study out that says that online love is basically bunkum because of stuff like this (possibly, if marginally, NSFW). Viz:

"Just because they can write a clever comment or a witty email, doesn't mean they will be Mr. Right, that's for sure," he said, adding some men use the concept of "netting," sending emails to dozens of women and hoping one might respond.

...

"Few guys for example would say 'look, I'm a middle aged alcoholic who's been married five times, pick me'. They're going to present themselves as a good catch."

Point. But I'd contend that you can't divvy up these things into "online" and "offline" camps. Now, I've never done the online dating thing myself* but I have friends who have. And who have done it successfully.

See, I've got exactly why they presume the "online dating" thing is somehow singled out to be weird. Yes, it's about misleading personality snapshots, but isn't that something that you can find elsewhere? Like, say, dating services?



Thinking about my friends who were successful in online dating, the key was that each side took it seriously and didn't hide who they were. What's so hard about that? It's just like real life, after all. Ultimately, isn't it just about trust and honesty? If you're that alcoholic who's been divorced five times to whom they refer in the article, surely this is a problem with your personality. The only difference is that the internet allows us to cover it up temporarily.

The internet is a great tool, people. But it's not a miracle worker. It only amplifies what's possible given what's available to you. Don't blame the technology.

---
*Although I did manage to start a relationship with good old fashioned snail mail letters, honest to God! It was ultimately unsuccessful for very particular reasons, but she and I remain great friends. The principle is the same, though, n'est-ce pas?

Coincidence, that

The Economist analyzes just how much Chavez appears to be helping Marxist guerillas on the run in Colombia.

Saturday Hodgepodge

1) This auction for wireless space in Canada is quickly turning into a bit of a gongshow as all the providers who can possibly offer us some competition drop out due to foreign ownership rules.

Me, I don't see any actual difference between getting wireless service from a massive German conglomerate or a massive US conglomerate or a massive Canadian conglomerate. But until I have the option to choose a non-Canadian conglomerate, I go without.

2) Want to stop the release of methane into the atmosphere? PAVE THE WETLANDS! Seriously. We need to get Greenpeace on board, I tells ya.

3) Polygamy in the GTA. I'll repeat here that I have no problem with polygamy, provided we understand it's consensual and doesn't otherwise violate the law.

4) Ottawa's surplus is growing, but not nearly as quickly as Ottawa's expenses. So much for conservative governance.

The key is that there's money in it

What have free marketeers been telling you all along?

Gas prices rise. Consumers realize it's permanent. The Big Three are scrambling to cope.

And the Asian manufacturers are all over that stuff

"When you say 'hybrid,' the image that really comes to mind is Prius," he said. "Honda is very dependent on the U.S. market, which is shifting towards things like hybrids, and for survival having a hybrid (model) is essential."

Holy crap

Dr. Robert Ballard, the guy who found the Titanic, was only given 12 days to look for the ship. The rest of the time, he was told to go and find two lost US subs. And it's only been declassified now.

On the other hand...

I was going to say that Harper could provide an easy, cost-free response - although not a politically exceptional one - to complaints about the price of gas by reminding Canadians that he's cut billions in taxes, including taxes which affect gas...

...and then I realize he's already done it.

"I don't think government should fool people into thinking it can control the price of gas. It -- generally speaking -- can't," Stephen Harper told reporters during an announcement at a fruit farm in Southern Ontario. "These prices are set internationally. We are seeing increased prices around the world."

Mr. Harper said his government's decision to shave two percentage points from the GST has helped to contain gas prices in Canada.

"That is the limit of what can be done, playing with some of the taxes at the retail level," he said, adding later: "We concluded that the ability of governments to effect the price of gasoline is so small, it's not worth doing. What you really have to do is try to lower costs for consumers generally."

And he goes on to talk about all the reasons for high gas prices and all the rest of it.

Now, to quote one of my profs on this whole response:

"That is eminently reasonable and logical, and that's admirable, but reasonableness and logic don't work here. Forget logic."

I'm not sure a message in which you throw up your hands and say, "What? We can't do anything!", no matter how sensible or realistic, is the best way to win votes. See, if Harper wanted to be MacKenzie-King-like about it, he'd declare high gas prices to be the scourge of the Canadian working man. He'd declare he'd fight hell or high water to stop it. And then he'd send a reference to the Supreme Court on it. Then maybe appoint a Royal Commission. Ralph Goodale, back when he was finance minister four years ago answering then-Leader of the Opposition Harper's questions on gas taxes, basically ridiculed opposition demands for relief by declaring that they were too small:

In terms of the impact of the GST, I have had the opportunity in the last number of days to actually do the arithmetic. It would appear that because of the price increases of the last couple of weeks, the actual difference in GST paid is something in the order of 1¢ per litre.

That hardly changes the equation. I think we have to search conscientiously for more profound solutions, because 1¢ a litre will not make the difference that consumers would like to see.

And they promptly did nothing. But they made it look like they cared.

See, that's the thing. Harper would be getting creamed on high gas prices, were he facing a competent opposition. But he's facing a guy who proposes to basically increase gas taxes. I know that might mean the Tories can be a little more risky in their strategy, but hot damn, shouldn't they be smarter than this?

John Turner analogies: somehow less insulting than Edward Blake analogies

Pace this, we have Dion's popularity levels - barely! - in double digits. And they're rolling out name that serves as the ultimate in insulting comparisons to Liberals - IE John Napier Turner. And Dion hasn't yet tried slapping womens' rears yet.

But regardless of the caveats for all polls, particularly those conducted online, I raise this alarm:

Overall, 34 per cent of respondents said they would vote Conservative if an election were held tomorrow, compared to 27 per cent who would vote Liberal. The New Democrats were in third place with 18 per cent support.

Meanwhile, 42 per cent of Canadians think the country is on the "wrong track," up from 29 per cent in March. Canseco said this is a reflection of mounting concern with the economy.

Okay, so you have an opponent whose unpopularity is comparable to John "I had no option" Turner, and yet the Tories can only manage, what, a seven(ish) point lead over their opposition? Back when St. Brian was in charge, he would use a popularity level that low to use the Grits as the bristly part of a broom he used to sweep most of the seats in this country. Harper's not even beaten the level of popularity the Grits held over the likes of Stockwell Day. Heck, the margin between Liberal and Tory votes in the last two elections was about six per cent.

Yes, Dion is a weak leader, but I don't think that relying on that weakness is an advisable strategy, particularly given some decidedly lacking facets of Conservative governance. Really, if the Tories want a majority, they still need to be doing better, be it marketing their policies or by not being stupid on others. Full stop. Like it or lump it, shoot the messenger, or stick your head in the sand, I don't care because that's still the way it is. And while relying on a weak leader may seem like an effective strategy, it teaches inertia and then you experience historic failure.

Hein?

YES!

A unanimous court looks at the "I want six or seven figures for my fly-in-the-water" case and answers and outstanding question in Canadian tort law with a very simple response to the plaintiff:

Not this time, pal.

The whole judgement is here. I've been waiting for this one.

UPDATE:

I just have to respond to a couple of sentiments that I've seen in the CTV comments. First,

Kris
Something like this makes its way to the Supreme Court and is a big news story, yet how many murderers get away with a slap on the wrist and their cases aren't even glanced at for an appeal to a stronger conviction? I'm sure the Court has better cases they could be dealing with.

The Supreme Court and Appeal Courts only deal with appeals. This means that they only deal with points of law. Did the trial judge get a definition wrong? Did he screw up the law? Did he not properly define the definition of "is"? Murderers - and people like Mr. Mustapha - only get this far if there's an issue of law at stake. There was in this case. Most criminals don't have that problem.

Second, this guy has it right:

Glen
Now I remember? Not sure you do. This case was accepted by the SCC because they needed to correct some important reasoning that the appeal court left out. Which was the issue of reasonableness. A very important concept used in both common & civil law in this country. This case law should reduce such litigation in the future, not increase.

That is to say, the SCC gets to choose where it's going to apply its reasoning. In most cases, because they're a court which interprets the law, they take these cases not to waste people's time, but to clarify what the heck the law is supposed to be. That's the same reason they had these recent cases about locker searches.

This case was basically about torts, or the ways you're allowed to sue someone who's done you wrong. In a nutshell, you're allowed to sue if someone does you wrong directly. If you experience emotional trauma because of that (if, say, you get really depressed after somebody gets into a car accident with you), the law generally lets you sue for that, too. (Basically, the guy who crashed into you shouldn't have crashed into you, and if you happen to be really weak, that's his problem.) But with that logic, what happens to that rule if the emotional damage comes when you're a secondary victim? There's an argument that it might extend this far, but the law on it was still vague. And this was an issue. Hence, the SCC came in with guns blazing to clarify just who we are and are not allowed to sue.

So everybody just calm the frick down. If you're worried about us becoming the United States, this case is in many ways far more likely to do that. But when you read the facts, I'm not sure you'll disagree with this whole "becoming the United States" thing.

UPDATE THE SECOND:

Two more things: first, the brevity of this judgement (20 paragraphs) is admirable. Most SCC judgements are at least five times this. That in itself should be significant, given the above.

Second, I'm mildly amused that nobody refers contemptuously to these judges as "Liberal-appointed" when this court packed with Liberal appointees does something they view as eminently sensible.

Shorter Thomas Walkom

"Ontario's manufacturing base is still relevant. All we have to do is regress the entire world system back to the way it was around 1957. And I think that's totally possible."

While we're on military progress...

...Afghanistan's president of the Red Crescent (like our Red Cross) has this to say about Canada's contribution to Afstan:

Q: There's also a substantial military component to Canadian involvement. Does it help or hinder your work?

A: Look, I have to answer this question as an Afghan and I have to answer it as president of Afghan Red Crescent Society. As an Afghan, we all know that without the presence of these soldiers, the civil war would be continuing. Or if these soldiers get out of Afghanistan, civil war will erupt again. We deeply feel for the loss of these young lives, whether it's Canadian or from another country. It's hard for us to see all that. But we also believe it's impossible to maintain the work we've started, now that we're out of civil war, that we cannot do it alone. As the president of the Afghan Red Crescent Society the number one task is not to put the lives of my more than 40,000 volunteers in jeopardy. So whatever it takes, I have to keep neutrality. And sometimes this neutrality is misunderstood—not specifically by Canadian soldiers but all soldiers, our own soldiers, foreign soldiers—they don't understand our situation all the time. Sometimes we do have problems. Do we know of any specific problems with Canadian soldiers? No.

And in response to the Layton Plan:

Q: Some people have said that our soldiers should move to more of a peacekeeping and development-assistance role.

A: If the soldiers are doing the humanitarian job, then what is the role of the national society? What is the role of the NGOs? We should take arms and fight? We all have a role to play and we should stick to the roles we were created to do. It's not fair to the soldiers. They are trained to do something; we are trained to do something else.

Much much more in the interview.

More good news from Iraq

The interim US commander, Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, says al Qaeda has never been so weak in postinvasion Iraq as it is right now.

That's not to say the war is over, just that the war is being won.

He can suck the energy out of anything

Wells has some harsh suggestions for the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition:

Has it been a week already since Stéphane Dion announced his plan to save the planet? Indeed it has, almost. Not that he announced the details of the plan, but he did announce its existence. Or at least its imminent existence... [I]f the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada can’t be arsed to pay attention to his own policy for saving the freaking planet, then nobody in Canada will get excited about it for him.

If I had a plan for a fundamental change in Canadian politics, I’d announce it. In the absence of a plan, I wouldn’t give a speech about how I had a plan. And if I had announced a plan was on the way, I would make a rather extravagant show of making sure I was getting the policy right.

Ouch. Indeed.

Such a weak Grit leader is anomalous. It is NOT a typical trend. The other parties are relying on it to their detriment. We can only imagine how relevant the BQ would be if Dion were, you know, competent.

What an uninspiring bunch we appear to have on the Hill.

This could be the start of something big

Nigeria's main state oil company is being privatized.

Only the attitudes have stayed the same

Does anyone else find it ironic that the descriptions of NATO's mistakes in Afstan - supposedly mimicking those of the USSR - are exactly the same things NATO has been avoiding in Afstan?

I'm shocked - shocked! - that "settled science" could be this settled!

Viz:

Climate alarmists the world over were quick to add that they had known all along there would be periods when the Earth's climate would cool even as the overall trend was toward dangerous climate change.

...

Last year, in its oft-quoted report on global warming, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted a 0.3-degree C rise in temperature in the coming decade -- not a cooling or even just temperature stability. ...

Last year, for instance, saw a drop in the global average temperature of nearly 0.7 degrees C (the largest single-year movement up or down since global temperature averages have been calculated). Despite advanced predictions that 2007 would be the warmest year on record, made by such UN associates as Britain's Hadley Centre, a government climate research agency, 2007 was the coolest year since at least 1993.

According to the U. S. National Climatic Data Center, the average temperature of the global land surface in January 2008 was below the 20th-Century mean for the first time since 1982.

Also in January, Southern Hemisphere sea ice coverage was at its greatest summer level (January is summer in the Southern Hemisphere) in the past 30 years.

Neither the 3,000 temperature buoys that float throughout the world's oceans nor the eight NASA satellites that float above our atmosphere have recorded appreciable warming in the past six to eight years.

Even Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, reluctantly admitted to Reuters in January that there has been no warming so far in the 21st Century.

Don't listen to the scientists predicting cooling, folks! After all, we have to listen to science, and these scientists predicting a contrary result are obviously just deniers!

Maybe we can reverse this whole thing around quite nicely if we just start back at the global cooling scare. That movement had heart.

Outsourcing violence

This peace index ranking Iceland first in "peace" - with the US in the bottom half in world countries - is a load of bunkum.

The index, now in its second year, ranks 140 countries according to their relative states of peace, based on factors such as military expenditure and respect for human rights.

Ignore, for a second, just what the heck kind of subjective nonsense they might or might not mean by "respect for human rights." Just focus on the fact Iceland's lack of military spending. The only reason they had no military establishment is that they experienced an entire history of others taking care of their defence - countries such as, er, the United States. The same United States that chose to leave Iceland against the wishes of the Icelandic government.

It's perfectly easy to win in such indexes when you get others to bear your costs for you.

Well I'll be darned

Ignatieff, in his bid to succeed Stephane Dion, might actually ensure that Bob Rae does.

...Mr. Dion has surrounded himself with former members of the Rae camp, such as national director Greg Fergus, and private secretary Johanne Senecal. Even Mr. Ignatieff's supporters are worried that, if Mr. Dion is forced to step down, he will all but hand the baton to Mr. Rae.

Despite the precariousness of his position in the event of another leadership contest, a number of Liberal MPs and insiders say Mr. Ignatieff has not been working hard to build bridges and alliances internally.

"He doesn't come to meetings and he doesn't engage in the lobby," one Liberal said. "People are noticing he's not participating. He's a much more polarizing figure than Bob."

"Blue is the new black"

In the UK, it's trendy to be Tory. And "New Labour" is old, tired, and out of touch.

There's a reason I nicknamed Brian Mulroney as "St. Brian"

The blogger formerly known as Dark Blue Tory - currently DBT 2.0 or whatever it is - will love this one. The numbers suggest that Brian Mulroney's Prime Ministership entailed the most equitable redistribution of wealth in Canadian history.

"Abusing science for their own ends"

Have you ever heard of the Oregon Petition? It's like the Evan Coyne Maloney to the Michael Moore that is the Kyoto Accord.

When 30,000 environmentalists say we need to act, we need to act. But when 30,000 scientists and dozens of Nobel Prize winners say the opposite, they're just "deniers".

Read the whole thing, dammit.

Lucky

I think we may have found the defining image of the Afstan War:

The defining image of the Iraq War, of course, is this one:

The country that brought you Nelson Mandela also brings you...

...some brutal freaking pogroms against foreigners. We're talking real, actual xenophobia, not just asking customers to press "2" for service in their language or whatever. When South Africa gets violent, they don't mess around:

Police spokesman Govindsamy Mariemuthoo said 12 people were killed. He said 200 people had been arrested on charges ranging from rape to robbery and public violence.

The Red Cross said at least 3,000 people were left destitute.

Police said the worst violence erupted after midnight Saturday in Cleveland and other rundown inner city areas that are home to many immigrants. Two of the victims were burned and three others beaten to death. More than 50 were taken to hospitals with gunshot and stab wounds.

The situation remained tense along the main street through Cleveland and police had to use tear gas to disperse stick-wielding crowds trying to loot shops.

Photographs supplied by local newspapers captured horrific images of a man who was set on fire after a tire soaked in gasoline was put around his neck. There was no immediate word on his condition.

One of the demonstrators in Cleveland, Michael Khondwane, said foreigners were to blame for South Africa's drug and crime scourge. He said the violence would send them "the message that they must go."

How bad is it getting? Immigrants are considering emigrating to Zimbabwe. Yes. That Zimbabwe. I'm not even making this up:

"Most of the Zimbabweans want to leave. It is better at home than here," said the former teacher who was chased out of his home by a mob early Sunday.

"It's spreading like wildfire and the police and the army can't control it," Ziso said, as he tried to help register about 500 people who sought refuge at the police station in Johannesburg's Cleveland area.

It was a scene repeated in other poor suburbs around the city. Angry residents accused foreigners of taking scarce jobs and housing, many of them Zimbabweans who had fled their own country's economic collapse.

Like (probably) everywhere else that does this kind of thing, the locals are simply scapegoating foreigners as an excuse or distraction from real domestic problems. This is symptomatic of problems far greater.

Double or nothing

Say what you want about Dion, he's really growing a pair and taking a risk here:

Over the summer, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion will be criss-crossing the country, telling Canadians already reeling from higher gas prices that they need to pay a lot more for the rest of their energy sources. His message, in essence, is that it's time for Canadians to put their money where their mouths are if they are serious about saving the planet.

Ooh. Calling the voters' bluff. Nice.

I think it might work a little better one on one. I just can't see voters as large groups buying into this. That's not how politics works. Although he does try to appeal to voters with flattery:

"I am convinced that far too many political elites underestimate Canadians," he explains. "When you speak to the minds and big hearts of our great people, good policies translate into good politics.

This, of course, is likely going to be far more effective than Elizabeth May declaring that Canadian voters are a bunch of selfish idiots.

Some don't think this whole carbon tax thing is a wise move. I think people are missing the point. The Grits are reframing the current debate to make all politics about environmental issues. They're proposing things - good, bad, doesn't matter - which will logically force the Tories to respond with something.

A debrief about nothing

Well, this Cadman thing was a whole lot of nothing, wasn't it?

Not that it'll stop people from referring to it as a legitimate scandal or anything.