Filed Under (Everything, Politics) by Tyler on 12-02-2008
I don’t get it. Stephane Dion the current liberal leader says the mission must change. I don’t get it. I really don’t. I know the optics of war are bad, but this whole movement from a combat role to a rebuilding role makes next to no sense. No in fact it makes no sense. What is the reason for the change in mission directives? Quicker change in Afghanistan? Less casualties to Canadian troops? Better politicking?
Lets be honest. The only answer is the last one. True change in Afghanistan can only happen when the Taliban is not destroying what you have been building. Its really hard to build a school with people shooting at you, or you build a bridge to have it blown up the next day. Regardless this is an old argument. I think more interesting is to reduce the casualties to Canadian soldiers. The challenge with this argument is that Canadian troops are not dying in combat operations. Look through the headlines and find out how Canadian soldiers are dying. Its road side bombs and suicide bombers. These are actions that attack rebuilding operations! So this is not an option… That leaves? Politicking.
If the only reason to change the mission is optics they you might as well take the incredibly naive JackLaytonesque view of war is bad we should go home, peace is good if we aren’t there there will be no war. *sigh*
The real honest to goodness truth is that Canadians need to take two views. Either we continue with the mission, which means fight when we need to fight, build when we are able to build, and give the country a shot. Or we abandon the Afghani people and go home, we say we don’t really care what is happening in their country because it doesn’t directly affect us.
I honestly see pros and cons to both options, but the whole idea of War vs. Peace seems like something you would hear a 4 year old say.
As if Blu-Ray didn’t need any more momentum Netflix has dropped HD DVD and thrown their support behind Blu-Ray. As an owner of a Blu-Ray player this is very sweet music to my ears. Do I believe that there is any chance of HD DVD making a comeback? Nope absolutely none. Blockbuster dropped HD DVD last month, and the sales of Blu-Rays are killing HD DVD. Sales since Warner defected to Blu-Ray sales are something like 82% in favour of Blu-Ray.
Does this mean its a good time to go out and buy a Blu-Ray player? Well its not a bad time, but for the most part the players are still expensive and somewhat flaky. If you aren’t absolutely dying to watch high def DVDs it may still be worthwhile to wait another few months. I know that I have already had to update the firmware on my Blu-Ray player once, and will probably have to again.
So for a second I am going to forget that Amazon.com has a gamut of great products at very competitive prices, products that dotCa just doesn’t carry. For the moment I am going to focus on the fact that the identical items are frequently at very different prices.
I recently placed an order from dotCom and I will use that as a comparison. For the comparison I will take USD and CAD to identical, as at the moment there is almost no difference. For the comparison I ordered 3 blu-ray discs:
The total from Amazon.com with shipping is: $121.81
Now that may not be the actual total as it is possible that I may be charged tax plus a handling fee at the border. Tax would be 13% of $121.81 = $15.84. The handling fee from Canada Customs is $5. How they can charge you a handling fee to charge you money is beyond me, and should be saved for another entry.
That would bring the total to $142.65, although its not guaranteed that I will be charged customs.
Now to have a look at the same 3 item total (with free shipping) from dotCa: $169.35
That is a difference of $26.70 if you get charged duty/taxes.
Amazon.ca really needs to get their act together and bring their prices more closely inline with the dotCom prices. I will note that it is not always such a large discrepancy, so it is worthwhile checking. Getting the items through customs is also more of a challenge and will take longer. So if there is something that you are anxious for -No Country For Old Men perhaps- then it may be worthwhile to order -or preorder in my case- from dotCa.
The city of Ottawa is a lot like Enbridge gas. They both like to rip me off. Like Enbridge the city sent me a bill for water and sewer that was completely estimated. Now not as bad as Enbridge, the city only doubled it. I called them, and they were very apologetic and told me to simply call after any errors. It is quite amazing but the city is way better than Enbridge.
I should also mention when I tried to call them, I called, pushed 1 for English, the phone rang and boom. Person. Unbelievable. I don’t think I am going to need a new spreadsheet for my water and sewer.
Rogers loses. Last week with my new LCD TV I picked up the Rogers HD box. Does it work? Yeah, kinda. What is it lacking? HDMI! It has component video, but that is no where near HDMI. About the only solution I have at the moment is to get a DVI<–>HDMI cable and then use a digital audio cable. So back to MonoPrice.com I go.
Bell has HDMI, they win.
