TO: The Hon. Viv Toews, P.C., B.A., LL.B., Minister of Public Safety (vic.toews@parl.gc.ca)
FROM: Steven Britton (steve@stevenbritton.net)
Dear Mr. Minister,
Please allow me to preface my comments by stating without equivocation that I am a staunch conservative both in ideology and in where I place my support as a voter. Let me also indicate to you that I consider myself to be a libertarian, in that I strongly believe in the principles of freedom and liberty for all.
I read with disappointment this morning a quote in which you stated, during Question Period, that one either “stand with us, or with the child pornographers,” in your response to a question regarding internet monitoring of private citizens.
Like the vast majority of Canadians, I consider child pornography to be one of the worst possible crimes one can commit. I think the penalties for production and proliferation of this filth should be more severe than the penalty for murder.
All that being said, sir, I believe your comment regarding opposition to the bill in the form it was introduced during the last Parliament is far beyond what one would consider to be rational and reasoned debate. I believe that people can — and should — have serious concerns about legislation which, without probable cause and due process, presumes that anyone, at any time, might be accessing, creating, or proliferating child pornography! Where there is reasonable suspicion, I agree wholeheartedly – bring forth a warrant and begin surveillance of the suspect to obtain evidence and proof, however giving our law enforcement agencies carte blanche to sneak into online computers and look around on a “fishing” expedition is a gross violation of personal privacy and property rights.
The proposed legislation, as I understand it, would permit the police force the equivalent of storming into someone’s home, detaining the residents, then searching the home, without a warrant, or probable cause! That, we all agree, is a gross violation of our basic human right of liberty!
Does that put me as standing with child pornographers? Absolutely not; however your language, in the House of Commons yesterday, certainly does indicate that you believe that to be the case. Your statement is on the same level as one immediately comparing a debating opponent’s position to Hitler or the Nazis – it’s easy to do, but immediately invalidates any opportunity for reasonable discourse afterwards.
On the Internet, it doesn’t surprise me; however when it is a Minister of the Crown that engages in such debating tactics, it disturbs me.
Being a geek, I tend to watch a lot of The Discovery Channel. I enjoy shows about science (Mythbusters rocks!), the origins of the universe, and history.
Recently, Discovery aired a show called Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe? Presented by Prof. Stephen Hawking, the show dealt with the origins of the universe from a scientific and mathematical modelling perspective. Hawking outlined, in simple to understand terms, how the universe could, theoretically, have spontaneously appeared out of nothing.
Outlining the concepts of “negative energy” and “negative matter”, Hawking postulated that, if you were able to add up all the matter and negative matter, energy and negative energy, the result would be equal to exactly zero, which, effectively, allows for everything you see and touch around you to have an exact opposite, somewhere else, which cancels it out.
It’s an interesting concept, and, quite frankly, theoretically plausible.
I like Prof. Hawking. He has an uncanny ability to transform pure science, and present it in a way that laypeople like you and I can understand. He avoids math, claiming, in A Brief History of Time that each time an author includes a mathematical equation, his audience is cut in half.
Conversely, I think it’s quite likely that for every biblical quote someone includes, their audience is cut in half as well.
I will neither offer math nor direct biblical quotes and references in this entry.
Hawking establishes that objects of very high mass, such as, for example, a black hole, cause time itself to become warped. At the event horizon, time seems to stop.
For example, if you were to observe a friend walking towards a black hole, your friend would appear to slow down, and eventually stop moving completely at the black hole’s event horizon. Your friend would never actually appear to reach the event horizon.
Conversely, for your friend, they too would never cross the event horizon. It would always be just out of reach, because, the closer they get, the slower time is moving for them. Looking back, they would see events accelerating, eventually, to the point that the universe itself would likely end and they still would never have reached the event horizon.
It’s a really wacky concept, but it illustrates just how time gets bent out of shape.
Now put the entire mass of the universe inside an area of zero size. That is, theoretically, the starting point of everything. The precise moment of the Big Bang, out of which, everything began. As Hawking established with black holes, if time slows down near objects of high mass, then time itself would have been non-existent prior to the Big Bang.
Hawking therefore concludes that, given there was no time within which God could operate, God cannot possibly exist, because God wouldn’t have had any time within which to create the Universe.
Fair enough, except Hawking is missing a very important thing:
God, being God, makes the rules. God is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.
Essentially, god is everywhere, knows everything and can do anything.
Or, still better put:
God, quite simply, is.
Now, Consider this:
This is a massive simplification of string theory, however it does allow for existence outside of time, as we have seen. The creator of this video missed one key dimension within which the 10th dimension resides. Let’s call it, for sake of discussion, “Heaven.”
Therefore, as we can see from this whole thing, assuming God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal, time is therefore meaningless to God, as God exists completely outside of time itself!
One of the biggest mistakes anyone can make regarding God is to put God into a box. It’s easy to do, because we have only ourselves – humanity – with which to operate, so we have a tendency to try to define God in human terms. We can’t do that, for the reasons I’ve outlined here.
Nothing Hawking has postulated precludes the existence of God, because God is still beyond all of which Hawking has suggested.
Many people believe that science and religion are mutually exclusive.
Donald Trump, it seems, is seriously considering a run for the White House. This makes the race quite interesting, because, for the first time since 1992, three people would be on the ballot for the job.
The appeal in having Donald Trump as President is very simple: he doesn’t need the job. He already has, by his own admission, enough money. He also has enough power – he runs a massive organization, and employs hundreds of people to do what he tells them to do.
Running a private company is a good thing, and Mr. Trump has it.
That’s an appealing prospect.
I can’t, of course, vote in US elections simply because I’m not a citizen of the US. I’ve voiced my opinion before and got myself attacked by those in the US on the far left for “telling us how to live” or some such rubbish.
That’s wrong on two fronts. First, I have every right to hold and express my opinion, even when it’s contrary to someone else’s. They have every right to debate me, and present counter points to mine. In fact, I hope they do – life would be extremely boring if everyone agreed all the time. Discussions where everyone agrees are usually quite short:
Person A: Okay, we have 30 minutes allotted for our meeting, so let’s jump right in. I think we should do X. What do you think?
Person B: I agree.
Person C: I agree.
Person D: I agree.
(Uncomfortable pause)
Person A: Okay then… um… so…
The second point is this: what happens in the US affects me here. If the US economy tanks, then business gets harmed here as well, since the US is Canada’s largest trading partner. I have a direct, vested interest in the US economy. Thus, while I can’t vote in the US, I have a right to hold and, in the hope of influencing people in the US, express that opinion.
In order to form an opinion on the prospect if a President Donald Trump, I have started paying close attention to the things he is saying – in interviews, on Twitter, and on his YouTube channel.
I respect Donald Trump. I won’t say I like him, and don’t think I could work for him. He’s tough, brash, in-your-face, and seems like a bulldozer when it comes to putting a deal together. It works for him, and all the more power to him for it, but it isn’t my style.
But having respect for a guy isn’t all that’s needed for determining whether he’d be a good President of the United States. For that, we need to look at what he’s talking about, and what he wants to do.
Trump has made few policy statements so far. He obviously hasn’t released an official platform, but we can infer many things about his platform based on what he has said in interviews and such.
Trump talks a lot about the domestic economy. That only makes sense, given the awful economic administration of Barack Obama. Trump is right: people need jobs to get the economy rolling, and that’s where things fall apart. Trump claims foreign countries are “taking our jobs.” He’s correct that many jobs are moving abroad, however he seems to suggest that it’s due to the US administration making “bad deals.”
Once country he sets clearly in his sights is China. Many manufacturing jobs are moving to China, yes. The question is, why? More importantly, can – or even should anything be done about, and if so, what?
In a recent interview, Trump said he’s impose a 25% tax on China. What? How do you tax another country? Okay, I think he meant he’d impose a 25% duty on all Chinese imports – and that’s certainly something he can (with Congress’ approval) do. With that in mind, we have to look at the ramifications.
He’d spark a trade war between China and the US.
Remember – a billion people live in China. They have their own economy of scale contained within their borders. That’s a huge advantage. I don’t like the Chinese government any more than anyone else, but we have to keep this in mind. When you have one sixth of the global population within your borders, you’re a big, key player.
China holds a very large part of the US national debt. So, if the US began a trade barrier against China, I can see China taking a number of approaches in response:
First, their government would likely say, “that’s okay, we’ll just do business with someone else,” cutting a huge chunk out of the US export market, and, second, they’d probably start selling a bunch of US bonds on the market, pushing the price down. That would make it more difficult for the US to borrow new money in the short-term, which is something the US will need to do for a long time to come. That would exacerbate domestic economic issues for the US, as interest rates would be forced up.
China would also have a new source of funding for R&D and investment by their central planners to become more competitive on the world market – all on the back of the US.
Imposing tariffs on doing business with China is an isolationist, protectionist policy, and in a global economy, would only serve to do more harm to the US than good.
Bad idea.
Policy plan aside, whether Trump likes it or not, he has to understand that the US government does not work like The Trump Organization. President Trump would not be in charge of congress – they aren’t going to fall into step with him and do his every bidding just because he said so. He can’t bring congressional leaders into his Boardroom and say, “we are doing this. Get it done,” or, “you’re fired”. Congress will likely push back; and he’ll have to negotiate. Trump clearly doesn’t mind making deals – he says its his art form – but I think he’ll find dealing with congress quite frustrating. These are people with their own political agendas, pet projects, and congressional seats up for grabs, and all of that will come into play. Combine that with the idea that it’s likely the Republicans will resent an independent President Trump because he denied them the White House, and, ideologically, the Democrats won’t agree with him, I can see many an impasse on the horizon with Donald Trump occupying the White House.
I agree with Trump wholeheartedly that Barack Obama is a disaster of a President. He makes President Jimmy Carter look good – a very difficult thing to do. Let’s assume then, for sake of discussion, that a bad Republican President would still be better than Barack Obama. Would it be a good idea for Donald Trump to put his name forward on the ballot?
As I noted above, Trump seems very Republican-ish in his ideology. That’s fine, but what that would do is split the anti-Democrat vote. States that would have otherwise gone Republican in the Electoral College would see critical Republican votes taken away from the republican candidate in favour of Trump, which could, depending on the differential, send the state over to the Democrats. Trump could, instead of saving the US, doom it, simply by running for (and ultimately losing) the job.
Anne Coulter once said, “you have to pick a team,” and she’s right.
Given all that I have said here, I think my position is obvious.
Donald Trump is a highly successful man. I don’t begrudge him his success and wealth one bit. I respect him, and I listen to what he has to say, because I’d like to learn a few things about business from him.
However, when it comes to President of the United States, on policy, Donald Trump is not the man for the job. Strategically, he shouldn’t even run.
This has been a few weeks in coming. Now I have finished my chronicle of my time volunteering at Calgary Expo, I can focus some time on other stuff – like how to not look like a fool when meeting a celebrity.
These rules apply almost universally – except when the celebrity is David Suzuki. If you’re unfortunate enough to meet him, then you have my permission to berate and insult him with great vengeance and furious anger, as you lay your vengeance upon him. (Just keep it legal, okay?)
Working, as I did last June with William Shatner, enabled me to see and hear some of the things that people did when filing past, either at photo ops or autograph signings.
Many people were great; others, not so much. Some of these items, I have messed up as well, and this list, by no stretch of the imagination, is exhaustive or authoritative; but merely consists of my observations from the weekend.
Do: Be polite. It may seem obvious, but it’s amazing how many people, well, aren’t
Don’t: Expect a chance to visit, or ask that Deep and Meaningful Question That You Have Always Wanted To Ask. The more popular the celebrity, the more serious this gets. There are loads of people behind you waiting for their moment, just like there were loads of people in front of you. If a celebrity spent a minute with each person, or worse, 5 minutes, imagine how long each person would need to wait. It just isn’t feasible. If you try, expect an ominous-looking, black-clad “Crowd Management Dude” to step in, say, firmly, “thank you for coming,” and then escort you out.
Do: Have your stuff ready to be signed. It saves everyone time.
Don’t: Try to think of something witty, or off-the-wall, or otherwise “individual” to make the celebrity remember you. They won’t, and you’ll just come across looking like an idiot. For example, Asking William Shatner, “so what’s your favourite Star Wars movie?” isn’t funny; it’s stupid. You know it, he knows it, and he’s heard it at least fifty thousand times before.
Do: Respect the celebrity’s handshake policy. Shaking hands can transmit germs and viruses, which some celebrities try to avoid, and also, given most are right-handed, constant handshakes can exacerbate cramping which can develop after hours of signing things. Many will prefer a fist-bump.
Don’t: Ask the celebrity to hold something, or do a ridiculous hand-gesture at the photo op. Some teenager asked Mr. Shatner if he would give a hand gesture, “Sure, how’s this?” asked Mr. Shatner, raising his middle finger. I don’t blame him one bit.
Do: Say thank you.
Don’t: Present the celebrity with a printout of a family tree showing how you’re their distant relative. They don’t care. No, really: they don’t.
Do: Relax. Play it cool. A celebrity is a human being after all. Be respectful, but remember – they’re not God. Treat them like a human.
Don’t: Go FanBoy. This is related to the item directly above. It’s easy to do, as it can be exciting to meet and talk to them, but babbling on about how excited you are and how wonderful they are and how you named your cat after them and how your sister met them at convention Xyz and how … ugh.
Do: Remember that the actor is not the character they play, and has emotions, moods, and may be tired after a long flight.
Don’t: Address the actor by the name of the character or characters he’s played. Additionally, don’t ask the actor to sign as one of their characters. Mr. Shatner’s name is William Shatner, not James T. Kirk, T.J. Hooker, Denny Crane, or Buck Murdoch.
Do: Compliment the celebrity for the quality of her work – appropriately. When I met Mira Furlan, I told her I was a huge Babylon 5 fan – and I am – however I didn’t go on and on about how wonderful she was as Delenn. She’s a good actress, and the quality of the character she played proves it.
Don’t: expect personalization. If it’s offered and you want it, then by all means, accept it, but unless it’s offered, leave it alone. Usually, this is due to time constraints, so the busier the place is, the less likely it is to be offered.
Do: Remember your basic social skills. If you’re Sheldon, this is going to be more difficult for you; but for most of us, geeks and non-geeks alike, this should be a no-brainer. Brush your teeth, take a shower, don’t interrupt people.
There you go! Follow these simple guidelines, and your meeting with a celebrity experience will go smoothly. If I come up with any others, I’ll add them as I remember them.
Walking into the Calgary’s Roundup Centre on Friday Night was an interesting experience. Upon arrival, I immediately noticed the groups of people in business dress. Closer inspection revealed that these were families. All the kids were wearing suits and ties, or dresses. Was I in the right place? I looked closer still. That was when I noticed the purple badges: “Let God’s Kingdom Come.”
Perfect.
I was worried I’d get abducted by aliens or somethings – strange things tend do to happen at Comic-Con, however this was far, far worse: Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I backed away. Slowly.
Into a group of zombies.
Oh good. I was in the right place after all.
The group of zombies actually turned out to be one zombie talking to his (non-zombie) friends, however I expect the four of them would all be zombies in due course, given zombies feed on human flesh after all. I tapped the zombie on the shoulder. He turned around to look at me. “The first aid room is right over there. You look like you need to visit it.”
They all laughed.
In order to get permission from my wife to visit the show on Friday, I had to agree to bring The Kid with me. Imagine this guy, all dressed in black, pushing a stroller with a curious and, I must say, somewhat weirded out Kid.
The Kid was actually very well-behaved on Friday night, thankfully.
After picking up my pass, I wandered into the convention hall, and made a beeline for the autograph booths. There was one person I wanted to meet — Mira Furlan, Ambassador Delenn from Babylon 5. I was amazed to see that there was absolutely no line at her booth; so I went straight to the front and said hello. I paid my money and let her choose a nice photograph. She suggested one of her and Bruce Boxleitner, so if, in the future, I had a chance to meet him, he could sign it too. I thought that was a good suggestion, so I went along with it. Ms. Furlan spoke to The Kid for a few moments, and then we said our goodbyes. I confirmed that there was a photo op, and that it would be bad form to ask for a photo at the table (it was, and I respected her wishes) and indicated I was helping out with the guests at the convention so she would likely see me around.
A few minutes later, I noticed that Jonathan Frakes was in town at present already; so I grabbed an autograph from him as well. The Kid was getting tired, so it was time to go home.
Saturday was The Big Day. Long and arduous, so I attempted to get a good night’s sleep and, all too soon, the morning arrived. I made my way down to the Stampede grounds, avoiding the Jehovah’s Witnesses as best I could. Once inside, I checked in with my team’s leader, Jean, (the same guy who had kicked me out of Leonard Nimoy’s green room last year) and went over the schedule for the day. Our guest wasn’t due to arrive until noon, so I was assigned to meet another guest first. Off I went with my group and, soon enough, the incredibly hot Summer Glau arrived with her agent, the awesome Erin Grey.
After introductions, and a brief discussion of the arrangements, we escorted the group to their green room so they could relax for a few minutes and freshen up before the busy day of autograph signing and photo opportunities. A little while later, after Ms. Glau had taken a few minutes to relax, we escorted her to her signing table. The place went wild. Ms. Glau got settled and began signing autographs. Erin Grey turned to me and said, “right, I’m going to go talk to some of my other people.” I confirmed she had her own table and would be signing later, and asked her if she needed an escort. She laid a hand on my arm, laughed, and said, “no, I’m very embracing of the fans, and they all know not to mess with me.” She was right, of course – nobody would dare mess with Wilma from Buck Rogers!
With that, I was called back to escort in our main guest, so I headed back over to the meeting point. A few minutes later, an SUV pulled up at the loading dock, and, once the door was opened for him, out stepped William Shatner.
Yes; I was about to spend two days working with William Shatner. My job was mainly to keep the throng of Jehovah’s Witnesses and adoring fans away from him. It turned out to be easier than I expected, as there were all kinds of back passages and tunnels we could use to transport Mr. Shatner from one side of the facility to the other.
Introductions ensued, and we took Mr. Shatner over to his green room to get settled, have a bite to eat, and relax before the busy day of smiling, saying hello, and signing autographs was to begin. There were also a few issues to deal with.
Running interference, as any Secret Service agent will probably confirm, involves a lot of standing around, playing “hurry up and wait.” This was no exception. There was nobody around outside the green room, as it was a restricted area. So we stood there, chatted, and waited. My counterpart, Marc, suddenly attracted my attention, and indicated to me to step to my left. I thought he was telling me to step aside, so I stepped to my right – and crashed right into Mira Furlan.
Smooth.
Very smooth.
Mira was gracious, I was red-faced, my colleagues were laughing.
A little while later, Mr. Shatner emerged, and we headed over to the photography session. The lineup was huge. So huge, in fact, that the Corral (our old hockey rink) was used as a staging area.
William Shatner has an incredible amount of stamina. Once he starts, he just doesn’t stop. In the 90 minutes that we were there, I think there were about 400 photo sessions. That is one photograph every 14 seconds. Mr. Shatner was quite vocal in some of the things he wanted changed, in order to speed up the photography process. He was very polite about it, but clearly knew what he was talking about in terms of increasing the efficiency of the process.
After the photo session was autographs, which ran like clockwork. Again, Mr. Shatner knows what he is doing and the job got done in record time. I did a rough count at one point to see how much time it took for Mr. Shatner to autograph something – about six seconds. Later on, at a shorter autograph session, someone indicated there were about 100 people waiting to have an autograph, and Mr. Shatner commented that it would take about 15 minutes – and it did.
Financial calculations time:
$75 * 4 * 60 = $18,000 an hour for photography sessions, based on 15 seconds per photograph, on average.
$75 * 100 * 4 = $30,000 an hour for autograph sessions.
That is a lot of money.
A hell of a lot of money.
I’m not passing judgement on the numbers either way here. If you read the other entries here in my blog, you’ll know where I stand on capitalism, so as far as I’m concerned, if people are willing to pay the money, then all the more power to Mr. Shanter.
(Though I would like a job like that – signing my name on things for two or three hours a day.)
During the photograph session, the curtain behind the camera parted and Jonathan Frakes peeked through. He pointed at Mr. Shatner and mouthed the words, “I love you” with an adoring “fanboy” look on his face.
Shatner cracked up, ruining the photograph (naturally, the photographer took a replacement). There is a large amount of camaraderie amongst the media guests at events such as these, especially within the Star Trek cast, as I expect there’s a special bond they all share having all been crew members of a starship.
Tia Carrera showed up as well at one point, flirting with Mr. Shatner quite heavily. Shatner, for his part, flirted right back, having a wonderful time with his media friends.
During the convention, there were periodic announcements about what certain celebrities were doing. I choked a little when, at one point, an announcement came on that “Tina Carrera” was at the photo op area. I hope “Tina Carrera” is as gracious and gorgeous as Tia Carrera.
After the autographs, it was time for the panel session. This was the question and answer session with the guest. Earlier in the day, I’d escorted Summer Glau down for her session. When she realized it was happening in a stadium which was almost full to capacity, she mentioned she was nervous.
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” I asked.
“Never like this,” she replied.
We tried the usual imagine-everyone-in-their-underwear line, however she indicated that it didn’t work for her. So Marc suggested she pick one person in the audience and just talk to them. That wasn’t working either, so I changed the subject and talked to her about Tim Horton’s.
As we were heading down to the panel session with Mr. Shatner, we explained to him that he was going to be “White Hatted” by the Mayor of Calgary. After a pause, Mr. Shatner asked what the name of our Mayor was.
“Naheed Nenshi,” I replied.
Mr. Shatner stopped dead in his tracks, “WHAT?”
“Naheed Nenshi,” I replied, again, amused.
“Okay then. ’Mr. Mayor’ it is,” he said. I smiled quietly to myself and we continued on into the forum. When he saw the setup, Mr. Shatner paused again, “holy shit!”
I laughed, and took up my position of “authority” to the right hand side of the stage, standing there quietly ensuring that nobody approached and tried to access the stage via the staircase.
The plan was, apparently, to bring R2D2 out on stage to deliver the white hat before Mr. Shatner took the stage, however, unfortunately, R2D2 wasn’t cooperative. The hosts on stage waiting with Mr. Nenshi tried to cover it well.
“Maybe he’s recording a very important message,” said one.
“Maybe he’s not the droid we’re looking for,” replied Nenshi.
Yes, Calgary’s mayor, it seems, is a geek.
Someone in the audience shouted, “He has a bad motivator!” I rolled my eyes.
Photo Credit: ferreth
This video, recorded by rickwgold includes that bit, and also, if you know where to look, has me in it too – to the left of the stage standing beside the stairs facing the audience – but the video below, recorded by kevenskiner, is a much better one of the actual White Hat ceremony)
After the panel, it was more photographs, more autographs, and, at long last, time to go. We sent Mr. Shatner on his way for some food, flopped into some chairs, and ate pizza.
As the day was winding down, I briefly reflected on the events of the day, and a poignant thought came to the surface. At one point, there was some discussion about Mr. Shatner heading over to Jonathan Frakes’ booth for a brief visit. We pulled back the curtain so he could have a look, at which point, he called it off, saying, “no, there’s too many people out there.”
I thought about that.
Of all the events of that first day, that one statement has remained stuck in my head. Here’s a major celebrity, recognizable and respected around the world, refusing to step out into a public area because there’s “too many people.”
For the record, the crowds had abated somewhat and it really wasn’t as busy as it had been earlier on in the day.
That said, I can see his point. Had he set foot out there, even with an escort of ominous-looking black-clad security personnel, there is no doubt at all that, within minutes, a crowd would have formed of people holding cameras, gawking, and trying to say hello.
Mr. Shatner, I’m sure, accepts this as part of his lifestyle, and has likely become used to it, and knows from experience what he can get away with and what he can’t. For someone like me, however, it’s totally outside my frame of reference, and I rather felt like his success had become, for him, somewhat confining. Somebody like me, for example, wouldn’t think twice about ducking out from between the curtains and wandering over to visit Mr. Frakes for a minute. Then again, I wouldn’t have a crowd of obnoxious gawkers circling me like vultures either. Mr. Shatner, however, would have a completely different experience.
That’s one aspect of the career that I don’t think I’d like.
The following day, after some negotiations with my wife over the hours I’d be attending on the Sunday, I headed down again for an early start at 8. Mr. Shatner wasn’t due to arrive until 10, however I felt that, as a volunteer, it would be appropriate for me to show up and help out where I could.
Besides, I wanted to see Summer Glau again.
A couple of my friends were assigned to work with Ms. Glau for the convention, and, as it turned out afterwards, Ms. Glau was one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people at the convention. She ended up going out to supper with my friends, and even went to the restaurant in their own vehicle! How cool is that?
You’ll note that I have not posted any photographs of myself with any of the celebrities at the convention. That’s for two reasons. First, I knew that people would likely be clamouring all over the celebrities asking for photos with them, and, I wanted to give them a bit of space in that department, and second, getting your photo taken with a celebrity is a little FanBoy for my taste.
Wandering around while waiting for Mr. Shatner, I saw Michael Hogan, and paused to say hello. ”I’m sure you’ve seen Galaxy Quest,” I said, then continued in a stage-whisper, “they all think it’s real!” He laughed.
I quietly mumbled an apology to Claudia Christian for stealing her line, and continued on my way.
The Sunday was pretty much the same as the Saturday: Autographs and Photo-ops. Once Mr. Shatner arrived, we had a few seconds of quiet. One of the team asked him, “how did you enjoy your dinner last night?”
“That restaurant was one – no, I’ll amend that – I think that restaurant was the best restaurant I’ve ever eaten in,” he replied. Mr. Shatner has eaten in a lot of restaurants, and I expect he gets asked that a lot; though listening to the tone of his voice, I think he was sincere.
As Mr. Shatner settled in for more photos, I realized it was approaching noon, my agreed-upon departure time. I took a quick moment to say goodbye to Mr. Shatner, shaking his hand and thanking him for coming, explaining it was time for me to leave.
“It’s a shame,” he said.
I took that as a compliment.
I realized I had left something over at the autograph booth, so I grabbed the golf cart we were using and drove it back over to the other side of the convention hall, grabbed what I needed, and then drove it back to the photo-ops area. On the way, I passed Matt Frewer. ”Convention taxi service,” I called out, “need a ride?”
He hopped on-board, with his volunteer beside him, and we drove back to the photo op area.
A convention experience which started with a close encounter with some Jehovah’s Witnesses came to an end, by giving Max Headroom a lift.
Just a few months away from the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the US has finally managed to take out the mastermind.
Osama Bin Laden is dead.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. Feed the body to pigs.
Reports are that there’s a crowd at the White House cheering and singing the Star Spangled Banner.
That, however, is sick. I am certainly not unhappy Bin Laden is gone for good, but this does not mean we should celebrate. Taking him out was justice, not revenge. It is sad – tragic – that it was necessary to do so, and the occasion is one that should indeed be marked with the appropriate solemnity. The families of his victims still feel the pain of their losses. Widows dream of laughing with their husbands, then wake up in the morning to cold silence. Children are still growing up without a mother, all because this piece of human filth had a lust for power and a hatred for the USA, based in a misguided notion that, somehow, the US had harmed him.
Yes, he’s dead. Good. But you won’t see me breaking out the champagne, or cheering. It should never have been necessary – because Bin Ladin should have lived his life differently.
He didn’t live his life differently. He chose to kill thousands of people.
I threw this one together just now because someone on Twitter pointed out that Compas has released a prediction of a Conservative majority. I have to admit, of course, that I like this particular poll, and I also like this prediction. Reading deeper into the analysis that Compas put out, it shows incredible volatility in the NDP vote tomorrow, and things could change between now and then.
So, while I’m putting these numbers out there for interest sake, my own prediction, I think, stands as I’ve previously posted.
I’ve written before that I question Ekos’ methodology. Traditionally, they always seem to favour the “underdog” in an election poll. In 2008, they missed the results of the Conservative Party by just over 3%, which is a significant amount, especially since they consider their margin of error to be roughly +/- 1.8%.
Obviously things happen in the course of 24 hours, and, since publishing poll results is banned on election day, this is the last poll they will release.
The advantage to using Ekos as a source for seat projections is Ekos breaks down their results showing support and subsample size in urban areas (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal). This is very useful, because these areas have large concentrations of seats, and also can have very different levels of support than extra-urban areas.
So, after plugging the Ekos results into my election prediction algorithm, here is what we see:
Ekos also asks people how certain they are to vote. This is crucial because just because someone says they would vote a certain way does not mean they are actually going to show up; so I plugged those numbers from Ekos into my prediction algorithm as well.
That’s the math, based upon raw data. At this point, intuition has to come into the mix, because we have a number of un-measurable factors at play as well as, as I have posted previously, there are huge assumptions build into any prediction algorithm.
The various talking heads are mentioning that Quebec’s NDP slate of candidates is, well, dubious at best, and the NDP ground organization is, well, virtually non-existant. This will affect their Get Out The Vote (GOTV) campaign; simply because they do not have the personnel at the grassroots level. Clearly they are going to put various GOTV plans in place, however without local personnel, they can only do so much. Therefore, for the NDP, it will come down to how motivated the voters are to get out and actually show up at the polling station.
Ekos also has a tendency to poll low numbers for the Conservatives. They published 34% in 2008 as well, and the Conservatives ended up coming in at 37. If the Conservatives are adjusted up by 3% with each of the other three parties dropped down by just 1%, we see this:
I am still not convinced that the NDP will take 60-ish seats in Quebec, especially outside of Montreal where the population density is higher. I think the NDP will take about 13 seats in Montreal, and a few seats outside of there, possibly as many as 10. That puts the NDP at taking 23 seats in Quebec, and, assuming the numbers hold elsewhere, at 76. The NDP non-pickups in Quebec will be someone else’s gain, of course. The Bloc overwhelmingly the source of the NDP votes, so we have to speculate a little bit on what is going to happen with the Bloc’s GOTV campaign. It is quite possible that the Bloc actually ends up inadvertently doing the NDP GOTV work for them, as the NDP surge happened fairly late in the campaign. Who knows? Assuming the Bloc gets out Bloc vote only, and assuming that the NDP is not able to get out their vote as well, this puts a very large number of Quebec seats into play. If the NDP takes 23, the split could just happen such that the Conservatives hold on to their existing Quebec seats, and maybe pick up a couple of extras, with the Liberals losing a chunk of Quebec seats.
My prediction for Quebec: Bloc: 30, NDP: 23, Liberal: 10, CPC 12
I have just found an error in my formula for calculating the number of seats at the low end of a poll’s margin of error. A really subtle error, too, which is why I missed it before today.
I had a closing parenthesis out of place by one term in a formula, which, for the NDP, threw absolutely everything on the low end off.
So I’m going to re-post a selection of corrected predictions for every poll since April 24.
The first number is the seat count predicted based upon the published results of the poll. The numbers in parentheses are the two extremes, based on the poll’s published margin of error.
As you can probably guess, I’m not very happy about finding an error in my formula at this late point in the campaign, however I think it’s better to disclose it and correct my predictions.
After picking up my pass, I wandered into the convention hall, and made a beeline for the autograph booths. There was one person I wanted to meet — 
