Le registre des armes à feu

Denis Côté, le président de la fédération des policiers municipaux du Québec, a signé une lettre dans le journal La Presse exhortant le gouvernement Harper de ne pas couper dans le registre des armes à feu. Selon lui, il s'agit d'un outil important pour permettre aux policiers de résoudre leurs enquêtes de façon sécuritaire.

Je comprends que le registre soit agaçant pour les chasseurs utilisant leurs armes de façon légale. Je comprends aussi que les criminels endurcis ne s'en font pas trop et n'enregistrent pas leurs armes. Par contre, il s'agit d'une barrière supplémentaire à l'achat d'une arme et cela a un effet sur les criminels moins endurcis, les détournant de la possession d'un item qui pourrait blesser des citoyens.

De plus, comme l'écrit M. Côté, les crimes passionnels commis avec des armes ont été réduits drastiquement depuis l'arrivée du registre en 1991. Il est beaucoup plus facile de tuer une personne avec une arme à feu qu'avec une arme blanche. Ce que cela signifie que la présence d'une arme à feu dans une maison augmente les risques d'un accident grave.

Re-Blogging Friday: Bits about the economy, education and design

• Alright, I don't quite remember how I got to this post but judging from the favicon and URL it seems to be from a guy called "Rick" wanting to get elected for the federal Conservative party: http://voterick.com/wordpress/?p=161. I checked this out because I had the post where I was talking about the way the politicians affect the economy and the discussion in the comments went to how much knowledge of economics our politicians have. Rick's blog post is about the other side of this, the voters' ability to understand economic policies. I must say that I do not think that the voters are that clueless about their economy (really, most people know what a deficit is!) but I do agree that with better knowledge we can make better decisions.
  
• Education Futures and Education 2.0 are blogs that really fascinate me. Education Futures has this tremendous article on what they call "Education 3.0". It is actually part of a series of posts so I suggest you also check out their homepage.
  
• Education 2.0 (@fmeichel's blog) has a post about the value of design and beauty within the economy. I had the idea that, from an architectural perspective, beauty could be seen as an intrinsic value to a project but they make the point that it also has monetary value as well, which makes sense.
  
• From another singularity website, KurzweilAI.net, we have the prediction that universities will become irrelevant in the next 20 years. Their point comes from the fact that the information will be readily available online. I think that they are missing the fact that going to college is as much a social endeavor (networking, bonding activities) as it is an academic one.
  
• Not a blog, but here is a link to the twitter search page for "Stephen Hawking". If you didn't know, he was rushed to a hospital earlier this week due to a chest infection but is expected to make a full recovery. I wish him well.

The end of AIDS

We were having a discussion at l'Auberge that went from "Pharmaceuticals are evil" ¹ to talking about AIDS. This conversation was continued later on through twitter. The point was that current AIDS therapy is good enough so that people can survive for a long time and prevent transmission to a certain degree. So, why is this still a problem?

My first thought was cost, but I then thought that any nominal cost would be worth it pretty quickly so, I went and took a closer look at it. The lowest CURRENT price per patient per year would be $300. Of course, in the short term, this would increase with the increased demand but lower once supply catches up. I then looked to see how many people would need AIDS treatment. According to avert.org, there were 32.8 million people with HIV in 2007. Assuming that all of them develop AIDS eventually (which isn't that likely but is a worst case scenario), that would mean the initial cost of treating those people would be 9.9 billion dollars per year.

This is not an astronomical number. This is something that would be doable for many one countries and certainly this shouldn't be a problem for any of the trade blocks, providing that there is the political will. The problem AIDS victims have is that they are not citizens of the countries that could afford such a program. While I'm sure that a most people here in Canada or in other developed countries do not wish ill for the poor people of the world, they do not care enough to sacrifice their well beings in order to save others. Which of us would be willing to send $1000 every year for the next 50 years to end the pandemic? Yes, that seems like a lot of money, but with that kind of money it would only take 10 million people, not much if you consider the whole western developed world, to eradicate the HIV (or at least AIDS) over two generations.

 

¹ I might be biased, but pharmaceuticals are not evil. I think most people misunderstand how much work goes into making the pill they take.

Pour redresser l’Action Démocratique du Québec

This is my first post in French. I figure that I'll start doing more regularly from now on (once a week or maybe every two weeks). For those of you who don't read French I can direct you to Hyperwords, a Firefox¹ add-on that lets you translate right on the page.

Pour ceux qui ne le savent pas, j'ai été le candidat de l'ADQ en 2007 dans Sainte-Marie-St-Jacques. Vu la course à la chefferie, je voulais m'exprimer sur quelques points que j'aimerais voir appliqués dans les prochaines années et qui, selon moi aideraient le parti.

Premièrement, un parti d'intégrité se doit d'être proche de ses membres. J'aimerais pouvoir donner à tous les membres la possibilité de s'exprimer sur les aspirations du parti. Si nous voulons adéquatement représenter la démocratie au 21eme siècle, nous nous devons d'utiliser tous les moyens à notre disposition pour permettre au plus de gens possible de participer à la vie du partie. Nous devons nous distancer des vieux partis qui font les yeux doux aux élites sans se préoccuper de la masse. 

Deuxièmement, nous devons nous tourner vers l'avenir. En utilisant les connaissances et la créativité de nos membres, nous pouvons arriver avec des idées qui frapperont l'imaginaire des Québécois et nous aiguiller vers un brillant futur. Je peux paraître idéaliste en ces temps économiquement difficiles mais la récession se terminera éventuellement. C'est maintenant que nous devons nous préparer à la reprise et c'est maintenant que nous devons nous affirmer en leaders.

Troisièmement, nous devons développer une vision cohérente de notre partie. Si nous voulons être perçus en tant que leaders, nous avons besoin d'une vision claire que tous les Québécois pourront embrasser. Nous devons appuyer les événements et les personnes qui appuient cette vision même si cela ne semble pas nous donner d'avantage politique. Il ne faut pas que nous ayons peur de nous lever pour dire que nous croyons en notre vision pour le Québec. Les citoyens verront ainsi que, même si nous n'avons jamais dirigé, nous avons un but, un plan et qu'ils peuvent compter sur nous.

Nous avons l'opportunité de nous redéfinir en tant que parti. Nous ne devons pas la gâcher.

¹ If you aren't using FF
click here or if you think that's a bit too involved, click here.

Re-Blogging Friday: Access to information makes us better students and better professors

I had started to reblog posts or stories from other websites. However, there is so much stuff going on that I feel that it would eventually drown out my normal posts (the same way I think my RTs are taking over my twitter updates). So, I've decided to post them all on the same day: Friday

• Earlier this week, I was talking about the fact that information was readily available to anyone who wanted it. In this vein, Youtube EDU brings information and discussions that were only available to students, professors or those affiliated to top universities right unto the computers of the masses. Here is Physorg.com's story (although, I think it first comes from AP): On the Net: College too expensive? Try YouTube
  
• Another post with a similar idea from Education Futures: Going Global and Purposive. The idea is that we must use the technology to our advantage. As an example, I took a Corporate Finance class last semester at McGill (great course by the way) and the professor was recording all lectures and posted them in two formats on the web. This meant that you could take the class whenever you wanted and enabled the professor to reach people that would not have the time to come to his lectures otherwise.

8% unemployment in Canada

Losing your job can be a traumatizing experience. Depending on your relationship with uncertainty, it can give you a tremendous amount of stress which leads to other health problems. If you think about it, though, getting laid off can be a great time to reorient your life. If you were laid off, chances are that the industry you were working in is in trouble. In this case, going back to school, or getting new training seems like a smart thing to do. As an example, the CSMO-ESAC has training programs that everyone can enter to gain theoretical and practical knowledge in certain fields. They are partnering with companies to offer those courses. The provincial government also takes punctual actions to relocate those hit by mass layoffs into more competitive sectors of the economy.

The point is that, as a society, you want to support the industries that have long term viability. However, as a government, you need to see to the needs of those who have fallen on hard times. The simplest way to do this in the employment area is to prevent layoff by subsidizing dying industries. Eventually, the only things that are keeping those industries viable on international markets are the government subsidies. But those subsidies are sending the wrong message to the markets: they are saying that the industry is a profitable one. After a while, investors and entrepreneurs start to increase but realize quickly that they too need subsidies to survive. In the end, the governments increases payments until it has no breathing room and has to cut spending, killing the whole industry. I fear that this is something that may happen to the forestry industry if it doesn't recycle itself.

All this to say that the government might want to institutionalize career switching formations as it would be like hedging your life choices. As unemployment rises they will have to deal with more and more people looking for these types of programs but as the recession ends, there might still be people within ineffective industries living precariously on the "governmental respirator" that could benefit from the programs.

Econductivism or transferring your effective skills

    I was raised by my parents, learned basic things in primary and secondary schools. I went to CEGEP then University where I gained technical knowledge. Normally, I would go on to practice my craft, gain experience possibly get promotions, get a pension plan, and retire at 60 (or 75?). Within this career, the only transfer of knowledge will have occurred when I trained more junior members, sharing the experience I will have amassed over the years.

    In our 21^st century society, everyone is bombarded with information they have no idea how to use. Whereas in the past we needed to give the information, now we only need to teach people how to use the information pertaining to a particular field to make them knowledgeable. Because of this, it would take little time for an accountant to teach the basics of his profession to anyone, given them information that can help them improve their daily lives. Of course, I'm not talking about the shady parts of GAAP here but of simpler concepts.

    We could create institutions dedicated to spreading non-specific knowledge: something useful, but not inherently technical, something that would not necessary make you a "professional" in the field. In my previous post, I was talking about volunteering and this could be that kind of organization. You know something, teach it to someone else. This will make another person happy, will also grow your reputation as an expert within your field and will be a fulfilling experience. I can see such organizations growing in the near future as more information is available, for cheaper.

    Besides, for l'Auberge, we are working on a budgeting and economic "course" for the homeless and previously homeless people. If anyone has any ideas, if you want your knowledge to reach and transfer to others, feel free to respond. After all that is what Economic Conductivism, or Econductivism is all about.

Volunteering at L’Auberge Communautaire du Sud-Ouest

Today I went to visit a shelter called L'Auberge Communautaire du Sud-Ouest. The shelter focuses on young homeless people, trying to help them go through life. The first thing is meeting their basic needs, such as food and… well, shelter. Afterwards the goal is to give them the tools they need to gain their independence, such as helping them find jobs or apartments.

I want to volunteer there because I think I can make a difference but there is also a selfish reason. Volunteering gives you satisfaction. As a species, we've evolved to feel that helping others is an essential part of our lives. Seeing that you made an positive impact in someone's life is empowering.

Volunteering is also an important part of our society. Together we can accomplish great things but to get the best of everyone's potential, we must help those who fell on hard times.

In the end, I simply urge anyone reading this to volunteer. You don't need to become Mother Theresa. You can do it simply, an hour a week, every two weeks, any kind of help is appreciated. Find a place that needs help and help them by doing something that will make you feel complete.