WIFS - A Newly Identified Condition

Well-Informed Futility Syndrome.

This is a condition that can exist in people who are well informed about an issue but are, or at least feel, powerless to do anything about it. One example might be how one might feel about climate change.

When You Don't Like (or Don't Know) History....

One of the blogs I occasionally follow is DeSmogBlog. It's mostly deals with climate change matters, but it often strays into politics because that's where so much of the climate change thing is these days, especially since certain groups aren't happy with what the science is saying.

One of their more recent posts was (once again) about Fox News viewers and how studies show that they "...are the most misinformed about an array of factual - but politicized - issues."

The article goes on to mention that a Republican presidential hopeful (Michele Bachmann) was caught asserting that John Quincy Adams (the 6th American president) was one of the "Founding Fathers" of the newly emerging USA. This story wouldn't mean much to anyone outside the US, but JQA was only a child in 1776. OK, so just a little mistake. Easy to do. Very few Canadians could name Canada's first Prime Minister, after all. However, she refused to admit her mistake, and - here's the real issue - attempts were made to edit Wikipedia to prove that she was right.

The post concludes that we have "saturation levels" of misinformation these days and that Fox news and the rest of the political right are responsible for much of it. Reminds me of the noise some weeks ago where some Republicans seemed unable to figure out where Obama was born. Another presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, was partly behind that one. It's especially scary because these idiots are aiming to lead the most powerful country in the world.

We're not immune to this kind of nonsense here in Canada, it's just not as visible. Given the current Government's admiration of all things American, expect to see more of it. Spout your ideology and then rewrite the facts to suit your assertions.

It's About the Water, Stupid

OK..so not such an original quote.... After all, didn't it appear in a Presidential Debate in the USA some years ago, in almost those words?

When most people think about BC, I don't imagine that controversies about water come to mind right away. BC likely stimulates images of large lakes, rivers, waterfalls.... Lots of water. Yet the interesting truth is that issues about water are extremely common and divisive, right across the province.

Our little community (subdivision, actually), owns and operates it's own water system for about 25 residences. Volunteers from the community maintain the system. Although new drinking water regulations are really another issue, it's worth pointing out that our system is advanced enough that we actually meet those new regulations, and have done for several years now.

About 2+ years ago, we embarked on a project to install water meters at every residential connection. There were several objectives, but the most important, I suppose, was to move to a system where every water user pays for the water they use. The flat rate system that the water meters helped replace simply forces people with lower water use to subsidize homes with higher water use. You want a dumb example? Imagine being able to use as much electricity as you wanted for, let's say, $200/year. Flat rate. No incentive to be careful with how much electricity you used. One anticipated result of this system is that electricity use would increase and the power utility would have to increase capacity. This increased capacity would have to be paid for by an increase in rates. So, regardless of how careful you were with YOUR power use, you'd be subsidizing the power use of anyone not being as careful as yourself.

The good news is that most of the residents in our subdivision "get it". They understand that water is a utility and that, like any other utility, you should pay for what you use. The bad news is that we are STILL getting (some) arguments advocating going back to the old flat rate system. I've ranted about this in an earlier post and I'm still frustrated by the complete lack of logic and muddle-headed thinking that seems to be at the back of these tired old arguments. I guess that still, even in this day and age, some people still don't see clean, safe drinking water as a valuable resource that should cost something.