Missile defense

What is Canada's plan of defense on missile defense? I am assuming that we will all be getting our nuclear protective umbrella's from the government.

We look like fools. This link shows correspondence from Canadian Defense Minister to Secretary Rumsfeld and his reply. It looks from this that we initiated contact on this issue.

RIP NHL 2004-05

Well, there has finally been a cancellation of the NHL season. The charade of "negotiation" has gone on long enough. The NHLPA should be ashamed of themselves. If they were never going to accept a salary cap they should not have offered to accept one now.

I think it is time to start over. Start with replacement players. The NHL players are doing the same to minor leaguers right now. I think that the NHLer's who are playing in Europe and in the US minors are stripping the NHL of some of their power. However, their actions also must hurt the NHLPA as they are playing for less money than their NHL contracts. So if money were so important, why are they playing for less money? When will players stop holding out to renegotiate their contract? When will a player take a stand that they were overpaid and offer to pay back some of their salaries after a poor year.

Not that the owners and NHL are not without fault. There is blame enough to go round. If the NHL never recovers, the NHL is as responsible as the players. When the salary cap comes in will ticket prices drop?

What are the implications of the player and the team? What percentage of jerseys for a team sell because of the players who play today versus the history of the team overall? Who should get that revenue?

The most frustrating part of this all is that both sides are now saying that they wil start from square one ... any concessions that they have made are off the table. Doesn't sound too much like either side is negotiating in good faith. Brian Burke on TSN's Sport Center made a good point ... if the numbers that the league is using are not what the players think are actual figures, then a joint audit review process should be undertaken with players reps and team reps. Put those questions away. Answer them. Move forward. Agree on a contract. Grow up.

I am a die hard hockey fan ... I would support the NHL putting teams composed of 40 year old rec hockey players and a ticket price of $10. Honestly, the pursuit of the cup is what we want to see, the quality of the play has already dropped, so at least we would be watching dreams being fulfilled.

No solution should be thrown out ... except the status quo.

Iowa (The Forward Thinking State)

On 650 Talk Radio, Murray Wood spoke to a news director from a radio station in Iowa (one that we do business with at work) regarding a proposal to offer no income tax on income on people under 30 years of age. I have thought that this would be a great idea for several years.

There are three benefits to doing that in any province/state/nation. First, these people turn their income around. They need their first car, their first home, and other pocessions. This will generate more economic activity.

The second element is that the draw will be there to keep the young people here and to act as a brain drain to the surrounding areas.

The third element is that the young people coming out of college and tech schools are faced with a high debt load. The lower taxes can advance the paying off of those loans which will free them up for their 30's. Many people with degrees do not pay off their student loans until they are in their 30's so any help that way will again act as an economic catalyst.

It may be needed to afford a tax break to companies to relocate to Saskatchewan and generate jobs for young people.

Cool

I saw an ad for this on the top of my blog (the ad was supplied by google). It was for a synthetic ice surface that can be installed indoors or outdoors. The link is here.

I may need to look into this when I get some more money.

Excitement

As anyone with children can attest, a birthday is a huge deal. My son's 6th birthday falls on Thursday this week. He has been asking about what we will do that day. I told him that he will go to daycare and his mom and I will go to our work. "What about after that?" he asked.

I told him we will go home and have supper. To say that he was not entirely enthused is like saying that Noah build a boat for scattered rain showers. I guess that we will have to do something special for him that day to celebrate for him. I love his enthusiasm for getting older.

Of course that will not last forever. I know that while I still like having the party and the cake for my birthday, the reminder that I am aging is not entirely welcome.

Happy in the Cold

As a Saskatchewan guy who enjoys hockey, has two kids and is building a rink in the back yard, I am in the minority of people who are happy with the change in the weather this weekend. I should be able to be skating on the rink by the end of the weekend. As I am writing this the water is on, the rink is flooding and due to the cold weather, the water is freezing soon after it hits the ice. I was worried that the work that I had done on the rink, the midnight floodings, and the hopes that I had for skating in the back yard would be lost with the warm weather. My son's birthday party is next weekend, and I think that there will be some skating going on for the party.

I hope it warms up ... at the end of March!