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wongrs

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Posts posted by wongrs

  1. the majority of coffee on the planet comes from either latin america or africa. the french don't grow their own beans; they probably just roast and/or brew it slightly different. places like colombia and bolivia (which have undergone economic structural adjustment programs that tend to flood the market with coffee beans and lower prices btw but that's probably a discussion for another day).

     

    my perception is that there are long lines at tim horton's in the burbs. the tims in the downtown areas are usually overloaded with other smaller coffee shops or chains that sell better quality coffee beans. i would think it's the people that can't get out of their cars that go to tims in the burbs on their way to the hockey rink or on the way to fishing. tims market share seems to be larger in the burbs than in the downtown congested areas where people are on foot/transit. also there's the perception that tim's is a canadian icon even though they were sold some time ago. and then there's the sponsorship of minor hockey which gives people the warm and fuzzies. that's just my perception.

     

    i also think that people enjoy tims coffee because they like their double-doubles with super-fatty cream and lots of sugar. here's a hint, you can replicate your tims double-double with good quality cream at home.

  2. Thought some of you might be interested in watching the following documentary tonight on the CBC.

     

    http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/tarsands/

     

    I believe it will air at 7pm Mountain (9 Eastern).

     

    For all the market-liberating-conservatives out there there, I have been told that this particular show will NOT open with hippies sitting around a campfire smoking doobies singing kum-bay-ah. Who knows, you might even find it balanced as CAPP is listed as one of the external sources of information.

     

    For those without much knowledge of oil sands, it would be a good opportunity to learn what much of the royalty hype is about in Alberta since Stelmach took office.

     

    Unfortunately I'll be in transit when it airs.

  3. i'd also experiment by shortening up the hook shank length. having a shorter shank (with beadhead and weight) with a longer marabou tail makes for some sweet action with a jigging motion. the flies displayed look dang good though already.

     

    my 2 cents.

  4. Don.

     

    I strongly disagree here. The govt never has and never will do enough... there always very slow and only reactive, not pro-active. I myself grow tired of pressing gov't for changes WE CAN make.

     

    Hawg, this is an interesting comment you've made from 2 perspectives:

     

    The govt never has and never will do enough... there always very slow and only reactive, not pro-active.

     

    perspective 1: fiscal conservatives (whether they be liberal or PC striped) are the type that like to slash governments and put the services into the private sector. there is no way that you will ever see pro-active government in this area if we keep electing strictly fiscal conservatives. small governments do not have the capacity to be dealing with recreational fisheries. big ticket items include health care, education, police services, climate change, foreign policy. if you have small governments, who the hell is going to handle the lesser priority items like recreation? recreation is WAY down on the priority list for governments. for small fiscally conservative governments to deal with issues like this effectively, it needs to be profitable and dealt with effectively by the private sector (ie. handed over to private sector). this means that fisheries management falls into private hands that will charge users money for operations and maintenance. that's the only way it will get dealt with pro-actively. i don't believe that small governments can ever be pro-active enough. by nature, they have a smaller capacity to deal with these types of issues.

     

    edit: another mechanism of funding/public-service that governments can count on is philanthropy

     

    I myself grow tired of pressing gov't for changes WE CAN make.

     

    perspective 2: like i said before, it has to be an election issue for governments to take action on things. governments are slow by nature. they react to public demand. public demand follows those 'activists' that lead the charge (in this case it is hardcore conservationists). remember, fly fishers are a subset of fishers are a subset of nature enthusiasts which are a subset of total population. with respect to the rest of the population, we are tiny or a 'special-interest-group'.

     

    governments lag public demand who lag activists.

     

    if we believe that this is a serious issue then we need to be raising it louder and more often to sway public demand which will sway governments.

     

     

     

    comments? it appears to me that this topic is dead anyhow.

  5. Politicians are self interested and will react to whatever voters tell them. If more voters tell them that they care about fisheries and conservation, then they will alter their platforms to reflect this. They want to be re-elected. Take for example the 180 the federal conservatives have done on climate change. Before the "science wasn't conclusive" but now they're willing to spend 'all these billions of dollars of my hard-earned taxpayer money' on building carbon storage pipelines and creating industrial/commercial/residential incentives. Even the Alberta conservatives are addressing climate change (at least superficially). Why? Because it's what the voters want and the ministers want to stay in power.

     

    If we really wanted to see action on fisheries conservation, we'd need to work on a number of fronts: volunteer action (like our Bow River Cleanup), non-profit groups (like Trout Unlimited or Nature Conservancy of Canada) and at the political level. For the latter, we'd need to gather support from as many as we could and demonstrate to the candidates that this is an election issue. Perhaps with a petition of some sort and try to meet with candidates to 'lobby' them. It is rare that a single-pronged approach will be effective. The really difficult part is that recreational fisheries will always take a back seat to climate change, health care and education as the electorate largely doesn't care about the topic.

     

    But as stated by Don, there doesn't appear to be much interest in fisheries conservation even on a fly fishing forum (at least indicated by hit count).

  6. yes, you should bargain with them if you don't feel that's a fair price. after all, you pay into insurance for exactly this purpose. don't be bashful to come back with a higher number of what you think you deserve.

     

    i would bring them the list of equivalent vehicles and show them what you can get in your current market (immediate geographical area). then explain to them that you vehicle was kept in better/worse/equivalent shape as those in the list. i'd make a list for calgary, alberta, and maybe canada listing low, high, median, and mean prices for each geographical area. i'd also cite these if they are publicly available data. i'd use kijiji, craiglist but also things like the auto trader and that lemon-aid book.

     

    another good idea is to collect all the work you've done on the car recently (ie. new tires, replace timing belt or whatever). if that work is relatively new, it'll give you some more suport and should put you in a better bargaining position. sum this up in terms $$$ spent and increase in value of your car.

     

    doesn't hurt to try right? but you need evidence to support your position. that's my 2 cents.

  7. here's two more theories (i haven't read the urinal cake theory just yet):

     

    theory 1 - fish eat nymphs even though they may be attached to things in the drift (algae, leaves, tree bark etc). they eat the whole thing and expel the debris. they might be thinking they can expel the debris the nymph is attached to.

     

    theory 2 - if your nymphs are on bottom and the fish is not, then the fish is looking down at the nymph. the hook may be hiding underneath the body of the nymph if the nymph is in the flow as it is on your vise. naturally this is less of a factor for stillwater.

  8. "what purpose would a regression analysis serve on this poll?"

     

    Absolutely none ... just like the apple pie chart. RA not suited to discrete data like these ... it just sounds so cool. ;)

     

    A silly pole needs a silly result.

     

    And even after all of those '8 minutes' ... winter has still not arrived.

     

    exactly what i was thinking. good to know. i was about to post a 10,000 word essay on basic statistics and modeling work in response to the argument that all statistics/modeling are bunk. no need now...disaster averted.

     

    nice pic too btw. i wasn't really around for this infamous jetboat thread or whatever. great pic!

  9. After careful analysis--better analysis than anything we've seen from IPCC--the results of the "fave threads" poll are in and considered accurate 19 times out of twenty, although many "don't know and don't care."

     

    However, since many FFC readers are mathematically challenged (after tying flies for years most can only count by 2s) and would have trouble understanding complex regression analysis charts (or even apple pie charts), the elves here at Fudgin'-The-Numbers Research, have decided to present the synopsis graphically and feel this pretty much sums up the poll voting. :)

     

    maxwell.jpg

     

     

    what purpose would a regression analysis serve on this poll?

  10. Rich,

    I was pretty excited when I saw your name as most recent post. Thought to myself, "this oughta be fun, wongrs will come armed with logic, facts, and a leave the world in a better place than you found it attitude. More fireworks!!"

     

    Instead, I get a blatant appeal to the most base Canadian emotion, ie, your favorite hockey team. An unabashed effort to hijack the post.

     

    Spoilsport. :lol:

     

    Oh well, this thread has probably run its course anyway. Fun while it lasted.

     

     

    i actually despise the leafs. actually, it's leaf fans that really get to me. i just think it's hilarious to play the leafs card in alberta and see people's reactions. most people just ignore me, some try to change the subject and some get really defensive about it. this is the 3rd time i've mentioned the leafs in the last few weeks on FFC and there hasn't been a single reply. i can see that the FFC crowd is the ignoring type!

     

    what do you guys want to talk about now?

  11. About another hour passes by when 3-4 Muslim or Lebanese not to sure as to how one can tell the difference

     

    being muslim is a religion; lebanon is a country. if someone is speaking arabic (a language) then they can be from lots of places in the middle east. you can't tell where someone is from or their religious beliefs based on the way they talk or look.

     

    and i'm not sure that a 50 year old school teacher in the developing world is concentrating on getting 'rich'. she's probably there for other reasons. too bad about the teddy bear situation. hopefully her embassy will get her out of there.

  12. Wendel was great. He is the only thing about the Leafs I've ever had respect for. Maybe if he still played there would be some justification for having them on TV all the time. ;)

     

    you mean you don't like watching the leafs? i thought everybody in canada loved the leafs. aren't they 'canadas team'?

     

    go leafs go!

  13. looks like a pretty sweet fly to me. if it were me, i'd also cut down on the hackle wraps as you have more than enough floatation going on in the back half of the fly. it's just because i'm ultra-cheap too.

     

    still, that thing'll float like a battle ship! nice tie! change the colour underneath for an adult stone too!

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