Author: Stephen Taylor

It’s true, 44 American and Canadian agencies have jurisdiction over the border that separates the two countries and it comes at quite a cost. The staggering bureaucracy adds significant cost to the billion dollars worth of goods that crosses the border each and every day.

For example, the average price of a car has $800 of extra cost figured-in because of extra wait-times (up to 300% more processing time per truck-shipment since 2001).

With one in four jobs in Canada directly or indirectly existing to service the auto industry, reducing costs while maximizing security at the border should be one of the top issues on the national Canadian agenda. The North American auto-industry is so integrated that the parts in the vehicle that you drive have likely crossed the border seven times during production.

Perhaps the federal government should look into further integration and harmonization of certain agencies to allow more efficient communications and data transfer to facilitate the transfer of goods while maintaining tight security at our border.

h/t: G&M, CITA

I think that we should start a pool on when doll-stompin’ Carolyn Parrish will be accepted back into the Liberal Party. She needs the Liberal brand to get re-elected, yet Paul Martin doesn’t particularly need her as she still votes Liberal party-line anyways. Depending on the polls, Martin could need her Mississauga seat to maintain minority status. So, we could see Parrish back in caucus soon enough.

However, the following comments do not particularly help her cause especially as the Liberal government tries to at least appear as if it is going to address terrorism.

Concerning General Rick Hillier’s comments that terrorists are “scumbags” and that the job of the Canadian Forces is to “kill people”, Parrish called Hiller a “dangerous … testosterone-filled general”

I don’t know about you, but I am particularly pleased that the General of our Canadian Armed Forces has the testicular fortitude to face terrorism head-on.

Parrish can stomp on dolls for all I care, but when she stomps on our military for expressing their desire to fulfill their mandate, I imagine that I’m not alone among Canadians who would rather see Parrish relegated to the Parliamentary sandbox.

Today I was tinkering with the Blogging Tories code and thought I’d try to make a WAP-enabled Blogging Tories website. What is WAP you might say? WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol and it allows cellphones and PDAs to access online content. Most websites use the prefix wap to denote a wireless website (such as wap.tribute.ca for Canadian movie listings).

Instead, I integrated some code that allows the end-user to merely type in “bloggingtories.ca” into their cell phone browser and the website will detect whether or not the browser is on a computer or on a cell phone.

So, whether or not you’re using Firefox, Internet Explorer, or your internet enabled cellphone, point your browser to “http://bloggingtories.ca” and get the latest content from the Canadian conservative blogosphere!

It’s still in “beta”, so let me know how it works for you in the comments.