Turn it down... or else

Here are the reasons for which the police in Sarasota, Florida can impound your vehicle:

According to the City Code, the Sarasota Police Department has the authority to impound a motor vehicle in the following circumstances: a) the vehicle is being used to facilitate prostitution; b) the vehicle is being used to facilitate drug related crimes; c) the driver left the scene of an accident; d) a person is driving with knowledge his/her license is suspended or revoked; e) motor vehicle noise -- including loud stereos.

Internet access at school

Maybe an odd topic for the middle of the summer, but I'm behind in putting this one online.

Back at the end of June, I did a short segment on the local CBC afternoon show with host Carmen Klassen.

The subject was the way the Halifax Regional School Board filters access to the Internet. They use software from a company called Netsweeper to control access to web content that may be offensive or that contravenes board policy.

The problem? The same filters apply to everyone, from 6-year-olds to staff.

The most shocking thing I found in doing this piece is just how reticent -- or maybe even frightened -- school staff are to say anything critical. I came across several teachers who were frustrated with the system, but who wouldn't agree to speak in public about it. The one who did told me she would probably get in trouble. 

Meanwhile, the principals at two local high schools outright refused me access to their premises, even to interview students or to test out the system in their computer lab.

I have to give credit to Gerard Costard, the man who manages the system for the board. He'd been excoriated in two previous pieces on the subject by writer Bruce Wark, but he was still friendly and happy to give me an interview. He even set up a laptop in his office with the filters active so I could try out the system.

You can listen to the segment here.

Flashpoint

The debut episode of Canadian-produced SWAT team dram Flashpoint was the top-rated show on American TV last Friday night.

You can read part of my feature article on the show's writers here.

Nonsensical pricing policy

If I'm online, and I want to see the image of a cheque that has cleared on my account, I have to pay $1.50 for the privilege. Because I'm bad at writing down what cheques I've written to whom, I often wind up staring at the screen and thinking something like, "$203.18? For what?"

If I were to switch to paperless accounting, it would be free to view the cheque. But I don't want to go paperless. It doesn't save paper. It just means I have to remember to print my own statements and file them with my financial statements. Paperless means the bank saves on paper.

So what do I do if I'm a cheapskate and don't want to pay the $1.50? I call the bank. A friendly teller (this is Nova Scotia, remember) will then take time she could be spending serving a customer in the branch to look it up for me, and tell me -- free of charge -- to whom the cheque was made out.

I use far more of the bank's resources, and the bank lets me do it for free. Does this make any sense?

Why doesn't God just create more oil?

Where to start with this?

Rocky Twyman has a radical solution for surging gasoline prices: prayer.

Twyman - a community organizer, church choir director and public relations consultant from the Washington, D.C., suburbs - staged a pray-in at a San Francisco Chevron station on Friday, asking God for cheaper gas. He did the same thing in the nation's Capitol on Wednesday, with volunteers from a soup kitchen joining in. Today he will lead members of an Oakland church in prayer.

Yes, it's come to that.

"God is the only one we can turn to at this point," said Twyman, 59. "Our leaders don't seem to be able to do anything about it. The prices keep soaring and soaring."