Can I get US-style service in Canada?

Well, we’ve just about hit the end of unlimited cellular data plans for the best smart phones Stateside — a development spurred on by ever more data-hungry apps, and people who either use their connection as their only Internet source (tethering!) or spend all their time on Hulu.

Mind you, this now makes Canadian plans look not so terrible.

The big providers have revived their $30 offer for six gigs of data, if one signs up before September 30th. Given that, I think I can construct myself an American-style cell phone plan.

Viz.:

1. Start with Virgin Mobile‘s myPlan 25 — 100 anytime minutes with free evenings and weekends, plus voicemail, for $25.
2. Bring the starting point of evenings to 5 PM for $7.
3. Add free long distance to Canada and the United States for $30, because paying for long distance by the minute in this day and age is ridiculous. National or continental plans are where it’s at.
4. Finally, add 6GB of 3G data for $30.

So that gives me a solid data plan, and a phone that lets me call anywhere in North America for free after 5 PM and on the weekends, all for $92.

If I don’t like having so few afternoon minutes, I can tack on $10 to bring it to 350 anytime minutes. And if I want to cut the sticker price, I can drop the free long distance to the States for $10.

Add taxes and fees, and I’m just north of $100/month. Not great, but not terrible, either, if that’s my only phone.

***

So, just how far can I push 6GB of 3G data?

Well, when I’m on the road, I’m doing all right-wing radio, all the time. So say I’m driving east and I want to listen to Rush Limbaugh’s show, and I need to stream it via my iPhone to my car stereo. The Stitcher app demands about 20MB of data an hour to stream live radio or podcasts. If Rush is doing well, I can listen to him for hours. Say I do his 3 hours and one hour with Hannity — 80 megs there. Even if I did that all week, that just burns 400 MB. My talk radio addiction would take 1.6 GB of data a month out of my 6 GB allowance.

Realistically, I’d have to start streaming a Hulu equivalent to burn through my data, or downloading hi-def movies.

***

Tentative conclusion? I think I just may do this…

Abstract and real

Noticed this.

I’m noting this because a few weeks ago I saw a guy at the riots in Toronto who complained that the police barricades were a symbol representing a division between the protesters and the G-20 representatives.

And I thought, “Gee, no, actually it’s not a symbol of a division; it really is, in fact, a physical division.” Because, see, you’re rioting. (And not symbolically in riot, either.) You can tell it’s a real-world division because now you can’t get to the G-20 conference center and throw rock-metaphors through the window-symbols.

I think there is a type of person — well-represented in the “Political Class” and in progressive politics — that has learned, from college, that the Abstract is everything, that Real Smart People are always focused on the Abstract, on metaphors, on symbols.

I think there’s something in it. Rock-metaphors don’t shatter windows. Nor do fire metaphors burn police cars…

“Who goes ____?”

Fascinating old article here. [via The Anchoress]

Would I go Nazi? No, I don’t think I would.

I’d be the stubborn person who goes on saying what he thinks for longer than he should, and it’s a 50/50 shot as to whether I’d wise up in time to emigrate, or get it in the neck.

I can’t lie like that, even when it’s in my interest to. I keep on blurting out what I think.

That’s now started to lose me a friend or two, when I will not concede their points.

Withdraw from Korea!

Most of you, dear readers, may not know that I am half-Korean.

Ethnic ties have no pull on me, however — I think that South Korea is a nation of ingrates, and we should pull our forces out of there forthwith.

When Donald Rumsfeld visited Seoul in early 2003, he was greeted with anti-American protests, which were tacitly egged on by the government of the day.

Rummy being Rummy, — and these were the days when he was flying high — he suggested that if the American presence was so unwelcome to the general populace, he could withdraw American land forces during the next base reorganization and limit the US presence in the region to the provision of naval and air support.

Not surprisingly, Seoul just about had a heart attack at the prospect and begged Rumsfeld to reconsider.

He did.

***

Today, I looked around to see what soundings of South Korean public opinion there are, and came across the two posts by Western expats there — this one from a Canadian in April, and this one from an American yesterday.

Well, you’ve convinced me, gents.

Time to withdraw the evil American empire from the Korean peninsula — the forces of war that are preventing the South from coming to a sensible understanding with their peace-loving cousins in the North.

Cold War’s over — let’s bring our boys home. Oh, and we’ll take that terrible statue of MacArthur from Inchon, too.

Political change

A reminder — it was Rick Santelli’s spur of the moment rant on CNBC that catalyzed (and named) the Tea Party movement:

[YouTube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-Jw-5Kx8k"]

Elaboration from Michael Barone.

What a difference a year makes!

No, my lord!

Conrad Black wants to resume his Canadian citizenship.

David Frum wants the federal cabinet to wave it through.

What say you?

I say nay. Black made a considered decision while of sound mind to renounce his Canadian birthright.

That is his right.

His wife can sponsor him for permanent residency. Should he pass the security and medical checks, after a year of lawful residence, he can apply to be renaturalized — a process called “resumption of citizenship”. After taking the oath to the Queen, he would be a Canadian again.

All of this depends on his convictions being quashed. Should the obstruction of justice charge stand, presumably Black would be inadmissible for PR status. If that should happen, he can be a sometime resident on a tourist visa, like the Snowbirds.

Black is a great man and an eminent Canadian, yes. But he is also, by his own actions, not a citizen. Actions have consequences.

I see no reason to exempt Lord Black from the laws the rest of us have to follow. That mindset, you will remember, is what got him into trouble in the first place. (Unfair trouble? Yes. But wholly avoidable trouble, all the same…)

Update: Apparently he’s a PR already.

All right. So once he lives here for a year, he can apply to resume his citizenship. If he passes the character test. (Silly man. Should have done that before his legal troubles came up.)

An aside — here, as with so much else, Frum picks the wrong side. Is it unfair to say he always sides with the elite and/or powerful? (Bush, Obama, Black…)

“Black history is American history”

Morgan Freeman shows a lot more sense than most politicians:

[YouTube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeixtYS-P3s"]

Happens to be true, too. Black history is American history.

Now, contrary to what a lot of other conservatives have been saying, I think the Obama presidency has been good for race relations.

People are saying a lot of things they’ve wanted to say, many narratives are being disproven by real life experience, and there are going to be a lot more non-white elected officials who get there with white votes.

The stuff that I don’t like — which covers pretty much everything this president and his administration has actually said on the issue — was going to have to be worked through anyway. So I figure, what the heck. People, as an army major friend of mine said about his tour in Iraq, “had a lot of fight they needed to get out of them”.

And that’s okay.

When we get to the other side, sign me up with Morgan Freeman.

“Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man. And I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace, you know me as Morgan Freeman…”

I also like how he talks to Wallace like he (Wallace) is a particularly thick second-grader.

Why there’s an opening for Sun TV

Let’s take the Globe and Mail as a proxy for media establishment thinking.

Globe’s take: Tories take aim at employment equity

My take: Tories support classical liberal principle that one should be considered for jobs irrespective of race.

Globe’s take: Placating the Tory faithful

My take: Tories stand up for equality before the law. And, incidentally, for women’s rights.

Sun’s take: Liberals, NDP support race-based hiring policies

The Sun is meaner than I am.

Anyway, I bet I could get a good solid sixty to seventy percent of Canadians to stand with me on these points.

And that’s why there is a niche — nay, a need — for Sun TV.

One last bit on the JournoList revelations

Today’s Ricochet podcast (well, July 22nd) makes a point — just how much of the narrative about the political right is actually progressive projection.

Anger? Check. Death wishes for adversaries? Check. Conspiring to kill stories? Check. Race-baiting? Check.

It’s truly amazing.

On the run?

Three Senate Democrats — Bayh, Conrad, Nelson — have come out in favour of extending the Bush tax cuts.

Interesting. Could we get to a Senate that would vote for extending them in 2011?