I read an article today about the Sens, and that the team went over the .500 mark, which to me, means they've won more games than they've lost. Others interpret it as the team having taken more than 50% of the points available to them. I don't agree with this interpretation, because in the old NHL, there were only twice as many points available as games played. In a season of 30 teams playing 82 games, this would translate to 2460 points. Today, there is no specific ceiling to the number of points teams can get. But, it is more than 2460. It could be as high as 3690; but that would require EVERY game going to at least overtime, if not shoot-outs.
Anyhow, in the current system, the Senators have 31 wins, 30 losses, and 10 overtime/shoot-out losses. So they've won 31 games, and lost 40 games. While they have 72 points out of 142 points, they have lost nine more games than they've won.
On top of that, they wouldn't have necessarily won 31 games in the old system. Three of those wins are shoot-out wins, and they have five shoot-out losses to date (this data will change as the last 11 games are completed).
Those games, under the old system, would've been ties. Overtime losses would have fit into the loss category - the Sens have lost five overtime games prior to the shout-out, so those would've fit into the old "loss" category.
So, under the old system, they'd have 28 wins, 35 losses and 8 ties - 7 games below .500. They would've had 64 points, 8 points fewer than they have now.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Sweden and Sustainability
Hey,
This was an email I put together, but this is probably a better place to put it.
So, I've been living in Sweden for almost 7 months now. I've been able to see some of the incredible work going on in leading Sweden towards sustainability.
I live in Karlskrona, which is a kind of unremarkable town on the road towards sustainability, other than having the first university in Sweden to declare that it would be climate neutral. Karlskrona does has a biomass-fired district heating plant, and the house I live in on an island (Långö, which translates to Long Island) half way between school and downtown has a ground-source heat pump, because the district heating network's pipes are just being laid down here now. Karlskrona also has some pretty good density in the town centre. However, it is fairly sprawled and has a power centre, not unlike those of Canadian cities. On the other hand, it has good public transport and bicycle paths to get there.
Karlskrona is 90 km south of Kalmar and 115 km southeast of Växjö. These two cities are doing much better on their road to sustainability.
I completed a project on looking at how Växjö, which has the slogan "The Greenest City in Europe" (originally given to it by The Independent in August 2007, could make future developments as sustainable as possible. Växjö is a pseudo-success story. They set a target to reduce fossil carbon emissions by 50% from 1993 levels by 2010, and have made a 32% reduction so far (as of 2007), mostly through shifting their combined heat and power plant from oil to biomass (largely locally-sourced wood residues, given its location in Småland, which is one of the leading lumber regions in Sweden). However, transportation emissions remain intractable, and have gone up 15% over the 15 year period.
Interestingly, Kalmar has started to steal some of the thunder from Växjö. The Smålandsposten, which is the regional newspaper for the area covering both Kalmar and Växjö, has been criticizing Växjö Kommun (somewhat unjustly) for not buying new biodiesel buses and instead getting older ones from Kalmar. However, Växjö plans on using biogas from their wastewater treatment in new buses starting in 2010.
It is interesting to note how Swedes have very similar conditions to Canadians and yet are so much further ahead. I still haven't nailed down exactly what it is, but there is no doubt culture plays a large part in it. How often have we heard Swedish companies say that they're moving towards sustainability because "it's the right thing to do"? More than once...
There is one thing, however, that really changes things. For all taxes collected up to the 30% tax bracket, 2/3 are directed straight to the municipalities. The other 1/3 goes to the county. Beyond that, the national government gets to collect taxes, e.g. the exorbitant 25% sales taxes on goods as well as gambling and alcohol revenues, and carbon taxes which will raise about SEK28 billion (CDN$4.5 billion) in Sweden this year, at about $150/tonne (I can't find the actual rate by searching through the Swedish government website in either Swedish or English, since carbon taxes and energy taxes are lumped together).
That may explain why Swedes are more willing to pay taxes - because they see the benefit at the local level. To me, this is a much better system than the property tax system in Canada (i.e. municipalities can only collect from transfers and property taxes). I don't pretend to have a strong grip on tax systems, and am welcome to comments on what I've written here.
This was an email I put together, but this is probably a better place to put it.
So, I've been living in Sweden for almost 7 months now. I've been able to see some of the incredible work going on in leading Sweden towards sustainability.
I live in Karlskrona, which is a kind of unremarkable town on the road towards sustainability, other than having the first university in Sweden to declare that it would be climate neutral. Karlskrona does has a biomass-fired district heating plant, and the house I live in on an island (Långö, which translates to Long Island) half way between school and downtown has a ground-source heat pump, because the district heating network's pipes are just being laid down here now. Karlskrona also has some pretty good density in the town centre. However, it is fairly sprawled and has a power centre, not unlike those of Canadian cities. On the other hand, it has good public transport and bicycle paths to get there.
Karlskrona is 90 km south of Kalmar and 115 km southeast of Växjö. These two cities are doing much better on their road to sustainability.
I completed a project on looking at how Växjö, which has the slogan "The Greenest City in Europe" (originally given to it by The Independent in August 2007, could make future developments as sustainable as possible. Växjö is a pseudo-success story. They set a target to reduce fossil carbon emissions by 50% from 1993 levels by 2010, and have made a 32% reduction so far (as of 2007), mostly through shifting their combined heat and power plant from oil to biomass (largely locally-sourced wood residues, given its location in Småland, which is one of the leading lumber regions in Sweden). However, transportation emissions remain intractable, and have gone up 15% over the 15 year period.
Interestingly, Kalmar has started to steal some of the thunder from Växjö. The Smålandsposten, which is the regional newspaper for the area covering both Kalmar and Växjö, has been criticizing Växjö Kommun (somewhat unjustly) for not buying new biodiesel buses and instead getting older ones from Kalmar. However, Växjö plans on using biogas from their wastewater treatment in new buses starting in 2010.
It is interesting to note how Swedes have very similar conditions to Canadians and yet are so much further ahead. I still haven't nailed down exactly what it is, but there is no doubt culture plays a large part in it. How often have we heard Swedish companies say that they're moving towards sustainability because "it's the right thing to do"? More than once...
There is one thing, however, that really changes things. For all taxes collected up to the 30% tax bracket, 2/3 are directed straight to the municipalities. The other 1/3 goes to the county. Beyond that, the national government gets to collect taxes, e.g. the exorbitant 25% sales taxes on goods as well as gambling and alcohol revenues, and carbon taxes which will raise about SEK28 billion (CDN$4.5 billion) in Sweden this year, at about $150/tonne (I can't find the actual rate by searching through the Swedish government website in either Swedish or English, since carbon taxes and energy taxes are lumped together).
That may explain why Swedes are more willing to pay taxes - because they see the benefit at the local level. To me, this is a much better system than the property tax system in Canada (i.e. municipalities can only collect from transfers and property taxes). I don't pretend to have a strong grip on tax systems, and am welcome to comments on what I've written here.
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