A couple videos

I will finish the report on our Napa trip soon and post it as well.

Space:1889

12 games into the CFL season

And you get even more CFL rankings!

A British Columbia Lions 4-1-1 (8-3-1)
The British Columbia Lions are just like old man river, they keep rolling along. I predicted doom and gloom for the Lions when they had to rely on Jarious Jackson to carry the load with the injuries to Pierce and Dickensen, but he has surprised everyone with his stellar play and the Lions have actually got a better record in the second third than the first! I see them as Grey Cup champions.

A- Winnipeg Blue Bombers 4-2 (7-4-1)
Winnipeg may have some struggles now, with Kevin Glenn shook up in the last couple of games. It will be interesting to see how the team adapts.

A- Calgary Stampeders 3-2-1 (6-5-1).
Their record in the last six is deceiving, Calgary lost the first game of the last 6 and the last game, in the middle they were 3-0-1. The turning point for them this third may well be the tie they had with BC, now a new turning point is the injury to Henry Burris, who is out for at least two weeks with a separated shoulder to his non throwing arm. Those two games are away to BC and home to the Riders, the two teams they are competing for the top spots in the West for. Akili Smith will be starting for Calgary in those two games and he needs to have a couple of good games to recover what so far is a poor first year.

B- Edmonton Eskimos 3-3 (5-6-1)
The Eskimos could pull off some sort of an upset by making the playoffs. They have been an up and down team this season and only got to 3-3 this third by beating Montreal twice in a row. Losses to Saskatchewan and two to Calgary did not help their playoff chances.

C+ Toronto Argonauts 3-3 (5-7)
Let's see, they have beaten Hamilton twice, and Winnipeg once for their three wins, and lost to the top team in the East and the top two in the West, beating Hamilton is not an achievement, not losing to them is. The team still looks weak but could make a run for 2nd place. They play Edmonton (twice), Montreal (twice) and Winnipeg and Saskatchewan once each, I can see another 3-3 or 2-4 third for them coming up.

C Montreal Alouettes 3-3 (6-6)
The Alouettes have beaten BC and Calgary, but lost twice to the Eskimos and were blown out by BC once. This is a team searching for their starting quarterback, Anthony Calvillo has been hurt and I am not sure that Marcus Brady is the man to lead them.

C- Saskatchewan Roughriders 3-3 (7-5)
I don't know what to say about the Heartbreakers of the CFL, 3 weeks ago they were 7-2 and looked like they were home and dried off for the playoffs, now they are 7-5 and only because of a missed call by refs in the Hamilton-Stampeders game did they not fall to third place. Their defence went to pot, their offence started to not show up, the team really looks like it is falling off the rails.

D Hamilton TigerCats 1-5 (2-10)
Hamilton won another game, this time with their new number one QB Casey Printers sidelined with an injury. This means they have lost both their best quarterback and best running back this year. They might win two more, depending on how Saskatchewan plays in the home and home series.

Praying Hands

One third of the season in

It is about time I talked some CFL is it not? I thought I would give some report cards for the 8 teams in the CFL

A British Columbia Lions
4-2-0
The could easily be 6-0 except for a couple of ifs. If Dave Dickenson had not been hurt against Saskatchewan and if Buck Pierce had not been hurt in the same game, I think they would be rolling to the Grey Cup. Instead, they lost both and are in a dogfight for first place. BCs defence seems strong, they are stingy against the run and are a team of ballhawks. They are still the best team in the CFL. My biggest concern is the health of Dickenson, if he gets hurt again, he could wind up permanently damaged, how many concussions are enough?

A- Winnipeg Blue Bombers
3-2-1
Winnipeg has built a team that went 5-13 two years ago to a team with 3 wins in their first 6 games this year. They lead the CFL East with 7 points and should be the favourite to come out of the East. Kevin Glenn has gone from being the backup in Saskatchewan to being the best starter in the CFL this year. Their defence is solid. Only the team's failure to show up against Hamilton stops them from being an A or better. Their early season shakiness against Edmonton has not helped either.

B Saskatchewan Roughriders
4-2-0
I would love to give them an A+ after they beat BC, but their poor showing against Edmonton in Week 4 (no points in the second half?) and getting blown out by BC in Week 3 show that Saskatchewan still has some room to grow. The strength of the Riders is their defence, leading or second in the league in 20 of 25 categories. The offence seems to be suspect once in awhile with Kerry Joseph not really convincing me yet he can take the Riders all the way. Wes Cates has proven an unexpected surprise for a run happy team.

C- Edmonton Eskimos
2-3-1
Edmonton is a bit of an anomaly, they have beaten or tied teams better teams than they are, but the next week they fail to show up. I still don't know if their 21-20 win over Saskatchewan was due to amazing defence or a complete collapse by the Green Riders. The Edmonton defence has done nothing, last or near the bottom in every category (except yards allowed). You never know which team is going to show up the bad one, or the really bad one.

D+ Hamilton Tiger-Cats
1-5-0
The Ti-Cats are a tough team to judge, Jesse Lumsden is going to be a superstar in this league, he has rushed for 600 yards on 67 carries, too bad the rest of the team looks so bad. The constant misuse of Corey Holmes makes me wonder about the sanity of the teams offensive coordinator. Hamilton has to make some adjustments to their defence to win some games.

D Montreal Alouettes
3-3-0
Now you might be wondering why I placed a 3-3 team beneath the 1-5 Ticats, there is only one reason why the teams below Hamilton are scored worse, they have better teams than Hamilton, they are just underperforming. Montreal may be .500 but the teams they have beaten have a combined record of 3-9! Montreal has looked awful, they seem to be too old and slow to compete against the top teams in the league anymore. Jarret Payton may change all that, another great rusher in the East may help take the pressure off this team, otherwise they will be a mediocre team in the weaker division.

D Toronto Argonauts
2-4-0
Toronto does have an excuse, they tried to go back to the Damon Allen well one too many times, now he is too old and hurt to play, Michael Bishop is hurt, Mike McMahon doesn't have the confidence of the coaches, which leaves Rocky Butler, the 3rd string QB from Saskatchewan 2 years ago (see Kevin Glenn). Toronto prides itself on it's defence, which it better, because until Butler gets comfortable steering, or Bishop gets back, they are going to be fighting Hamilton for the basement.

D- Calgary Stampeders
3-3-0
I don't understand this team at all. They have arguably the CFL's most exciting quarterback (and probably the 2nd best) in Henry Burris, a recieving corps most teams would kill for, one of the top three RBs in Joffrey Reynolds and a defence that couldn't stop a granny with a walker. Calgary used to have a great defence, did a year make that much difference? They have beaten nobody of note, blowing out Toronto and Hamilton is meaningless and the only important game they won was against Edmonton. I was tempted to mark them an F, because they are a grossly underperforming team. Calgary should be 4-2 or 5-1, instead they are .500.

Now a first third Grey Cup prediction, Saskatchewan vs Winnipeg in the Banjo Bowl, with Saskatchewan winning with a Luca Congi field goal, unless Dickenson gets healthy, then it is a Lions cup.

Weird Al...

It is not his, but a youtube version someone made

Strange Double think

1. The left equates Bush with Hitler and attacks his support of Israel.

2. It bridles at the charge that it is antisemitic and singles out the world's only Jewish state for universal condemnation.

3. It says that the president has shredded the Constitution and that it is is a living document.

4. It accuses the president of going into Iraq for oil, and it also accuses him of destroying the infrastructure of Iraq.

5. It says that corporations are evil, and it relies on their inventions and products like everyone else.

6. It calls America a racist, genocidal state, and it attacks the administration for squandering our international reputation.

7. It says that the debate about global warming is over and refuses to debate challengers.

8. The left is for women's rights and for cultures that see things differently.

9. It says that the term "colored people" is racist and that we should say "people of color" instead.

10. It says that globalization is bad and that international cooperation is good.

11. Whenever President Bush invokes the memory of 9/11, the left calls him a fear monger, and it also insists that a catastrophic climate change is coming soon.

12. It says that the president is out of touch with reality and that he conspires with evil masterminds to grab as much imperial power as he can.

13. The left sees portents of a Christian theocracy behind every Christmas creche, and it will call you a bigot twice over if you say that jihadists are Islamic kamikaze killers.

14. It says that we cannot win in Iraq but that we can destroy the planet.

15. The left wants to stop us from promoting abstinence as the ideal means of birth and STD control, but mandates forcing tobacco companies to advertise non-smoking among teens because it is sure to result in fewer smokers.

16. The left wants us to surrender in the war against terror in Iraq because it is a long and costly venture, but also wants us to keep on fighting the war on poverty which has so far cost trillions ($12 trillion, according to some estimates) and is now in its 5 th decade.

17. The left wants us to believe the same government that does such a good job running veterans' healthcare, public education, social security, and immigration is going to really do a great job running a nationalized healthcare system.

18. It hates religion -- except for Islam, which can do no wrong.

From Wicked Thoughts

Egyptians kill refugees, world yawns

Where is the outrage?

Forbes

The Jordanian News

Egyptian soldiers killed four Sudanese refugees near the Egypt-Israel border overnight Wednesday in full view of IDF troops, a shaken-sounding IDF soldier said in an interview with Channel 10, Thursday evening.

According to the soldier, female IDF troops operating night vision devices identified several refugees approaching the border in an attempt to infiltrate Israel and alerted other soldiers who arrived after a few minutes in an army jeep.

However, Egyptian troops who also discovered the refugees, fired upon them, immediately killing two and wounding a third. A fourth refugee ran towards the fence and an IDF soldier stretched out his hands, trying to help him cross.

At that point, the soldier recalled, two Egyptian soldiers arrived and started pulling at the refugee’s legs.

“It was literally like we were playing ‘tug of war’ with this man,” the soldier said. The soldier eventually loosened his grip on the man, fearing the Egyptians would shoot him. “They were aiming loaded weapons straight at us, I was afraid they were going to shoot us,” he said.

The Egyptians then carried the man several meters away from the border fence, and proceeded to beat him and another wounded refugee to death with stones and clubs.

“What happened there yesterday was a lynch. These are not men, they’re animals. They killed him without even using firearms,” the soldier said. “We just heard screams of pain and the sounds of beatings. Then the screams stopped.”

Which is the real hate crime

Is it a hate crime to dip a figurine of Christ in urine, or maybe constantly touting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as real, how about tossing a Koran in the can?

Only one of these is considered a hate crime, and Christopher Hitchens asks the questions much better than I.

Christopher Hitchens ably explained this on CNN tonight as well. You can catch the videos here:
Part 1

Part 2


I do have a question, which truly is the hate crime, the Quran in the can, or the felony charging of the student doing it?

Perversion for Profit

Did someone call?

The spectrum of probability of the existence of God

I have taken this almost verbatim from Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion, which is my current light summer reading.

1. Strong Theist, 100 percent probabilty of God, you have no doubt whatsoever.

2. De Facto Theist, very high probability but short of 100 Percent. YOu are not completely sure but you strongly believe there is a God.

3. Technically agnostic but leaning to theist, you are higher than 50% but not very high. You are uncertain, but you are inclined to believe in God.

4. Completely impartial agnostic, you are exactly 50% believer and 50% non believer. You believe God's existence is equally probable or non probable.

5. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheist, you have less than a 50% belief in a god. You don't know whether God exists, but you lean towards skepticism.

6. Defacto atheist, very low probability but short of zero. You can't know for certain whether God exists, but you live your life on the assumption God does not exist.

7. Strong atheist, you know there is no God without any doubt whatsoever.

I used to be a category 7, but as I got older (and wiser) I realised that a belief without proof is a religion, so I have drifted more towards 6. I am pretty confident in the non existence of gods, but if I was given proof a god existed I would be able to accept that.

What category are you?

Don't be Evil

Don't be Evil is Google's informal motto, but can they really claim that anymore? Google has agreed to comply with the censorship laws of China. The question is, how many more places does Google do censorship for? There is a website that discusses Google Censorship, ironically found using Google...

What I don't understand is that Google will protect the privacy of purveyors of child porn but they are willing to help the Chinese government out.

Maybe their new motto could be "Do a little bit of evil, but make even more money!".

The heavy handed censorship in China is also backfiring, after all, if it never happened, why would this ad generate any response.

When I go to work tomorrow

should I just point and laugh?

Hey! I thought it was the US that was supposed to ignore us?

I feel slighted, here we are, a good world citizen. We will mock the US like a good European and they (the rest of the world) do this to us!

Seriously though, how can there be consensus when one person says no and the other 46 say yes? It can be called "near unanimous" but can by no stretch of the imagination be called consensus... I might just be confused, after all, this group can travel in time so maybe they know Canada will be changing their minds in the future. It could be that the party hosted by those reknown beacons of human rights, Cuba and Belarus was more important. Whom am I to say.

One final comment on this day, why can the UN spend so much time on censoring Israel, and spend so little time on fixing the problems?

It's been over a week since I last posted

so I thought I would update you on Farfur, the Mickey Mouse clone I talked about before. I guess he is no longer on TV, because in the last episode he was killed by an Israeli.

Have no fear, I have a couple of thoughts still boiling in my head, and I should be spewing them forth sooner or later.

If you see or hear about a film called Hot House, and you hear about Marwan Barghouti and how he is a natural leader for a reconciliation for Israelis and Palestinians. Maybe you will look at Ahlam Tamimi and see her as an unjust victim of Israeli persecution. All I am going to suggest is you remember the lives they stole with bombs and nails.


So stay tuned and keep watching the skies...

At least they have given up

any attempts of impartiality...

I mean, I understand that white supremacists are anti-semitic, same with groups like Hamas and Hizbollah but when the United Nations singles out one country for "permanent indictment under a special agenda item" and it is not Sudan for this thing called Darfur, or Nigeria or hell, even Iran. Instead they continue to beat the same old drum about Israel's illegal occupation when Israel tried to give it back, and Arafat rejected it....

You may have heard about Resolution 242 by the UN, calling for Israel to give back the territories it took in the 6 Day war. It has, but part of that resolution is respect for the right of every state in the area to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries, aka you have to recognise the existence of Israel. Egypt (a treaty which Anwar Sadat paid for with his life) and Jordan have both done so, now we wait for Syria to understand that if they agree to peace, they can have the Golan Heights back. I find it strange that the defender (and winner) of both the 6 Day war and the Arab-Israeli War of 1973 should have to sue for peace and jump through hoops to ensure peace.

Maybe the UN could help...

What is the proper response

for rockets fired into your country?

Can you drive this well?

Media Manipulation and the Modern World

Part 1

Part 2


The creator of this, Richard Landes and his organisation.

I don't expect many of you to actually watch the full videos, but it should give you some sober second thought about media manipulation in favour of extremists.

Here is an article on the death of Mohammed al-Dura as well.

I am not telling you to believe it, nor am I saying you have to disbelieve it. I do think you should watch it though.

As a special bonus, Purdue University did some FEA and created this animation.


If you believe that the US caused the towers to go down, this won't change our mind, but it does show how we can use science to disprove (or prove) things we cannot look at directly.

Not a religion post!

I have been reading a little about espionage in Canada. We are currently being spied on by about 1000 chinese spies and informants, not to mention a few Russians.

How should we handle this, should we start a recruiting more CSIS agents or is it a non issue?

Road Trip!

Brenda and I are going to have to go here this summer. Is anyone else interested in a trip to Big Valley Science Creation Museum?

Some thoughts on a Friday morning

I was listening to CNN yesterday talking about the Chinook being shot down in Afghanistan, and was wondering why they said "5 Americans, 1 British and another NATO soldier died when the plane crashed.". Could they not have said "5 Americans, 1 British and 1 Canadian died when the plane crashed."?

Mr Speaker, TB carrier to the world. What kind of arrogance is there when you deliberately try to evade medical authorities so you can fly around the world spreading SDR-TB? It is a good thing he is a lawyer (and a personal injuries one) because I can foresee some lawsuits coming out of this. He cannot even claim a lack of understanding of the effects of TB, since his father in law is a researcher specialising in it.

I am sure Americans feel safe because of the Customs officer at the Canada US border that ignored a warning on his computer screen to detain him as well.

Don't think I am only cranky at the US, I am still trying to figure out why the Conservatives require a manual that does this:
Running some 200 pages including background material, the document - given only to Conservative chairmen - tells them how to favour government agendas, select party-friendly witnesses, coach favourable testimony, set in motion debate-obstructing delays and, if necessary, storm out of meetings to grind parliamentary business to a halt.

The only good part about it is this:
Ironically, the manual also advises committee chairs to act fairly and build trust with members of all parties, getting to know them personally as well as politically.

It warns chairs not to "use negative body language" or "use humour inappropriately" and tells them not to "interrupt unnecessarily or argue with individual members" - orders clearly ignored by some of the more partisan chairs.

Was the last minute Quebec because the Liberals are afraid they will lose an election to the ADQ, or perhaps the Bloc is afraid of being rendered useless? Whatever the reasoning behind it is, consumers will be the big losers.

One more thing I was thinking about, I watched Sportsnet (I think) and one of the talking heads mentioned that the salary cap was a bad idea. He preferred a luxury tax because it works so well in baseball. I will admit that when Cincinnatti or Kansas City wins a World Series...

Vanguard

Ok. I'll admit I've never played Vanguard, and I've only heard a bit about it, but after reading this review, I'm left... stunned.

Am I reading this right? Have the EQ developers learned nothing? Or did they arrogantly think that their original EQ formula was right?

Severe death penalties? Forced grouping? No instances for dungeons, meaning long camps?

Are you kidding me?

Got time?

I was just cruising around the web and I found this page of MMORPG games. The ratings are kinda interesting, but, goodness! It's not like there are just 3 to choose from! And look at all the ones in development!

Is this someone's theme song?

I never wrote this, it was from a website I am on:

When I arrived at work yesterday I noticed one of my crew on the side of the building talking to a young lady. I thought nothing of it as it was still about 15 minutes before the shift started and honestly, the kid needs all the help he can get when it comes to social interaction.

When the shift started it dawned on me he hadn't shown up yet, but I let it ride, assuming he'd be in within the next minute or two; I try not to be too worked up about people showing up a few moments late.

Later on the personnel supervisor stopped in and poked his head in my office. "Why is Matt outside; is he off shift?" I glance at the clock; he's 40 minutes late and I know he's wearing a watch.

So I told the supervisor that the little runt knows when he's supposed to be at work and knows what time it is, and as I'm not his babysitter, he can come in when he's ready and deal with the consequences. Supervisor agrees and goes about his business. After about 10 minutes Matt finally comes in.

Supervisor: "You're late, almost an hour late."

Matt: "Sorry, I was a few blocks away getting some lunch and lost track of time."

S: "How could you be down the street when everyone knows you were standing on the side of the building talking to some girl?"

M: "Oh. Sorry. But I wasn't technically late."

S: "What do you mean?"

M: "Well, my bike was here when the shift started."

S: "What?"

M: "Yeah, at 2:30 my bike was already here, so I wasn't actually late, technically."

S: . . .

M: "So just dock me for the hour."

S: "Oh, you're docked, all right -- docked your job. Come pick up your last check tomorrow."

The moral of this story is that I'm just going to leave my car at work for the rest of the week and stay home. Hey, my car's there, right? So technically, I'm not failing to show up.

Our "exciting" week

Monday I was at work and I received the message that Ken Bergwall, one of my gaming friends died. He was 47 and died of a heart attack. The night before he was gaming with two other friends, and the next day he was gone.

Wednesday I had an informal job interview, and I was told that when the position is determined they will email me the description and an offer to apply.

Friday was Ken's memorial service and Brenda's birthday, so it was both a good day and a depressing day. Brenda chose to go out to a makeup/spa party so I went to Tuscany for the boardgame night.

Saturday I worked on the garage door, the spring broke so it would not open. After I (and my neighbour Brian) fixed the garage door Brenda and I went out for supper and did a walk through of T&T Market. T&T Market is an Asian market 10 minutes by bike from our house...

We were planning on going out to a movie but Brenda had a nap instead.

Sunday we had our house broken into, they came in through the dog door in the garage and then came into the house via the garage door. This set off our house alarm, I woke up and ran downstairs. I had originally thought that the garage door was just not shut properly but I noticed that the front door was unlocked, then I called to Brenda and got her to hold the phone while I did a walkthrough in the house seeing if anyone was there. There wasn't. I never called the police because there was no real point to it. I went out the next morning to replace the bulb in the garage light and I ran into my other neighbour. She told me that someone had broken into their house and stole their X-Box (which was found on Brian's front lawn, wrapped in their daughter's housecoat) and their car (which was found in the NE). I told her that I would talk to the police when they came to get her statement. She also told me that two other houses were broken into.

When I talked to the police officer he told me everything that was taken was recovered, most of it found on front lawns. I was also the only one that could really give a time for all this to happen (4:41 AM), as I was the only one that had an alarm. I also told the police that there was a police car driving about the block about 5:00 AM as well. He came on at 6:00 AM so he never knew about the other police car.

How was your week?

I have been feeling a little depressed lately

but then I got to watch some children's videos and was made nauseous





You can decide for yourself if this is the sort of things children should be taught.

Update:
The glare of the media may have gotten to Hamas. They may have realised that the people that do support their position may be turned off blatant anti-semiticism, so they are going to go back to a level of anti-semitism that can be easily explained away.

This was taken from the Strategy Page, a military opinion and news web site.

Italy is taking a lot of heat for the way they pressured the Afghan government to release five captured Taliban, in order to get an Italian journalist released from Taliban captivity last month. In response, the Italians are calling for international guidelines, supervised by the UN, on how to deal with these hostage situations. This is seen as another cynical move by the Italians, who have long been willing to make deals with terrorists, as long as it was in Italys interest.
The recent Italian effort in this area has resulted in two French citizens and at least twelve Afghans being kidnapped. The Afghan government has already said it will not repeat the mistake it made in dealing with the Italians. So the new bunch of captives are in danger of being killed, since the Taliban generally don’t release captives when the ransom demanded is not forthcoming. The Taliban also have their standards.
The recriminations and finger-pointing in Italy has revealed that the government paid a $2 million ransom for another Italian reported kidnapped in Afghanistan last year. That buys a lot of hired guns, and gets a lot of Afghan and NATO troops killed. But the Italians don’t care. The Italians know full well that the best policy is no ransom, no negotiation, and go after the kidnappers. But this is politically unacceptable in Italy, where many leftists are sympathetic to the Taliban, and don’t support using force against them. As the old saying goes, all politics is local.

So let me get this straight, Italy is paying the terrorists for it's citizens? At least we now know where they are getting the money to kill our troops from, our fucking "allies"! When the next Canadian soldier dies in Afghanistan, start looking at where the money for the IED or the bullets came from, they came from Italy, our NATO ally.
When the French nationals die because France refuses to negotiate, their deaths will be Italy's fault.

Love, Death and the American Guitar

I remember everything!
I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday.I was barely 17 and I once killed a boy with a fender guitar.
I don't remember if it was a Telecaster or a Stratocaster,but i do remember that it had a heart of chrome and a voice like a horny angel.
I don't remember if it was a Telecaster or a Stratocaster, but I do remember that it wasn't at all easy.
It required the perfect combination of the right powerchords and the precise angle
from which to strike.
The guitar bled for about a week afterwards and the blood was
ooh...
dark and rich like wild berries.
The blood of the guitar was Chuck Berry red!
The guitar bled for about a week afterwards and it rung out beautifully ,
and I was able to play notes that I had never even heard before.
So I took my guitar and I smashed it against the wall!!
I smashed it against the floor!!
I smashed it against the body of a varsity cheerleader!!
I smashed it against the hood of a car
I smashed it agianst a 1981-Harley Davidson...
The Harley howled in pain, the guitar howled in heat!
I ran up the stairs to my parents bedroom
Mommy and Daddy were sleeping in the moonlight
slowly I opened the door creeping in the shadows right up to the foot of the bed
I raised my guitar high above my head and just as I was
about to bring the guitar crashing down upon the center of the bed
my father woke up screaming:
"stop...wait a minute..stop it,boy"
"what do you think you're doing???
That's no way to treat an expensive musical instrument"
And I said "god damn it, daddy!!!You know I love you....."
"BUT YOU GOT A HELL OF A LOT TO LEARN ABOUT ROCK AND ROLL!!!!!"

PC Design Contest 2007

These are the winners, my favourite is the third one. Brenda would never be able to claim the monitor takes up too much space again. ;)

Let me know when I have beaten this horse enough

Harvard University published a paper on media bias during the Israel-Hezbollah War last year. The full name of the article is The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict
.

This is the abstract from it:
Based on content analysis of global media and interviews with many diplomats and journalists, this paper describes the trajectory of the media from objective observer to fiery advocate, becoming in fact a weapon of modern warfare. The paper also shows how an open society, Israel, is victimized by its own openness and how a closed sect, Hezbollah, can retain almost total control of the daily message of journalism and propaganda.


If you want some analysis, you can always go to World Politics Watch

By gum! I was right, there was a disproportional reporting towards Hezbollah...

The X-Ray Project

X-Rays of the victims of terrorist suicide bombings. Let me know which ones are Jewish and which are Muslim.

There is a soundtrack, so you may want to turn the sound down if you are at work.

Vimy Ridge and Afghanistan, where did we go wrong?

I was thinking about Vimy Ridge this weekend, it being the 90th anniversary of Canada’s “coming of age”. My thoughts were how Canada has changed since then. In 1917 over thirty five hundred men died over a period of 4 days to take Vimy. The reason was to stop the expansionistic and imperialistic designs of Germany. Now, we are in the modern world, and we have had about fifty soldiers die stopping the expansionistic tendencies of a terror group in Afghanistan. The reason we as Canadians can notice fifty deaths is for one reason, we have been sheltered by the United States, moan and complain about the Americans all you want, but they have been doing the heavy lifting for us, and their soldier’s deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq (in 91), Somalia and Kosovo are just as much for us as it is for them. Now that Canada has to do the heavy lifting, there is a question that many Canadians keep asking: are we peacekeepers or peacemakers?

The answer to this depends on how you view the rest of the world. If you see the world as full of people that need help getting along, we should be peacekeepers, but if you see the world full of people that need help to survive or to remove tyranny, we need to be peace makers.

We are in Afghanistan to help the Afghanis people build a country, they need to be helped to remove both the Taliban and Al Qaeda, they need to be shown that gross corruption is not the way that a government should operate, they need our help to show them that their religion is not a religion of extremists but a religion that allows women to fulfill their potential. They need this and we need this.

The world cannot be safe until people understand that there is no room for extremists in religion, be it Christian, Muslim or Judaic. Everyone’s life is precious, from the Canadians sitting at home complaining about hockey to the Palestinian sitting in his shack wishing he did not have a bunch of terrorism minded crooks running his government. The day that every Canadian understands these truths will never come, because they only see part of the world and believe that there is a way to negotiate with extremists. I call it appeasement, you only need to review history to see how well that policy works.

If we consider the deaths of the fifty soldiers in Afghanistan to be wasted, then perhaps we have come of age and retreated back into the sullenness and isolationistic tendencies of adolescence.

I will discuss how the EU (except the United Kingdom) are not willing to do any of the work but are willing to sit on the sidelines and criticise the efforts of the US and it’s allies, but that is for a later discussion.

The streets of this nation are full of men having fag sex!

Wouldn't you love to be around these people?

About 9 minutes....

Salute to a brave and modest nation

By Kevin Myers
The Daily Telegraph, London, April 21, 2002

UNTIL the deaths last week of four Canadian soldiers accidentally killed by a US warplane in Afghanistan, probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops were deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will now bury its dead, just as the rest of the world as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.
It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.

That is the price which Canada pays for sharing the North American Continent with the US, and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts. For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions: it seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved.

Yet its purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10 per cent of Canada's entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle.

Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, its unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular memory as somehow or other the work of the "British". The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada finished the war with the third largest navy and the fourth largest air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time. Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign which the US had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.

So it is a general rule that actors and film-makers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer British. It is as if in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakeably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers. Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that 1 per cent of the world's population has provided 10 per cent of the world's peace-keeping forces. Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peace-keepers on earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peace-keeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.

Yet the only foreign engagement which has entered the popular non-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia, in which out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit.

So who today in the US knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan? Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac, Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost.

This weekend four shrouds, red with blood and maple leaf, head homewards; and four more grieving Canadian families know that cost all too tragically well.

I would like to think this is a joke

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed. It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques. ...

The study looked into ‘emotive and controversial’ history teaching in primary and secondary schools. It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class.

The researchers gave the example of a secondary school in an unnamed northern city, which dropped the Holocaust as a subject for GCSE coursework.

The report said teachers feared confronting ‘anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils’.


Sadly, fear of Islamo-Terrorists is forcing schools in the UK to stop teaching history.

How did this fear get so widespread, is it because Europe (well the EU in particular) is falling into line with these people? We all know that Muslims are the fastest growing group in Europe, but not all Muslims are terrorists, and it is our job to stand before these people and stop them. When I see the way Europe is treating this group I think back to how a small group of nutjobs in the Roman Catholic Church that ran roughshod over people in the 15th century.

I wonder if I can create a religion that will be allowed to change what actually happened?

Sweet Jesus!

Easter.

It's the time we think about the Death and Resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Or Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of Spring. But mostly Jesus.

Oh, and chocolate. Lots of chocolate.

So why not a chocolate Christ? Sweet Jesus indeed!

What I find peculiar, is that the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights are so upset about it. Is it because Jesus is nude? Is it because he's made of chocolate? Obviously the artist is making a statement about the murky Easter waters where commercialism and religion mix. Is that so bad? Remember this is coming from a group of people who have a few very odd notions and habits concerning their god.

• They hang a graven image of their god being tortured to death on walls and around their necks.
• They believe that during communion the host and wine are transmogrified into real flesh and real blood, which they EAT.

But they're upset at a chocolate Jesus that they could also eat? Maybe, in traditional Catholic logic, they're afraid that eating a chocolate Jesus would be too much fun.

Hurry up and get the dogs!

There are good moms, and then there are bad moms. What kind of kids will these be when they grow up?

Election in Quebec

Enough of me picking on the UN, there are enough people doing that. What we should be talking about is the shockah for the Quebecois. a Liberal minority with the right wing federalists ADQ being the official opposition. If you have not caught them here are the results.

There are many different faces to this, is it reactionary racism, a backlash to a weak PQ leader, or maybe people are just fed up with Mr Charest.

There is always the other view, that Harper and his latest budget, supported by the separatists, did the PQ in. This combined with a flat PQ party in Quebec may just have all the opposition parties doing some colluding just to keep the CPC in power. The NDP fears the Greens (at 9% in the latest poll), the Liberals and the BQ fear the ADQ helping the CPC in Quebec.

As a conservative, I was underwhelmed by this budget. I expected more fiscal responsibility, not more spending, perhaps I am a Liberal at heart. I guess I may have to vote for them in the next election.

Just to finish this rambling off, maybe I should vote NDP to avoid the NAU. I may have to spend some time learning about this union before I start another shortwinded article.

But wait, there's more!

UN Watch put together this little video of what is admissable and inadmissable to the HRC.



Remember, it is the importance of not personalizing your comments.

Tied into a commentary about the UN, Rosie O'Donnell on the view.



The war on terror breaks people into evil and good. It does at that, there are the people that love freedom, and the people that hate them for it. I don't know how to break it down more then that.

I am back!

and just a little surly.

Everything the director of UN Watch says I have been saying for awhile, and I have been agreeing with him.



My question is, why does the UN Council on Human Rights (or whatever their name is) prove him a liar? Instead the Council President says he won't allow people to speak like that.

I sure am glad they exist...

Got Time?

Warning! Do not go to this website unless you want to waste an hour!

You've been warned!

You've gotta love it

After reading this, I just had to post it...

From my favourite music review site, Metal Reviews, I bring you this quote from a review of the CD, Hetacomb of Aberration by the goregrind band, Patologicum.

Without exaggeration, it sounds like the mic was swallowed and the vocalist recorded the struggles of trying to vomit it out whilst choking on it at the same time. No lyric sheet can help you here; I cannot detect any resemblance of enunciation that pretty much every vocalist in any style of music uses to pronounce their lyrics and give them a certain tone. There is no tone, no pronunciation here, just the sound of a stomach that is about to explode.

Keep in mind that this website continuously reviews all genres of heavy metal, including death metal, grindcore, and other styles that are definitely an "acquired taste." The writers are fans of this kind of music - the kind of music that most people would find difficult to listen to.

Oh, yeah. The CD got a rating of 5/100 and won the Crap of the Month award.

Richard Dawkins

If you're a Dawkins fan, or interested in Evolution or Religious debates, this is a must see video. If you've read The God Delusion, then you can probably skip to the Q&A that starts about halfway through the video. Dawkins's responses are amazing.

True love...

glumbert.com - True love goes through the ceiling

These two things are not related at all

First up this one.
Eeeew!

I am not sure if you have seen this before, but I think it would be perfect for short trips and city driving. I just don't know how good it would be in winter and howhard I would have to whine to convince Brenda to let me but it.

The advantage is the lack of exhaust. What I am wondering is if you could charge it with solar panels. Charge the panels up during the day and let that power trickle into the vehicle at night. I rarely drive more then 40 miles in a day, so it would be perfect.

One for the teachers

Steve Jobs new product

And just to further divide this up

I have started a blog in which all I am going to talk about is boardgames, and nothing but boardgames (well RPGs once in awhile). I will talk about games from my PoV and I have been known to rant about the state of gaming too...

You can find it here Board Game Night(s).

Since no one else is here

tap tap, is there anyone here?

I know I was surprised by this result



How evil are you?

It's D&D!

"It's D and D!!
Fighting with the legends of yore.
It's D and D!!
Never kissed a lady before."

Dennis Ferguson on Britney

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I caught mention of this on CNN, and it is 12 minutes long. Watch it.

A touch of humour

A newly qualified doctor arrives for his first day at a hospital, deep in the Welsh valleys.

He is met by one of the sisters, who has been given the task of showing him around the hospital and introducing him to the staff and patients. It is a large hospital and it takes the whole day to get round.

By late afternoon they are working their way through the psychiatric block and as the time approaches for the evening meal they arrive at the last ward. They follow the dinner trolley into the ward and wait while one of the nurses lifts the lid on the food tray.

To the doctor's surprise there is but a single haggis on the tray to feed a whole ward.

One of the patients moves towards the trolley in a purposeful manner, addressing the haggis:
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm.

Before he can reach the haggis, another patient sprints forward, grabs the simple repast and dashes up the ward. He proudly holds the haggis aloft and cries out in a commanding voice:
Some hae meat and cannot eat.
Some cannot eat that want it:
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

At this a kilted dervish leaps from his bed, whips a skien dubh out of his sock and lunges at the haggis carrier. With a deft movement the haggis bearer fends off the flashing blade with the haggis. Although this prevents any injury it does result in the top of the haggis being hacked off.

A small mouse, obviously waiting upon this event dashes out from under a bed, grabs the loose piece of haggis and scampers up the ward, running the gauntlet of slashing claymores and hurled dirks from various patients.

At the end of the ward stands a bent and wizened old man with a wild fire in his eyes. He screams at the mouse:
Wee sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an chase thee,
Wi murdering pattle!

And then he dives upon the poor little mouse. With a left dummy and a right feint the mouse dodges between the old man's legs, through a hole in the skirting board and to safety with his prize.

The doctor turns to the sister and asks "why is this psychiatric ward so full of Scotsmen?"

"Oh no doctor these are not Scotsmen. They are genuine valley dwellers born and bred" she replies. "And anyway this is not a psychiatric ward, it is the serious Burns unit"

So I just finished reading the Far Side Gallery

And I was curious to see what he has been up to since he retired from being the greatest cartoonist ever. I found this article on him. It is weird why they keep gettig his retirement wrong, he left the Far Side in 94, which wold make it 12 years.

He does make reference to cartoonists he mail it in, now I wonder if he is referring to the same person that Berke Breathed is talking about in his Onion interview in 2001, or someone completely different.

Reading Berke Breathed's interview led me of course to the third of the triumvirate of the greatest cartoonists ever, so I checked out Bill Watterson's Wikipedia page and sure enough, he has some strong commentary regarding commercializing his work.

I do find it interesting that two of three cartoonists I mentioned are critical of the same cartoonist and quite possibily Gary Larson is too, but may just be too polite to say his name. I agree with them though, I find that series to be bland and unfunny.