Month: September 2004

Hydrogen Scooter

I saw this on Boing and wondered what are we waiting for? A zippy machine that drinks split water and runs by reforming it and doesn’t make you look like a dork like the mythical but seemingly world-winning and innovative except if you want to do something other than drive it around a parking lot Segway.

As if a Quadrophenia would ever be written about Segway riding.

Constitutional Meltdown Comin’

Just when things in Canada were looking boring, the right-wingers, the left-wingers and the separatists have joined together to take control of the nation’s Parliment in which they hold more than half the seats but do not govern.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, New Democratic Leader Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Québécois unveiled a laundry list of measures at a joint news conference in Ottawa, topped by a call to require votes on all opposition motions — a move that could lead to House votes on international treaties, Canadian Forces deployments and changes to marriage rules. The three leaders also said that they should be consulted by the
Governor-General if the Liberals seek the dissolution of the Parliament.

The last bit is a wee bit nutty. I’ll have to have some supper and a good
think before I pronounce on how this Kingy-Byngy power grab will play out.

Later:



“My dearest Pet, so sad the colonials have no idea of their constitutional limitations” – you sense that is what the British government really wanted to tell the Canadian Governor General Mr. Field Marshall Viscount Bynggggg (sounds nice when alternated with “bonggggggggg”) in 1926 when he had the mad idea of actually using the powers granted, surely, the nicest tyrant in the world. Essentially, he – as executive of the land – wanted to tell Parliament who he would recognize as leader of Parliament, and it was not Mr. Fruitnut Cake King the minority-wielding Prime Minister. “The Governor-General might not have acted wisely but there is no doubt that he had the right, given the circumstances, to refuse to follow King’s advice.” But, in the end, the electorate voted Mr. F.N.C. King back in, telling Viscount
Byngy-Bong and the rest of his royalist hoo-haas that the gin and tonics would have ice in them from now on, thank you very much.

So here we are, 78 years later and Mr Martin and his Liberalés are 40-odd seats short of the others and face a united opposition intending on dropping the hammer at their convenience after half-running the show for a while. Sooner or later they will go to the Governor General saying, quite rightly, that they have over 60% of the seats and 60% of the popular vote and that they have the nuttiest coalition this side of Gilligan’s Island. What is the ex-host of CBC TV’s
Take
30 to do?   Will she phone Juliette
for advice? Perhaps Elwood
Glover of Luncheon Date fame? [Note: I ate more tomato soup watching Elwood Glover than all of youse put together].

So there you have it. The opposition is not supposed to talk to the Governor General and vice-versa but if they have the run of the House of Commons could she…would she?

Ultra-Terrorismo

I too have been wondering about the expansion of the word “terrorist”¹ a lot lately and words which have fallen away…but not quite this much.

¹Note: cogent discourse of the etymology of said word welcomed. Partisan pasting to be deleted or defaced with funny looking fonts which will dispell any shred of the thin veil of validity said pasting might convey otherwise.

Chechens Themselves

Here is a blast from the past from a CBC playlist from five years ago:

The Russia military’s brutal campaign against Chechen rebels raised the ire of the international community this week, especially after the Russians told civilians to leave Grozny by Saturday before the Russians bombed the city to the ground. The IMF is now withholding a $640-million loan payment to Russia, while leaders in Europe, the United States and Canada condemn the Russians actions in Chechnya. But how much does the Chechen situation differ from the crisis in Kosovo last March, the same crisis that required a massive NATO-led air campaign? Dick Gordon talked to Richard Gwyn, a columnist for the Toronto Star, and Janice Stein, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto about Chechnya, Kosovo, and what the West should do.

I was looking for internet references to Janice Stein and Chechyna as she was on TVO’s excellent Studio 2 last night affirming that the terrorism there needs no assistance, is 150 years old and has to be understood on its own terms. Others, less ivory-towerish elite-ly but way more knee-jerk, see the world more simply.

I am wondering this morning who has not been a terrorist? What nation has not deserved the label or been labelled undeservedly? Who will be next? I think Taiwan is a good candidate as Manuchuria was in 1933. You know what place doesn’t fit the new world order? Cambodia. One of the worst genocides of all time a couple of decades ago, a little international law applied, a little peace keeping and the murder of one reporter is the news. Sounds like Derek Ali in Ohio.