Category: Uncategorized

Shot Put 2008: Day one, May 11. Much sadness as a bunch of 22s and a 23 was all there was. Kids did better with a 18 and a 10 on the 2 kg respectively.

Friday Bullets For The Humpday Of February

Doesn’t February cling on this year, demanding one 24 more hours before we get to the month of hope? Well, February is half over as of noon today. I hate February. I really don’t know why particularly as there never were exams or a rush to get a paper out. Never a particular drain on the budget or time. What else could it be?

  • Election Readiness Update: even if I love all elections, I wonder if this one’s timing is wise?

    The Conservative government expects that it will be defeated over the budget in early March, which means Canadians could go to the polls by early April. The government has apparently intensified its election readiness, believing it may fall during a non-confidence vote on March 4, the day of the Liberal amendment to the Tory budget. That could set an election date for as early as April 7. Sources told CTV News that Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has told party members he is ready to pull the election trigger over the budget bill, even though some Liberals are against the idea.

    I bet the Liberals lose a few seats…or many…but maybe the Tories do, too. I see no reason for change at this point given we have a centrist government just like the last centrist government. Needless to say, however, we are ordering the lawn signs promoting the GX40 way forward: “Change, Order, Hope and A Record To be Proud Of!!!”

  • Forget February. Pitchers and catchers are reporting…even for Kansas City.
  • I have started the call for a global rage for beer and pie festivals. Isn’t it time to debate the fine points of lard and flour, whether leek or onion better does with that filling? I am guided in part by my recollection of the show Pie in the Sky but am ignoring all that gross obestity.
  • The post-Christmas collapse of the Morton continues with them falling from mid-table to relegation. The manager has quit, too. You clearly are not doing enough, not taking on enough misplaced angst.
  • Extremists. Aren’t they getting to be a bore? I am not talking about the terrorist or flag burner but the unreasonable expectations of those who would control political authority. Consider, by way of comparison this op-ed nugget from The New York Times this morning:

    If I were advising the Republican nominee, this is one of the places I’d ask him to plant his flag. I’d ask him to call for a new human capital revolution, so that the U.S. could recapture the spirit of reforms like the Morrill Act of the 19th century, the high school movement of the early 20th century and the G.I. Bill after World War II. Doing that would mean taking on the populists of the left and right, the ones who imagine the problem is globalization and unfair trade when in fact the real problem is that the talents of American workers are not keeping up with technological change.

    What? A call to moderation and prudent focused hard work? When did we last hear that sort of stuff? Maybe something is changing. It was nice to see Larry King call Limbaugh an example of “the far right” last night during the McCain interview. The effect of the extreme exceeds any logical sense of their reach other than in their self-promoting vicitimized imagination. Without the looney left and the wacko right (and perhaps the Web 2.0ers, too) what could be done with the world?

  • Hans has a blog and, unlike 99.99999999% of blogging, it appears to be clever. Brainy. I can’t tell you any more about it as my experience is like 99.99999999% of blogging.

Surely that is enough for the day that starts the slide to March that marks the edge of spring.

Is This The Beginning of The End?

Has it come to this?

Obama, McCain both win. (Yawn.)

We have to remember that this is not bad given that four years ago, it was George Bush and John Kerry. Both Obama and McCain are the sort of leaders who have put integrity, leadership and vision on the table and are staking their claim to the most powerful job in the world on their ability to put things right. It may even be an election devoid of most of the crap and spin we have seen for years – given that the vending of crap and spin seems to have been one victim of the primaries.

Duller questions still await. Like “can a win in Ohio prolong Clinton’s demise?” Like “will Huckabee join in an unholy alliance with talk radio to place the simmering disloyalty of conservatism above the greater good?” Like, yawn, the VP candidate selection. But what does this all mean? Is this really an urban v. urban race. It appears also to be a center-right v. center-left or even left race. These are both new things to US politics. Interestingly, it may also be a fight between relative radicals, one with substance and one with something that looks like a couple of slogans: hope and change. A product of the 1960’s against an echo of that decade.

And the Votemaster points out that the actual election may not be such an even fight as the process to date might imply:

In a development that should make Republicans nervous, Obama got more votes (619,000) in Virginia than all the Republican candidates combined (485,000). In fact, the combined Democratic vote in Virginia was more than double the combined Republican vote. And this in a state that hasn’t voted Democratic in a Presidential election since 1964 when Lyndon Johnson wiped Barry Goldwater off the map. If the Democratic enthusiasm is running so high in places like Virginia, what’s going to happen in the general election in true swing states like Missouri, Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado?

People are coming out for Obama. I’m not really sure why but, despite that, I was very tempted to nick one of his lawn signs, holdovers from the primary, that I saw down in New York over the weekend. An opportunity to grab a bit of what might be going on.

Friday Bullets For The 4,000th Post At Gen X At 40

Four thousand posts. Why do I do this? It’s just a cup of coffee in the morning. A way to get things going. I’ve met a lot of interesting ideas as well as a lot of tedious egos along the way but the best thing’s the incredible strength I have developed in my fingers. My God they are huge. More like sausages than hot dogs. I’d take any of you on in a finger fight. Piece of cake.

  • Update: should there be an election over the Afghan mission? I know I am at odds with my party of choice and have no home on the point when other policies or key player character is factored in. But isn’t that true for everyone these days?
  • When it comes to strategic alliances in a time of war, no two words give more confidence that “France” and “hinting”.
  • The problem with this study is it compares boomers to Gen Y’s:

    According to new research, teens and young adults are no more narcissistic or self-aggrandizing today than they were three decades ago. Instead, all those overconfident, egotistical kids demanding instant jobs and fame may be a figment of aging imaginations.

    Two sides of the same coin if you ask me. But you wouldn’t. Because I’m Gen X and you don’t care. No one cares.

  • Who knew wikipedia was a pack of cultist lies?
  • Good for Mitt for quitting some time after it was clear he would never win – despite all the money. He did his cause one favour, crystallize one thought that sums up the lack of political tolerance and savvy that is marking this demise of conservatism in America:

    …And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror…

    Because that is what Democrats want, right? A surrender to terror. They want to embrace their own terrorization and would feed the children of conservatives to the dogs. That is what Democrats want. You are warned.

    Nice to have that assurance, though, that he was in his heart utterly unfit for the job. That and his conservatism of convenience. Not that I am one but not that there is anything wrong with it either. If you know what I mean.

  • Seeing as this is the 4,000th post, let me tell you some things you don’t know about Gen X at 40:

    – I never post a post with an even number in the minute column. I have no idea why that is important but it is.
    – There are actually twelve people with authoring rights and I actually play more of an editorial role for all posts labeled “alan”.
    – I don’t own a shot put.
    – English is not the language I grew up with as I am really a Finn.
    – I played a small but important role in the development of hip-hop.
    – If it weren’t for Hans, I would have packed this thing in years ago.

    These, of course, are the least of my secrets.

That is enough for today – probably more than you can handle.

PM Harper Does The Unexpected – Appoints On Merit

I don’t know if Justice David Jenkins was a Grit or a Tory in his pre-bench life but he is a fine judge. He sat on the hearing I was involved with which led to the recognition that political discrimination had to end in Canada’s last hold out for Victorian values, Prince Edward Island. I think my favorite question was something like “so if the other side is right and this is not discrimination, the Government could then set up a Provincial Park and say ‘No NDP supporters allowed?'” My answer was, of course, yes. He also asked, because political belief had never before been proven to be protected by The Charter, how it was that no other government had had it proven against them? I said that no other had the gall and he nodded in agreement.

So good for Stephen Harper in doing the right thing in this case – not a habit he has gotten into when it comes to appointments. And a happy retirement to Justice Mitchell, whose portfolio as Chief Justice of The Appeals Division in Canada’s tiniest province included handling adoptions, including the one in our family. He presided over the event with great pleasure which made the day an ever greater one for our family.

And Now Gomery’s Being Mean to Harper

Now even I am starting to feel bad for the PM. First, Ben says our Prime Minister “doesn’t have enough confidence in himself, sadly.” Now Gomery says Harper has bailed on accountability:

John Gomery, in a wide-ranging interview marking the second anniversary of his final report, expressed dismay that the federal Conservatives have ignored his key recommendations for reform. “I have to tell you, I’m very disappointed,” Mr. Gomery said from the farm in Havelock, Que., where he now lives in retirement. “I worked so hard, and I got other people to work hard, and we gave very serious thought to what we were recommending. I thought it deserved a debate.”
Instead, said the former judge, most of the political and bureaucratic changes he proposed fell into a “black hole” of indifference or were rejected out of hand.

I’m worried. I’m worried that leadership has collapsed to the level that I can’t think of a single leader of any party before Martin became PM who would not now smoke the present Government in an election yet there is no one who can step up and do that now.

I never thought I would miss Deb Grey so much. Or Eugene Whalen.