Category: Uncategorized

Friday Bullets For Canada Day And The Fourth

I have been waiting for this arrangement of holidays for years. We are off today so I got up at the crack of 10:15 am. The authorities have noticed. I should mow the lawn, too, but it is stinking hot. I haven’t even been out yet and I know that. Then we roam. Looking forward to the Rochester branch of Dino BBQ as well as the Museum of Play.

  • • On the one hand, there should not be a political penalty for being a practicing Christian. On the other, lying is a sin.
  • • Ben found it! My post with the goofy pictures of Harper that the Grits tried to use against him in the last election. Gold!!!
  • • I know nothing about YouTube channels but was really interested to find that the UK’s Open University has adopted the tool.
  • • No one – and I mean noooooooo one – told me that in 2008 an asteroid slammed into Sudan lighting up the night sky.
  • • I heard an amazing stat this week – that 10% of all CD sales in 2011 so far were Adele’s. Which means, yes, there are taxes to be paid.
  • • I need to make my own skittles. The neighbour gave me a whack of apple tree logs last year which I was going to use for smoking meat but now I am making massive skittles out of them instead. I will only need a cheese to fling at them.

Off I go. Maybe to mow. I have a red t-short on that says “Maryland.” I hope that counts.

None

Your First Friday Bullets For Summer Of ’11

So, it is finally summer. A thunderstorm hammered the town last night so that makes sense. The kids don’t actually seem to be learning anything at school, just trips trips trip so that makes sense. And you can’t find anyone at work. The trifecta of summer’s start. It was a busy week, too. Reports came in. Personnel shuffled. Outsourcing appointments were confirmed. And that was just at home.

  • • Canada’s national shame. We export death. Is this why Chuck quit?
  • • Roger Ebert was right and everyone should say so. If the driver had lived he would have played “Jackass in Jail” for the rest of his life for killing his pal.
  • • My kids really don’t have this issue: “you call this toast?”
  • • Senate reform? I don’t understand how when a constitution has a section 23 that sets out qualifications of a senator that addig a qualification is not an amendment to the constitution.
  • • The Feds did something else weird constitutionally recently that no one noticed. It passed a bill in the House and in the Senate before the Throne Speech to demonstrate the right to act without the leave of the Crown. Hmm.
  • • North Carolina considers compensation for victims of state forced sterilizations under its eugenics program that lasted until the 70s. Is it time for Alberta to face its own past?
  • • Speaking of the Senate, BC’s new Premier seems to be bad with math: ““Twenty-four Senators for the entire western Canada? The economic engine for our country?” she scoffed.” In the depths of the recession, Ontario dipped to 38% of GDP, more than BC, Alberta, Saskatchwan and Manitoba combined. Twenty-four seats for Ontario? A joke. And, besides, democracy requires representation by population not by oil wells.

There. That’s a lot of bullets. Surely enough to hold you for now. Next week? Canada Day is on Friday. Expect a treat. Or much the same thing. Either one.

None

Friday Bullets For The First Third Of June

Why not measure the month in thirds? The dates lead us to that but the weeks knock us off that path. My first third of June was noted by a hair cut and a massive storm that saw me shouting at roofers on Wednesday night. Shouting “GET THE HELL OFF THE ROOF!!!” and other such things. Came up fast. They had to scramble. What else was a first third event? Sox are back on top. El Tigre is a conventioneer. It didn’t snow. Dandelions appear to have departed.

  • • A great use of the web to tell the story of Canada’s role on D-Day.
  • • Best Canadian political ad I have seen in a long time… and, no, not any kind of rip off. Far better than the bland Tory fare.
  • • Nice to see the separatists still having problems. I have no issue with including separatism in the political debate. I just like it losing the political debate.
  • • Speaking of losing causes.
  • • Sounds like Steven Moffat wants to make another show, other than Doctor Who, while making Doctor Who. James Bow is more hopeful of the direction of the season than I am.
  • • I had no idea that “a ne’er-do-well” was either a legal term or used in modern journalism.

There. I am off to the states this morning for work. Tour of a base. Maybe there’ll be pictures. Back by supper. Wizards have started play. May cross again on Sunday.

None

Friday Bullets For Getting Up At 6:43 AM

I don’t set the alarm as the house lives on the rhythm of pre-schoolers. If I am up at 5:15 am, that is life and if the stars align like last week and there is quiet well past a sensible hour, that is life, too. Like last week. When I get a string of good sleeps I start to ask why there isn’t more activism for early to bed, early to rise. Government programs. That sort of thing. I mean of we can get tax breaks for kids activities, why not for jammies if both are key to good health? What else? I am not against taxing soda pop like cigarettes but I would rather see it extend to the prepared food aisle. If you can’t cut a carrot and put it is a pot as part of making something, you should pay the same premium for health that a ciggie toker pays.

  1. • Wed Design History Update: Where have all the .gif files gone… long time ago…
  2. • I would not exactly use the words royal newlyweds parasites but a do see a glimmer of the point. I pay for my own holidays. And I do appreciate that the young couple facing a life of nationals service does try live a relatively “go to worky” life. But I pay for my own holidays.
  3. • Holy Division of Powers Action, Batman! I want a Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of the Senate as well as the role of the provinces in defining the Constitution.
  4. • It’s not that I don’t care about a postal strike so much as I am surprised by the extent of my not needing to care. No one sends me cheques I have to have by mail. No one sends me chatty letters. I wonder if there is a twitter hashtag to follow the strike.
  5. • Dear Ratko. Rot in hell.
  6. • 2,197 calories for nachos? I went to a US somewhat fast foodie place that had calories listed the other week and found that I paid more attention to that than the prices. I was stunned that equally priced and relatively equally interesting alternatives ranged from 400 to 1,000 a sandwich. But 2,197 calories for a plate of nachos?

There. Posted early. Before I was awake last week. No rushing. Why don’t I do this all the time?

None

Royal Military College’s Arch Ceremony 2011

One of the things I love most about my town is the ability to have met and get to know some folk at Canada’s Royal Military College. It sits across the harbour from my window at work and the fourth year cadets organize the annual charity vintage base ball game. Today was the final day of their graduation process and I got over to the college to witness the final ceremony, the march through the arch.

We came early as family members gathered. Brass showed up and soon the bagpipes were heard leading this year’s class down towards the memorial that names each of their colleagues since the 1870s who have given their life. Above is a hat. It was thrown to my feet by a newly minted 2nd lieutenant who got a little over enthused. Usually your hat goes on your sword when you pass under the arch. I got it back to him.

A nicer bunch of young men and women you will never meet. Canada’s pride.

None

Your Friday Bullets For Queen Victorian’s Birthday!

May Too Far. May Two Four. May Two For. I have to admit I was sorely tempted by a bottle of Pimms at the power house after work yesterday but, unlike last year, the weather is not yet co-operating so far – as far as I can tell at least. Pimms needs a certain type of stinking hot. What else can make a burly man make a drink with strawberry chunks and cucumber spears? Grey with showers and sunny breaks in the low 70s? That’s not really enough. Even with the prospect of mowing, gardening and maybe a little concrete work, Pimms is for summer not spring.

  1. • I decided to make manual bullets as “ul” is no longer rendering for some reason. Like it?
  2. • One is tempted to say this is obvious but one would have to get off the sofa to make the point.
  3. • This is a really interesting case. On one hand, life is a gift from God. On the other, we have no control over when your number comes up either.
  4. • Very interested in when this book comes out.
  5. • We went to a baseball game in about 1973 with my Boston cousins. I was ten. Got there in the light and left in the dark. It was at Fenway. It was summer. Tiant pitched. Sox won by one. Sat just to the right of this picture at the top of the bleachers. This tool may let me narrow down the day just on the facts I remember.
  6. • Last week’s Doctor Who was one of the best. Here is a Q+A with the author of the scrpit.
  7. • Fabulous. Sinking the Libyan fleet is a fabulous idea. I believe my right fielder may have had a hand in it. Living in a military town has twists. My pitcher apparently called in the Snow Birds last night. Arch day today at RMC. Hope to get pictures.

Four minutes to do. Luxury. A leisurely pace this morning. Tonight? Hedges shall be trimmed. Oh yes they will. Fear me, hedge. Fear me.

None

Your New Vocal Suburban Overlord Update

So, now that there’s a majority there appears no need to couch any words. OK, not like Damian Goddard or anything but there seems no need to walk lightly:

  • – no tax breaks for cross border shoppers. Mr. Flaherty seems to be saying that some taxes are good taxes. Please tell Steve. Unlike hostage policy, no harmonization.

  • – Platform says “a re-elected Stephen Harper government will eliminate the deficit by 2014-15.” Now, my actual pal Chiz says: “We will do the strategic and operating review and we will book [those savings] once the review is done. That will get us to balance a year earlier, but is not part of the upcoming budget.” Given that income splitting waits in this, any delay is not inspiring.

Nothing like a gotcha and it’s early days yet but there is a sort of openness possible now, no need to spin with four years of clear sailing before them and us. Where will it take us? A chance to “show that our ideas are actually quite common among the Canadian electorate”? Maybe. But the idea that we don’t have to parse every sentence like a question on a high school English test on a topic studied on that sick day you had will come as a relief.

None

What To Write About Now That There’s A Majority?

I have been writing this thing for over eight years now and, except for the beer stuff, it’s been largely driven by the facts and opinions surrounding the weakness of the Federal government. Way back then Paul Martin killed off the Liberal Party by slow drip poison starting almost a decade ago by dividing the party against Chretien and Harper declared the corpse cold with last week’s election. So, what to write about now? Doctor Who for starters. Just look at this statement today from the show’s top executive, Steven Moffat:

It’s heart-breaking in a way, because you try and tell a story, and stories depend on surprise, stories depend on shocking people, stories are the moments you didn’t see coming – those are what live in you and burn in you forever. If you are denied those, it’s vandalism. To have some twit who came to a press launch write up a story in the worst, most ham-fisted English you can imagine and put it on the Internet … I just hope that guy never watches my show again, because that’s a horrific thing to do. It is exactly like that boring man in the pub, who waits until you’re nearly finished your joke and jumps in with the punchline, and gets it slightly wrong. You hate that guy, you just hate those guys too – can you imagine how much I hate them? … It’s only fans who do this – or they call themselves fans – I wish they could go and be fans of something else!

What a bizarre thing to say. “My show”? “Vandals”? “Go and be fans of something else”? There is, of course, an underlying problem causing the need to discuss the show this year as it become more and more under Moffat’s control. It makes no sense. I made this point over at James Bow’s blog. James has sensibly been writing about centrist politics and pop culture for longer than I have – and done a far better job. I know. I have let the team down, falling into that trap of believing that Twitter and Facebook have made blogging irrelevant. Sure no one reads this stuff anymore but is that any reason to pack it in?

Anyway, less about me and more about Moffat. People are starting to compare the show with that disaster of the post-9/11 culture, Lost. Moffat seems to think convoluted is a fix all replacement for clever. Sadly, this is mostly the case with not only the long arc of the story he controls but the scripts he personally assigns to himself and the new characters he introduces. Most embarrassing is this thing “The Silence” which seems to feed Moffat’s need to one up the Daleks as the main baddies all time. But they make no sense. Other characters must have run into them over the past 48 years. Other baddies must be subservient to them. Oh, but all forget that they have seen them one they turn away… that’s a great fix. Hopefully, there is a Dallas solution at the end of this and the foreshadowed “it was all a dream” scenario plays out.

Confusion plus a general shift in all underlying premises developed over a 48 year run of a TV show. Yawn. Self-indulgence. A return to the slow death of the John Nathan-Turner years as far as I can tell. That was the last time someone decided to remake the show and move it from a fun relatively easily resolved romp.

None

Day 33: OK, Maybe It’s Not Quite So Over

Apparently I was channeling Paul Wells on Monday. Like him, I am now amazed:

Just about all the trends have changed. Nanos now has the Conservative top-line national vote down to essentially where it was in 2008; other national polls put that vote lower. In Ontario, Nanos has the NDP vote above its 2008 level on an upward trend. Other polls I’ve seen put Conservative vote in that province lower than Nanos does. The NDP vote is entering territory where it starts to endanger Conservatives in some place, where before it mostly helped them by splitting the anti-Conservative vote with the Liberals.

Who is to blame? Harper’s campaign advisors. As Ben frets, I noted that I have a lot of like for Harper but don’t get his presentation of himself. Backing asbestos exports? As I wrote in January, Canada’s role in this poison is disgusting, but as a campaign message it’s insane. The 2010 black quilted Canada jacket? Yawn. Put on a hockey jersey, you dope. The “just happen to be jamming in the living room” stuff. The kids will flock to that CCR stuff. Sure they will.

As a result, so far Harper is failing, Iggy is really failing and Gilles is failing big big time. But it call can change. And it can all turn on three-way splits. Who am I gonna vote for?

None