To do Sunday…umm…now: Watch NASA Mars landing live on web.
Trip Stateside
Foggy view from the Thousand Islands Bridge, late afternoon
With freezing rain impeding our trip north to Hull, Quebec and the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, we decided to go south instead and explore Jefferson County, New York. We checked out Sackets Harbor which was lovely but largely closed, saw the War of 1812 battlefield there, went to a Hannafords in Watertown to buy a stack of New York newspapers, look for goofy US food like B&M “Brown Bread in a Can” from Portland, Maine (home of so much goodness), treats now denied Canadians like Campbell’s Cream of Shrimp soup – not to mention the topic of our kids’ favorite ska tune, Mephiskapheles “Bumblebee Tuna”. I picked up a six of Lake Placid Brewery 46er IPA as well as Sackets Harbor 1812 Ale – the former is drinking better than the latter. We went to a Borders at the mall and the Red Lobster, a fast food place which has never seen my face before but which won me over with $6.99 broiled flounder. Both were a good surprise but the latter gave rise to a mystery which I humbly ask you to pursue sympathetic to the rather private circumstances of the moment…what is the dimple for? I am thinking an ash tray but do folk really do that?
Spam as Crime
I noticed this over at Will’s: Bill C-460, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (Unsolicited Electronic Mail). Sure we all hate spam but this is too much:
- It is too late. Email is lost. Why criminalize activity in a medium which constitutes more than 50% of activity on the medium. You may as well outlaw cross-posting on Usenet.
- Is spamming really a crime? What gets to be crime? Not just bad things.
- The offenses are insane. Up to a quarter million dollars and/or two years for a first offence.
Have a look at a real data related Canadian criminal code provision, s. 181:
Every one who wilfully publishes a statement, tale or news that he knows is false and that causes or is likely to cause injury or mischief to a public interest is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.
This section actually addresses the wrong – “that causes or is likely to cause injury or mischief to a public interest” – and caps the maximum imprisonment at two years. Under C-460 a second offence can get you five years and there is no requirement to do any harm. Maybe I have lived a charmed life but I in my seven years as a web nerd have never seen a “sexually explicit pop-up”. Do they exist? Apparently he is a commando in the fight to combat what he terms commercial “cyber wars” with crime control credentials.
Don’t worry. It is only a private member’s bill so has gone nowhere, it’s natural destiny. It was the efforts of Mel’s local MP, Dan McTeague, who apparently believes the annoying and vulgar should be criminalized. Most of my friends are annoying and vulgar. McTeague appears to be the only Liberal in Canada not to be a cabinet minister under either Chretien or Martin.
NY Times: Does forgotten Haiti provide an example of what we can expect for Afganistan and Iraq in the long term?
First New Thing of 2004
Not being hung New Year’s Day has advantages. A bagle, 30% butter fat cream cheese and artichoke heart salad for lunch, french restaurant dinnerware, damask linen. I’ve had two already. How many until I would kill myself through tangy goodness overload? Cream cheese is one of those things that we have to be forgiving with ourselves about. This 30% butter fat is care of the Baltic Deli – I’ve never seen a higher percentage. I think that’s called butter.
Later: photo reduced due to outcry by the hungover. What the hung see.
Civic Art
Four Portraits in Kingston City Hall.
Click on image for larger scale, details on alt tag.
Not only is the building itself a work of art, but City Hall has a collection of around thirty or so portraits of past civic leaders of the City. The upper left of John Counter is interesting for a bunch of reasons, one of which is the form of the chain of office – a simple metal chain. Over the second half of the 1800s the chain gets medals added and transforms into gold. In the earliest state, the chain is only a symbol of obligation.
My understanding of the history of Kingston is limited but it appears that the City, like Halifax, was under military government to a certain point, then civil. The City celebrated its 325 anniversary of settlement in 2003 but only about 160 years of civil goverment.
Nice Buildings I Like: II and III
Double domed because they could
In the second of a continuing series, I appear to be working out issues I have with domed buildings. This is the head of the Anglican Church in Ontario which sits a couple blocks west of work. There are two parts to it each under its own dome and the foreground one facing King Street East has a dandy smaller dome – verging on cupola – whose gold on black clock faces are quite the thing.
210 years of brewing and office rentals
Another great building is down by my parking lot on Wellington, north-east of work. This was a brewery – apparently second oldest in Canada according to a picture at the Kingston Brew Pub. The brewery as a company started in 1794 but there was a move back from the street when the public road when through so these buildings are more in the 150 year old area. You can see the tower used in high fallootin’ industrial production of ale in the later end of the 1800’s as it was easier to lift all the ingredients up at the start of production and move them down through mashing, sparging, fermenting, casking, etc.