Tag: Non-partisan blog posts

Xmas Week Free For Al!

Busy morning at the beer blog. Dealing with a sponsor and helping a foreign brewery understand the Ontario marketplace not to mention editing a piece from Knut of Norway.

So, while I slave digitally (note that pun!!!) and especially after yesterday’s debacle, we’ll have a test to see if you can lift yourselves out of the celebrity blether gutter and have an actual civilized discourse of your own design – because I find it very funny that you did this given the third last observation to the right on the page cm linked to.

My Juleglogg Experiment

So the juleglogg experiment worked out well. Just straight frozen berries filling 80% of a couple of half-litre mason jars filled up with 22 buck Polish vodka and left for three weeks in the cold room. Polish vodka is made of rye, not spuds or whatever else other folk make the vodka out of these says.

Not being a big consumer of spirits, this turned out more to my liking than I would have thought. The dry berry flavour is far better than a store-bought flavoured vodka, twiggy and unprocessed. The colour is deep as jam.

A Yuletide Friday Chat

Is this the ides of Yule? Hard to tell with mid-December temperatures in the 10C/50F range. 55F in Watertown, NY today. It is slowing down around town – the university emptying out, folks daydreaming of Christmas cake soon to come, people writing Christmas cards instead of clamouring in the streets. By the way, if you get anything from me this time of year it will be late. I seem to be always finding a reason to not open up that pack of cards. So it will be late.

  • Dear Mildred Dover, Attorney General of PEI: try that one again:

    …Speaking to municipal officers, he accused Dover of displaying “underhandedness and sneakiness” in the way she prepared the amendments. “That language is totally inappropriate and unacceptable,” said Dover. “He operates under the Canadian Bar Association’s code of professional conduct. The code says, Mr. Speaker, and I do have it with me, and I quote, “he should take care not to weaken or destroy public confidence in legal institutions by broad irresponsible allegations of corruption or partiality ?.”

    Does the highest…h’mph…law enforcement official in a province really think that the Code requires lawyers to not make unpleasant blunt comment about the acts of a legislature? The rules on legal institutions refers to the courts, the body of which we happy few are officers. We are not officers of the legislature. Further, we are otherwise directed to civility in relation to public authorities which generally includes the direction (at CBA Code, Chap XIII, Rule 3) “the lawyer should not hesitate to speak out against an injustice”. Further (At CBA Code, Chap XVIII, 9):

    The lawyer is often called upon to comment publicly on the effectiveness of existing statutory or legal remedies, on the particular effect of particular cases, or to offer an opinion on causes that have been or are about to be instituted. It is permissible to do this in order to assist the public to understand the legal issues involved.

    We are asked to be particularly careful in our discussion of the courts as we also recognize that they cannot speak back…as opposed to an Attorney-General who can and who is in an opposing and adversarial position to the interests of the lawyer’s client. Remember – this is a politician hitting the big red button in their brain for being called underhanded and sneaky. The inhumanity of it all. Sneaky. And at Christmas, too.

  • Have I mentioned recently…ummm…Matsuzaka! The Red Sox will clearly control the universe next year with the best pitching line-up in the history of all human endevor. All are doomed. I have been wearing my Red Sox t-shirts all week in celebration. In oneness with those who know me not but care for me. That is the miracle of sports fandom. They care. They really care.
  • By comparison, I guess I am not that big of a fan of hockey. Maybe it’s that thing I have about anything called a stick:

    Billed as “the single most important piece of hockey memorabilia in existence,” the world’s oldest hockey is now up for grabs on eBay. As of Thursday morning, 26 bids had sent the price of the coveted piece of Canadiana soaring to $2.2-million (U.S.). Gord Sharpe has owned the hand-carved, one-piece hickory stick since the age of 9. It was given to him by his great-uncle, whose grandfather Alexander Rutherford Sr. fashioned the stick on his farm near Lindsay, Ont. for play on a nearby pond. The stick is believed to have been carved between 1852 and 1856.

  • You people really need to deal with the fact that in winter I sleep in a bit:

    Gary Rith to me: 7:34 am (11 minutes ago)

    c’mon, dammit, POST!

    Alan McLeod to Gary: 7:38 am (7 minutes ago)
    I woke up at 7:22

    Gary Rith to me 7:38 am (7 minutes ago)
    who cares! just got a message from cm and the race is ON!

    Go!

  • I am listening to a discussion of “presenteeism” which is the opposite apparently of “absenteeism”. It means encouraging people to not show up at work when they are sick. The pendulum just started its way back. Next, the virtues of a cluttered desk.
  • Speaking of a trend coming to an end:

    After analyzing thousands of credit and debit card transactions over a two-year period, Mr. Bernoff found that Apple has historically been able to sell only 20 songs on average for each iPod device sold. “If iPod owners continued to purchase music tracks throughout the lifetime of their ownership, one would expect to see iTunes sales growing at a faster rate than iPods,” he concluded in a new report. Years ago when CD players were introduced, consumers rushed out to buy new music libraries. Clearly, the iPod is not having the same effect on content, he said.

    This is the problem with the digital world – no stuff. We are creatures of stuff more than we are of money. If things are not acquirable without payment and come with no stuff, why would there be any economic inertia behind that change? It wouldn’t. The transactional event is hollowed out. Soon people will clamour in the streets for the return of stuff.

    Update: my pal Dan noted another issue with the 2.0 world.

  • How does the governmental administrative process of “giving up” actually occur? Is there a protocol? A guide?

    In a major blow to the Bush administration’s efforts to secure borders, domestic security officials have for now given up on plans to develop a facial or fingerprint recognition system to determine whether a vast majority of foreign visitors leave the country, officials say. Domestic security officials had described the system, known as U.S. Visit, as critical to security and important in efforts to curb illegal immigration. Similarly, one-third of the overall total of illegal immigrants are believed to have overstayed their visas, a Congressional report says.

    Tracking visitors took on particular urgency after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when it became clear that some of the hijackers had remained in the country after their visas had expired. But in recent days, officials at the Homeland Security Department have conceded that they lack the financing and technology to meet their deadline to have exit-monitoring systems at the 50 busiest land border crossings by next December. A vast majority of foreign visitors enter and exit by land from Mexico and Canada, and the policy shift means that officials will remain unable to track the departures.

    That is nutty. Aside from the security issue, who gets to decide that they have “given up on plans”. Is this some sort of infiltration of libertarians?

Yes, sort of boring this week. But I am late. I am all ready behind. Next week? Last workday before Christmas. No problem. Week after that? I will be a week into a holiday week. Expect big things. Today? M’yyeh, you know.

Remember: Do Not Be Nutty Today

Sometimes life does mirror really bad 1980s movies of the week:

Myriam Bédard, a one-time Canadian Olympic hero, is now a fugitive wanted by police for parental abduction. Quebec City police have issued an arrest warrant for Ms. Bédard, who left for the United States this fall with her spouse and her daughter from a first marriage. Ms. Bédard’s former husband, Jean Paquet, had filed a complaint with police last month, saying her sudden departure violated the terms of their shared custody of their 11-year-old daughter. A couple who have made headlines for their increasingly odd behaviour, Ms. Bédard and her current partner, Nima Mazhari, were believed to be at one point in the Washington, D.C., area. Mr. Mazhari is scheduled to stand trial next spring in Montreal on charges that he allegedly stole paintings from a Montreal artist.

I will never look at my cross-country skis in the same way again.

Red Sox: Infield

Let’s consider the infield, outfield, pitching and batting over the next wee while. First the infield.

So we now have Lugo.

The question is this: is Lowell, Lugo, Pedroia and Youkilis better than Lowell, Loretta, Gonzalez, Youkilis. I am not pleased that Mark Loretta was not taken up for another year. I saw nothing in Pedrioa that told me he was ready at the end of last year. Last year, Youk looked good because so many of the throws to first base were right on the money. And they hold on to Cora , too, as the utility man for short and second which means if Pedrioa doesn’t pan out he is the main man at second. I don’t know. I liked Gonzalez and Loretta.

Tangent: This is weird:

The Blue Jays say the decision to remove the face of Vernon Wells from the team’s holiday greeting card wasn’t guided by business considerations. Their soon-to-be free agent star disagrees, but thinks the team was right to cut him out in any case. The card features sluggers Lyle Overbay and Troy Glaus, as wells as pitchers Roy Halladay, A.J. Burnett and B.J. Ryan. After being pictured last year, Wells is missing from the card currently landing in mailboxes around Toronto. Two weeks ago, Wells was also notable by his absence from a new series of print ads aimed at season ticket buyers.

Social Host Liability

An odd bit of public welfare notification giving from the PEI Liquor Commission, an organization I recall as lacking a strong leadership role in public awareness on the risks associated with the product:

The 24-page guide, released in time for the holidays, gives tips on planning a party, recipes and bar-stocking ideas. It also includes sobering information on a person’s liability as a host, and dispels myths about alcohol consumption. The guide notes a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision that social hosts don’t have the same burden of responsibility that bars and restaurants do in ensuring guests do not leave intoxicated.

“A social host at a party where alcohol is served is not under a duty of care to members of the public who may be injured by a guest’s actions, unless the host’s conduct implicates him or her in the creation or exacerbation of the risk,” the top court ruled. “Short of active implication, a host is entitled to respect the autonomy of a guest. However, the PEI Liquor Control Commission’s booklet says, the Supreme Court ruling does not provide a carte blanche.”

That ruling from last May could and likely does have a more limited application than many have hope and here is why:

  • At para 26 the court says:

    I conclude that the necessary proximity has not been established and, consequently, that social hosts of parties where alcohol is served do not owe a duty of care to public users of highways. First, the injury to Ms. Childs was not reasonably foreseeable on the facts found by the trial judge. Second, even if foreseeability were established, no duty would arise because the wrong alleged is a failure to act or nonfeasance in circumstances where there was no positive duty to act.

    So where the wrong is an omission, a not doing of something, there is no duty.

  • Key facts by the trial judge found include the following at para 4:

    The party hosted by Dwight Courrier and Julie Zimmerman at their home was a “BYOB” (Bring Your Own Booze) event. The only alcohol served by the hosts was three-quarters of a bottle of champagne in small glasses at midnight. Mr. Desormeaux was known to his hosts to be a heavy drinker. The trial judge heard evidence that when Mr. Desormeaux walked to his car to leave, Mr. Courrier accompanied him and asked, “Are you okay, brother?” Mr. Desormeaux responded “No problem”, got behind the wheel and drove away with two passengers.

    So the hosts were not piling on the drinks, they were not serving the drinks, they were not “operating the bar”. They were not “acting.”

So what do you make of that? No duty to guests and those the guest might later injure arises where the host takes no party because in this case the hosts played a very limited part in the intoxication of the guest. Does that mean the law has changed in relation to the service of drinks by the host? Isn’t Christmas the time, unlike say 30 years ago, when people now host more parties where they serve the alcohol compared to the rest of the year?

To be very fair, I have not read the booklet and the news item says they have confirmed it is not a free for all. But be as careful as before. Take prudent advice. Don’t consider anything has changed when you are pouring the drinks. You may well still be as responsible as before in another set of circumstances. Do you want five to ten years in a court case that goes to the Supremes to find out?

The Final First Friday Of A Month Of 2006 Chat

I remember like it was yesterday that it was recently not now but that was a lot longer ago than I recall.

What is going on? It is a moving day for someone I know and I am lending a hand so a half day. It is also a double party evening. It’s been so long since one of them came a long I can’t recall how they work. Sweater vest and red tie for the first, ball cap and mandolin for the latter. Have we discussed “mand-o-lin”: violin for the hands, no?

  • Old logo good, new logo swooptastic!!!
  • This is neat if you have a British last name as illustrated by “Campbell” here.
  • This is just weird:

    When Christopher Fleming-Brown, a banker living in the exclusive area of Kensington, London, kicked a ball about with his five year-old son in a large private garden communally owned by the houses in his crescent, little did he know he would later face a two year court battle for inadvertently turning the garden into “a public recreation ground,” contrary to the Town Gardens Protection Act 1863…[because]…[l]ast November, a magistrate court held that this game did not constitute football, as there were no ‘teams’ involved. According to the present law, they concluded, teams means football…

    What!!! I am not one to just on the “Europe is dying” bandwagon but this is just…what…they appealed?

    This week, on her appeal, the High Court decided that Mr Fleming-Brown’s game had amounted to football, with Mr Lord Justice Waller saying that “By any common-sensical, natural interpretation the respondent and his son were playing football or a similar game.”

    Well that’s alright then.

  • Well, I suppose I better make my call on the Liberal Leadership Campaign:
    • Iggy – The Grit Stockwell Day. Day was elected, Iggy might be too. It will be weirder for a while and then it will be over.
    • Rae – the nicest guy in Canadian politics. If he wins I might vote for him as I have usually voted for some version of a soft socialist with a faint hope of winning power. Experience and I expect him to give a great speech. My hometown Senator Hugh made the point that few of the candidates have ever spoken to a crowd of 5,000. Rae has.
    • Dion – I don’t know that he has done anything to attract the attention of anyone who isn’t supporting him. Is he a Grit policy wonk?
    • Kennedy – less a no-chancer than three weeks ago but corduroy jackets are so 1974 and also 1994. He would probably make a good leader but he can make a good leader next time. They have to vote for someone who can win in six months.
    • Dryden – he played hockey, right?
    • The others – there are others?

      • I will likely track tomorrow’s second to sixth voting rounds via the radio.

  • Big brother has been watching…no, really – he’s my big brother…has been watching events and implications of the great “Wuzza nation?” debate and considers how nations have hockey teams so Quebec may now need one, too.
  • A freaky weather event may happen down our way later today:

    NORTHEAST WINDS AHEAD OF THE LOW PRESSURE AREA WILL DRAW DOWN THE WATER LEVELS ON EASTERN LAKE ERIE…BY ABOUT 2 FEET. THE SUDDEN SHIFT IN WINDS ALONG THE LENGTH OF LAKE ERIE AS THE COLD FRONT PASSES BY WILL LIKELY SET UP PRONOUNCED SEICH AND FORECAST PRODUCTS ARE SHOWING A RISE OF 8 FEET FROM THE LOWERED WATER LEVEL TO THE HIGHER WATER AS THE LAKE SHLOSHES BACK. A LAKESHORE FLOOD WARNING WILL BE IN EFFECT FOR LAKE ERIE FOR THIS EVENING. LAKE RISES ARE POSSIBLE ON LAKE ONTARIO AS WELL…AS THIS STORM PATTERN IS SIMILAR TO AN EVENT IN FEBRUARY 2006. WATER LEVELS ALONG THE EASTERN SHORE OF LAKE ONTARIO AND THE UPPER SAINT LAWRENCE RIVER ROSE A COUPLE OF FEET FROM OSWEGO TO CAPE VINCENT AND DOWNSTREAM TO ALEXANDRIA BAY ON THE RIVER.

    Freaky. I wish there were some sort of over the counter product to deal with “PRONOUNCED SEICH”. On the upside, this is a rare boogie boarding opportunity.

  • I will go to the Dinosaur BBQ again. I do not care. I ♥ it.

That is it. Gotta go. That must be enough. Can’t you stop emailing me? Someone is at the door. What? WHAT??? Argghhhhhh!!!….

[Exeunt. Ovation. Bows. Exeunt. Fin.]

Christmas Cards 2006

It must be the holidays. I made the julglogg this afternoon (Polish vodka, frozen mixed berries into mason jars for 30 days or so), got ticked over the number of “special events” the kids are already booked up for and remembered to pull out the old “send me an address and I will mail you a card” GX40 post from last year which goes like this:

So because I have finished the Christmas shopping way before the usual afternoon of the 24th, I actually pulled out the address book to do a few cards. Then I realized that the internet has destroyed whatever relationship I ever had with the global system of postal services. The “sent to” address lists ends in 1996 when I send out 12 cards. Good Lord. I could do a performance art piece on the current residents of the former homes of people I could have kept up with better. But that would be sad and this is Yule.

So if you know me and want a card, email me at christmas.card.from.alan@gmail.com. And if you don’t know me – and are not the sort of person Michael does not let come to the party – send me your address anyway. I will see how the cheap drug store cards are holding out. Who knows? Maybe I will stuff every fifth envelope with Canadian Tire Money.

So then I go to check out the email address and see Marian sent emails to it well into January long after I stopped looking at that Inbox. Sorry about that. Keep in mind I am really bad at following up these things but let’s give it a go for 2006.