Second Gen (2003-2016, 2016- )
So, it seems we are off to the races once again:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has waded into the controversial issue of Quebec nationhood, saying he would introduce a motion recognizing that Quebecers form a nation “within a united Canada.”
Time for Newfoundland to speak up – not to mention the First Nations.
Been a long time since we have had an Olympic boycott based on political dispute. Surely it must be time now if only due to the passing of time and the natural lapse of memory. And surely we should be able to take the foot off the clutch and call for one if we are truly going to lead the way on human rights in China. Because that is what we are going to do, right?:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says his government will not abandon “important Canadian values” by toning down criticisms of China’s human rights record to improve trade relations with Beijing. Harper made the comments to reporters on Wednesday after being apparently snubbed by Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Just wonder, you know, what important Canadian values we might be discussing and whether they get us all the way through the game of chess or whether we just give them an airing now and then.
Seeing this is cut and paste day from the MSM [Ed.: the dastards! Give me more.], this digital world meets the Darwin awards is a decent morality play for the day:
…a university professor needed help after he tried to fix a squeaky desktop computer by squirting it with WD-40 oil. The squeak went away, but so did his data.
I once, during my spotty teens, used astringent face cleaner on my Elvis Costello lps so I feel their pain. If is a darn good thing that we do not have to clean CDs or Mp3s but does anyone think of the layoffs in the lp-cleaning industry? Where are they now? And those who made that K-tel lp flipping storage device. What of those?
As opposed to the sports of long term planning that will restore the quality of the environment to 2017 standards by 2086, this is interesting to see out of the UK if only as it is indicative of how properly done there is no need to fear the boogieman of a social security gap in the future:
Governments are often accused of thinking short term. But a pensions reform Bill, included in the Queen’s Speech, is one of the most consciously long term bits of planning seen for some time. Looking ahead to 2050, its main aim is to provide a higher level of state pension for many more people over the coming decades. The big idea is that the link between the basic state pension and earnings will be restored some time after 2012 and the state pension age will be raised to 68 by 2046.
It has been a long time since there has been much of a boo said about Canada’s retirement funding stability which leads me to the idea that the funding is actually stable as was promised in the early 90s when the bad old ways were turned around by those wizards the Liberal Party of Canada, who will still never get my vote as far as I can see so don’t even bother.
Got a little Christmassy last night watching Tales from the Green Valley on TVO last night, a 2005 BBC production, in which a number of academics with good teeth live in a 1620’s Welsh farm and display how civilized it all would have been without the ignorance, disease, constant use of alcohol and religious fanaticism. But all very good and worth watching. Here is one participant’s website. It were the December episode that drew me back to the deep mid-winter:
To celebrate Christmas 17th-century style the farmers cut a giant yule log, find traditional decorations, brew contemporary tipples, and put all hands to cooking up recipes from the age of Shakespeare, like mince pies with real meat in them. At the same time they must find time to tend the livestock, make some winter clothes, and build a hovel, a period wood store.
But they did butchered a pig and made with it plump sausages and many a pie. ‘Twas the “contemporary tipples” that was of interest, the infusion of herbs in spirit that got me thinking of storing up something of a julglögg, then I reckoned it might be a pyment or metheglin. It reminded me of when at King’s I was in charge of the Gunpowder Punch in 1984 for the Christmas Readings: 7 parts red wine, 2 parts port, 1 part brandy simmered with old apples and spices.
Taking care of this in November leaves time in early December for some careful cheese planning. Oh, and I better buy a snow shovel, too.
…chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick…
You know why Trudeau should have gone all France and built that high speed train in the Quebec-Windsor corridor?
…chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick…
So I did not have to get up at 4:30 am to be in downtown Toronto for 9:00 am. It’s about privacy law so I can’t get into the details of the course…GET IT??? That is the sort of joke I heard twice today. So there will be no pithy comment in the morning. No noting that Harper is now back to unloved and has no buddies with any pull in the US that like him more than they love Bob Rae.
…chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick…
It’s that different now. Bob Rae goes to Washington 1 January 2007? “Comrade!!! is all you will hear echoing throughout Congress. Clinking glasses as the brass bands play The International and everyone shouting “Comrade!!! as they kiss each other’s cheeks.
…chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick…
Harper? What will he be greeted with in Washington after 1 January 2007? Somewhere between tumbling tumbleweeds and Deadwood. The unloved. Will it really be over that quickly? How delish. Yet…I will not go there tomorrow. I won’t. I can’t. No, I will be on a train between Belleville and Cobourg and you will not even be out of the Land o’ Nod.
…chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick…
That is why Canada needed that high speed train in the Quebec-Windsor corridor to be built back in 1983.
…chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick-chich-a-tee-chick…
As the cause of fun advances with the further creeping domination by that thing that is the robot with a billion keyboards, let us not forget that there are victims along the way, good people working hard and getting crushed:
A firm selling machinery to make tubes and pipes has sued internet sensation YouTube – saying the video-sharing site causes havoc at its own business. Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment said its own website – Utube.com – had to be moved five times after millions of inadvertent hits made it crash.
And they told us the internet would be like one big library for all. What world have I woken up to today?
Is it fair to suggest that this US political season, where Michael J Fox can sum it up by saying he needs neither the pity or permission of Rush Limbaugh, is a dead zone as far as the blogging goes? Is it truly the case that is is no bombast left in the bloat?
Remember in 2004 when this was the medium that would change everything? What changed?
In my never ending drive to mix insipid views of world affairs with solid reporting of what I get to see on my TV set, it is a particularly big day – even if the sun is not up yet as I am likely late for work – when there is a report in the NYT on Big East basketball. I do not follow the NBA. I do not care a whit for it. But I really like NCAA college b’ball, which is not to be unexpected from someone who was 6 foot 2 at 12. I knew the ways of the orange ball once, let me tell you. Then I stopped but that is another matter. The other, more specific Orange, is ranked third going in:
Coming in third in the coaches’ poll, Syracuse may need a big season from the freshman Paul Harris, who was named preseason rookie of the year. He will be called upon to provide some of the offense lost with the graduation of Gerry McNamara.
I don’t know if the games will be on the local northern NY radio but I will check that out soon. There…I just did. It states we should tune to 103.1 but I am thinking that 100.7 FM actually has the SU broadcast deal for Watertown.
Speaking of political campaigns, a subject most facinating, what we are witnessing to our south is even more interesting than questions Iggeriffic. Consider this:
As this country’s most outspoken and polarizing social conservative, the two-term Pennsylvania Republican senator has been in Democrats’ cross-hairs for two years. Now they’re moving in for the kill.
Recently when chatting with a northern New Yorker mention was made that this year might well be the end of the thirty years of a particular brand of conservatism that began – people will shake their heads now in disbelief – with the rise of Jimmy Carter in 1976, when the words “born again” entered the political arena with legitimacy for the first time. It has been that long since I would have imagined conservatism as a general thing being able to be described as “on the run” as the quote above does. It has been a long time since the moral majority might not have enough votes. To be fair, these things certainly have natural cycles as no theme captures the public imagination forever, but that is perhaps especially the case after corporate and public scandal, after it becomes apparent that debt financing is all that actually gets trickled down.
But, as in most things, there is a penchant to count one’s chickens before they are hatched. Needless to say I will be a gawking at the TV tube come election night. I’d have another US election pool but Kateland and I began our falling out over the last one, something I could not bear to repeat. But maybe I should. Maybe it is time. The Vote Master, after all, is back.