Non-partisan blog posts – Page 33

Moving Stuff

With the move to long-term contractual indebtedness, there has been a small wave of thing acquisition that canot go unmentioned, and not just the junior gin-soaked popinjay training kit. These are things that have worked and I recommend:

My Dolly: I was not aware that what I know as a dolly in Canada is a hand truck in the States. But there is no doubt aoub t the fact that the move was made on a Model PJD2223A Harper Nylon Dual Hand Truck (Jr). This thing was sixty bucks or so at the Home Depot and at any given time has move two rolled up futons, or a six foot tall computer desk or umpteen boxes of books. With a removable handle (bright yellow in my version) it flips from a two-wheel box jockey to a four-wheel table on wheels. It has saves both back and patience.
Bankers Boxes: In the good old days, you went to the NSLC and picked up wine boxes and rum boxes and moved your stuff in those. [Don’t try it with the PEILLC, however, as apparently those boxes are valuable assets that only a fool would think of wanting for free, thus earning you the locally classic yet over-used dirty look abaft.] Now, I am a man and I go and buy bankers boxes when I move. Not the big ones, either. The smaller letter sized one will do. Because they are all the same size and very sturdy you can stack a whack of them on your Harper Nylon Dual Hand Truck (Jr). And because you bought the small ones you can remove them without fear of hoisting an inadvertantly 400 lb one that wrenches the back. Slow and steady wins the race. And they also provide sensible storage for the stuff that does not see daylight.
The Scott Classic: Who the hell needs a Briggs and Stratton in the sub-urbs. The lawn I now own takes 15 minutes to mow. So I own a green Scotts Classic mower with a fancy green paint job and bright orange wheels. I puff about as much with a push gasoline mower but without the blue fog of exhaust. Cheaper to buy, cheaper to run and a brief nod to exercise before the self-inflicted prize of a cold drink.

Three smart sensible things. I am not usually like this. One thing I have not bought yet are contaps or tapcons to drill into the brick and secure the angled flag pole bracket for the front of the house. Houses ought to have flag poles. Especially when you have a 3×5 Louisiana with the pelicans on it.

Cricketing Shame

How could I have missed the news? Caught up in the last bits of summer…looking at boats…finally getting the push mower out for a go after weeks of drought and brown laws. How could I have missed this?

Eventually, after nearly an hour of après-tea negotiating, the Pakistanis were convinced to continue. But by that time — with some 24,000 fans in the stands and in the dark about the proceedings — the officials had decided that Pakistan had forfeited the game. In 129 years of international cricket, never before had a game been terminated thusly. When you think about the aborted international games in other sports that immediately spring to mind — about the appalled Soviets getting off the ice on Broad Street or Bobby Knight pulling his basketball team off the floor against his hated Communist opponents — cricket’s was an astounding run of civility. So chalk up another milestone in the sporting world’s further descent into the underworld.

The Flickering Light

More connection problems that are making me think that the modem is dying. Do modems die? I dutifully unplug, replug and reset it with a certain percentage of luck getting back on line. It reminds of days in small urban centre Poland when the phone rang, people shouted what sounded like “Tak, soo-ham!!” which I understand means “Yes, I am here!!” and then hangs up as only about one in seven connections were ever made. For $39.99 a month I should have better analogies springing to mind than eastern Europe of the immediate post-communist era.

Anyway, how would you know if your modem was dying?

Friday Chatting As Cats Glare

So I figured if I was qualified to act as judge and executioner over the life of a
cat I was at least qualified to be amateur boy vet. Seems likely from what
you read on the internet that the old thing is anxious from the move, creating
alkaline pee and over eating. I’ve been doing that too so I am not slightly
sympathetic. Away with the all-night cat food buffet and in with the locking
them up with slightly acidified water. We’ll see. I know there are alkalined cat
lovers out there so I will not be grim or overly Nero-like with these decisions.
See you keep me on a moral path.

Update: The Flea writes good.

Gary wants you to know that he has a
myspace blog now. I do not know if this is wise of him as there is a heck of
a lot of flotsom and jetsom around the MySpace world but Gary will let us know.
I would tell you but as a joke I set mine up in German just to see and now I get
emails from teens in Leipzig whom I have no interest in having as mein
Freunden.

On a fancy-grade whim, I bought one of these
which I saw on deep discount. It is, as far as I can tell, is a junior
gin-soaked popinjay training kit and pairs with the subterranian stash
nicely. Suggestions for accessories welcome. I already have housed the pair of
Greenock golf club whisky tumblers so you can rest easy on that account.
It appears that talking
with terrorists is in fact what one does after all. Of course, we knew this
and did not buy into the pre-post-post-9/11 thinking that conveniently forgets
the IRA, ETA, the MPLA and every other acronymed militant insurgent radical
political movement in human history. As these people are people in the
neighbourhood and not cyborgs in a robot army,
settlement and reconciliation at the end of the day is the only end game.
I am concerned for the lack of respect that imaginary mystic
dwarves are getting these days.

So it is the end of another week
and another week’s worth of bullet points. I hope to be off to the Antique Boat Regatta
at some point on t’other side of the bridge as I wants to hear wee boats go
VVRRROOOOOOOOOOOM but it all depends on the weather.

Gee…The Constitution Does Govern

Speaking of constitutions and freedoms and stuff, here is the opinion part of the ruling of the Federal Court on the suspension of the US administration’s domestic surveillance program. Great paragraph at page 40:

We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all powers must derive from that Constitution.

Via the Jurist.

Good News For Freedom

Good to read this news out of the Supreme Court of Canada this morning:

HUMAN RIGHTS: “POLITICAL BELIEF” DISCRIMINATION

The Respondents were a group of occasional provincial government employees and members of the Provincial Liberal Party, who were either not recalled to work or had their hours of work reduced after the Provincial Conservatives came into power in P.E.I. in 1996. They filed complaints with the Human Rights Commission alleging “political belief” discrimination. While the cases were pending, the Conservative government amended the Human Rights Act , limiting the amount the employees could recover, and preventing them from seeking other remedies available to complaints brought on other grounds of discrimination. The Respondents alleged that the amendments violated ss. 15(1), 2(b) and 2(d) of the Charter. The Prince Edward Island Supreme Court declared the statutory limitation on the available remedies for “political belief” discrimination and the compensation formula prescribed by ss. 28.4(2) to (5) of the P.E.I. Human Rights Act contrary to ss. 15(1), 2(b) and 2(d) of the Charter , and not saved by s. 1. The Appeal Division unanimously upheld the trial judge’s decision with respect to s. 2(d) of the Charter. The Appeal Division did not address the issues of ss. 15(1) or 2(b). Government of Prince Edward Island v. Merrill Condon, et al. (P.E.I. C.A., February 16, 2006)(31416) “with costs”

As I have noted here before and provided more background to the related rulings under the “political rights” heading, I was involved in the original level of this matter before I left private practice. The only thing that diminishes the ruling today and its implication that there is no argument to be made in favour of imposing unconstitutionality upon our political freedom in Canada, is that I was really hoping to get to sit in on a hearing, watching at the back in the cheap seats in the biggest of the courts of the land.

Boomer Finger-pointery

Even though this place is named after Generation X, I really do not directly yap that much about demographics (as it is all so deeply implicit) but this piece in the BBC caught my attention with its accusations of bad boomery:

Baby boomers like to trumpet their generation’s achievements. But their fondness for conspicuous consumption and foreign travel has led to many a modern-day ill, from rising debt to environmental destruction. This week, former US President Bill Clinton – perhaps the archetypal baby boomer – turns 60.

Great. So they now are turning 60 and get all the attention never mind that they sucked it up at 30, 40 and 50 already. Sooner or later there will be the second Gen X headline floating around but it will be something like “Last Gen Xer Likely Dead At 103…Maybe”.

Off-line-ish

As a result of the move, the same service has gone from solidly consistent to patchy. No high-speed for the last 24 hours. But maybe I bought the whole life package – so Bell Sympatico high-speed is reminding me there are other things in life. So, thank you Bell Sympatico high-speed.

I wonder if StatsCan check on the number of people cursing the dead screen as part of their internet stats update.

Is Rock Dead?

Thankfully, I no longer have to worry about what the young kids are listening to as I have reached an age where I am confident that I have experienced throughout the years of my life the very apex of rockdom. Yet it is still disconcerting to read this:

“It’s not trendy enough to do guitar solos,” suggests Mike McCready, lead guitarist for Pearl Jam. “Maybe people aren’t writing songs that they think need guitar solos, or people are telling them not to do that. I want them to come back.”

This is a dull musical era. There is no doubt about that. We all wait for the next wave of ska. We wait for the next garage band movement. In the interim, you might suggest the best guitar or, if ska related, trombone solo we might find comfort with until that good day comes.

Update of Reflection: do you really need another post today when the very existence of rock is the question? I think not.

My Cat Appears To Be Malfunctioning

“Explain myself? I don’t have to frikkin’ explain myself…I’m a cat!”

As far as I can tell, I think there are humans on one side of the line and then there are plants and animals on the other. Our cats were mousers. They were brought in for a job and when we moved three and a half years ago to a mouse-free lifestyle, the cats found a way into the luggage. They are pushing seven now and life most early middle agers are starting to show signs…even leak once in a while.

When we first moved we deal with his 12th floor anxiety and a vet prescribed a buck a day kitty-valium. And the other one, the she, proved the old joke “When is a cat like a dog – when she is a bitch”. We bought catnip instead. Kept them stoned until the angstity one straightened out a bit. Now we have another problem and I am bracing for the “overnight stay” recommendation. I wonder if that will trigger the big needle response. Don’t get me wrong, this is a pretty good cat as cats go. The only trouble is he goes all over the place…no, that is unfair – he goes where it is most distasteful. That is a skill.

But I have standards. I will not have a cat that wears a diaper. I will not pay $500 buck. There are too many young cats in the minor leagues waiting for their break.