Tag: Non-partisan blog posts

Time To Confess!

It’s too bad there isn’t an independent body to study stuff that no one wants studies that much. I would submit an application for a grant for a calculation of how much waste computers and the internet have caused:

“The issue is now you have something that seems to be genuinely irresistible because it’s such a gateway to the whole planet that’s right there on your desk and easily concealed to people passing by,” said Wallace, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Employees who cyberslack have been shown to spend most of their time emailing, and almost a third of their messages were not related to work, said James Philips, a psychology professor at Australia’s Monash University. Many workers manage finances or shop online. Popular social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are also common cyberslacking destinations. It is not uncommon to see a user write on his “status” report that he or she is “at work”.

I think that underestimates the capacity and the long tradition of people to fund ways to not do. The inclusion of solitaire and battleships on the first desktops lead to a generation of well qualified lonely card playing admirals. But we were promised a world of leisure and the three day work week when the future was first envisaged, not just jet packs and food in tubes. All that has turned out is that the food is in plastic and not aluminum and the hours of leisure are spent in a cubicle not at a cottage.

Group Project: Do We Really Need Another Leader?

None of the above. Like most Canadians, the lack of a compelling leader is either a big problem or an admission that we really do not need someone to tell us what to be, we just need someone to administer. It is interesting that many of our southern nieghbours may feel the same thing if ry is right. The Globe and Mail is running articles today examining the current Canadian leadership and gives PMSH some advice:

He should start by asking himself why they haven’t bitten so far. After all, in terms of party standings, the Conservatives are still tied with the Liberals in the low 30s. What’s holding them back? The reasons are evident in the data. A large majority of Canadians associate words such as “controlling” and “partisan” with Mr. Harper. They think he’s too right-wing. Most believe he’s too close to U.S. President George W. Bush. He’s not seen as particularly likeable. A majority don’t think he cares about people like them. And most Canadians feel his government has accomplished little during its time in office.

I dunno but if I have to choose between likeable and capable give me capable. But I am not all that certain that Stephen Harper is all that capable. For me, a center-left non-supporter, he seems more like the first or second leg in a relay. Preston Manning tried to reframe the ideology of conservatism in Canada without any real plan for taking the helm and running the place. Harper has the task of proving a majority is possible but maybe he has to stand aside in a few years for that more charismatic person who can implement policies more in tune with the vision of Reform, someone who can convince me and other swing voters that meddling with actual institutions and constitutional principles is something I want them to do.

Notice I do not even speak of others as leaders even though those parties represent the majority of Canadians and are all to the left (to the left) of the conservatives. For the last two decades, whether under rural or urban overlords, Canadians have been happy to have conservative management by any name as long as enough socialism is being administered by them.

  • Has our relationship to leadership changed? Do we not need someone to frame a national vision preferring just decent management?
  • Is the place of conservatism in the US really any different after the ideological disappointments of the last seven years? If the relay analogy is apt, has the race been won and lost? Can a sensible centrist now reframe it to move it into popularity or is another puritan revival required or, if not, going to be foisted anyway?
  • Is there any major shift in the way politics plays out in North American in the offing? The conservative movement of the second half of the 20th century has been both hugely successful and an utter failure as both nations to one degree or another are reformist social welfare states with hugely successful capitalist infrastructures. What should the next ideological revolution look like? Should it not just be an admission that things are pretty robust, fair and acceptable?

There you go. Something to chew on on this quietest day in the quietest day of the year.

Considering Fred

Like the vast majority, I don’t know enough to write with any particular insight on politics…or most stuff for the most part. But this article in the NYT on Fred D. Thompson has me interested in the what might be. Specifically, someone called President Fred. I thought having a Prime Minister Steve would sound odd. And it does. Fred is one of those names that has been forever altered. In this case by Mr. Flintstone. But this Fred seems to be made of some interesting stuff.

Next month, Mr. Thompson is expected to join the Republican race for president. While he is perhaps best known for playing the tough-minded District Attorney Arthur Branch on the NBC show “Law + Order,” it is his real-life role as an investigator of government wrongdoing that has become a central part of the political biography he hopes will propel him to the presidency…Mr. Thompson rose to national prominence in the mid-1970s. As chief counsel to the Republicans on the Senate Watergate committee, he famously asked the question that revealed the existence of the White House taping system that ultimately led to President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation. But Mr. Thompson was also an active participant in the White House’s efforts to deflect blame from the president and discredit his accusers, plotting strategy with Mr. Nixon’s lawyers and leaking them information.

Law + Order never much caught my imagination, at least not in the way that Homicide: Life on the Street did or House has – it lacks the wit and/or performance. So the claims of an actor to leadership, as with those of ideological hack, should fall on deaf ears. It is in the doing that a person makes of him or herself what they can be.

A Kick In The Teeth

Amongst all the insane middle-of-the-night thunder and lightning – again – I turned on the radio and heard that the Yankees were tied at six in the 6th inning in Detroit…because, due to rain delay, they only started at 11 pm and finished in extra innings around 3:30 am. Smile and back to sleep.

I wake to find the Yankees lost. The Yaa-aaa-aaa-aaa-kees lost. Which means they are 6.5 back as the Sox swept the Sox in a double header on the road for the first time since the time of the dinosaurs and grass that looks like tiny little palm trees.

And so off to find a growler of mild in old Galt.

Friday “After The Thunder” Chatfest

Don’t expect much from me today. What a thunder storm. Like the 1812 Symphony without the orchestra: boom, blam, whammo. What with the many mouths a wailing, not a lot of sleep. I almost wrote “flat chest” up there. One more week in August and therefore in summer. Summer really ends around here in October compared to the Maritimes but you know what I mean:

  • Update #2: A neato series of photos from the collection of a new technology museaum in the UK with photos of things like a lump of concrete from 1899 and early 1900s analogue computers including one called “the totalisator” which is my new nickname for me.
  • Update: Brendan Carney, subject of last fall’s overly wrought series on the SU football team, made the pros.
  • Nice to see the scoffing one dimensional right wing bloggers were wrong – again – as the police did infiltrate the wacko protest group at the summit. Darcey’s comment makers display an interesting learning curve but Darcey’s own response is gold:

    Wouldn’t it be crazy if they were undercover protesters pretending to be police officers pretending to be protesters? That would be the ultimate…Or wouldn’t it be weird…if they were police who wanted to be involved in the protest? Maybe their overwhelming zeal was too much for some of the more moderate protesters on the line. This is a good story.

    Cheeky monkey. Far more entertaining that the scoffing one dimensional left wing bloggers

  • What started as a funny idea for naming a sport team seems to end up in a grade seven locker room.
  • If you ever worry about your own beer intake or, conversely, consider it boring check out Ron’s series of posts of drinking his way thought Germany’s Franconia region. Plenty of gems like this:

    Andy met someone he recognised. It turned out to be Dan Shelton and his wife. He was making a documentary about Bamberg or something. I wasn’t concentrating that much on the conversation. I was in my beer zone. Feeling the warm glow of contentment that comes after a morning’s drinking. Very tall. I can remember that. Dan Shelton’s very tall. And annoyingly skinny for someone who works with beer.

  • Amy Winehouse update. I sent portland a copy. Let’s see what happens.
  • The Australian government has been tidying up wikipedia, too.

That is it. Not caffeine in the brain yet.

Group Projects: What Will Happen To The Giant Leek Contests?

I know I go on but all this digital stuff is a bit depressing. Just look at these British stats:

The average Briton now spends 50 hours per week on the phone, using the net, watching TV or listening to the radio. However, the mix of how much time is spent on each one has changed radically over the last few years. Daily mobile phone use is up 58% on 2002 and, over the same period, net use has grown 158%. By contrast Britons spend far less time watching TV, listening to the radio or chatting on a fixed line phone.

But what else are they not doing? Talking to people face to face? Playing games? Planting giant vegetables? With the collapse of content in favour of Web 2.0 flashing lights and curved edges, it is getting harder and harder to see any societal shifts or any new generation as empowering so much as distracting and that reminds me of one thing – the fall of Rome. Sure you can compare the fall of Rome to just about anything but that does not mean I can’t pull out the old chestnut for present purposes. So a few questions:

  • What new non-digital activity have you taken on to balance your life…or even to unbalance it?
  • What non-digitalness would you like to take on if you have the resources or the guts?
  • What would you rather compare to the fall of Rome?

There you go. Pure brilliance once again in the seven minutes before I have to rush out the door.

Soviet Bombers

Much in the news about the Soviet era bombers again floating around international airspace. Apparently all that windfall oil revenue that is floating into Alberta is also floating into Russia – mention that next time a Calgarian gives you the lecture on the moralnomic superiority of western Canadians – allowing them to spend spend spend on expeditions to claim the Arctic, on joint military exercises with China and send out the long-range bombers. Excellent. So 1975. A reminder that there are scarier things than wingnuts with dirty bombs.

As a lad near the Greenwood air force base, the local military newspaper (was it called The Argus after the submarine hunter?) often had close up pictures on the front page of the Soviet bomber crews waving to their Canadian escorts on the front page. There is even a Russia-Canada hockey series this fall – note all Canadian games are played out west. Expect the minders and “cultural officials” to be taking note of oil well infrastructure locations.

Six Up

Like most Yankees individually, I have a lot of respect for Mike Mussina who may have pitched his worst game in his worst year last night:

Mussina lasted one and two-thirds innings, giving up seven runs. At the outset, Mussina could not throw strikes. Then he started throwing strikes and got bludgeoned.

The Red Sox won but, as portland would note, it was only the Rays. You sit there and think “don’t put in Gagne” – then you wonder when they are ever going to put him in. Willi Mo’s player to be named later has never played in the majors.

And, yes, the Angels are clearly so much better than either the Sox or the Yankees.