News, Politics, Events – Page 5

Excellent Satellite Smoking Action

I have to admit, I like China’s style. What other nation would spend a bazillion dollars to smash its own lo-fi satellite out of the sky with a lo-fi ICM with its steering wheel removed, aimed only up.

China’s apparent success in destroying one of its own orbiting satellites with a ballistic missile signals that its rising military intends to contest American supremacy in space, a realm many here consider increasingly crucial to national security. The test of an antisatellite weapon last week, which Beijing declined to confirm or deny Friday despite widespread news coverage and diplomatic inquiries, was perceived by East Asia experts as China’s most provocative military action since it testfired missiles off the coast of Taiwan more than a decade ago.

Provocative? It was gnarly. It’s like a bad guy from Wayne’s World‘s move or even something from a 1950’s Godzilla flick.

[Scene: Dusk. A board room with scientists in lab coats on one side of table with Chinese leaders on the other, all wearing Roy Orbison glasses.]

Lead Scientist: Comrad Chairman, we propose to launch the missile at dawn to smash satellite Golden Happy Tomorrow IV in an unprecedented display of revolutionary power creating a shower of bright burning meteorites that will show your wisdom to the globe!

Chairmen: [Finger tips touching before him, slowly forming a slight smile.] Excellent.

[Room erupts in cautious laughter that builds in a cautious crescendo. Camera pans to a map of world on the wall as laughter continues cautiously.]

Face it: every once in a while a tyranny has to do something stylish and, frankly, Gadafi has the clothes horse thing cornered.

Friday The Bulletteenth

Friday is the new Saturday in the work world. Remembering working Saturdays in the years of schlepverk, retail wages funding weekends reminds me of dressdowns and finishing the afternoon ending with the Beat Authority:

Make a flake. Go ahead. You know you want to. Post them on the fridge in the coffee room after.
Baseball owners told not to spoil their monopoly for fear of the imposition of fairness.
I knew I liked Vermont and Vermonters but now I have a favorite one, Senator Patrick Leahy who lead the good fight in the cause of Mr. Arar yesterday:

“We knew damn well if he went back to Canada he wouldn’t be tortured. He would be held and he would be investigated,” Leahy thundered, wagging his finger at Gonzales. “We also knew damn well if he went to Syria he would be tortured. And it’s beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured. It’s a black mark on us. It has brought about the condemnation of some of our closest and best allies.”
The Globe is telling iLies. These are iLies as I know the world is better with more expensive future junk that does nothing more for me than a walkman did in 1985.
I have concerns. We should all have concerns. This year’s center of the infield is no 2006 center of the infield:

“He’s very athletic,” Epstein said. “He has great range at the position. He’ll make his share of errors, but we think that’s more than compensated for by his fantastic range. He gets to as many balls as anybody at that position. He’s definitely a plus offensive player for the position. He’s a tough out. He can handle all different kinds of pitching.” Though Lugo probably won’t measure up to Alex Gonzalez from a defensive standpoint — who does? — he has the ability to make up for it in other ways…Lugo, who used to be a pest for the Red Sox when he played in Tampa Bay, will make his DP flips to rookie Dustin Pedroia. The Sox opted not to bring classy free-agent veteran Mark Loretta back for a second season. This will be the first time the Red Sox open the season with a rookie position player since 2001…

I am thinking these days that not signing Loretta is going to be the Achilles heel of the team. In addition to more errors and shortstop, Pedroia was weak at bat last year batting under .200 in September when he was given some late games. What is wrong with having a solid defense and decent bats in the middle?
US Senate ethics changes v. the actual CPC Accountability Act. Compare and contrast.

The Friday Chat That Made The Internet What It Is

If I didn’t do Friday chat, the Internet would stop. That is what the voices tell me.

How Canadian are you? What a dumb question to pose in relation to immigration? What is the benchmark? If they asked a group of Haligonians when I was young the answer would be “not much”. We didn’t think much of Upper Canada, the US or New Brunswick for that matter – PEI was “queer Island” but a useful place to get beer when you were 18. We were Nova Scotians first and Canadians administratively. And enough with “visible minority” Only Canadians uses the term and it is stunned.
It is getting so close, people are starting to get nutty:

“I like it, man,” Papelbon said. “I went to the Celtics [team stats] game (Wednesday night) and some guy came running up to me when I was sitting courtside and said, “We’re going to get 20 wins out of you next year!” I like that. I like the pressure.’

It is an incredible line up they have accumulated over the winter. But that is what I said about last year. I still do not really know why you take a closer and make him a starter but I suppose it is all in the percentages, twenty wins is better than 35 saves.
Oh dear: “NDP plotting strategy to out-green its rivals“. You know what? I don’t care that much about green. What I mean is I am all for good stewardship and maximizing sustainability but I think that is a matter of prudence not a core political theory. A core political election platforms should be about change to justice, pervasive wealth creation, international security, that sort of stuff. In an election where green battles green, essentially a battle of filing cabinet arrangement techniques, I may stay home.
I take it the Central Committee never thought of this at the time.
I work with privacy law but even I am having a hard (pre-coffee) time translating this concept:

It is likely that people wishing to take advantage of public information will still be required to apply for licences. “The reason we require licensing is to ensure that government information is not misrepresented or used to mislead the public,” said Mr Wretham. The Statute Law Database, an obscure if fascinating resource, is perhaps an unlikely candidate to have kick-started such a revolution but it will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the UK’s legal history.

Those of you with more contemporary British legal experience will have a better handle on this but it sounds like the UK may be making not only access to information free but use of government data free. This would be sort of huge in that there are massive of mapping, statistical and scientific knowledge in the hands of the state as a consequence or even intentional result of public sector activity.

That is it – maybe more later.

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.

Good Long Term Thinking

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.