Category: Uncategorized

NuEthics for NuCons

The days events are best summed up by Bob at Let It Bleed:

IF …in May 2005 you were OPPOSED to Belinda Stronach crossing the floor to the Liberals

THEN …in February 2006 you should be OPPOSED to David Emerson crossing the floor to the Conservatives…

There is of course more so go read the whole post. How delicious to watch out new rural overlords ineptly and unnecessarily fall on their faces on day one and watching their bloggy pals split off the thinnest shavings of a hair you will ever see to distinguish the bad old Grits (quite evil actually) from the new ethical Tories. Thankfully, there are many blue bloggers and fellow libertarian travellers who are as disgusted as I am. Actually I am more amused than disgusted as I have every expectation the Tories will operate exactly like the Grits except for the sanctimonious grin on their mugs.

Now…to be fair…Don points out that PM Harper never said that this flipping of parties was wrong. He just never quite said it was #1 on his plan for governance.

Update: Steve the Angry Man twigs to what this new math means:

…There is also the independent. That means that a tie does not actually exist. Either the CPC+NDP or the Liberal+Bloc would have to entice Andre Arthur to their side…

So the Quebec City shock jock André Arthur now holds the balance of power in the Parliament of my country. Excellent. Thanks Prime Minister Steve.

The Red Ensign Standard #36 Flies

The Phantom Observer has done a masterful job with the latest issue of the Red Ensign Standard, a group of which I am proud to be a early adopting member though only an editor once. Go have a read of some interesting writers many of which are, admittedly, to the right of where I stand but who try to raise the discourse a wee bit more than is usually for we pajamistani.

Dang!

I wasn’t paying attention and I’ve already missed the pre-pre-game show for Super Bowl Extra Large. I hope the pre-warm-up-show is still on the other channel.

Predictions? The team I pick will lose. That makes it Pittsburg. Jerome Bettis, however, will win MVP for guys with guts everywhere. My newly discovered but slowly loading pal Deadspin has a post on what you might watch on TV other than the Super Bowl this evening.

Screw You Pluto!

Hah! The new newest planet is also bigger than the old newest planet:

An icy, rocky world reported last year to be orbiting the Sun in the distant reaches of the Solar System really is bigger than Pluto, scientists say. New observations of the object, which goes by the designation 2003 UB313, show it to have a diameter of some 3,000km – about 700km more than Pluto.

This is great. I have always really really hated Pluto. The most extreme…sorry…X-treme planet without really anything to really show for itself. What other ball of methane gets such good press? Anyway, 2003 UB313 or Vulcan or whatever they choose to call it (I prefer “Marzipania” myself…the planet of marzipan) kicks Plutos arse all over town. Soon we will be hearing no more about Pluto than Uranus and that ain’t much.

Being Asked

ncpr1For an old school radio nerd like me, getting the chance to join other listeners to give feed back to the staff at NCPR yesterday was quite the thing. Well loved by its fan base, the station is apparently one of the best rural stations in the NPR system. It was interesting having come across the border and after a drive of one and three-quarter hours to find that I was not the person from farthest away, that the station reaches all the way south-east to Saratoga Springs, NY, not to mention into Vermont at Burlington.

Lots of good talk about new technology but it was very interesting to sit in a room of people from another country and listen to them discuss their views on what the local community could benefit from – the notion and scale of both local and community not quite being the same as what Canadians might think. Interesting to note with well experienced staff that they were very concerned about the realistic and possible as opposed to the e-dream. All hopeful.

When morning news host Todd Moe introduced himself I immediately said “I love your voice” then “when else could a man tell a man that” – he laughed but it was true. There is something about the immediacy of radio that means that is how it works. Oddly, though, I did have this feeling that the data on the screen below to the upper right was incoming from Castle Flea.
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Off To Canton

Off to do my part for NPR by helping NCPR think about what it might do with the internet. I am really looking forward to this but I am a bit worried about my Cantonese.

On the up side, I have established where the ales are, have scoped out First Prize Hots for the way home and also plan to buy some tickets for the big game against Yale on the 20th. It has been two years since we were there for a game.

Trucks On Sand Dunes


From Dirk von Zitzewitz’s Blog and Dakar 2005.

It is that week again and the channel formerly known as the Outdoor Life Network is playing the Lisbon to Dakar rally as a four night summary. Apparently on Saturday there is a four hour repeat broadcast starting 2 pm, a festival of broken drive trains and motorcycles flying mid-air into jagged rock faces.

Last year I promised myself to take this on by moped. This year I renew that pledge for 2007 but with sidecar mopeds. Vintage experimental Italian ones.