Visit AbandonedStuff.com for my current blog

Blog has Moved to AbandonedStuff.com

2007-10-21T12:00:00.001-06:00

Thank you for visiting. My blog has moved to www.abandonedstuff.com and what you read below is now an incomplete duplicate of content hosted there.
If you're visiting due to a comment I left on your Blogspot blog, I encourage you to reply on my new blog.

You may also read more of my archives at www.angelfire.com/mt/woodmtn/insight.html

Blog DB trouble Oct 20 2007

2007-10-20T10:27:00.000-06:00

I'm having trouble with my server, starting last night around midnight, and the problem is continuing. You may be able to load only portions of AbandonedStuff.com

UPDATE: The blog is back up as of 1:05PM, after being partly down for nearly 12 hours.

Injecting ink into the body? What could go wrong?

2007-06-27T15:34:00.000-06:00

I can't imagine what it would take me to inject colouring into my skin, but it might be more than a lot of money paid to me.

Dreamhost is sucking it hard

2006-09-22T15:26:00.000-06:00

My website host computer died again today for at least 1.5 hours at the time of writing this. It should be back up by the time you read this, but this is the second time in the last month that my site has been affected by temporary server downtime. This isn't usual, or good.

Site was down again today

2006-08-24T23:22:00.000-06:00

My main blog at abandonedstuff.com has been down at least 3 times this Summer, mostly due to Dreamhost in L.A powering down during hot times of the day. This one happened at night and lasted only a few minutes.

Blog broken again July 28th 2006

2006-07-28T16:32:00.000-06:00

I think Dreamhost is having serious sytem troubles, as me, and several other websites I've checked have been offline since 2:30 today and it's 4:30 now. So abandonedstuff.com is offline for the moment, and should be back up sometime today. The last outage was about 6 hours.
[UPDATE: It came back up at 5:00PM today]

Blog outage Monday July 17th

2006-07-17T21:29:00.000-06:00

Now known as Dark Monday, today my blog host died inexplicably when I wanted to post pictures and get back on track posting my thoughts. Oh well, I guess I can find a way to sort my nearly 1000 pictures and videos from my vacation.

Crater hunters rejoice; Customer Service; War criminal dies

2006-03-11T16:35:00.000-06:00

Discover crater impact sites in your spare time? Someone did using Google Earth, and found two undiscovered craters in the first few hours, but not any after that initial success.

This morning I went looking for a "flying combine" outside of Saskatoon, and instead found a moving train that just crossed the Yellowhead #16 Highway. On Googlesightseeing.com you can see all sorts of interesting things, much better than my train discovery.

If you have a bad experience, the retailer really should make you happy again. Like, DUH, huh? I know when eBay treated me badly, I didn't say nice things about them, but now that someone there is making an effort to win me back, I'm not going to direct people elsewhere.

War criminal Slobodan Milosevic was found dead of natural causes in his jail cell this morning. Now if only Saddam Hussien would have the same sense of decency in his final act on earth, and pass away of natural causes before we all fight about whether we should let him rot in jail or kill him at the end of his trial.

Sheaf Gate and the War in Canada

2006-03-10T18:28:00.000-06:00

First off concerning SheafGate:

Here’s an excellent opinion about the events surrounding the publishing of Capitalist Piglet in The Sheaf UofS paper. And I’ve got links from the editor in the heart of the storm. He points out that there was no outcry at the cartoon depiction of love between a hot lady and rabbit. Before that The Wayward Reporter details a timeline in the controversy. There has also been a blog set up to support the Sheaf, and to counter the boycott blog that got provincial media coverage while the webmaster remained anonymous and bashed bookstores for selling The Da Vinci Code [while claiming the work of fiction is an anti-Christian historical document possibly].

Now moving on to war, a REAL war, the one we’re fighting in Afghanistan. I feel that Canada is justified in staying in the battlezone and assisting the defenseless Afghani people who have no control over the warlords or Taliban thugs. I also feel it’s essential that the House of Commons vote on where our Canadian Forces are deployed. If the House can’t be consulted before the deployment, then they should at least review the action every 6 months, because we owe our brave troops at least that much consideration.

It’s so, pardon me for drawing from recent events, American to send an army overseas without consulting the people’s representatives in an official capacity. It doesn’t show disrespect to the troops or mission to vote on their deployment, it just shows good common sense if we want to remain a democracy. After all, how would you like it if your government sent your daughter overseas to invade Belgium, and you didn’t have a voice in Parliament, or any organization for that matter, that holds the Defence minister accountable if the invasion isn’t in the defense of Belgians and Canadians?

ebay - CBC Humour Leader Kit

2006-03-09T21:27:00.000-06:00

A CBC Humour Leader Kit is my latest eBay creation. Don’t forget to check out my Pet Foil Hat Technology too though, it still sees daily interest according to Google so I might as well try to sell another one. The No Smoking stickers are a good seller too, and I’m happy to help people tell others to ‘butt out’.

I created the CBC Humour Leader Kit because of Rick Mercer’s Liberal Leader Kit of course. He told me today that when a comedian finds something that works, “you flog it like a rented mule”. Since Rick already found what eBay auction of the week works, I’m going to help flog his joke like a rented mule, whilst at the same time poke my beloved CBC with a good natured stick. Do you suppose I should have included instructions on how to draw political cartoons? No, I didn’t think so either.

Saskboy on CBC Noon Edition today

2006-03-09T09:25:00.000-06:00

I’m looking forward to my noon time appearance on the Noon Edition where I’ll get to ask Rick Mercer a question. If you’re at a computer or a radio 540AM in Saskatchewan, check me out Thursday about 12:40 PM.

Rick’s auction on eBay is up to $16,000,000 already, and I think he’ll have to pre-approve his bidders to get the beer money he was after. Former PM Joe Clark [or so the old ebay ID claims] is also bidding on the leadership kit.

Karwacki's chances; Canada; Pot; Cartoon

2006-03-08T20:26:00.000-06:00

SK Liberal leader David Karwacki has a good chance of winning when he runs in Weyburn-Big Muddy [PDF]. In 1995 the Liberals got as many votes as both the NDP and PC parties, and only in '99 after the meltdown from the defection of SK Liberal members to the Sask Party, that they got fewer votes than the NDP.

1995 G.E. – June 21
Judy Llewellyn Bradley............................................................................................ NDP 3506
Hugh M. Kimball ...................................................................................................... Lib 2373
Brenda Bakken........................................................................................................ PC 2434

1999 G.E. – September 16
Brenda Bakken ....................................................................................................... SP 4015
Judy Llewellyn Bradley............................................................................................ NDP 2899
Joseph F. Weisgerber ........................................................................................... Lib 1373
==

Connect2Canada is a website run by the Canadian Embassy in Washington. It's designed to help deliver facts about Canada to Americans, so that lies spread by Fox News and misinformed bloggers will be debunked.
==

On the CKOM.com Reality Check, 79% said Harper is right to not decriminalize Pot. I said No, but I'm not sure they counted my vote because I didn't hear my "no" voice played on the radio when they called "Line 5". Why did I say no, even though I don't think people should not smoke? Because the criminalization of pot hinders "no THC" hemp acceptance as a textile industry that Saskatchewan could be making money from, and it's a waste of police resources to break up the pot trade that could be making blood money for the government in a legal market instead. There could still be fines for smoking pot in public, or driving while impaired, so it's not like decriminalization would be carte blanche for the public to go out and get high.
==

I sent John Gormley this email today, to signify that not all of his listeners are pleased with his overeager reporting on The Sheaf Cartoon.

Hi John,

I wasn't impressed yesterday when you stated several times that you'd push the cartoon issue until everyone at The Sheaf was turfed. I agree with a few of your callers that you're blowing a youthfully-misguided stunt out of proportion. The cartoon is offensive yes, but it's clearly a satire of media/capitalist exploitation of religion, and it did a damn good job at demonstrating that too.

Remember how at one point you favoured the publication of similar cartoons considered at least as offensive in the Muslim world? And now you're using your considerable influence to crusade for the heads of people protesting the censorship of the Jyllands-Posten cartoon in The Sheaf. I don't think that's right.
-Saskboy

Questioning Rick Mercer's Liberal Leadership Kit on eBay

2006-03-08T09:07:00.000-06:00

Jordon Cooper's weblog: The Rick Mercer Report Liberal Leadership Kit on eBay
Rick Mercer is offering advice on how to become the next Prime Minis...err Liberal leader of Canada.
The bid price is already in the thousands after starting at a tempting $15, so I wrote in a question instead of bidding.
Good Morning RMR,
I'm afraid your kit is a bit too expensive, even given the possibility it would lead to me being the Prime Minister of Canada. Do you have a kit planned for obtaining the leadership of a "lesser" party, asuming it would be a fraction of the final bid price for Liberal leader?
Do you have a Democrat kit planned for our American friends?
Thank you,
[Saskboy]
Yorkton, SK
Update: CBC has asked if I'd like to give eBay advice to Rick on the Noon Edition in SK . I said sure, so listen for me talking to Rick Mercer briefly at 12:40pm on Thursday. I'm pretty excited, I don't get to speak with an international celebrity very often. In fact, I can't think of another international celebrity I've spoken with, since Ralph Goodale doesn't meet the international criteria, and my radio interview in Springfield IL wasn't broadcast internationally or with a celebrity. This ought to be more fun than going to a Bill Clinton speech in a blue dress.

grrrl meets world: Saskatoon Cartoon Reveals Bafoons.

2006-03-08T07:47:00.000-06:00

grrrl meets world: gadfly to fundamentalists everywhere
writes:
"Last week the campus newspaper The Sheaf published a rather controversial cartoon -- namely, one that had a cartoon Jesus performing a sexual act on a capitalist pig. [Tasteless, yes. Interesting commentary on the unholy merging of religion and capitalism/consumerism? Hmmm, maybe.]"

It seems I'm far from alone in the idea that this cartoon has a message to go along with its shocking facade.

Twins Pucket - dead at 45

2006-03-08T07:41:00.000-06:00

Sask. Fish Tales: Twins baseball star dead at 45
The Minnesota Twins' star player Kirby Pucket, who retired years ago due to health problems, died from a stroke the other day. I wasn't a Twins fan, but I liked Pucket.

The Sheaf Hits the Fan

2006-03-08T07:28:00.000-06:00

Tuesday was interesting on the radio. I got rather riled up as I listened to John Gormley announce he’d not let the issue die until every sitting member of The Sheaf was fired and/or brought before the human rights commission for their poor taste political cartoon satirizing the non-publication of the Muslim cartoons the previous week. It seems obvious to me that the cartoon authors were doing what one caller to the radio show described, and that was satirizing capitalists who exploit the divisive potential of religion for monetary gain [in addition to protesting the non-publication of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons]. Rawlco Radio easily fell for this trap, and Mr. Gormley’s view is about as hypocritical as the paper’s since he last I heard was in favour of the publication of the Muslim cartoons which in many countries were considered more vile than this Jesus cartoon was.

I thought it was really irresponsible of Mr. Gormley to suddenly pick up on a caller’s opinion that this cartoon was illegal hate literature, and started calling it that too. That’s as good as an accusation of a crime, which I thought he had more class than to do that, especially since he should know his spin can affect opinions in the province. I can see how the comic is offensive to Christians, Jews, and Muslims, since Jesus is a figure in all three, and sex acts with animals equally offensive. Especially since pigs are considered unclean in Judaism and Islam, it could be seen in a completely differently offensive way depending on the person. That’s why it’s so easy to realize that there could be a perspective where the cartoon isn’t solely offensive, only vile in a Howard Stern way, and in the context of the paper not printing the Muslim Cartoons it’s possibly a protest against that decision.

Was it right to publish the cartoon of Jesus in a sexual act with the capitalist piglet? No, it was not the best thought out form of protest, or political statement because it will likely see the authors dragged before a tribunal of some sort to satisfy the hypocrites that condemned Muslim reaction to a set of cartoons they found offensive. At no time did Mr. Gormley or his callers bemoan the fact that Muslims had no human rights tribunals to punish the cartoonists with, yet here they are chomping at the bit to use the harshest legal punishments they can devise for rebellious activists who managed to get published in a STUDENT newspaper. It was not a good idea to publish the cartoon, because a lot of people just feel it’s not right to be that crude in print, and that’s a fair enough opinion. I prefer a well worded protest or rant to an in-your-face cartoon, but the odds of being noticed are a lot better with an offensive cartoon than just another weblog/editorial rant.

Here’s a response to the cartoon that I feel is the most appropriate for a Christian to have:

“The following is a submission to Life of Turner from an anonymous source:

I’ve been trying to figure out what the publishing of the “Capitalist Piglet” means to me, and I realize the answer is not much. Did the Sheaf have the right to publish it? Yes. Did Yiph have the right to create it? Yes. Do I have to like it? No. As a Christian, I am taught that that which is permissible is not always beneficial. This cartoon is obviously not beneficial to me, but I have to respect the permissibility of it. Furthermore, I am taught that where I am weak, God is strong. Looking at the cartoon makes me want to be outraged and yet I can find peace. Part of this peace is knowing that my outrage is superficial at best, as this cartoon does not hinder my salvation or the salvation of anyone else. My outrage is based either in the fact that their own editorial policy was broken, or that my fees have paid for this to be published. Peace comes in knowing that Christ has been here already. He was sworn at and spat on during his march to Calvary, and this is no different. If I am to be an ambassador of peace, then why should I be up in arms? My role is to spread truth and to help find resolution rather than to point blame. Mistakes were made, and now forgiveness is to be had. As a Christian the best thing I can do now is to love those who need it. When dealing with an issue in the Bible, Jesus would often use wit to turn a situation around and to bring something beneficial to light. Our wit is this: the staff at the Sheaf need to be encouraged. They need support, but mostly they need forgiveness. The University community needs to put this issue down and to have something productive come from it. We all have a part to play in being Christ to the world and it all starts with forgiveness.”

I was most disturbed by the caller to CJME that claimed Ahenakew’s anti-semitic comments about the holocaust were in some way comparable to this cartoon [the Jesus cartoon can be seen on Small Dead Animals]. I can’t see how claiming “Hitler was right to fry 6 million of those guys” in any way mirrors the satirical cartoon depiction of a divine saviour [from ancient literature and regarded as the son of God to many North Americans] in a sexual act with a cartoon representation of capitalist greed. In the context of the recent battle over whether or not to publish “vile” depictions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, the cartoon is simply a misjudged attempt at satire. If it had been published two months ago when it wouldn’t be as clear why someone should think it to be satirical, then I acknowledge the “hate literature” charge could possibly stick. In Canada for a crime to be committed you need both the criminal act and the intent. I honestly don’t think the intent of the cartoonists was to tell people to hate Christians, Muslims, and Jews. But that’s just my opinion, and Derek’s too, and in the coming days the authors’ comments might shed some further light on the whole issue.

“Derek Turner, a Sheaf board member, said he was aware of the cartoon [through a friendship only] before it was published and understood the cartoonists intended to make a point about the paper’s decision not to publish the controversial Mohammed cartoons.

“I was quite surprised to see it in the Sheaf, and quite disappointed in the editorial decision to publish such a cartoon, particularly at such a tenuous politically and religiously charged time,” Mr. Turner said.”

Blog is back - to some degree

2006-03-07T08:27:00.000-06:00

While some people will still get an error when trying to visit www.abandonedstuff.com , others will see my new WordPress blog which is just starting to take shape. If you get an error when you visit my link, try pressing Go on your address bar again or visit www.sasktelwebsite.net/sask instead in the meantime and I'll give updates there.

Domain Name administration isn't fun.

2006-03-05T16:59:00.000-06:00

My Abandonedstuff.com blog is experiencing growing pains over the next couple days. If you can't reach my site through abandonedstuff.com, try again with http://sask.sasktelwebsite.net instead.

At least when I changed a light bulb in my car this afternoon, my signal light system started working properly again.

More Scam Busted material

2006-03-04T17:58:00.000-06:00

There's been an update on the Scam Busted website. I know I just hate it when I get a large bitmap emailed to me, although the last time that happened I was on dialup.

A big red spot from ethical jabbing?

2006-03-03T23:20:00.000-06:00

PM Harper is looking at some trouble from Canada's Ethics Commissioner, for allowing and perhaps even encouraging MP Emerson to cross the floor and join the Conservative cabinet. It's about time Harper's outright deceit during the election campaign is brought to widespread attention. The problem is that the Commissioner hardly seems fair in investigating when he's made comments before stating he couldn't in between parliament sitting.
==

The planet Jupiter is growing a new red spot. Jupiter is already well known for its Great Red Spot storm which is visible through modest backyard telescopes, so it will be interesting if this newer spot sticks around and grows. "The official name of this storm is "Oval BA," but "Red Jr." might be better. It's about half the size of the famous Great Red Spot and almost exactly the same color. Oval BA first appeared in the year 2000 when three smaller spots collided and merged. A similar merger centuries ago may have created the original Great Red Spot, a storm twice as wide as our planet and at least 300 years old."
This was submitted to Slashdot and accepted.
==

The EpiPen costs about $100CDN and is still effective says the coroner investigating the death of a teen who reportedly got a "kiss of death" from a peanut eating smoocher. The EpiPen involved wasn't used properly [or at all it sounds like], and nut oil from a kiss wasn't the cause of death either. The big media got the story wrong? Oh my that never happens...
==

Blogger removes spam blog that removed spam button

2006-03-02T22:28:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago I wrote Blogger.com support because I found a spam-blog [autocreated to only advertise online gambling sites], and it had the "flag this blog as bad" button completely gone from the navagation bar. That shouldn't be possible, and I wanted to bring it to the attention of Blogger. Here's their response many days later:

Hello,

Thanks for writing us regarding this possible Terms of Service violation.
We will examine it soon and take action as necessary.

If you come across a spam blog that does not contain a flag icon on its
NavBar, please feel free to write in and notify Blogger Support. However,
please note that Blogger has implemented automated spam classifying
algorithms to help identify and target spam blogs.

For more information about what we're doing about spam, please see the
following Blogger Help article:

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1260

Sincerely,
Blogger Support

The little guy gets screwed by the FCC. Try metric enlargment!

2006-03-02T21:27:00.000-06:00

I've finally set up the Official PEMS page for that special gag gift to that special guy.

And Digital AM radio is causing interference for poorer competitors, yet the FCC didn't block it. Clear Channel wins yet again.

You can thank Saskatchewan for your day and night

I think the Saskatchewan In Motion campaign is actually a SaskPower plot to keep the world revolving the proper way, by getting everyone to walk west into Alberta? That ensures the earth keeps spinning properly you know... Heaven help us if Saskies in Alberta start walking or driving back to Sask. There's someone else who thinks I might be on to something.

Breaking News: Yorkton Superstore has super emergency

2006-03-02T17:56:00.000-06:00

There seems to be some kind of fire/medical/police emergency at the Yorkton Superstore. I was possibly the last customer they allowed into the store to do their shopping before the people started to gather at the entrance. Staff at the meat place in the back were standing around outside of the area they take the produce in and out of while a loud humming alarm was audible in the backroom. Three firetrucks, at least two police cars, an ambulance, and fire chief vehicle were gathered to the south of the store between Superstore and Canadian Tire. Someone was taking digital pictures, but I didn't bother to ask them to email me any. I'd left my camera at home, so I didn't get any shots.

I'll let you know if I ever find out what was going on.

Karwacki to run in Weyburn-Big Muddy riding byeelection

2006-03-02T16:25:00.000-06:00

David Karwacki the energetic leader of the Saskatchewan Liberal party is going to be the SK Liberal candidate in the next provincial byeelection.

This is good news for Saskatchewan, as they can add a new dynamic to the otherwise fruitless legislature. Let's hope that Weyburn voters decide they too want an alternative to the disasterous NDP government and the lackluster Sask Party.

Uncle Sam wants President Bush to stop lying

2006-03-02T10:22:00.000-06:00

Louie Sam would be glad to hear this news out of Washington state. They've acknowledged that lynching him to death in 1884 was a bad move.
==

President Bush lied yet again! He knew the New Orleans levees could breach and was more concerned about SOUNDING prepared than actually doing anything to evacuate people. What could he do; the national guard was in Iraq on his oil war mission. Why is this man still president, don't Americans in government have any self respect? Are they saying a chronic liar and warmonger is the best the country can pick as their head of government?

Medical Translator available in the east

2006-03-01T16:28:00.000-06:00

Translations of medical questions posed by doctors to their patients were provided by a new Canadian designed computer called MedBridge. "Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Portugese, French, and Russian," are some of the languages the MedBridge can work with. CBC reports, "If a patient is deaf, the system can also translate into American Sign Language using video. The MedBridge system is already in use at hospitals in New York, Toronto and Halifax." Pretranslated questions are stored in the computer and the doctor chooses from the list of questions to ask. It's not quite a Universal Translator, but it should improve doctor-patient communication.

Evolution; movies; poetry

2006-03-01T11:20:00.000-06:00

In the news, Utah voted down an anti-science bill questioning the validity of the theory of evolution because there are "scientists" who don't think it works. In other news, Crest has fought off a push to include the following warning on their toothpaste tubes:
Only 9 out of 10 Dentists agree that flouride toothpaste reduce cavities. Since there are dissenting Dentists, you're probably better off gargling with Coke.

Feb. 27, 2006 Monday

I watched "Sideways" [5/10] today. It was a boring romp through southern California filled with drunk driving, cheating, and a smattering of redeeming funny scenes. If there was a category for Depressing Comedy, it'd qualify.

I also got a kick out of the warning that plays automatically at the start of DVD movies, telling us not to pirate the legitimate movie we're watching. The irony is that you can buy a movie with a built in lecture, or you can download the same movie that doesn't force you to watch warning screens and previews you don't want. I watched this movie "legally", but I'd have had wasted less time doing it "illegally".

It's been a while since I wrote any poetry
I'm writing one now though as you can see
Sure the meter's not right, and the tune is too slow
But a good line is coming before you will go
It's not this line though, you'll have to keep reading
It's almost here now, I'm not being misleading
OK, you caught me, I had nothing special planned
With writing like this, my poetry should be banned.
- By Saskboy

Katsulas dies- Babylon 5 loses G'Kar, a Narn

2006-02-27T10:05:00.000-06:00

The actor who played G'Kar on Babylon 5, has died at age 59 of lung cancer. He had also appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation as a Romulan, and in The Fugitive as a one armed murderer. A reunion of the origional B5 cast now would be difficult with both Dr. Franklin and G'Kar's actors dead.

Olympic sized coverup; Don Knotts

2006-02-26T21:35:00.000-06:00

I watched the rebroadcast of the Olympics closing ceremonies, and CBC switched to different shots of the stage as a protester or drunk person ran up to the podium before Jack Rogge was speaking. There was only one microphone after he tore it away when he was dragged off the stage which you could see in the rebroadcast if you knew what to look for.
Who the man was with, I have no idea.

Update: Here's a media mention. CBC Sunday Report also did a segment on the prankster who tore off the microphone.

Bode Miller a US alpine skiier went to the games to have fun, not to "win medals" as he revealed in an interview. And the USA wonders why they didn't do as well as they expected they would? Miller didn't even, "get drunk the night before races." Well shucks, that's good to know.
==

Don Knotts died on Friday. He played Barney Fife on the Andy Grifith Show

Valentines expense, and Interview with me by Ash

2006-02-23T23:30:00.000-06:00

Samantha Burns linked to me since I wrote an article she published.
==

  "While the average expected Valentine's Day spending on gifts for others
is $92.59 per person, Canadians are more concerned with showing appreciation
than with extravagance." - Source Pollara

But in Sask. the average guy spends only $60 on his sweetie on the big day of romance. I'm happy to have brought that average way down. Birthdays and Christmas are the "big" gift times, or just any time for a little gift.
==

First part of the Interview Meme for Bloggers

Who's better Barbie or Ken?
Ken's better, because even though he's unable to remove his underwear, at least he has room for his internal organs.

What would it take to get you into a glittery dress and a bra? $1 Million Dollars, and it would have to be at Halloween.

Compare your IQ to a Simpsons character, and which one do you think has an IQ closest to yours. My IQ would be closest to Principal Skinner's, and to compare myself to another Simpson's character, I'd choose Homer because there is no way I could come out dumber, because I am so smrt.

If Puff the magic dragon flew by your window tomorrow night and invited you to a party in his cave with the teletubbies and Catherine Zeta Jones, would u accept and why?

I'd have to say no, because I don't like the teletubbies, and I'd be concerned that Jones' husband Michael would get jealous.

Save Wonderland

2006-02-22T18:24:00.000-06:00

CBC was saying "our hockey hopes went down the drain". Err, we won GOLD in women's hockey, the men don't count for all of hockey. It's a shame the loser men hockey players will get more press than Cindy Klassen who's won her 4th medal, a gold today. The second place in that race was also Canadian, and we got a Gold in ski sprint as well.

CBC as I reported earlier, is cancelling This is Wonderland, but you can fight their choice and sign this petition. Wonderland is my favourite CBC drama, and it's a hoot too, so hop over and add your initials to the petition please.
==

Someone lost their camera in Hawaii, or did they have it stolen? It seems it was taken by a Canadian family who decided to smuggle it into Canada and keep it after telling the victim what they did!
==

CCD inventors were honoured this week. According to CBC News, "Willard Boyle, a Canadian scientist who helped invent the light-sensitive chip, accepted [the prestigious Charles Stark Draper Prize] in the U.S. on Tuesday. Boyle and George Smith will share the $500,000 US award for the invention of the "Charge-Coupled Device (CCD), a light-sensitive component at the heart of digital cameras and other widely used imaging technologies," the U.S. National Academy of Engineering said." Those other devices include the Hubble Space Telescope, and orthoscopic medical instruments. "Boyle and Smith came up with the idea for the device while working at Bell Laboratories in 1969. 'It was after maybe an hour's work,' Boyle recalled. 'We went over to the blackboard and we had some sketching there. We went down to our models lab and made one.'"

This story went on Slashdot's frontpage tonight.

East Vacation 2006; Smartest Listener; Unipage

2006-02-22T12:27:00.000-06:00

I planned out more of my Summer trip to Ontario and the Maritimes, last night. The Canada Pass for Greyhoud that lasts for 10 days is my best option, and it's only $379. I'm flying back home in July on Air Canada from St. John's.

Marjory at the Provincial Library won the Sask. Smartest Radio Listener contest this week. What significance does Shilo have to Saskatchewan? Well 100 years ago during the period of 1905-1911 American blacks from Oklahoma settled in Shilo, SK to escape racism in their home state and made one of the first black settlements in Western Canada. Of course there were already many in Nova Scotia, Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.

Unipage is a free program that might replace Adobe Acrobat one day.

Gormley's 60 seconds I mentioned the other day.

National "Be Glad You're not Cheney" Week. Let me guess, during the week, the population will be encouraged to bag a lawyer to trim the herd down to a less litigious size? Lawyers running across the freeway after ambulances, have bcome a major safety concern around some parts. An open season might be just what nature needs to put things back into balance.

Moose Jaw; Modeling old sk00l

2006-02-21T10:19:00.000-06:00

I drove home to Yorkton from Wood Mountain Sunday, ending up for supper in Moose Jaw with my friend. We went to Wayne and Lavern's and stuffed ourselves on the buffet which was Italian themed today. I ate pizza without a fork and knife even, to much surprise, but hey it wasn't falling apart because the pieces were small enough. I filled up in Melville on ethanol blended gas, running on a very low tank when I rolled into the Mohawk. And I added a spider plant to my fish's water which will spruce up his bowl a little bit.

My project this week might be to finish the assembly of a model Zero airplane, but I think I don't have the tissue covering that will be needed. I remembered to grab the dope [glue] but no paper, unless it's in the box still. Painting will have to wait for another time when I either find the right stuff at home, or find a model shop with the right paints, in Yorkton or online. After about 12 years, it seems unlikely that the tube of glue will still work for the bit of assembly left, although I do have carpenter's glue on hand which ought to work well on balsa wood. And the tool most important that I will need to improvise on, would be an xacto knife. I think my swiss army knife is sharp enough and ought to do the trick if I have any more peices to cut out.

Catch the Crazy man; title combos continue

2006-02-20T00:17:00.000-06:00

Poor crazy baseball player. Daulton was a player against the championship Blue Jays of 1993, in the World Series. It's sad to see someone so famous, so delusional, unless he's that way just to "convince" others of his doomsday scenario for some unknown purpose. Sure I might be advertising a foil hat for pets on this webpage, but that doesn't mean I actually THINK that the government and aliens are reading kitty's mind. Although I have told Springfield, IL through WMAY radio that I do think that, but they knew I was kidding.

I watched "Catch Me If You Can" [8/10] tonight, and found it to be really entertaining. I also learned how to make a wireless router work on dialup, I just needed to set the Windows sharing IP address as the DNS server for the router, and presto the webpages worked on the wireless laptop. I taped "Cast Away" yet another Tom Hanks movie and will watch it [again] later. I first saw the movie in 2003, when I was travelling North America, and it was in the tape collection of a friend in Oregon.
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In my post titling gimick, I seem to be combining the themes of the post into one sentence. It makes for interesting reading when I go back over them later, thinking to myself, "what in the heck is that about?"

Birthdays; Producer article on Wood Mountain; The Jaw

2006-02-19T22:59:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday on Feb. 17 to Michael Jordan, Richard Karn [Al from Home Improvement], Luc Robatille of the Kings, Denise Richards, and Renne Russo. And Clair and Evan too, since they know who they are.
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"But Lisa, that's the beautiful part of the plan... When Winter comes the apes freeze to death." You've just been subjected to an obscure Simpsons quote with Principal Skinner outlining the town's plan to control one pest with another predator animal. It seems Australia forgot to make its toad-killing Winter backup plan.
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The Feb. 9 2006 Western Producer has an article about my hometown:
Clay mine possible in southern Sask.
Subscriber Content
A proposed $15 million kaolin mine near Wood Mountain, Sask., could be the first step toward revitalizing the community of 20 people.
Unfortunately it's a subscriber magazine though, so the body of the article is hidden to us. The part that I do know is that the mining operation is based in Georgia USA where kaolin comes from in spades. They'd like to use a railline to transport the white chalky clay, but CP Rail plundered Wood Mountain's branch line years ago, and the only steel still in the bed is the occasional lost spike, and 1km of stranded track running through the village of Wood Mountain where the municipal government took a legal stand against the CP pirates. If the mine does get rolling, no thanks can go out to the RM of Old Post, and the Sask. NDP who let our ecologically friendly infrastructure be ripped away without a fight. It was torn out less than two decades after the federal government used Canadian tax dollars to upgrade the quality of steel in the rails. Guess who got to profit when the high quality rails were taken away, and your hint is it wasn't the Canadian taxpayer?
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I was in Moose Jaw today and saw the two Tunnel tours. The Chicago tour was more interesting to me than the Chinese tunnels, mostly because one was glamourous with funny acting from the male tour guide, and the other was about racism against Chinese immigrants. At one point I saw a wood stove in the Chinese tunnels that was nearly identical to the wood stove in my parent's kitchen [which they don't use as anything but decoration]. In the Little Chicago Tunnel, a '20s barmaid took the tour group to a secret door and told a little boy the secret knock of "four knocks". Well we didn't get in right away because the kid knocked about 10 times. Then we almost all were shot when the barmaid slipped up and asked the guard to "take care of us", then corrected her mistake before he went to get his Tommy gun.
The most interesting thing I learned on the tour was that the Tommy gun was invented for the Great War [WWI] as a trench spraying gun, but was never used for that, then was hardly sold because of its poor accuracy. Capone bought some for about $2000, and history was made.
When the guide once asked what we were all there for, and I excitedly spoke up, "Booze!" that prompted giggles from some ladies near me. I also got asked to look into the secret hideaway fireplace to "check that no one was coming".

While I was in "The Jaw" I had a tour of Palliser Regional Library headquarters, including their dog trick course downstairs from the library. Lunch at Mr. Sub, a -30 drive past the abandoned hospital and CCSchool, and watching "My name is Earl" TV show, and "Kinsey" [7/10] rounded out the weekend vacation in "The Jaw" with my friend. I then drove home to Wood Mountain and had rabbit stew for supper, and ruhbarb-strawberry pie for dessert.

Yorkton Blog has a new blog for city citizens

2006-02-17T22:09:00.000-06:00

Yorkton has a Blog.
I'm vacationing in sunny Wood Mountain.

RIAA: CD in DVD Player is scandalous!; Cold; Cherry; PEMS

2006-02-16T13:00:00.000-06:00

My creation The PEMS got a mention from another Sask Blogger.

It's a wickedly cold day today, and my car made bad cracking thud noises when I hit potholes or manholes on the way to work this morning. Even though I had plugged in the car, it still had to turn over twice to start, when usually it starts instantly. I'll have to put gasoline in the tank for my trip to Moose Juice tonight and hope that it warms up to the promised -26 instead of hovering at the current -32 at lunch time.

Canada might end up with a silver and a bronze in women's short track speed skating from the other day because the current silver medalist lifted a skate to an angle at the finish line which isn't allowed. I don't like to DQ someone on a technicality when she was clearly faster, but I don't know the sport well and if it's a rule it should be the law. There is video review in the sport, and the judges missed the obvious call for some reason, so a protest is in order. Just today we won two more silvers in skating, and a bronze in women's skeleton.

Also, Don Cherry has made a point that Canada's women's hockey team is not doing themselves a favour by playing hard and running up the score in their lopsided games. By embarrassing the European teams, the IOC will vote women's hockey out of the Olympics after the Vancouver games, like they've done with softball and baseball for London's 2012 games. I agree with his reasoning, which doesn't happen much with me and Grapes.
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RIAA: CD in DVD Player is scandalous!

The RIAA [and by extension the Canadian RIA] wants it to be illegal to use our CDs with our iPods or other MP3 players. That's not surprising since they would like us to buy the songs we hear each time we hear them. They must have cried a river when jukeboxes stopped being popular because that's a business model they can relate to: no music until they see the coin. And really, if owning a CD doesn't give you the legal right to listen to the music now in their opinion, then what will? Do they even want people to play their CDs anymore if the player is a DVD player, since that's another digital format and we haven't paid again to use our music on that format if we use our CD? Why aren't they offering DVD versions of all of our music CDs?

Do you think it's reasonable that Canadians shouldn't be permitted to put a copy of their CDs onto their computer for personal use? You shouldn't have to go out and buy a 50 CD jukebox to have modern access to the songs you've paid for. The RIAA is smoking crack if they think that people will gladly pay for a CD, then pay AGAIN to download the song into iTunes for their iPod portable music player. Anyone from a 12 year old to an 80 year old grandmother could easily figure out how to put their CD music onto an iPod, unless Sony has broken their computer with a DRM rootkit I suppose. The RIAA's greed has passed into the absurd many times before and this time is just yet another attack on their customers.

It will take many millions of customers and forward thinking artists like Steve Page of the Bare Naked Ladies standing up against the CRIA and RIAA copyright amendment , to keep our current freedoms intact. I'll keep you posted with simple ways you can get involved and make sure that Harper's government doesn't cave in to lobby pressure from businesses that would tell you that putting music from your CD onto your MP3 player is an offense that could cost you thousands of dollars in court.
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New African Food Crisis Looming From Drought; India

2006-02-16T09:27:00.000-06:00

Africans may be facing a worse food crisis than they currently are dealing with. I don't think it's within the realm of possibility for any starving nation to pull itself out of war unilaterally, and obtain resources through trade from more powerful nations. Canada's shoulders have to bear the responsibility for a lack of aid getting to drought stricken African people.
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On the topic of bad things that need ending, the obnoxious ads for Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale have been pulled due only to the recent child porn charges against the actor who plays the rude Scotsman in the TV ad series. I heard this news on the radio, sorry no hyperlink. News.Google.com is your friend today.
I declare today, as a Lyon descendent, SCOTCHTOBERFEST!

Heritage; Secrets; Spam blog

2006-02-15T23:35:00.000-06:00

Heritage Canada's mission statement:
Canadian Content - Promoting the creation, dissemination and preservation of diverse Canadian cultural works, stories and symbols reflective of our past and expressive of our values and aspirations.
Hopefully they will realize that things like DRM and stricter copyright laws which the CRIA favours, are a hinderance to both dissemination and preservation of Canadian digital cultural works.
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Computer User Secrets is a blog in the top 100 most popular by "links-to" and it's pretty easy reading aside from the flood of ads they feature everywhere. They don't appear to get very technical, so it may be good for beginners interested in learning a few new areas of computing.
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I just wrote Blogger support and asked them how a "spam blog" managed to have a blogger site without a "flag this" report button at the top. It was going to be the first time I'd ever use that button - and it wasn't there! Here's what I wrote:
"beforexjobs.blogspot.com
This spam blog doesn't have a Flag button at the top, how did they remove it? The blog is gibberish with only links to poker sites." I'll let you know if Blogger responds with an answer, or possibly a bugfix.
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Explanation of Windchill's index

2006-02-15T19:18:00.000-06:00

More updates for the blog are coming tonight, if I don't freeze outside when I go to plug the car in. It's going to be -41 with the windchill. What's "windchill" you might ask if you're not from Canada? Well it was invented by Sir. Windston Churchchill as an attack threat index during WWII. The more likely we're to be attacked by the Axis of Evil, the lower the windchill value. Tonight the threat index is high because it's so low, thanks to rumblings from Iran. North Korea is also peeved they've not won any Winter Olympic medals yet too, and have threatened to stop importing James Bond movies to feed to their cattle and starving masses.

Sask Liberals and Can. Taxpayers: The tale of two Daves

2006-02-15T15:27:00.000-06:00

Fighting for Taxpayers: The tale of two Daves
Taxpayer Federation's topdog Dave is indicating that David Karwacki and the Sask Liberals may be contenders in the next election. I think possibly the Liberals will be cutting out the NDP seats in the cities while the Sask Party takes many rural seats.

Smartest Radio Listener; Flag Day

2006-02-15T00:18:00.000-06:00

Sorting mail on the train stopped happening in Canada in 1971, after happening for over 100 years since the 1850s. I was going to guess that door to door milk delivery stopped in 1971 across Canada, but I probably would be wrong. It might even be going on still today in select regions.

Happy Flag Day, by the way. Time to replace that tattered old thing you might have fluttering in your front yard, and show your Canadian pride by buying a new flag [made in China of course, home of modern communism].

Mouseland needs SK Liberals; Wonderland gone, UK kicks the butt

2006-02-14T18:20:00.000-06:00

The Sask Party's Brad Wall speaks about Mouseland for the 21st century. I wonder what kind of cat Karwacki is?
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This is Wonderland, my favourite CBC drama-comedy is being cancelled after the third season wraps up this Spring. Oh, woe is me! DaVinci is also getting the axe, as is The Tournament. I never watched either of those shows.
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The UK has voted to ban smoking in pubs and private clubs, giving the healthy non-smoking movement a huge push across the ocean. With the rise of smoking in Asia, it's good to know that at least another country is starting to get their laws headed in the right direction when it comes to stamping out nicotine addiction. "The government predicts an estimated 600,000 people will give up smoking as a result of the law change."

Valentine's Day Essential Gift: PEMS

2006-02-14T14:20:00.000-06:00

PEMS is the humourous Penis Enlarging Metric System and you should read more about it at the link provided here. Designed with the metricly challenged male member in mind, this magnificant merchandise will show your man you notice him, when he's noticing you.

The primary problem with penis size is related completely to math and measurement standards throughout the world. American men are particularly affected by numerical penile envy because the old imperial measurement of inches is used to determine a body's sizes. Don't give in to spam messages, and purchase pills with dangerous and ineffective chemicals in them, because you can now use the non-invasive and 100% guaranteed safe PEMS™.The Key to PEMS™ is the SI Metric system. Why complain about a lack of inches, when you can have TWICE as many centimeters.

Don't delay, get your PEMS today.

Reinstalling Windows XP - oh joy!

2006-02-14T10:20:00.000-06:00

I finally had 5GB free on my computer so I decided to take the plunge and install Windows XP on another partition in the hopes of starting fresh and cleaning up:

DVD drive doesn't work at all unless the computer is started with the Windows CD in the drive.
ATI All in Wonder TV card doesn't play TV and stops the computer from entering the Hibernation mode which saves a lot of power. Attempts to upgrade to current drivers reboot/crashes the computer in a loop.
A junk filled registry from years of software installations and uninstalls.
A Twinkle 2110 USB webcam that crashes the computer when used in conjunction with Yahoo Messenger.
Firefox crashing every few days, possibly from over-extension.
Banishing any undetected rootkit or trojan to the past [although I have no reason to suspect one is installed since I practice safe hex].
And giving myself the ability to back up my Windows partition to a Ghost image for easy restoration later. My 20GB C: didn't give me that possibility, and lack of an easy backup is worrisome to me.

Now that I have a "clean" Windows, I have to do all my little customizations, and utility installations again, but I'm going to do it carefully so I can identifiy what, if anything, was breaking stuff in the past. And when I'm satisfied that I have an improved computer, and I've imported all of my data from my C: drive, then I can toast the old system installation and have oddles more room. Then I can go about moving to Ubuntu Linux so I can ditch Windows XP whenever I don't wan to use it as my TV recorder.
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In other events, Canada won a silver in women's team skiing. This is Beckie Scott's second silver medal, oh wait it's her first because her silver was upgraded to gold, after finishing originally in third place behind two cheating skiiers in the Salt Lake Olympics.
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Gormley's "Reality Check" was probing the question: Should Ezra Levant of the Western Standard have published the cartoons that are accused with instigating riots in the Middle East? More people said that he should have published them, since it's more of a question of freedom of the press, than tip-toeing around a particular religious viewpoint. I agree with that, since how can anyone know if all of the cartoons were as tasteless as we'd been led to believe if they haven't even been viewed? The bottom line is that someone, somewhere is always going to take offense to something, so as long as the speaker's intent isn't to rally people to cause harm to others, then freedom of speech should stand paramount. Samantha Burns has made a few of her own cartoons to mock the situation, because humour is often the best window to an absurdity.

Gormley fawns over Harper: He can do no wrong

2006-02-13T12:58:00.001-06:00

John Gormley of CKOM.com has fawned over Harper's cabinet picks before.
Gormley's "60 Seconds" bit today was laughable. While he's pushing that the big bad liberal media fawns over "Canada's natural governing party - the Liberals," he's ignoring that his natural governing party is the Conservative Party and he puts his own fawning support behind it with the same kind of blind and emotional loyalty. "Harper hasn't yet begun to rule, and the media is already saying he's lost our trust. What if he brings in the Federal Accountability Act?" Yeah, what if he does that? So what? He's already broken two or three cornerstones of his campaign platform with his bungling of cabinet/Senate appointments. If he can't be expected to work under his own "government accountability" conditions, then why should he inflict that untenable law on the next party to govern? He can't even live for 2 weeks with his own promises, and own laws, so what does that say about his governing skill, and his truthfulness?

Gretzky gets good news

2006-02-13T09:28:00.000-06:00

An update this morning in Gretzky news. Chris from the blogosphere pointed out that a wiretap revealing Gretzky knew about the gambling ring run by Tocchet, was conducted after the news started to break around him, and not a month ago which could have indicated prior knowledge of the illegal ring.

Yorkton Melville Regina weekend

2006-02-12T23:58:00.000-06:00

Feb. 12, 2006 Sunday

Friday afternoon I had off work, and I went to the Yorkton art gallery on Smith St. with my friend Ashley and we got an impromptu tour by the curator of an art exhibit that was opening that night. We weren't able to make it to the 7pm wine and cheese opening with the presentation of the artist who's from Alberta. The topic of the display was the female body, and in the middle of the room were bronze and other castings of pregnant torsos. The walls were covered with torsos made of real lichen from Ontario, and plaster and paper mache which was quite disturbing with fake stitches mimicking an old mummified body. There was also an ancient wax painting technique with magnified skin from knuckles and scars.

On Friday night I watched "Interview with a Vampire" [8/10] which was very good and worth a 9 for some parts, and just a 7 for others. On Saturday I watched "Cheaper by the Dozen" [6/10] with Steve Martin and no Oprah when they said she was appearing later in the movie, but apparently were just using her name as a plot ploy. Then I saw "Starship Troopers" [7/10] which I'd seen before many years ago, but this time caught all but the first few seconds of the show. It has some very good special effects, and political propaganda humour.

I ate supper in Melville at Dairy Queen and had a Choco Cherry Love Blizzard which was very good. The roads were a little icy from the blizzard we've had the last 2 days, although today was nearly perfect for driving.

I watched some of the Olympics today, inclusind short track speed skating. Canada has a gold medal in moguls, and a bronze in short track.

On the bus home from Regina, I was talking a bit about movies with the guy sitting next to me (the bus was so full some seats were two people side by side) and we both thought there's been no really good movies lately. I didn't even want to see anything at Rainbow today, so instead Rob, Brien, Peter and I went to Walmart and bought playing cards and poker chips, cleaned off the kitchen table, and played cards for an hour. I learned Texas Hold'em Poker, and Rob learned Poker, period. When we came out of Walmart, a Snowbird buzzed the parking lot, which was super cool, and I had to kick myself a little for not having my camera out and ready to take a picture of the lot like my spider senses had been telling me once I got outside.

Skiing; Terrorism; Monitor; Donate

2006-02-10T09:28:00.000-06:00

Beckie Scott, Canada's golden skiier from 2002, only won gold after the first and second place finishers were booted from the race for obvious cheating using drugs. Hopefully she'll bring home another medal, and won't have to fight for what's rightfully her's. Why do so many cheat in pro sports when they know they'll be tested?

From Daring to be Remarkable's website I found the link for terrorism signs. Don't get confused, be ready when that radiation hits your groin region for 5 minutes and 12 seconds.
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I spoke to a helpful person at ViewSonic [it's about time!] in their call center at Raleigh, North Carolina. He was able to get a replacement monitor for one that broke and was sent do be repaired back in NOVEMBER, slated for shipment to me by next week. The previous call center person needed the tracking number of my shipment, even though they had the RMA number and everything else they'd need to have confirmed that they did have the monitor still. ViewSonic is such an awful pain, please don't buy from them.
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Don't forget to be an organ donor - Tell someone you know that you want to donate your organs, and sign a note in your wallet. And hey, if you don't want to save kids from organ failure, at least donate them as food? Your organs, not the kids. Mmm, liver. Yes I'm kidding - liver tastes awful.

Scam Baiting to Betting Scandal

2006-02-09T18:22:00.000-06:00

Scam Busted is a new blog with the developing story of a Saskatchewan person toying with a Nigerian scammer. I'm going to keep my eye on it and post the most interesting updates.
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Sweet! Money in the mail from SGI coming soon. Now if only people would be good drivers more often, and we could always have this 8% rebate, and fewer medical bills to pay for too. SLOW DOWN! I'm talking to you. Yeah you in the fast car skidding up to the red light which has been red for the last 5 seconds.
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[Update: An update this morning in Gretzky news. Chris from the blogosphere pointed out thae update that the wiretap revealing Gretzky knew about the gambling ring, was done after the news started to break around him, and not a month ago.] Well, the "Great One" [was] starting to look like he might be in hot water. Could he become the next Pete Rose by "not" betting on baseball? I'm hoping the facts don't show that he was involved in Rick Tocchet's gambling ring, because we still need sports heroes that haven't tarnished their name. See: McGuire, Sosa, Palmerio, Rose, hmm Baseball players are a theme. Could they be why the IOC has pulled baseball [and poor ol' softball] from the 2012 Olympics in London? Oh wait, there's McSorely, Brasheer, Federov, Tocchet [conviction pending] of the hockey world with a touch of scandal around them too after attaining fame in their game. Speak of a scandal and what shall appear? Theodore tests positive.

How much does God pay?

2006-02-08T23:19:00.000-06:00

A Google Ad that makes you think:

Believe in God?
We'll pay you $75 right now to complete a simple survey!

Who knew that there was more than one God, and they pay you for doing surveys for them? Why don't they know the answers, is the bigger question.

Also, why would you bother doing the survey, if you didn't believe that the test giver actually exists, and wouldn't that skew the results?

Laser Glasses + Old Film = Absolute Power

2006-02-08T12:14:00.000-06:00

I like stories like this one, it's like time travel almost. An antique camera had undeveloped film in it, and a historical society had it developed which revealed a picture with an old man on a ladder. With a little work they found his name and some of his history in the Piapot and Yorkton regions of the province.
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Super vision LASER lenses

Sharks with poor vision are reportedly thrilled by this news. This is a great idea. Lasers in the eyeball? What could go wrong? Seriously though, this is cool stuff. But also, seriously, it'll go wrong.
The hope is that people with poor retinas might be helped by this auto focus technique also used to compensate for atmospheric disturbances when pointing a telescope through the air. As someone on Slashdot pointed out though, people might use this as a vision crutch, weakening their eyes for normal use when not wearing their vision device.
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Saskatchewan's Smartest radio listener contest from CJME.com:
Q) It was a cold February long ago when Saskatchewan first had this?

A) The children from Borden school who always call in guessed the coldest day, but Saskatchewan in 1946 had the first air ambulance in the world.
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Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The only problem for Stephen Harper, is that he DOESN'T have absolute power, so what's his excuse? How can any clear thinking person support his campaign promise breaking on day one before things even put pressure on him? I thought he was supposed to Stand up for Canada, not put down the idea of accountable democracy on day one.
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Hey Bill, feeling Blue?

2006-02-07T22:48:00.000-06:00

Do you like Bill Clinton? He's going to Regina to give a talk about Canadian and American relations. I'm thinking I'll go to moon him.
I'll wear a blue dress, then bend over and pull it up. Maybe I won't bother, since I'll have to take up cigar smoking for full effect.

...Greatest American President of the last 15 years.

Dinosaurs posed for art? Aboriginals 65 million years old?

2006-02-07T18:12:00.000-06:00

Apparently, a squiggly drawing on a petroglyph is rock solid proof that Native Americans were alive 65 Million years ago. I knew that Native Americans had been in North America for possibly 10,000 years, but who'd have thunk that some Young Earth oddball would give them several million years prior claim to this land we all call home now. Oh, wait, maybe that's not what they were getting at.

I could draw a picture of Abe Lincoln, but that doesn't mean I was alive when Honest Abe was. Or I could sketch a parakeet/robin/kiwi, but does that mean I am drawing a picture of an extinct dodo bird? I guess when one rejects logic, it's easy to get carried away and figure that everyone else is also incapable of telling facts from fiction. That would explain why there was such a push to banish Harry Potter books. Modern fiction written by a woman = evil. Ancient fiction written by old dead white dudes = sacred.

What's most depressing about this bible.ca site, is that I saw a huge ad for it on a university educated Saskatchewanian blogger's site. It wasn't there for satirical purposes either, which is the only plausible reason I can think of for an educated or religious person to give it any publicity. After all, who would want their religion to be dragged down by associating with a half wit web site featuring only arguments attacking scientific theories like carbon-14 dating, and well tested sciences like geology, astronomy, biology, and chemistry? Is this the Middle Ages again where some Christians are trying to whip up support to burn the heretic scientists?

Shouldn't all educated Christians be trying to distance themselves from crackpot theories and web sites by calling publicly for logic to prevail? After all it's not like science is a threat to religion. No scientist has ever burned a bible at the stake, forced a priest to publicly recant his faith in God or Jesus, or demanded stickers be put in every Bible saying, "Jesus being mankind's only saviour is just a theory. For alternate theories on salvation, see your local library for books such as "Stephen Hawking's Universe: The Cosmos Explained", or "An Introduction to Buddhism"." Sure, the destruction of Western society's education system isn't as dramatic as burning down embassies with an angry mob, but it could hurt society even more. And who really deserves more scorn in the world: An uneducated eastern Muslim man who is told his religion is under attack by western countries, or an educated western Christian man who concocts lies about science to attack the education system?
Stupid, stupid, stupid.

*Cross posted to Life of BRex.

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And now for a topic non-controversial [I would think]:

If you need to burn CDs or DVDs, but don't want to copy software, or pay mega dollars, you can use CD Burner XP Pro 3 for free.
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Did you miss the Super Bowl and the famous ads? If you have highspeed Interweb, you're in luck because iFilm has the consumery goodness ready for digesting.

Mindless Blog Blather - Because I can talk about non-issues too.

2006-02-07T12:05:00.000-06:00

Will the snow stop please? I actually had to shovel out my parking space a little yesterday for the second time this year [plus one ploughing of the lot]. What is this, Winter or something? It's February now, so it's traditionally supposed to be +6 in a week or two right after Valentine's Day.
Speaking of which, who's got a jump on their Valentine's Day plans? Is it like Christmas where you're supposed to prepare around the time of American Thanksgiving or sooner? Should guys be putting up decorations? Should I be asking all these questions?

Out of the gate: It's Harper's irony by an American mile!

2006-02-06T23:12:00.000-06:00

It was a wild day in politics with David Emerson crossing the floor of the House to sit as a Conservative MP from the Liberals. He did exactly what so many Conservatives said was unfathomable for an honourable MP to do after Belinda Stronach left their party last year for a Liberal cabinet job waiting for her. The Conservatives now have 125 members, and the NDP 29, giving the two parties 154 seats, only one shy of a majority coalition. Oh look, there's an Independent MP in Quebec looking to change the CRTC [an organization friendly to the CBC]. Hmm, can anyone see oddball partnership coming along for the House?

In a bizzarre attempt to add to the irony of the day, Harper appointed a non Member of Parliament to a cabinet post to represent Montreal, and stuck the guy in the appointed Senate which Harper had vowed in the campaign to make an elected body of government. And who said before the election ended that Harper would go back on his word about an elected Senate? It was probably me, but let me check on that and get back to you.

[I checked, and I said on Dec 16: "Especially amusing on The National tonight was word that both Harper and Martin have promised an elected Senate. While Harper might be serious, the idea that Martin is telling the truth is laughable. Months ago he appointed 3 Alberta senators, and none of them were from the elected group that Albertans chose in a democratic fashion. Actions speak louder than words, and Paul Martin does not really want an elected Senate." Oops, I guess I was wrong, and Harper is simply imitating his idol Mr. Martin. I was thinking of this quote I wrote on January 24: "Harper might actually enact parliamentary reform, so that our senate will be elected, and elections called on a fixed schedule {which I have mixed feelings about}."] It's too bad that Harper couldn't even last one day as PM before appointing someone unelected to the Senate. What's next, handing out actual beer and popcorn to parents instead of their $1200? Oh how the mighty Conservative ideals for accountable democracy have fallen. Big surprise that was, eh?

Adding to the roundness of cabinet, Bev Oda the potential Heritage Minister that got legal money contributions from the CRIA is now in a role to scratch the back legally of the music and other copyright cartels. Oh goody. And SK got a female cabinet minister, which is good, as long as she turns out and does a good job.

University of Regina new buildings; Bus ride; TD fake crash

2006-02-05T23:28:00.000-06:00

Here's a photo of a church in Quill Lake, on Thursday.

On Sunday I wandered around the UofR campus for a few minutes and stopped by the site of the new Lab building. Ralph Goodale would be sure to note it as one of his accomplishments for the improvement of Regina's university grounds. It seems unlikely to me anyway that without his input as Finance Minister during Martin's government, that we'd not have got the funding for a construction project like that. I ended up in Luther College and played a few games of pool with a film major I knew from a few years ago, and he's almost finished his degree.
I walked through the Library hallway, and there are locked display cabinets with photos of dignitaries lining the walls. Some saucy chap had slipped a contraband poster into a case, advertising a truly Saskatchewan product, but they left their phone number off the poster for some reason:

Now that's what I call, a dirty joke. By the way, on CJME the dictionary lady guest they had on the air the other day identified 'gitch' and 'gotch' as uniquely Saskatchewanian words, possibly with a Ukrainian origin. Although in Alberta the words 'ginch' and 'gonch' replace the 't' sounds with 'n' sounds.

The bus ride home was uneventful, even though there was freezing rain. The bus driver who I recognized from the bus route through Lafleche in last Summer, was concerned at Fort Qu'Appelle that he was leaving someone behind, but it turns out the passenger got off early there instead of at Balcarres. There was a car in the ditch before Melville, but the driver'd already been picked up. There were three people with headphones on listening to their music that was audible to even me. Two were sitting in the seats around mine, and one at the very back of the bus when I was about 4 seats back from the front. At the Fort, the driver asked the one he'd heard if she could turn it down. It hadn't bothered me because I had been asleep before White City even, but it was bothering him because "it wasn't country [music]" he said jokingly.
==

I think there's a problem with TD's market indices page tonight. Otherwise there's been a market crash in the United States unlike any seen, because the Canadian dollar wasn't worth $57,575.80 US dollars yesterday, and it's not up $4.20 today too. If it is though, today is the day to buy US currency, and then go out and buy the state of your choice. My friend Robert has dibs on California and North Dakota, but I called Nevada and New York.

Defending smoking in a sealed tube trap?

2006-02-05T12:29:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure why this posted comment didn't show up yet on a previous blog post:
"I got word last evening that miners trapped in Potash mine refuge rooms were smoking. That's the word on the street anyway. It makes one wonder how seriously they were taking their situation."

Are you fricking serious? Seventy-two men were trapped a kilometre underground for almost two days - thank the Lord, all returned safely - and you criticize them for smoking [while trapped in a tube with no air scrubers or guaranteed air circulation]!?
Why don't you just be thankful they're alive and keep your environmental/health politics out of this. Save your breath for debate on real issues.
--
Posted by Chris to Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy at 2/04/2006 11:04:06 AM
to http://saskboy.blogspot.com/2006/01/smoking-gun-hp-dnd-busted.html

==
Chris said:
"Seventy-two men were trapped a kilometre underground for almost two days - thank the Lord, all returned safely - and you criticize them for smoking!?
Why don't you just be thankful they're alive and keep your environmental/health politics out of this."

You see Chris, the smoking criticism and being glad they got out safely are not mutually exclusive thoughts. So save your pro-smoking defence for someone who won't put that silly kind of argument in its place - the garbage. Save YOUR breath for a debate worth winning.

There are nicotine patches and gum for the painfully addicted, and if they haven't thought to put things like that in their emergency station kit while trapped under ground in a sealed tube where air quality is a serious issue, then shame on them.

Garry Breitkreuz's pool night pre-election

2006-02-04T14:59:00.000-06:00

Here's a picture of me with Canadian Member of Parliament for Yorkton-Melville riding, Garry Breitkreuz.

Garry's against the gun registry, which I agree is a fair position considering the massive waste it has been, but he's also against gay marriage, and also apparently against answering my emails regarding the failed Bill C-60 which was to "modernize" Canada's Copyright Act in favour of media cartels. He'll get a 4th chance to respond in the coming weeks when I send him another email to the address I got from his campaign office in the mall during the election campaign.
==

I'm headed to see "Flight Plan" tonight which looks good, and can't very well be a worse choice than Syriana was last night. For now I think I'll get some bike quotes to finally get my favourite mode of transportation ready in the Spring which ought to be coming soon according to many groundhogs.

Same Sex Marriage is Not a Slippery Slope, You Dope

2006-02-01T18:03:00.000-06:00

An Anonymous poster was trying to convince people of something he obviously knows nothing about and is parroting the "slippery slope" cliche from lame "talking points".
""Same Sex Marriage has not destroyed the Canadian social order or resulted in the collapse of our culture"........yet. It's a slippery slope, now the Justice dept recommends legalizing polygamy, what's next, beastiality?"

What's scary is that there are people actually talking like that. I wonder what's it like to give your brain over for someone else to speak through it?

How does gay marriage bring about laws favouring polygamy, or animal cruelty? We have laws against child marriage, which is the biggest strike against polygamist places like Bountiful B.C., and laws against harming animals which by law can't consent to abuse since they aren't possessions so much as minors of a pet owner or rancher. It's as nutty to say that a change in the tax law leads to pro-beastiality laws, as it is to say gay marriage rights leads to pro-beastiality laws.

Stop saying everything's a slippery slope as if it's a bad thing. You know what else was a slippery slope? Women getting the vote. That lead to women MLAs, and then women's rights regarding property in cases of divorce, which lead to more divorces, which lead to fewer women feeling trapped and unhappy in dangerous or unpleasant homes. And you can't have women running off from their men, now can you? The law HAS to protect us fragile men from that!

"Using your 'doesnt hurt anyone reasoning', how would me having two wives that I can love honor and support, hurt anyone. I can already live common law with a whole housefull, so why not marriage. I see a parallel between [Same Sex Marriage] and polygamy."

To that I'd say that polygamy doesn't hurt consenting adults obviously. The key is that they all are consenting to the multi-person relationship. Although there is no mainstream Canadian church that will marry polygamists, I don't think it's super-important for Canada to have a law banning it. It just doesn't have to require its marriage commissioners perform X-way marriages. If 3 people want to marry, then they'll just have to do it the sensible way and get married in a triangle to create as many legal partnerships to a maximum sum total of 100% legal responsibility to every one they are married to. A-B B-C C-A would all get legally married for a 3-way marriage, and there'd be 3 Marriage Commissioner's fees due, so the government wins. You could legally require the partners to draw a diagram of their legal partnerships, which ought to deter the lazy or mathematically incompetent ones anyway.

The downside to removing the law barring it, is it gives the legal system one less reason to deny potential creeps access to Canada, and one less way to throw the book at cults like the famous one in Bountiful B.C. Polygamy is good for the male [assuming multiple wives is the standard fare, and not multiple husbands] but bad for a populous society. The reason the Church got involved in marriage about 1000 years ago was to control the population: If only married people can have a legitimate child, then it can deny marriage to people it doesn't want producing children.

Does Canada want one man to feel free to marry 4 women who could in theory produce 15 children each with him? The implications of one man with 60 children could be profound in several ways. The political system alone could be hijacked legitimately in some ways through his influence on his children, just as an example. We also tend to loathe deadbeat Dads, and how is one man going to feed and care for 60 children to a standard we accept as "loving".

I think even though the idea of polygamy makes most of us uneasy, most of the uneasiness is our own fault for being unfamiliar with it because it's just not a part of our society. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and isn't normal in many places, for various reasons. Many people for instance get squeamish at women breastfeeding their babies in public, when to react badly to that sight is just senseless ignorance/prudishness. Is our squeamishness about polygamy based in reality [It's a real threat to our offspring?], or prudishness [We hear everyone say it's disgusting, so we don't analyse why it would be?]?
==

Rural policing is getting more expensive according to the RCMP. The price of gas has gone up, but the money that Rural Municipalities get hasn't I'd be quite certain to say. I know my hometown has a dispute right now with Sask. Justice for the policing bill they get. They are billing the community for twice as many residents as there actually are, because they are billing based on a faulty or old census. It's not hard to do a head count and that's what the village did and paid for that number of people instead. For the roughly 10 hours of policing a year that the village gets it doesn't seem fair to be overbilled by more than two times their fair expense.
==

There was some snow and cold weather -10C in Yorkton today. Tomorrow I'm planning on driving up to Quill Lake which is about 2 hours away, so I'm hoping for good roads after it stops snowing tonight.

Karwacki considering a comeback / Smart Sask

2006-02-01T12:46:00.000-06:00

David Karwacki might run in Weyburn-Big Muddy for the SK bye-election, however I don't think he will. He's hosting a meet and greet in Weyburn this Friday morning - 9:00 a.m. at the El Rancho Restaurant.
==

Sask. Smartest Radio Listener was on CJME.com today.
Q: The last time this occurred in SK was February 20, 1946.

A: It was the last execution in SK at the Regina jail. He was killed 7 months after the crime was comitted. He was 28 years old, and had killed, as well as stole $350.

After the contest there was a doctor from Toronto talking about the risk of acquiring Hep A or B while in Mexico or other developing countries. He placed the risk of exposure to human feces in food at almost half of the travellers going, and recommends taking antibiotics along for cases of bowel distress and getting vaccinated for life for $180 against Hepatitis A and B.
==

Smoking gun: HP DND busted

2006-01-31T12:56:00.000-06:00

Why are prisoners allowed to use a restricted drug not essential to life, at all? Just who's in charge at a prison anyway? If guards feel they are in danger by enforcing the rules, then changes should be made to make them safe to enforce the rules.
==

Employees at Hewlett-Packard and Canada's Department of National Defence (DND) were charged stemming from a 2 1/2 year probe by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police into shady billing and work done by HP at the DND in Canada's nation capital.
"[An employee] Mr. Champagne was fired by DND in 2003 over alleged billing irregularities involving supplier Compaq Canada, which was later acquired by Hewlett-Packard. The company repaid the government $145 million and launched a $107-million lawsuit against Mr. Champagne, accusing him of theft and fraud. None of the allegations have been proved in court. The civil action is still before the courts, the RCMP said."
==

I got word last evening that miners trapped in Potash mine refuge rooms were smoking. That's the word on the street anyway. It makes one wonder how seriously they were taking their situation. What's the worst thing that can happen in a mine fire: nicotine withdrawl from running out of cigarettes, running out of oxygen, or 2nd hand smoke poisoning? If you ask the average miner, I guess you'd have your answer, and it wouldn't be mine.

Mining TV for Radios using Needle Math Rankings

2006-01-31T07:35:00.000-06:00

Esterhazy is one place I travel to for my job. Here's a picture
of a potash mine north of the town, possibly the K2 where the accident
occurred [otherwise it's another potash mine close to K2 which I know
I've seen before during my drive out there. There are several
mines in the area around Yarbo.].

The 72 miners trapped after a fire underground, are now safely on the surface.
==

It wasn't an ad on one of my pages, but on a news report where a Penn.
supermarket's sealed soup can contained a sewing needle, there was this
Google ad: "Buy Huber Needles here". Tasteful.
==

I was on John Gormley's show for the first time today as a caller for a
topic. The topic of the show was TV in 2012, the "Death of TV as
we Know It". I'll try to record it when it's replayed tonight,
and give you a transcript here later. I got to bash the CRIA's dirty
lobbying of potential MPs destined to run Heritage Canada so they could
introduce DMCA type copyright legislation, and plug watching VHS
through my 17" LCD computer screen.

Ha, someone [Mike the Greek, the fellow who tipped SK off as to the
China Lilly Soya Sauce "crisis"] who called after me said that if
someone wants to watch a reality show, they should open their window
and look out at the people outside. "It's craaaziness!" he intoned, and
remarked too that he got rid of his cell phone and he's the only
business man he knows who's done that. He had his "best year
ever", from doing it. I don't own a cell phone either, although I
have one for work emergencies that I've used about 5 times in almost 2
years. Even most pay-as-you-go phones are not cheap, they cost
about $200 a year after taxes and cards per month with only minimal use.
==

Rank: 29,240 (70 links from 66 sites) my stats onTechnorati have improved a lot since last time, I've moved up more than

10,000 in rank in just one week. At this rate I'll be number one in just 3 weeks, har har.
==

I am what I eat, and I think too therefore I eat.

Profound, no?

Well, it's a mathematical proof sadly, it just kinda slipped out into a
conversation I was having.

We think, therefore we am.

We am what we eat...

Therefore we think what we eat. QED, right?

Stupid, Stupid, stupid...

2006-01-27T21:21:00.000-06:00

On TotallyStupid.com I saw the link for VeggiePets a horrid pet food site where people go to get information on how to "ethically" mal-nourish their pet in the unnatural vegetarian way. These sellers and buyers must be the same twerps who propose giving wild carnivores a lifetime supply of tofu rodents to survive on. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Also on a food note, and just as stupid, but hey this time it's funny, is The Toast Shop. These British blokes at the Shop stole my idea though, since I'd sold toast on eBay several years ago to a couple happy customers.

Again from TotallyStupid.com is StuffOnMyCat.com where people submit pictures of their cats, with stuff on them. Fortunately these loving pet owners don't put heavy things the cat doesn't like on top of them, because that would be a bad idea. Well, it's arguable that anything on top of a cat is a bad idea, but who's to say where the line is drawn if kitty doesn't object?

And in other senseless news, the ad for a Regina restaurant where the narrator of the ad describes himself in nothing but "a gitch" because he's had his meal delivered, is back on the air. I heard it on CJME radio's evening show the other day. Why would a restaurant want to associate its food with the word gitch [which means tight men's underwear]? Stupid, stupid, stupid...
==

On my drive back home from Watson, Spalding, and Engelfeld I passed by Insinger which has two Ukranian churches within 4km of each other.

A Ukranian church at Insinger, Saskatchewan

Election wrap up and Bush news

2006-01-24T21:42:00.000-06:00

Let's take a look at how my second election prediction did against the seat count as it stands today:

My estimates on January 20th, 2006	Actual numbers after Jan. 23, 2006
Conservatives 121 Liberals 112 Bloc 66 NDP 8 Independent 1 Green 0 [with a popular vote of 5%] CPC 0 MLP 0 CHP 0 CAP 0 Voter turnout: 62% of elligible voters will cast a ballot.	Conservatives 124 Liberals 102 Bloc 51 NDP 29 Independent 1 Green 0 [with a popular vote of 4.5%] CPC 0 MLP 0 CHP 0 CAP 0 Voter turnout: 64.9% of elligible voters will cast a ballot. This means 8 Million registered voters didn't go.

Fox News headline: "Canadian Voters End 13-Year Liberal Presidency". And that's all I have to say about that - for now. OK, I couldn't hold off speaking about Fox News' ridiculous site. "[Harper wants to]... tighten security along the U.S. border to prevent terrorists and guns from crossing," they say, as if implying that it's Canada's responsibility to stop guns and terrorists from going INTO the United States. Harper, if he said that, would be saying it to stop those things from ENTERING CANADA which is a Canadian responsibility.

"The Liberals have angered Washington in recent years, ... enacting punitive Canadian lumber tariffs." And when the truth doesn't matter - lie. I guess it's OK for Faux News to neglect to mention to its brilliant viewers that the USA enacted illegal lumber tariffs on Canada years ago and has refused to pay us back?
==

Key Congressmen kept Informed of Illegal Bush Spying

"Bush also said he kept key members of Congress informed.

"You know, it's amazing that people say to me, 'Well, he was just breaking the law.' If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" Bush said, apparently referring to former Vice President Al Gore's accusation last week that he was "breaking the law" by authorizing the program.

"These are not phone calls within the United States," Bush said. "This is a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States. "

Mr. Bush, are you trying to get some Congressmen in trouble too by
tattling on them knowing about your crime and they did nothing to stop you?

Comments are here at Daily Kos.
==

This CBC page has a list of some of the high profile losses and victories of the election. Goodale and Belinda won, and Anne McLellan and Svend Robinson lost. You might be pleased to hear that Sarmite Bulte, the former Liberal MP lost her seat to the NDP, and is for now no longer an immediate threat to Canadian copyright law. Keep an eye open for Bev Oda of the Conservatives though to take on the role of DMCA champion. Tony Valeri the former Minister responsible for rail line removal, also won't be back this time.
==

I drove over to Semans today, and the roads were not completely clear. I had to slow down at some points to avoid losing control on the slush and ice. When I got back in the evening, I downloaded a photo, and got confused and deleted two or three pictures I didn't have backed up. I tried using FreeUndelete with no real luck, although it did recover a whole lot of files I didn't want any more. If I kept at it, I could get the pictures back, but they were essentially duplicates from different angles anyway as far as I remember, so I'll just let go of them instead of banging my head against the desk in frustration all night. Yes, even computer geeks occasionally wish for magic on
their computers.
UPDATE: It's never worth getting frustrated over something. I went to look back at my photos, and found the missing picture(s) I thought I lost, it turns out I'd removed only duplicates after all. Now pardon me a moment while I go back up those pictures properly this time.

Listening to the radio today there were plenty of interesting stories. The most interesting was the accusation of voter fraud in Sask.'s northern riding of D-M-Churchill River. A recount is being launched there, where the Liberals beat the Conservatives by barely 100 seats and under unusual circumstances. Elsewhere in the country, former Ag. Minister Andy Mitchell lost to the Conservative Tony Clement.

This parliament isn't what I hoped for, it's only what I predicted [the second time around a few days ago]. However, I do think a Conservative minority government is a better outcome for Canada than another Liberal minority or majority would have been. Some individuals will disagree strongly, because the Conservatives will make their life difficult in the short term, but I think it's short term pain for longer term gain. If you can survive the coming year of a Conservative minority government, you can look forward to a rejuvenated Liberal party down the road, and hopefully a much stronger Green and NDP seat count. Harper might actually enact parliamentary reform, so that our senate will be elected, and elections called on a fixed schedule [which I have mixed feelings about].

Strategists were taking two lines of thinking, one that Harper might try to push through his most repugnant law changes such as banning government recognized marriage of homosexuals, early so as to catch opposition parties in a bind where they can either bring down the government and
make Canadians mad, or enact the law and make Canadians mad. The other strategy to govern which I hope Harper chooses is to pass his GST reduction law and reforms to parliamentary responsibility, and then try the fewer people want. The point was also raised that he peeved the civil service last week, by implying that they'd sabotage his government because they were mostly Liberal appointees. He has to bring the civil service back onto his side before he'll hope to get
much real work done.

A former professor of mine was on the Noon Edition call in program on CBC, Stephen Kenny. He teaches Canadian history at the University of Regina, and was the guest helping to answer callers questions and comments about the election. One caller noted the potential voter fraud in SK's north riding, and a few brought up their concerns about the new Harper government. One caller repeated the now tired mantra that I hear everywhere, that "people can't complain if they
didn't vote." I think people should be encouraged to complain, but they should realize too that they look a bit like a hypocrite doing so. It is more important statistically to convince other people to vote the way you do, than it is to vote at all in 99% of major elections, but non-voters have a lot of nerve to whine about government if they don't do anything about it. I think people just grow tired of hearing hypocrites speak about politics, so the media came up with the now massively popular urban myth that only voting gives one the right to contribute to democracy between elections.

The Green Party didn't fare as well as I was hoping, but did better than I expected because I was very concerned about the vote polarization by the Liberals and Conservatives. The NDP got a taste of their own medicine, and didn't get the seats they were due thanks to the fearful voting by Liberal supporters in many ridings. The Green Party was in danger of being squeezed right out, but managed to increase their voter base by many thousands. I'm concerned that unless the Green Party can convince a member to defect and sit as a Green MP, then Canada might never see the Greens in the debate, and thus start to take them seriously as a national party.

The Conservative MP Garry B. in Yorkton Melville won yet again, with an obscene number of votes. It's a shame to think of the good those votes could have done for Keith Neu and the Green Party, and they were just wasted on piling up way past the point of putting Garry's number over the top. Yorkton-Melville could have sent a strong message for change by either electing a different MP than the one who's done little or nothing for them in the previous 13 years, or electing him but voting strongly for the Green Party which could have attracted national media attention.

Media Sticks Its Neck Out

2006-01-23T21:45:00.000-06:00

Jeepers, the audacity of news agencies is galling. CTV at 9PM CST has projected a Conservative minority government. The polls aren't even closed in B.C. yet! Many of the seat projections they are working with come about from 1 polling station result out of nearly 200 in a riding. Their projections are an embarasment to journalism. CBC was making stupid comments too, when literally 10 votes were in for some ridings, and talking as if they'd stay that way. Allyce Herle [Lib] in Regina Qu'appelle was leading significantly after one polling station reported. We'll see how much she loses by later.
It will probably be the case that the Conservatives will have a minority government, but to announce it as fact before it's mathematically confirmed is just plain dumb, especially after all of the election prediction mistakes in recent memory.
==

I'm getting a lot of hits tonight from people looking for election results. Please pass on any links you've found that are helpful, or let me know if you've found my blog entries to be of help.

Censorship in Canadian Election

2006-01-23T20:50:00.000-06:00

Canada's CBC reports on the elections law in Canada that is preventing timely release of election results in the eastern parts of Canada before western polling stations close at 7PM PT. An American website can provide the results as they are available, without prosecution, but Canadian Paul Bryan in 2000 tried publishing results online and was fined $1,000 CDN. He is appealing the ruling, which has been reversed twice already. Also, the official CBC blogger today removed his link to Captain's Quarter's Blog, in fear that results could be available to Canadians there before they are on the Television, Radio, or news websites. Just minutes ago on election night, CBC Radio International cut off their live streaming audio for some bloggers, it's been reported on The Surly Beaver. Results will be made available on Wikipedia, and Elections Canada's official website.

andrewcoyne.com: Our story so far

2006-01-18T13:58:00.000-06:00

andrewcoyne.com: The Election story so far

The popular blog of Andrew Coyne featured the graphic from pollingreport.ca, the site of a good friend of mine. He said he had over 40,000 hits the other day, due in part to Andrew's link.

If You Can't Mark an X...

2006-01-18T12:53:00.000-06:00

If You Can't Mark an X...

It seems Sudbury is the Florida of the Great White North, eh?

"I was surprised to see the first party listed as the "Marijuana Party" and then further down the ballot more surprised and a little confused when I saw "PC" followed by "Conservative". I know my candidates by name and made my selection, however for those that may not, it seems to me that this ballot is designed in a very confusingmanner.

I suspect that a good majority of the populace will not know whether to select PC or Conservative if they are casting a vote for Harper. A formal complaint should be filed with election Canada.

Posted by Doug in Sudbury"

Voting is as simple as marking down a bleeding X or a smiley face! If you can't mark an X, you're not my kind of people! Brought to you by the Community Regatta Against Politics, and the Committee To Elect Jerry Boyle.

If someone's in such a rush that they mess up voting because they think PC means Conservative, and they aren't educated enough to know their candidate's name or MODERN party abbreviation, then I can't feel too sorry for them, only the poor hoser who lost one vote. If you miss mark your ballot, you can ask for one replacement. Do we really want someone who isn't "with it" enough to know how to vote for Harper, getting it right though? What does Doug's impression of the "majority" of Harper voters, say about Canadians? Is Doug right?

Doug does have a good point though that there should be no ambiguity between parties listed on the ballot. There should be space to include Conservative Party of Canada, and if there isn't use a smaller font. If someone's hard of seeing, and can't read small print there are provisions and equipment on site to help them select the correct circle next to their candidate in private.

Please note that CPC stands for the Communist Party of Canada, they had it first, not the Conservatives.

I became aware of this ballot "controversy" by reading the Small Dead Animals blog.
==

Conservative pool and interesting ads

2006-01-13T21:44:00.000-06:00

Jan. 13, 2006 Friday

This is audio clip is pretty darn funny, even if you don't want the Conservatives to win. It seems the Liberal campaign managers must want the Cons. to win, because a blind, racist monkey with a pencil could organize a better campaign. Beer and popcorn anyone?

Paul Martin. With no Guns. In Canada.

Even Mansbridge of The National on CBC ripped into Martin over his latest ad gaffe. Coupled with his hand gun ban, and removal of the Notwithstanding clause to protect us from a Supreme Court running wild, the military scare tactics by Martin looks down right tyrannical. I'm surprised he hasn't got along more famously with George W. Bush. Maybe he should talk to North Koreans looking to manage his next campaign?

I wonder if Harper's smirky grin is going to grow so big this week, that he'll surpass Bush's smirk and worse, his face will actually invert as his mouth curls around his head? All it will take is for him to say another line his handlers have coached him on, and he'll remember he's supposed to smile after he's done talking, and THWWWOP!... Inverted head.
==

The main blog is still broken as of tonight, so I'll be posting this later on abandonedstuff.com when it's finally fixed. Sasktel didn't take this long to fix it when they weren't "rushing" previously, so either it's really broken this time, or they are fixing it right and for always.
==

Jan. 12, 2006 Thursday

I went to Garry B.'s pool hall night, and played pool with Julian and Al of the NDP, and bumped into Eric of Staples who I've bought computer stuff from before. It was a good time. I got to interject after Garry claimed that "marriage has been like we're used to for thousands of years," and I pointed out it was "one thousand actually," before elaborating that the Catholic Church claimed marriage was a religious sacrament in the Middle Ages, and before then marriage was a civil union and not a religious ceremony.

Toward the end of the evening, my new NDP chums and I went over to thank Garry for the free pool games, and bend his ear a little more. Al brought up justice which he thought was a topic the Conservatives and NDP could work together on, and I'd agree because I think Layton is fed up with crime in Toronto, and is willing to look at ways of reducing it the Liberals haven't tried yet. I told Garry I couldn't support the Conservatives for their position on gay marriage alone, and he asked me what the position of the Green Party was on it. I couldn't answer, but I'd highly suspect that they'd either not have a stated position on it since the matter is settled equitibly right now, or they'd support legalizing religious unions between homosexuals, if the religion is fine with it. After all, consider this: The United Church of Canada has been marrying homosexuals, so if the government deems that to be illegal, then United worshipers are having their rights infringed upon. But the other way, where churches are permitted to marry homosexuals or not, churches are not forced to perform marriages they don't recognize, but the government won't turn around and invalidate the religious ceremony of the established religion.

Still on the topic of marriage, there's been a study done in Canada that seems to suggest that polygamists, people with more than one spouse, should be permitted under law to live here. I can't say I'm totally in favour of this, as contradictory as that may sound, mostly because of three things. One isn't a legitimate block, and that's my own preference to keeping Canada as a "couples" society. Second is that I think it seems likely that a higher rate of spousal abuse or neglect would arise from a poly-marriage. And third I think that poly-marriages result in more children, and especially more children with less bio-diversity which is something that Canada doesn't need.

Unite The Right comedy page is worth having a look at. It points out the various ways the Liberals and the Conservatives are the same party. I don't think that problem is quite as advanced as it is in the USA with the Democrats and Republican parties being indestinguishable to casual
observers, but it's something to keep an eye on anyway.
==

Sasktel Broken again Jan. 11, 2006 Wednesday

2006-01-11T21:00:00.000-06:00

Freezing rain was on the plate today. I spent time fixing things in Bredenbury, then in the evening I had noodles, buffalo burger, and tomato mushroom sauce for supper. Rounding off the meal were some carrots and cheddar cheese melted on the main course. Now I think some fruit cake is in order.

I was going to grab some fruit cake right after I posted this comment, but Sasktel's webspace which I use to host my website, stopped accepting files. If you looked at this page tonight, or Jan. 12th odds are you saw a blank screen [if looking at my main page of Abandonedstuff.com]. Thank you Sasktel, it's only the third time this has happened, after you claimed it was fixed twice before. Thus is the nature of computers perhaps, but Sasktel is going to lose a user soon I think. At least it inspired me to work on my Blogger site which is in pretty good shape now with Haloscan, Ecosystem, Technorati, and StatCounter.com installed.
==

The only thing on the news today was discussion of the "pulled", "never aired" Liberal attack ad that hinted at military "occupation" of Canadian cities if Harper wins. Paul Martin must be off his rocker now; oh how the mighty have fallen. First he threatens the Constitution in the second english debate, and then he threatens Canadians with a bogus attack on Harper. Tomorrow, he'll probably reverse his position he shouted at the start of the campaign, "I LOVE CANADA!" and the meltdown will be complete. Beer and popcorn anyone?
==

Sarmite Bulte let one slip, when she defended the fundraiser being hosted by the CRIA and movie cartels, which will support her re-election effort in the Toronto riding of Parkdale-High Park, saying, "People raise money all the time. I'm being absolutely transparent." That's right Sarmite, Canadians can see right through your plan to take legal campaign money from copyright dependent cartels right before toughening the Copyright Act in those cartels' favour. She's a likely
Heritage Minister, responsible for pushing through the next Bill C-60 the Copyright Act amendment proposed by the power hungry CRIA. But don't worry, if the Conservatives win, the CRIA made sure to [bribe, wait that's not the word...] fund the potential Heritage Minister for Harper's Tories too.

grrrl meets world: Onion top stories of 2005

2006-01-04T23:30:00.000-06:00

grrrl meets world: gadfly to fundamentalists everywhere
Grrl posted The Onion's funny Top 10 list with such gems as
6. Prince Charles Weds Longtime Horse

Check it out for a laugh, then head over to my blog at www.abandonedstuff.com

Along the Way: Thoughts On Guns

2005-12-31T15:48:00.000-06:00

Along the Way: Thoughts On Guns

I'm testing out the "Blog This" feature of Blogger, and linking to an insightful article on guns.

Fingers survived the holiday

2005-12-31T13:08:00.000-06:00

Well, my blogging hands survived the holidays as expected, and I'm back at a computer in the daytime to read and write to my heart's content. I spent the last 4 days on the road and in Winnipeg and Sanford Manitoba, although most of the time I was sleeping off a cold that came back with a vengence shortly after Christmas Day. Buckleys Mixture, and Neo Citren [which contains Tylenol] got me through the night and day with less coughing and full-headedness than I would have otherwise experienced.

As always, much more is at my main blog site of http://www.abandonedstuff.com

Christmas Eve Eve

2005-12-23T23:03:00.000-06:00

It's the most wonderful time... of the year.

I went to a pot luck tonight, and Santa gave my 23 year old sibling a candy bag. He shared some with me.

I might not blog much over the holidays, but I will return after New Years, barring some horrible blogging-fingers accident.

Merry Christmas everyone

My thoughts on Daycare

2005-12-23T22:47:00.000-06:00

My verion of Beer and Popcorn.
From Jenkew's blog:

Tanya, I disagree with a few of your points [on daycare being the best way to raise toddlers]. I think a blank check to parents is the way to go, since the state gets ages 5 through 18 to raise the child in school, and ages 0 through 5 should primarly be a parent(s) of the child. The structure of school doesn't suit a little kid very well, the important thing is that a child respect an adult when they are told to do something. Grandma can teach this to a kid as well as a certified stranger, as structure has little to do with it. Sure kids need to spend some time in activity groups with other kids when they are of a pre-school age to get their feet wet, but it's a very modern [and I think largely incorrect] notion that kids should be shipped away from their home every workday to do whatever in daycares. I think unintended consequences of planning on putting "our" [in the societial sense] children into daycare through their preschool years has a lot to do with so many parents being out of touch with their children, not realizing when they start having unsafe sex, and doing drugs, later on in school.

I feel the best family planning is where the parents decide who the wage earner will be, and who will stay home with the kid(s). Our society is causing a lot of children strife by expecting families with two parents to have two incomes, and it's creating a gap in the middle class - those who have two wage earners, and those who don't. Parents who sacrifice the second wage aren't rewarded by society enough for their time spent raising their own children.

Interpreting Bowling for Bush

2005-12-17T13:44:00.000-06:00

Last night I watched "The Interpreter" [5/10] which would have got a 7/10 if Will Smith or someone less irritating had played Sean Penn's role.

Bush is cooked? Not likely, but one can dream. Violating the US Constitution just doesn't hold the same stigma it once did. Bush authorized the NSA to spy on Americans in America, thus breaking the law, although he will try to argue that there was oversight and another law that authorized him to order the spying without a warrant. Will he be impeached? Hopefully.

I'm off to bowl now, 5 pin. I haven't 5 pin bowled in a couple years but I'm hoping to hit 200 points in at least one game.

Well, I'm back now, and I scored 138, 151, then 77 [in an abreviated 3 frame game because our hour was up]. My friends and I had so much fun that we are going back tomorrow too. When our time was running out, I encouraged my friend Brien to try left handed because he was having trouble scoring more than 100 points. It turns out he's better left handed, despite his claims that he's quite "dextrious" and not "ambi-dextirous". On his first bowl, he got all but a 2 pin, and cleaned the last pin on the 3rd bowl much to everyone's surprise. In my last three bowls, I got 2 strikes, and then a spare, meaning I had to quit in my best game of the day, as I was on track to shatter my score record of about 260. My first strike of the day came in the 10th frame, and I was so excited I didn't notice it was the 10th frame an I had my next two shots right away. Brien ended up missing in my second shot, then I missed in the third :-) There were remarkably few scores in the 100s across the 20 lanes or so there. It was also glow bowling, which means there are black lights to make white stuff glow green, and loud music and disco balls everywhere.

On the way back home, we saw a truck that had mounted the pile of snow in the middle of Albert St. It wasn't clear why he was there, but there was a cop behind him already, and the guy was sitting in his cab on his cell phone, probably telling his wife, "You'll never guess where I am..."

Harper and Martin pass the beer and popcorn

2005-12-15T20:01:00.000-06:00

Monte Solberg is a Conservative with a popular blog because he has the occasional witty catch phrase that has them rolling in the aisles in the House. In an offhand comment on his blog he said, "Oh, the other thing [Tim Horton's]-- get rid of the blowdryer things in the washroom too and go back to paper towels." Now I enjoy paper towels more than air driers too, but it's my understanding that air driers are more energy efficient even with their use of electricity, than it is to bring in paper towel rolls, and dispose of them. It is disappointing that Monte is not aware of this reason, or doesn't care. Although it is encouraging to hear he washes his hands when leaving the restroom.

[I've sent the above paragraph as an email message to Mr. Solberg in case he'd like to clarify his position on air driers and the environment.]

We need a new national controversy. Move over "Beer vs. Children", it's going to now be "Air vs. Towel"? We know where Monte stands. Where do you stand?
==

Read Stephen Harper's speech from the 1990's. Harper wouldn't want you to read it, so you can
either wonder why that is and not, or read it and find out why. My friend 'Leet Hacker has archived the speech so that it will be preserved in its entirety as found on the web in a Google cache this
morning. Feel free to share the link with others who are interested in learning more about the Conservative's mysterious leader.

In otherelection news, the Green Party has assembled a factual webpage explaining the unfairness used to exclude them from the debate. They aren't whining, they have legitimate complaints because the choice to exclude the Party's leader Jim Harris from the Leaders debates starting tomorrow, is breaking the precedents of 1993, when both the Bloc and Reform parties were allowed to debate despite not winning any seats in the previous general election.
==

Feeling morbid? Here's a link for you to read about recently dead Saskatchewan residents.
==

There was more bad weather today, and I was fortunately able to do most of the repairs I needed to do over the phone and using remote control software. Tomorrow I'm probably headed up to Norquay though.

Saturday - Updated my blog's features

2005-12-10T21:38:00.000-06:00

I've found where to comment on Rick Mercer's blog posts from his site. I've also added the ubiquitous comments feature to my blog, finally, so people can leave a message here if they don't feel like emailing. They can also blog about something I've written here, by putting a "trackback" link to my site. Don't ask me how it works, I've not learned how to do that part yet, but the comments part is very straight forward.

Make Stupidity History: A site about the dumbest criminals in the world.

Yorkton is getting a curbside recycling bin program, starting with a mere 400
bins, in this city of about 18000 people. Hopefully this will help keep down taxes in the long run, as the landfill ought to last many more years because of it.

Added Haloscan comment feature on main blog

2005-12-10T18:20:00.001-06:00

I added the ability to place comments on my main blog page at Abandonedstuff.com
It wasn't hard at all, Haloscan produces some javascript code to put into the HTML of the site, and they store and display the comments for my page, for free. I guess if I get attached to some of the comments, I'll have to back them up should the company decide to go under or delete them.

There's a "trackback" feature, which a blogger can use to cite another site as the source of their blog information. Here's a test, I'm putting a trackback link to my Pet Foil Hat Page here, and am going to try to increment the Trackback count there.

My first picture on Blogger

2005-12-09T20:20:00.000-06:00

I haven't tried putting a photo on my Blogspot blog, so here goes a test. This is also the first time I've added two entries here in the same day. I often do that at my main blog site www.abandonedstuff.com though.

Sony puts foot in mouth yet again

2005-12-09T20:14:00.000-06:00

Sony started the day with its foot in its mouth. Mediamax, their other known DRM infection had a patch released a few days back. The patch opens new flaws which can endanger your computer. The EFF which is typically a good guy had sadly endorsed the patch, so now they look like idiots too. The bottom line is, don't even think about buying a CD with the Content Copy Protected logo which is a black circle with a white triangle offset in it. I tried submitting this story to fark.com as: "Microsoft files "patch with hole" patent infringement suit on Sony, after a released patch for Sunncomm DRM has a hole in it".

Glyn Hotz has since found evidence that in late September 2005, EMI was aware of a problem in a DRM infected CD from the band Switchfoot that was breaking people's ability to burn any CD on their computer after playing it.

CJME.com has asked me to be on their People's Panel for Monday afternoon at about 1:00PM so I should be on air then. You can listen online if you don't get 980 AM radio in Regina. The topic is supposed to be just about the election generally, so I might get to spout off on whatever issues I think are important.

I went out for Christmas lunch with my co-workers today. There was freezing rain, which on the radio was said to be bad enough to make it hard for emergency workers to stand up on the highway. However, when we went at 1:00 PM, the rain had stopped, and the roads were fine because it was warm enough for melting. I used my ING bank card to get money for maybe only about the 2nd time since I've had it in all these years, and I went and got my car registration until next November. They gave me 18% off the regular price, because I'm such a fantastic guy... errr... fantastic driver.

Election in Canada is coming soon

2005-11-29T23:08:00.000-06:00

It was yet another cool day out, and I stayed inside. The election campaign is "heating up" as "they" say though, so I'm sure the news won't be boring at least. Oh wait, it will be. We did the same thing just 15 months ago in June 2004. Here're my 2006 election predictions:

* Harper will say the Liberals are corrupt and hate marriage.
* Martin will say the Conservatives are scary and hate gays.
* Layton will say, "What about health care?"
* Duceppe will say, "What about Quebec?"
* And the Canadian public will say, "Who's Jim Harris? You mean there are 308 Green Party candidates? There are that many Green Party members in Canada?!"

And on January 24th, the Tuesday after the Monday election, we'll all be saying, "Why in the H. E. Double Hockey Sticks. did we just spend $400 Million on an election to get another Liberal minority government with fewer NDP seats, no Green seats, a lot more Bloc seats, and just enough Conservative seats to send Harper out to pasture to use his spiffy new cowboy hat?" So put away about $12 for each person in your household, because that's how much you're paying for this exercise in democracy. Merry Canvassing everyone, and a Happy New Government!

I'd like to see fewer Liberal seats, more NDP and Green seats, and more Conservative seats in Quebec and Ontario. The chances of this actually happening is what Santa is for. If anyone can bring a miracle, it's Santa. All I want for Christmas is a new democracy; one that doesn't break the day after it comes out of the ballot box. And one that isn't hogged by Ontario and Quebec; they'll let other provinces play with it. One that protects the privacy of Canadians, and upholds the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At least with a minority government, we can send the toy back to the makers if it breaks before its five year warranty expires. But, you know what a pain it is to get something fixed when it breaks; you have to send it away to Calgary or Oshawa after finding just the right sized box to pack it, and that's when you noticed the product was made in China. Wait. This analogy is over.

Main blog is running again

2005-11-14T23:04:00.000-06:00

There was a blizzard today, so I didn't drive anywhere, but into the city to pick up a printer.

==
Thoughts on the "urban myth" that cities carry both rural expenses and their own:

"Why should we [urban dwellers] have to pay more for our phone service/electricity/roads/etc, etc, etc just so you [rural dwellers] can afford yours? If you like living in the middle of nowhere so much then be prepared to pay for it."

Why? Because you're not all selfish city slickers? Seriously though, because your groceries and oil and everything doesn't come from downtown New York, and if you want supplies in your cities you'll need people and support structures outside of cities to support your urban lifestyle. If you want skilled people to work out of the city you'll have to provide them with healthcare, communication, education, and entertainment, so consider supporting rural Internet service to be part of your grocery bill. You'll either pay it in rural subsidies, on your loaf of bread, or in revolution if you manage things badly enough in the central government.

==
My friend Alvil has gone to Korea to teach english at a school. He's setting up a blog at tvfmalviltayco.blogspot.com, which is bound to have interesting stories and photos soon.

I was on the Mike Wilson Show over a year ago, pitching my Pet Foil Hat Technology to him and his listeners. Yesterday [Nov. 18] I found out that he was let go from his station WMAY. Sorry to hear him go.

My main blog is disabled temporarily

2005-11-07T19:58:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I "ran out of room" on my webhost, or at least that's what Sasktel thinks. Really, they have a bug in their quota program, and they are working on the problem.

For now, here's today's entry:
The Vatican made a pronouncement against Intelligent Design, backing up what I said about ID being a backhanded attempt at teaching Christian creationism in the science classroom using non-scientific "evidence" from the Bible.

I went to Buchanan today, and Springside. After work I went shopping for groceries and took the bus home. I can't figure out why the bus always smells, but it's kind of unfortunate that it does.

I came across a CFL blog called Twelve Men on the Field. It has a lot of information if you're really into CFL stats and sites.

Thursday on the road

2005-09-15T19:47:00.000-06:00

September 15, 2005

I had a union meeting today which was blissfully short, and now I'm a trustee of the books I guess. It was explained to me that I just have to verify the record keeping is accurate, so it's not a lot of work.
I went to Raymore and Semans today, and had been planning on going to Govan but ran out of time after I had a bunch to do in Semans to finish improving their new highspeed Internet enabled network. On the radio on the way there it was "Bugs Day: The Hour of Rage" which happens every Thursday on News Talk Radio 980 CJME. The callers had things to say like there was an old lady currently driving the wrong way down the Circle Drive freeway in Saskatoon, and someone peeved that China Lilly soya sauce was in a "crisis level shortage". It seems the factory had been shut down for a while after a family death, and fans of the crucial condiment were going into withdrawal and had started buying it on eBay and hording it.
Then on the afternoon radio, Adler was talking about Britney Spears who reportedly has not given up smoking during her pregnancy, and is planning on having a C-section in order to avoid letting the baby fully develop so she won't keep gaining weight. Apparently her concern for the child is taking a severe backseat, to satisfy what her publicist is recommending no doubt. Such a caring expectant mother; Ick.

For supper I ate at A&W and had a chocolate shake in a glass mug, a veggie swiss burger, and a salad instead of fries. It came to the exact same [over]price of $8.01 as my two "teens with small fries" did the other day. Both meals were equally satisfying and tasty.

The weather outside is getting cooler, with a threat of light snow tonight although the official forecast is rain and +7. I don't think I'll cover the sunflowers, since the rain will make any cloth too heavy and possibly will break things.

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff

2005-08-28T22:49:00.000-06:00

Enjoy my blog from www.abandonedstuff.com