Ranting and Roaring

This is just horrifying: Police: Children [aged 10 months and three years] die in hot car while mom at salon.

For all the happy birthdays.

you lousy bastards

Indian bands have had corruption (or as Mr. Paul says, “so-called corruption”) leadership problems. Who’s fault is this? Whitey, of course. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Update: my bad, it’s followed by a Matthew Coon Come letter, and you can’t get much more idiotic than that. Come represents the worst that the natives have to offer in this country, the corrupt crust of chiefs who nepotistically rule native bands and squander on themselves hundreds of millions of dollars each year, all the while screaming “racism” because of the condition of “their people”.

Or how about serving it with a nice big block of Lucky.

Christ, I was on Skipper & Company as a child, in Lederhosen no-less (don’t ask). Fortunately, the CBC, in a bizzare attempt to save money, destroyed all of the video tapes of this show without telling anyone until afterwards. Fortunate for me that is, but another tragedy of Newfoundland history.

But my computer’s still broken and I’m still working on an RSI-inducing german keyboard.

Who’s that rattling the chains in the attic?

I don’t want to be alarmist or anything, but I bet these assholes who invented Palladium take the same type of pride in their work that the makers of Zyklon-B did. The only way that this system can possibly work is if there are government agents with guns enforcing brand new rules about what you can and cannot do with your own property.

I just pulled this comment off slashdot about celeberty “bass” deaths:

• Ann Landers – Talking girls out of going past 2nd base for years.
• Darryl Kyle – Tried to keep guys off of first base.
• John Entwhistle – More and more bass.

My laptop finally went in for repairs, which means I don’t have e-mail anymore, or even a proper keyboard. I am on a German keyboard and it is seriously wierd.

One thing worth mentioning — the greatest bass player ever is dead. My youth is over. And who’s next?

Science actor David Suzuki has a column in today’s CNEWS. It’s just too bizarre to tear apart line by line, but the basic thread is that people like Suzuki are underestimating the problems in the environment and with biodiversity, and since the lie that rate of extinction has massively increased doesn’t really fly anymore, he’s saying the real problem is now local loss of species. Did you know that there’s no more grizzlies in Calgary anymore! This is bad bad bad because … well, it just is — he’s telling you so.

I always wondered why this was allowed, given the seperation of Church and State thing. Next up, the harmless penny? Most Republicans are outraged, but I find it difficult to reconcile the government statements “the phrase “under God” had minimal religious content” and “From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our Nation and our people to the Almighty”.

Update: VodkaPundit says don’t get too worked up about it, we have work to do.

Eric Olsen on the death of Internet Radio in the US. Why does this concern a Canadian? A: because most of the good shit comes from the US; B: the Canadian government will, as usual, quietly change our regulations to be effectively the same as the US. We know how to play ball here.

This may be of some interest in the future. Canopy is a DIY wireless (5Ghz) home ISP kit. They say it’s inexpensive, but they don’t give a price. Also, you need unobstructed line-of-sights, which means hight hight hight.

• Motorola Canopy Home
• News.com: Motorola gaining coverage with “Canopy”
• Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine: Motorola Canopy Makes Debut at Very Successful First WISPCON Trade Show in Chicago
• E*Prairie: Motorola Surreptitiously Developing Bleeding-Edge Wireless Broadband Network

Real Hamster.com: “Realistic, life­size and beautiful. Elastic flesh, luxurious fur, a cybernetic infrastructure and sexy features like no other buggering hamster in the world.”

I’m very happy that I haven’t reinvested my cash in the market (yet).

CNN Headline: Young survivor describes Texas bus crash ‘I really feel God protected me’. She didn’t go on to add, “God obviously didn’t give a shit about all those other losers who died horrible deaths”.

Today’s CBC headline: “Bush tells Palestinians: oust Arafat to get U.S. support“. There’s a bit more to it than that, me thinks.

I was just going to bed just as the Bush speech was coming on, so everyone else in the Blogosphere has beaten me to the punch. Just click on any of the links left… Here’s my two cents:

Bush has set the bar very high in what he wants from the Palestinians before he’ll consider them worthy of coming to the table. In particular, as Den Beste and many others have noted, Arafat’s out. However, this is more of a reflection of current reality in that due to recent Israeli actions, Arafat’s been out for the last two months anyway, with no clear path for making a comeback. In any case, the US has given notice that it’s not responsible for making peace in post-Trans-Jordan until the Palestinians start acting civilized.

Furthermore, whether it’s “peace plan” or a “policy statement”, this is something of a rough draft for a long-term peace. As such, there are two things very conspicuously missing, which I believe will come back to haunt the Americans:

• There is no call for the Arab nations — particularly the Saud’s — to immediately recognize Israel. This was a missed opportunity for sure, as it would have drawn a nice explicit line in the sand to divide friends and enemies (that is, for those who don’t get it yet).
• The issue of the so-called “right of return” — an absolute no-go for Israel — is totally glossed over. And as long as this is sticking around, this will be the issue that “breaks” peace (once again, nominally speaking: the Palestinians don’t want peace, but this is the issue they have that looks the most reasonable to walk away from the table over).

I expect the Palestinians [whatever that means anymore, in terms of leadership...] will be working on nominally complying with Bush’s points, while sticking to the game plan: seeking to destroy Israel by any means available. Bush was clever in that most points of his plan are very difficult for countries — especially the European ones — to call unreasonable. However, he is dealing with experienced weasels, and there is a good chance of unintended blow-back.

And of course, expect some major atrocity in Israel today, the next 48 hours, or a week max.

Googling around for something entirely different, I came across this site. The site also includes “Song titles by the Matthew Good Band if they were obsessed by the 1981 Expos [about the last year I like the Expos too]: “Everything is Automatic, Andre Dawson”, “Load Me Up, Gary Carter”, “The Workers Sing a Song of Mass Production Against Terry Francona”, …

Phrase of the Day: “Definition Hopper“.

If you want to know why townies laugh at baymen, here’s your answer from the Globe & Mail. Yes b’y, those townie parties are wicked bad, wa? And we’re all stuck up — not like ‘ome.

When this week ends, I’ll be 37 years old. Just past 1/3rd of the way through my life.

This is what I just saw on CNN.com just now. Very unexpected.

CNN International replayed HBO’s 9/11 special last night. It occured to me this morning that the last time Bush saw a replay of those planes smashing into the WTC or saw the WTC buildings collapse was probably last October, or maybe November at the latest. To believe otherwise makes the current drifting he’s going through totally inexplicable.