October 25, 2005

    I can't wait to see who's getting indicted in the USA tomorrow.  It could change the face of American politics.  Or it could sluff the blame onto underlings who didn't order Plame's identity leaked to the press to embarrass her and her husband.
Bush looking at indictment in Canada for torture crimes?

    You know how seriously people take letter seals these days :^/ especially since a wax seal is the only way to tell an email is genuine.  Since the President has a monopoly on political parody these days, it's understandable how people could mistake The Onion for real proclamations from the President's office. I guess The Onion should have modified the Presidential seal some before using it.
    (_!_) - Seal of Saskboy on letter to White House

A fan at the last Rider game had a good theme in his costume. I later saw him on the field in a contest to win a Ford car.  He had to break a balloon to get his place in line to grab a key and try it in the ignition.  He was the last to break the balloon, but did it in a funny way that got a laugh from the crowd.  First he tried sitting on it without luck, then smooshed it with his stomach in a belly flop.

Rice talks the talk, but doesn't Walk the Walk

Tue Oct 25, 2005 saskboy's Daily Kos diary

    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has today claimed that the US government's word "has been as good as gold in international dealings and agreements".  The price of gold must have bottomed out recently, because Americans owe Canada $4 Billion USD, and Bush has no intention of paying it back.

    Rice is in Ottawa to talk trade and other issues.  The softwood lumber dispute has been raging for years now, with the USA charging illegal tariffs and duties when they were prohibited from doing so by the negotiated NAFTA agreement more than 15 years ago.

    Now Rice insists that Canada has to negotiate with the USA after the northern neighbour has already won final appeals in the NAFTA designated appeal processes.  The time for negotiation was more than a decade ago, and now it's time for action to correct the injustice done to the Canadian softwood lumber industry by protectionist and illegal actions done in Washington D.C.  Secretary Rice must understand that her government has damaged their reputation worldwide as a trading partner that lives up to agreements.  Would you want to trade with someone who stole $4 Billion from Canadian labourers?

    Canada will begin litigation in US courts soon to recover the money, since that is soon becoming the last legal arm-twisting means to recover the lost money.  A trade war is not out of the question, however it is understandably the last resort.

October 24, 2005

    Intelligent Design supporters or "ID10ts" should read this.

    Interesting results I came across regarding Government direct deposit results:

• Expanding the use of direct electronic deposits, increased cost avoidance from $79.4 million in 2002-03 to $86.7 million in 2003-04.
• Reduced the net cost of banking services from $35.7 million to $32.4 million.
• Reduced paper consumption by an estimated 2.6 tons through direct deposits, avoiding the use of an equivalent of 45,000 trees.

It's good to see that direct deposit is having a money saving effect, as well as being convenient for people who don't like making a trip to the bank to deposit a cheque.

    I missed the Daylight Saving debate this morning on the radio.  It looks like I didn't miss much if Mr. Gormley's rant on the CJME.com site is any indicator.  He seems convinced that SK needs to begin setting our clocks to different times just to conform to other places that do it.  I've lived in both places, and let me tell you it's definitely preferable to wake up at the same time each morning and not be saddled with jet lag without even going anywhere twice a year.  Mr. Gormley's idea that it would be some sort of significant energy saver is leading people astray.  The time law change in the USA is nothing more than a diversionary tactic by an energy tycoon president, to distract people from real energy saving techniques.

    I witnessed the most horrifying reffing I've ever seen in football today.  Burris actually talked a ref into throwing his flag against the Riders.  The resulting disheartening calls sapped any energy from the crowd and then the Riders who flat lined in the second half to lose to Calgary again.  I then ate at Viet Thai on Albert St., and watched Crossing Jordan and Criminal Intent.

October 22, 2005
    I watched "Four Brothers" [7/10] and "Airplane II" [5/10].

October 21, 2005
    I went to Pelly today.  Then I bussed to Regina.  I met kids who were about 11, and they'd seen Dawn of the Dead.  They bragged about how it still gives them nightmares, and then said they wanted a tattoo like Nate Davis has.  Kids these days, eh?
    "Porn" as you've never considered it before. [Link Probably Safe For Work]

    Ad jokes - Ads that are poorly mismatched to the content on my pages. I'll be updating this more when I notice funny ads.

October 20, 2005
   Ontario has changed its time law to include the adjusted American time law for Bush's flawed Daylight Savings plan.  I've discussed the reasons for the flaw several months ago when it was signed into law in the USA if you'd like to read more.  The United States of America is going to stay on Daylight Saving Time for several weeks longer in the name of saving energy. 

    This time change is such a boondoggle.  This is a make work project for computer programmers, and a trick to fool the unthinking into feeling that Bush is doing something to tackle oil use.

 Here're some facts:

- The amount of oil predicted to be saved over the several weeks involved in the time shift, is less than all of the oil the USA uses in a SINGLE day.

- There are going to be thousands of VCRs and other hard coded devices designed to change to the old DST law, meaning many will auto-adjust to the wrong time.

- Airlines and other businesses that depend on time are going to have to reprogram many things, and thus this will impact their bottom line. [Is this a good thing when so many are going bankrupt?]

- If we legislated that vehicles must achieve twice the MPG rating they have today, then we'd use approximately half as much oil. That's a savings of 50% every single day on new transportation vehicles. [Maybe if George thought about that every...single...day, just like he thinks about the Iraq War "every..single..Day", then we wouldn't have to put up and deal with this stupid time change!]
==

Do the Climate Mash! It's a funny climate change flash cartoon.

October 19, 2005
    I phoned in with the correct answer to the Saskatchewan Smartest Radio Listener contest on CJME, but I was a few seconds too slow getting in line, because someone from Warman [a bedroom community of Saskatoon] beat me to the answer.

Q: This project cost $174Million in invested dollars, took five years to complete, and drew the attention of the world.  What was it?

A: It was an easy answer I thought, and it only took a minute for the caller to get it so it wasn't very hard considering some questions take 10 minutes for someone to answer.  The Canadian Light Source AKA The Synchrotron.  I worked in a building beside the Can. Light Source in 2000 when the project was just getting underway.

    If you want to see the graphical representation of the ISS's altitude, there's a nice chart at Heavens-Above.com.  It's a free sign-up, and the bonus is you can find out when ISS flies over your house so you can see it or even take pictures like I do sometimes.  I had noticed just a few days ago that the orbit was at its lowest point, and was getting concerned about what they were going to do about it.  An attempt today to boost the station has failed, but they are working on trying again.

    Tonight CBC showed The Nature of Things with David Suzuki.  The topic was energy use, and they showed a man who has designed a home made of concrete domes covered in earth, that have skylights and a unique round fridge where the food is raised out of the refrigerated cylinder, and sinks back into the cool air compartment after you've taken or replaced what you wanted to eat.  They also showed massive 2 Megawatt turbines that are 200m above the ocean in the Netherlands, which make up a farm powerful enough to power a city of 160,000 people.  I don't think Canada is doing enough with wind energy, but SaskPower has made a few small wind farms finally.

    I just watched "Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning" [5/10] which is an entertaining action, sci-fi, parody, free, foreign film from Finland.  It has excellent special effects, but the actors are not professionals, although many do a good enough job to make it a passable comedy.  I had trouble figuring out what the title Pirkining was, but then realized it was a pun on "in the beginning" since it's some kind of prequel movie to other Star Wreck films.

October 18, 2005
    My somewhat famous Pet Foil Hat Technology auction!  And PEMS has returned too. [Caution: PEMS is not appropriate for young children, or prudes who faint before they read the joke.]

October 17, 2005
    The Buffalo Proposition: Saskatchewan gets tough on Ottawa, by joining with Alberta on resource issues.  It's John Gormley's latest idea to bolster SK's economic position.  It think it would work, as Paul Martin is using the same "get tough" tactic on George Bush now.  Either Bush admits defeat, or he gets nothing, as the proposition goes.  I have to say I'm with Martin and the NDP on this trade issue, either the USA admits they lost their final appeals and pays up in the softwood lumber dispute, or they get nothing.

==
    Oh for goodness sake!  I decided to try experimenting with a Google advertising box on the right hand side of my webpage, and one of the ads was for a website claiming it has "strong evidence for an intelligent creator".  I guess advertising really is evil, and since it's random and I don't directly pick the advertisers I can't do much about what it puts there.  All or nothing - again.  The ads aren't quite random actually, since Google scans my blog for keywords, and then advertises sites that are similar to those keywords.  So if I wrote about "The Littlest Hobo" like I'm doing now, there's a chance that ads for CTV's old children TV show will pop up on the right when some random visitor loads this page.  You might be seeing it right now!

    On July 16, 2005 3:00 PM CDT I sent a small can of Clamato to New Zealand.  The can of Mott's arrived today, nearly 3 months later.  I sent it using Canada Post's surface mail option, which was cheap at only $5CND to get it across an ocean and half a continent.

    This afternoon I called Charles Adler's radio show with the intent to tell him about Freecycling, since he was asking people what they thought about recycling, in light of Toronto's looming garbage problem.  Michigan no longer wants to be paid to bury Canadian trash, so there goes another export market I guess.  I can't say I blame the States on this one though, although it too probably breaks some NAFTA legislation.  Anyway, I got through to be on the show, but I would have been put on hold past the time to talk about Freecycle, so I decided to email instead, told the show assistant about the website, and hung up.

October 16, 2005
    I ended up with a story posted on Slashdot.org today, although not to the coveted front page.  I found and submitted a story about tonight's lunar eclipse, that you can catch in Saskatchewan if you're awake at about 6AM Monday morning.  The lower part of the moon should darken, and the moon will take on a duller tone as the Earth passes in between the Sun and Moon.  As a side note, Mars is the brightest you can see it from Earth, for nearly a century.  If you haven't looked east after sundown, do it tonight if it's clear.

October 15, 2005   
    Jib Jab has made a new cartoon, this time lampooning Walmart and big box store clones that outsource jobs to countries without human rights.

    The Economist has a fine article on the Dover, PA trial concerning the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools.  It brings up one of the best examples I've seen to describe the trickery being used to insert a Christian-only myth into science classes.  Life really is a cup of tea, and we all have different ways of explaining the existence of tea, but one way of describing it doesn't make the other ways invalid.  It is invalid though to say the other ways don't exist, and this is what Intelligent Design supporters are doing, they're trying to invalidate and suppress the best model for creation that we have to work with - evolution.

    Toss your camera today.  It makes prettier pictures if you don't break it in the process.

    The Riders lost today by one point to Edmonton this afternoon, which means that the Centennial Gridiron Challenge ended in a draw.  Paul McCalum was called upon to be the game hero by kicking a long field goal, and he had the distance but was wide to the left so Edmonton just ran the ball out of the endzone for the easy win.

October 14, 2005

    Word came out from the Saskatchewan Taxpayers Federation [who I usually think are a bunch of conservative busybodies] that $17.9M CND is lost each year to sick days taken by Saskatchewan government employees.  While some of that time is certainly legitimate, I don't think everyone needs 10 days to be sick.  Last year when I was horribly sick with a mystery allergy, I only took about 5 days off to be sick.

October 13, 2005

    I watched "The Majestic" [8/10] tonight.  It was a sappy Jim Carey movie made a few years ago about the Communist witch hunt in the US in the 1950s.
    I also installed Ubuntu 5.10 on my main computer, it's a Linux operating system.  I'm going to test it out in the coming days, and try to move my data over to it so I can work within Linux and learn new software.

October 12, 2005

    John Gormley tore a strip off of Pat Atkinson the minister for the SK Crown Corporations for accusing Grant Devine, who was premier over 15 years ago, of making today's North American natural gas rates so high.  She's so stuck on the blame game used a decade ago that made the NDP so powerful in this province, that in the year 2005 after 15 years of steady NDP rule she honestly thinks that it's the Progressive Conservatives who made gas prices rise.  Fortunately Grant Devine phoned in after he heard that on the radio, and set the record straight.

    I'm no fan of Devine, but it's time for the NDP to stop using him as a bogey man, and start living in the real world of responsibility.  Minister Atkinson could learn a thing or two about taking responsibility for her actions.  Her roles in the Education and Health ministries had REAL detrimental effects on rural Saskatchewan.  Using my region as an example, she was Education minister while a division board that had no financial incentive to do so, was closing my hometown school.  The provincial government promised that quality of education wouldn't be impacted by the closure, and test scores of the displaced students went down, so obviously the government messed up.  They lost money, provided a less effective education, and increased green house gas emissions to boot.  But the worst effect by far was the loss of half of the area's population.  Within a few years there were half as many families in the village, and now with no school to go to, it's a rare family indeed that can move into the area.  The woman who later became a minister responsible for "revitalization" of rural SK was in a large part responsible for its dramatic decline through school and hospital closures.

    Later Gormley had two guests debate Intelligent Design, and sadly almost two to one callers thought that ID should be in the science classroom.  Every one that gave a reason why they thought that, presented a flawed understanding they held about a scientific concept.  As one caller pointed out, only the United States is looking at this debate seriously, and every country in Europe is laughing at it because it's so stupid.  Intelligent Design is an attack on science by Christian fundamentalists who want to get their foot in the secular school door.  An understanding of science is a blow to the culture of ignorance that a few of the fundamentalist leaders count on to maintain control over a bewildered and sheep like flock.

    Here's what I wrote to Gormley, but he was only taking calls so it wasn't read on the air:
    Thank you for having a discussion about Intelligent Design today.  Your guest Larry Krause put it so well when he said that the effort to insert creationism into the science classroom is a perhaps "well meaning attack on science".  Intelligent Design makes no sense in Saskatchewan, where it's apparent that we'll have a half Aboriginal population in a few decades.  If we're to require a creator to initiate our earth's development, why should it be a Christian God that puts it all in motion?  There are a number of creation theories, and I've seen nothing that the Intelligent Design crowd has put forward that discounts a mythological figure from Aboriginal history being the earth's true creator.

    I don't think it serves our children any better to have Aboriginal creation myths taught in science class than it does to teach them God created your little bits and it wasn't the laws of the universe that did it.  But I wanted to make the point that this is about religion, and if someone who's for ID is against Aboriginal creation myth, then they show their true stripes.  It isn't about an "intelligent designer" it's about Christianity's God.  It isn't about the "science" behind ID [which there is none], it's about injecting Christian myth into a class that our future drug designers, and doctors rely upon to be effective professionals.

==
    I took my Sunflower 1 down today.  Its seeds seem to be mostly developed, so I'm hopeful that I can plant some next spring and roast the others to eat.  I had lunch in Sturgis today, buying a few things at the Co-op like chocolate milk, or Vico as it's also known in Saskatchewan.  I listened to my new Harvey Danger album last night, which I downloaded legally from their website.  They're offering direct downloads of their music, bypassing the corrupt music industry, so I'm going to reward them by buying their music and cutting out the middle man RIAA.

October 11, 2005

    I responded to the Globe and Mail story about proposed law changes that require Internet and telephone providers to allow for at least 8000 wiretaps nation wide.  The paper posted my comment here.

    If this proposed law change is in Bill C-60, it's about providing the powerful music industry with access to private citizen's Internet logs, so they can sue them in court for copyright infringement. The spin on the story is coming off about it being an anti-crime or anti-terrorism measure to gain more widespread support, however, it's really about big business wanting to control your life by invading your privacy.
    The improved "wire"tapping is coming across as a phone related story instead of an Internet related story, because most people don't realize the extent phone technology has changed and is changing even today to include more telephone access through the Internet. To tap these VOIP phones, entire Internet logs may need to be kept on hand, and this means your Internet Service provider is going to have to buy new equipment to be compliant with warrants issued to them. Small providers may not be able to afford this equipment, so Bell really isn't going to mind this law.They will simply raise your monthly phone bill and Internet bill to cover the expense, and a lot of start-up companies will be sunk.
    Please oppose Bill C-60 the newly proposed Copyright Act, which is drafted by Heritage Canada at the behest of the lawsuit crazy Canadian Recording Industry Association. If the federal government needs better wiretapping laws, have them draft their own law that deal specifically with indictable crime and drafts the framework for preventing corruption of the tapping system.

    This ties in to my letter to my MP that I've emailed three times since March with no response, or even an indication that he received the letter.  The letter outlines the changes the new Copyright Act legislation proposes, and the detrimental impacts on constituents.  I surmise though that since it doesn't have to do with crusading against homosexual's rights, or gun control, my MP isn't interested.

    On Friday I tried the DQ Flamethrower burger, which is two patties, bacon, and tobacco mayonnaise.  It was good, but I didn't realize that it was a double burger, and so I ordered two of them since it was a two for $6 deal, and added a small fry.  Coupled with my previous snacking before I left, I was too full.

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