Leaving on a jet plane
Posted 09 Jun, 2006 at 11:01 by wendy in /World | Permanent link
Strangely this will be the first time I've been on a trans-atlantic flight all by myself. There's something about the fact that I'm going to spend all night travelling and arrive tomorrow morning at what feels like 4AM and need to negotiate customs all by myself, and then figure out how to get to my hotel, and probably discover that they won't let me check in until after lunch (which is going to feel like breakfast), and then I'm going to have to find something to do for several hours while massively sleep deprived, that kinda freaks me out. Hopefully the hotel lobby will have big comfy chairs and not mind me passing out in one of them...
I guess I'm better off than my roommate. She won't be arriving until 3am. It will be interesting to see whether or not I actually get my room because it's her name on the reservation (they've assured us repeated that this will not be a problem...but then these are the same people who told her to "Call back tomorrow mornign at 9am, so&so will be here for sure then" only to discover that 'tomorrow' was a national holiday...so we'll see). Worst case I've got the address of a hostel around the corner.
I'm probably worrying about this way too much. Time to go get on the plane, once I'm in the air and can no longer actually do anything about the situation I'll stop worrying :)
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Homeland Security is coming to a Church BBQ near you
Posted 08 Mar, 2006 at 10:20 by brent in /World | Permanent link
This is f'ed up. Why is an established organization for security trying to build a center for faith-based and community initiatives? WTF are they going to do? Hold a church BBQ and frisk everyone? Have a bake off at a mosque and have a dunk your most hated homeland security member? I'm glad I got out when I did, they are some f'ed up: Homeland Security and Neighbourly Love.
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Genetics are fun!
Posted 05 Mar, 2006 at 08:04 by blue in /World | Permanent link
For those who enjoy the wonderful variety that genetics can produce... here is one for you...
Two parents, both of mixed racial background, gave birth to twins... but the twins are one of each race.
The odds of this happening are apparently quite high, as you might guess, but I mean... wow... a black girl and a white girl who can honestly state with conviction that they are each other's twin.
Cool eh?
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What's Up?
Posted 24 Feb, 2006 at 14:58 by blue in /World | Permanent link
Want to know what is going on around the world? A pretty cool interface for seeing headline news around the world was sent to me this morning.
While I think it can be greatly improved on (the ability to configure it, set keywords/interets, level of detail etc), it is a neat start. Some may say "what's the big deal? get an RSS reader" and they would be right... this isn't much different... but I'm a visual person and this is pretty.
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World's cultural loss during times of war
Posted 23 Feb, 2006 at 08:26 by blue in /World | Permanent link
Regardless of your beliefs, this is a terrible thing.
If the image doesn't mean anything to you, you can read one of the many news articles on the bombing of the Golden Mosque at CNN or Wikipedia.
I remember when I visited Germany in 1992 and saw scaffolding around many buildings. When asked about it, our guides indicated that in many cases it was to do restoration on old buildings... removing soot and other effects from things such as acid raid (notice how you don't hear about that in the news anymore? Do you think acid rain really stopped, or we just have new catch phrases for the media?).
However, many of the buildings were also having a different sort of restoration done. Repair from damage from World War II and allied bombings. One church I visited had photos of their stained glass windows... pre-1944... done by various masters of the craft. They currently had about 6 of the 30 windows restored and were working on collecting funds to do the rest.
Now consider that... a wealthy, prosporous nation like West Germany was still repairing things.
Irag, and a city like Baghdad, probably one of the oldest cities on the planet, just had the American war machine roll over it. I know that the US military actively tries to avoid directly bombing targets of cultural or religious significance... but war is war. Terrorist attacks, and, those who are in fact specifically targeting locations of cultural significance are even less discriminating - need I remind anyone of the Buddha's destroyed in Afghanistan?
Regardless of your cultural background, I think it is a profound loss when one of these achivements is detroyed or lost. I was pleased to see, and hope that it is followed up on, that the US Ambassador to Iraq has offered US help in rebuilding the mosque. That said, things rebuilt can never be quite the same. Don't you agree?
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US Government inconsistent?
Posted 15 Feb, 2006 at 11:24 by brent in /World | Permanent link
If you haven't read it, there's a wonderful set of comments coming out of the US government about the tech industry complying with China's rules and regulations about information. Such as that here: 'Nauseating collaboration with a regime of repression'. I find this fascinating that the US government wants compliance by say Google and other search companies to hand over there records and yet they consider China oppressive?
First question: Is this hypocritical of the US Government? Second question: How are these rules different from say house building code regulations? Aren't the rules and regs involved designed to help protect the people?
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Federal election thread
Posted 23 Jan, 2006 at 22:04 by matt in /World | Permanent link
As of this writing, it's looking like the Conservatives have a small plurality in the federal election, and hence we'll have a new minority government. This is not one of my preferred outcomes -- I don't like the Conservatives in their current incarnation, and distrust a lot of the ideas they've been tossing about -- but it could have been a lot worse.
What happens now? Presumably the Conservatives aren't going to form a coalition with the Liberals; the NDPs, even if they could get along, aren't large enough to take a majority; so if the Conservatives are going to make a formal coalition, it's got to be with the Bloc. That seems unlikely, both because the Conservatives had a stronger showing in Quebec than expected -- and hence represent a real competition to the BQ -- and because of the rhetoric that Harper was tossing around back in December. The theory, then, is that the Conservatives will try to get support on an issue-by-issue basis, trusting that the other parties won't want to rock the boat and plunge Canada into another election anytime soon.
Reactions?
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Roe vs. Bush
Posted 09 Jan, 2006 at 07:38 by blue in /World | Permanent link
Second post of the new year, I'll turn an eye south of the border and look at the most recent nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
For those who don't follow politics that closely, Justice O'Connor was a pivitol deciding vote on many more liberal issues including abortion, the death penalty and affirmative action. The Wikipedia provides a more detailed look at her time in office.
The nominee, Samuel Alito, it would appear is not personally in favour of the Roe vs. Wade decision, and is also rumoured to be in favour of more power for the executive branch of governement.
A short blurb on him appears on CNN today.
Why should you care? Living in Canada as many of you do, perhaps you shouldn't. Though Canada often leans in the same direction as the United States, there are many legal and philosophical differences between the two nations as well. Even so, a reduction of civil liberties in the large, heavily armed, nation to the south of us could be cause for alarm.
As Senator Kennedy is quoted in the article on CNN, with regards to Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court;
"In an era when the White House is abusing power, has authorized torture and is spying on American citizens, I find your support for an all-powerful executive branch and almost unlimited power for government agents to be deeply troubling."
Me too, Senator. Me too.
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A nice story
Posted 15 Nov, 2005 at 10:18 by blue in /World | Permanent link
Just a little story I saw on the web this morning that I thought I would share.
The story can be read (and watched) at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10043374/
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The commandments of coyote
Posted 08 Oct, 2005 at 08:30 by wendy in /World | Permanent link
Coyote is the trickster of Native American lore. Then someone asked the question "What would the ten commandments look like if they'd been written by Coyote?", and this fellow came up with an absolutely brilliant answer.
I especially like this one:
VIV. Assume This Is It. Maybe There Is Reincarnation; Maybe Not. Not Only Am I Not Saying, Please Consider the Fact That I Probably Get A Say In Whether You Come Back, and If You Are the Sort Of Person Who Doesn't Do Anything With One Life, Why Should I Waste My Time Giving You Another One? Live Like You Get No Second Chances. You Will Have More Fun.
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Poetic Something
Posted 23 Sep, 2005 at 00:49 by kael in /World | Permanent link
So, I'm taking a non-degree retail management issues course at $BIG_SCHOOL by Distance Ed. There's a set of course notes we need for this course.
The course started Monday.
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War. Huh. What is it good for?
Posted 20 Sep, 2005 at 11:55 by blue in /World | Permanent link
Occassionally I like to do random searches on Google and see what I will come up with. Today, after reading articles about 'Who owns the moon?', 'Will India become the next major power in the world?' and 'So what were those two British agents doing in Basra anyway?'... I decided that the word of the day would be war.
The first hit for Google took me to a site talking about the cost of the US War in Iraq. While I've seen sites like this before, this one was kind of neat in that it also has counters which compare what else this money could have been spent on.
Being completely cynical, I could suggest that they aren't really playing fair with the numbers or looking at the broader picture. At the same time... that's an aweful lot of house, educated kids and sick people that could have been helped too.
Worth a second to check out and read... if you can spare it.
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Leave it to business in Orleans
Posted 09 Sep, 2005 at 05:42 by blue in /World | Permanent link
Say what you will, and in no way to diminish the work done by relief agencies or even the governments, but here is an example of how corporate, capitalistic enterprise can often be more effective than government.
When you follow the link you may need to click it again to launch the pop up. It links to CNN's video player.
In a nutshell, the VP of Starwood hotels within a few short days, ensured survival of guests and staff alike... has repair crews in the city... provided a secure headquarters for police operations... has three of the only buildings with full power in the city... and expects to have them repaired and back to 100% fully functioning within another week.
We have the technology... we can rebuild it.
When there is a buck to be made, it would seem that people can be extremely efficient. One almost wonders if the best plan the government could have had for the evacuation and restoration of the city wouldn't have been to simply take the money they are setting aside for relief and put out to tender a contract for evacuation. Some may think it sounds sick to put a price tag on human life, but I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't have attracted a highly efficient response from someone looking to profit.
(okay... you can start the flaming response now ;) )
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Katrina
Posted 31 Aug, 2005 at 08:20 by blue in /World | Permanent link
One of the better video and photo sites up at the moment on Katrina can be found here, at the New York Times.
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Iraq Constitution
Posted 25 Aug, 2005 at 10:58 by blue in /World | Permanent link
And so the U.S. said... let's remake the world in our image.
Well.. maybe not quite, but for those of you interested in world affairs, you may find this link to a translated copy of the new Iraqi constitution interesting.
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Subways of The World
Posted 16 Jun, 2005 at 12:19 by blue in /World | Permanent link
Here is a little something kind of neat. It's a collection of to-scale drawings of the world's subways systems. Obviously a little out of date as Toronto doesn't have the Sheppard line on it, but interesting none the less.
Though Toronto's system is much simpler than many... it's also upon reflection one of the largest across... leading one to ponder about the urban sprawl that would force the development of the system like that instead of some of the other larger cities.
Any interesting observations?
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What should happen?
Posted 23 Mar, 2005 at 08:15 by blue in /World | Permanent link
Terri Schiavo.Her name has been in the media throughout the US, Canada and even the world.
Many people in Canada claim that such a battle could not occur here, where the religious right does not have as much power as it does in the states.
Many people claim that the majority of Americans support the justice ruling to remove the tube. Even though the President does not.
What do you claim?
There is a random sampling of people who read this and live in both the US and Canada.
Should Terri be kept alive artificially? Is she truely even still alive?
Should she be starved to death by removing the tube? What would she want?
What would you want?
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Kael In Iraq
Posted 08 Mar, 2005 at 13:21 by blue in /World | Permanent link
Okay... so as it turns out, I actually found another person named Kael and it isn't our own Kael over there.
This Kael is however in Iraq as an independent journalist. Her work and several others can be found at Iraq Uncensored. The real question is, is it truely uncensored?
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US The Police State
Posted 05 Jan, 2005 at 09:55 by brent in /World | Permanent link
So I read this interesting (if you can say that) article in the paper yesterday. Made all the more significant by the rarity with which I read the paper. I realize that the information in the paper can be certainly flawed or misreported (like Chinese Whispers or simple human bias).
So for the sake of simplicity, I'll simply quote the article (acknowledging any spelling mistakes as my own):
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Future Cost and The Environment
Posted 04 Jan, 2005 at 01:00 by brent in /World | Permanent link
One of the random thoughts that came to my mind is to apply a future cost to certain goods to represent their environmental impact against the best alternative. So for example if a wooden pencil had an environmental impact equivalent of say a dollar and an automatic one had an environmental impact equivalent of 50 cents, then the wooden pencil would have an extra 50 cents tacked on to represent the difference and would/should be used entirely to go towards remedying the impact it has on the environment.
You could also instead just apply the environmental impact equivalent instead of just the difference as well to ensure that the environment is maintained. Furthermore, companies could effectively reduce the cost of their goods to the consumer in a competitive manner by reducing the environmental impact and thereby reduce the additional charge that is passed on to the consumer.
The benefits that come to mind are that companies now have to have a rigorous environmental impact assessment to justify a reduction in a "standard" tax on their goods and the onus is now on the company instead of the government to pursue legal action should they fail to meet environmental standards. This could be a boon for getting money into the system applied to the environment. People wouldn't have to boycott since standard economic pressures will probably be much more effective to drive manufacturers to lower environmental cost.
It's an idea and I realize it has some flaws. Some examples are: Who determines the cost? Who manages the money--both collection and application? How does this work internationally?
Anyway, one of the ideas that has been jostling amongst my neurons.