…but Rick Mercer is probably the funniest current events comedian we have here in Canada. I got a chuckle out of his recent From The Desk of Stephen Harper bit. Here’s one little bit: 4. Open and Accountable government. Yes the catch phrase open and accountable will not go away. We are prepared to use it every day and every… Read more →
Year: 2007
Learning from porn.
In certain applied sciences, and engineering disciplines, it’s a kind of basic truth that the money and push for research comes from military applications. Indeed, in many areas you can look at what the military is developing now and with a little creative foresight you can have a sense of what street level technology will be like in a decade… Read more →
Breaking The Silence
I am really going to have to look more seriously into the power of Spreadshirt. I wish I could think of a pithy phrase that encapsulated the “Martha Stewart did two years straight up, and you couldn’t even do 4 days–Martha would make you her bitch” idea. Read more →
A pop culture holding action
Two other projects and my day job have temporarily distracted me from keeping up with this blog. As a penance, and a way of quickly knocking out a post, I present some video links that I’ve run across in the course of doing one of those other projects. Each of these can be offered as a solid argument that EVERYTHING… Read more →
Six Years!
Well, that’s six years married, and I’m still pretty much completely over-the-moon happy about it. Of course this is because my wife gets better looking, smarter, funnier, and more dangerous every year, but she still seems to love me, even as I get slower, lazier, balder, and more domesticated each year. I appear to be a very lucky man. Read more →
A Big Box Of Books
At least once a week, and often more frequently, a box of books shows up here at the ranch. I am always as excited as a kid on Christmas, even when I know what’s in the box before I open it. Sometimes, though, I have no idea what’s in the box, and then I open it and I am blown… Read more →
Work
Ladies and gentlemen, I present for your amusement, two quotations which I find myself thinking of entirely too often during the course of my daily employment. The first is from Mr. Charles Babbage, whom I have ultimately to thank for both my lucrative employment, and also for much of the pain of my existence. On two occasions I have been… Read more →
Book-hunting in Melbourne
I have been meaning for a while to write about the fruits of my book-buying excursion while in Melbourne. In some ways it was a much less fruitful day than I had been hoping, partly because I was feeling a bit delicate on the day I did the rounds of the bookstores–it was my birthday, and I was feeling delicate… Read more →
They really do have a word for everything…
Today’s word-of-the-day comes to us from author Matt Ruff, in a story about his grandfather’s missionary work. Urwahnfried is a word composed of old German word roots, and means in modern English, “Fulfillment.” Or, more explicitly: “The Place where my Fight for the Highest and Broadest Ideals of Life Came to an End in the Peace of Victory.” Go read… Read more →
Under The Covers
I don’t think I’ve mentioned here yet the news about oft-mentioned-here Danny Michel and his radio host gig. The short version is that Danny is going to co-host a radio show with indie rocker and occasional bandmate Emm Gryner on CBC. That’s the two of them in the picture above. The show will focus on cover tracks. In addition to… Read more →
Harper takes another page from the Bush playbook
Look at that, citing executive parliamentary privilege as a way to cover up shady partisan shenanigans. Get some details from shamelessly anti-Harper (and thus, completely Chris-approved) site HarperIndex.ca: Allan Riddell case contradicts accountability promises, threatens damage Stephen Harper’s invoking Parliamentary privilege, to avoid testifying in a defamation suit brought against him and the party by long-time Conservative Alan Riddell, exposes… Read more →
Minor Local Mysteries
I’ve lived in Halifax for a pretty long time now, but there are still lots of things that I just don’t know about the place. There are several things that I used to wonder about, but over time I’ve just stopped noticing them or being curious about them, unless something specifically draws my attention back to them. I’m not talking… Read more →
Amazon.ca, British Books, What The Hell?
Ever since Amazon.ca opened, I’ve been in a kind of book-buyer’s bliss. The Canadian variant of Amazon has a broader selection than native Chapters, and typically has lower prices–all good stuff. Even better, though, Amazon.ca put me in a position to leverage my special status as a Canadian lover of books: we can get both American and British editions from… Read more →
Several Dissimilar Things You Can Read For Free
Some times the Internet is like an unending river of chaos that just keeps washing all kinds of wild flotsam up on your shores. How is it possible that in the space of 20 minutes I get pointed to all three of these things? Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-Catcher After 25 Years’ Experience – A book from the end… Read more →
It’s about time
Look, I know there’s no guarantee of them going anywhere–indeed almost the opposite while W has veto power–but seeing legislation in both the House and Senate to close Guantanamo still makes me happy. It’s about time someone stood up and said of Gitmo that it is “plainly inconsistent with America’s proud legal traditions; it has become a stinging symbol of… Read more →
