And now, you have a chance to help out with Trish’s research. I’ll use her words to explain: As most of us know and have experienced, sometimes painfully, sometimes to our benefit, the vast majority of software developers, and indeed these days the majority of professionals in general, work for a manager. Bad managers can frustrate us, decrease the quality… Read more →
Year: 2008
Oh, Canada
I am so disappointed in you. Especially you Ontario, and you B.C. I had steeled myself for 134 seats, but this… this is horrible. OK, it’s not quite as bad as a majority, but this is still terrible. And if this voter turnout thing is true–that the right-winger got out a lot more of their voters than the other people–well,… Read more →
Lapham’s Quarterly, Again
I have previously mentioned how thrilled I am with Lewis Lapham‘s current project: Lapham’s Quarterly. The current issue, which focuses on education, is a fine and marvellous read. Actually, the cost of the issue is more than justified just by the introductory essay. Lapham is on fire. Here’s a little bit: Why would any politician in his or her right… Read more →
Well, colour me shocked.
It turns out there’s a party running in our federal election who I am even more opposed to than the ReformConservatives. Yes, I just found out today about the Christian Heritage Party. Apparently they’ve been around since 1988, but they’ve never even showed up on my radar before. Since they’ve usually only run candidates in less than 1/6 of the… Read more →
Shhh! You’re giving away the secrets.
Aside
OK, that’s some of the only good news I’ve read lately.
Important Local News
One of the gadgets on my custom Google homepage is the “Top Nova Scotia News” feed. It displays the three “top” stories for Nova Scotia at any given time. Usually my eyes scan over the headlines without paying much attention, but lately there have been a rash of headlines that serve to highlight just exactly where it is that I… Read more →
Little Brother On YouTube
When I was playing with YouTube last night, in order to pull out the music for that wildly dissimilar mix, it occurred to me that essentially everything is on YouTube–a revelation that’s been brewing at least since I found Closet Land on there. So I decided to see if there was anything there featuring my brother. (See my retrospective post… Read more →
Friday Tunes
I’m in the mood to put up a mix, but it seems like going to the trouble of hosting MP3s and creating xspf files, etc, is just too much work. So, let’s use YouTube instead. It’s easier, and it offloads the bandwidth and copyright violation to someone else. Let’s start with a dedication to Sarah Palin and all her Red… Read more →
Double Debate Night
So I chose to watch the Canadian federal debate live, and to record the Biden/Palin show for later. The Canadian debates were interesting, but didn’t really do anything to change my basic opinions. Actually, that’s not true–my respect for Duceppe went up another notch, but it doesn’t matter as long as he’s the head of a separatist party. And, if… Read more →
Aside
You know, watching all this news about the U.S. financial crisis, I’m forced to wonder if Osama isn’t winning after all.
What A Busy Weekend
So, just to review: Dark Knight on Friday night. It was well past time for me to have seen it, I know, but having children changes the number of opportunities you have to go to the movies, as well as really altering the economics of the “night at the movies”. And actually the primary reason we went out at all… Read more →
Closet Land
While thinking about the use of torture by governments today, I found myself wishing I could just make everyone watch Closet LandThe “why” here is obvious if you’ve seen the film. If not, then here’s a quote from the creator’s site: “The film captures the psychological landscape of those who engage in torture and aggression, while also defining the nature… Read more →
Raging Out: DVD designed to create xenophobia works
So, the Clarion fund, which exists to “educate the public about the threat of Islamic terrorism” has massively distributing their DVD, which sure seems designed to make Americans afraid of brown people. Interesting, the fund seems to have done this massive distribution in the swing states only. I wonder what objective they could hope to achieve by fanning the flames… Read more →
Raging Out: No One Cares About Torture
It is now a matter of record that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Tenet, and Powell were all directly involved in authorizing the use of torture. The group called itself the National Security Principals Committee. It held dozens of top-secret decisions in the White House. This according to an ABC News investigation, sourced with unnamed, high-ranking officials. The Principals included… Read more →
