Biff, did you call Prentice again today? ’cause if not, then it was definitely me this time. No Canadian DMCA This Year The roller coaster that is the Canadian DMCA has taken another turn. Sometime between yesterday afternoon and this morning, the government decided to hold off. At 10:00 am this morning, the introduction of new government bills came and… Read more →
Year: 2007
Canadian DMCA — Act Now
If you didn’t do anything last week, you really need to do something now. Here’s what Geist posted yesterday: There are rumours in Ottawa this evening that Industry Minister Jim Prentice has decided to forge ahead with the Canadian DMCA with the bill to be introduced tomorrow morning. There has obviously been a huge amount of coverage of this issue… Read more →
Minor Victory
I’d like to think my call and email were the straws the broke the camel’s back. Because it’s not enough for my ego for me to be part of a success (no matter how minor or temporary), I have to be pivotal to it! Michael Geist – Canadian DMCA Introduction Delayed The word this afternoon is that Industry Minister Jim… Read more →
Groening
Why are old Life Is Hell cartoons from over a decade ago suddenly showing up everywhere I look? And why are they so apposite and topical? (click to see the full strips) Read more →
Confounding the nerd/Asperger’s stereotype
I’ve seen results from the Asperger’s quiz posted by lots of people I know, and I just want to point out something about these results. I know “me and my friends” is the essence of an anecdotal sample, and not a useful one, but still… The stereotype is that people who are particularly apt at programming (and similar nerd activities)… Read more →
Canadians: Did You Call Jim Prentice Today?
I did. Don’t know who Jim Prentice is? Why he’s the Minister of Industry in Harper’s evil regime. And why should you have called him today? Well, that’s a long one. The short version is that he’s spearheading a really, really, REALLY bad law–essentially a Canadian version of the American’s dire DMCA–and since he’s been either dodging any questions from… Read more →
Friday Playlist
What does this say about my mood? Read more →
Something Great: Courtney Crumrin
This is the first in what I hope will be a series of positive posts about things that are great. It seems like I should balance out all my ranting in some way, and this seems like a good way. This time out I want to talk about Courtney Crumrin and the Fire-Thief’s Tale. I read a lot of comics… Read more →
There’s A Chance To Flip It Back Over
You know that inverted flag that’s been over in the right sidebar for more than a year now? If you don’t remember why it’s there, then click it and read the (lengthy) post. Then read this. (If you’re not reading this more-or-less contemporaneously with my writing it you might need to read this instead–that’s the permanent link to the press… Read more →
Thought for the day
“We are here to witness; if we were not here the show would play to an empty house . . . .That is why I go for walks . . . to keep an eye on things.” –Annie Dillard While I am unsure about the teleological implications, I am sure I love the quote. I believe that nature is a… Read more →
Yes, Yes I will blog about this
He’s Out To Get Me
And in recent Catholic Church news, possibly relevant to the ongoing discussion between my friend Biff and I in another post’s comments, we have the current Pope lashing out at… atheists: Pope Benedict, in a new encyclical released on Friday, said atheism was responsible for some of the “greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice” in history. … The… Read more →
CoIntelPro Redux
Please allow me to quote a couple of paragraphs from Steven Grant’s Master of the Obvious column for this week–as I’ve mentioned before, this nominally comic book column often does a great job of simply explaining some of Bush’s nasty moves. Well, this week it’s not so much Bush… Jeez, do we have to fight everybody all the time? If… Read more →
My Country Embarrasses Me
For years now I’ve been known to laughingly comment on the fact that you hear all these wacko religious groups opposing Harry Potter, but you never hear anything about groups opposing Pullman‘s His Dark Materials–a series that is also marketed as YA, and that sells if not Rowlingesque numbers, at least very impressive numbers. This is an especially amusing discrepancy… Read more →
Nasty
It should not be possible for a child that small to produce so much vomit. Apparently my hard-earned parenting experience has made me blase about all other possible organic messes, but has not really protected me from child vomit. I mean, I can do what needs to be done, but that stuff is nasty. Back in the diaper days there… Read more →
