This guys hit count must have gone through the roof lately.
Encyclopedia Screwedica
Call Oxford!! Stop The Presses!!!
< Sarcasm >The NDP has redefined the word “Measured” to mean disproportionate!!!
Quick!! Someone call Roget and Webster!< /sarcasm>
I think Alexa has been spending too much time in the sun without a hat.
What Made Him Special? I Guess It Depends On Your Perspective
I have been wrestling with the death of Cpl. Anthony Boneca and the various reactions we have received from various sources for enough days to make this post likely irrelevant, but I must put my two cents in. (so what’s new)
There have been three different personalities who have reported on the mental state of Cpl. Boneca and each has a bona fide argument, but each has to realize that they were not getting the whole story.
1) His girlfriend and her dad (who probably heard second hand from his daughter) say he was in a living hell.
2) His father who says he was proud of his job, happy to be serving and felt that his son was doing what he wanted to, and
3) His peers, whom are a cross between the two above.
Now I ask you to analyze your past and current jobs. Have you always been happy with them? Have you ever thought you were underpaid or working for a jerk, or hated the conditions? Welcome to the real world. It’s called WORK. It isn’t political, it isn’t a past time that pays you. It’s being productive in society and it’s a paycheck (that should exceed any you could get on the dole or pogey)
Now the assessment.
My wife (#1 … in more ways than one) thinks I am the biggest complainer in the world. Because it is HER I go to with the worst troubles I have with my job. It is her affection and sympathy I seek most when my job gets me down. So if I was to die tomorrow, it would be her that says my job was a torment on my soul.
My father (#2 above), God bless his soul, was the man I wanted most proud of me. The one whom I would stand up and be a man in front of in an effort to gain his approval. The one who would tell you I was happy with the job, the pay, that I was doing alright because that’s how us XY chromosomed types respond to our father figures. “Works okay”, “I am managing fine”, “Things are going good”, “You don’t need to worry about me”, etc. This is how a man responds to his dad when asked “How’s work going?”
My peers and friends (#3 above) are the ones who empathize with me being in a similar generation and similar situation. We share gripes about pay, hardass bosses, etc. But inevitably there is an ego to contend with which gives us a place to brag about our jobs to some extent as well. An overall well balanced place to put our feelings on the job and the environment.
So in light of this, I urge you all to go read this article, written by one of Cpl. Boneca’s co-workers/buddies.
H/T Babbling Brooks
The Best Toilet In The World
Considering there has been much talk lately about the “wizkids“, many blogs continue to write about urination and the forces of nature that make people go in public.
I have a great solution, but it would require investment, and a few laws being changed depending on the province.
Why am I suggesting this you might ask? Well three or four years ago, I too was down at the Canada Day festivities and my bladder started calling. So me and my family went into the Tim Horton’s not far from the Hill. There was a huge lineup and when I took my turn and walked into the single toilet bathroom (no stalls), I was gagging. The toilet bowl was full to the brim with a filthy brown water. The reek was immense.
And as is pointed out in a post by Proud To Be Canadian, many places around the country have issues with bathrooms. Be it a lack of them, or bars/restaurants having rules stating the facilities are to be only used by patrons, or as I experienced, during busy events, some bathrooms just cannot be cleaned frequently enough.
Here is the solution. I would suggest putting these all over cities in the heart of the bar districts, wherever events are held, and in various tourist attraction areas.
I came across this very bathroom while walking along the Piers in San Francisco. The bathroom is a pay bathroom with a grated floor. It is stainless steel and after each usage, the door closes, and the bathroom starts churning away as it “self cleans”. After waiting in line behind a couple of people I took my turn. The water was still dripping off the grates when I entered but the toilet was spotless and dry. The sink was spotless and dry. And it was the best money I ever spent.
The only drawback was the time it took to do the cleaning. But if you supplement them with a few portapottys, or allow a cleaning bypass for families lined up together, they could prove to be the answer to the problems plagued by drunk youth and those with weak bladders.
Did The Korean Missile Fail? Or Were The Americans Successful?
Reprinted from Jack’s Newswatch
I was thinking about the huge missile that Korea launched all day today as I followed the news…
Bravo to the Bush administration for its measured response to North Korea’s Fourth of July fireworks display.
The North’s missile tests, their date chosen to coincide with America’s Independence Day, were, as the president’s national security adviser called them, “provocative behavior.”
Yet the firing of the single intercontinental Taepodong II, which exploded in mid-air less than a minute after launch, just shows how unsophisticated Pyongyang is. The overall display, which included up to six other missile launches as of this morning, also demonstrates how desperate the country is for international attention.
…And I just chased something down that has been bothering me.
The ABL is designed to detect and destroy theatre ballistic missiles in the powered boost phase of flight immediately after missile launch. The aircraft loiters at an altitude of 40,000 feet. Missile launch is detected by a reconnaissance system such as satellite or Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft and threat data is transmitted to the ABL aircraft by Link 16 communications. A suite of infrared, wide-field telescopes installed along the length of the aircraft’s fuselage detects the missile plume at ranges up to several hundred km.
The pointing and tracking system tracks the missile and provides launch and predicted impact locations. The turret at the nose of the aircraft swivels towards the target and a 1.5 metre telescope mirror system inside the nose focuses the laser beam onto the missile. The laser beam is locked onto the missile, which is destroyed near its launch area within seconds of lock-on. Where the missile carries liquid fuel, the laser can heat a spot on the missile’s fuel tank, causing an increase in internal pressure resulting in catastrophic failure. Alternatively, the missile is heated in an arc around its circumference and crumples under atmospheric drag force or its own G-force.
“Nah, couldn’t be – could it?”
It sure could be Jack!! I was never a true believer that the Star Wars SDI program was something that would work, but I also know laser technology fairly well. I also know that computers these days can accomplish amazing things, and the capability to use DSPs and high speed sampling is quite possible. In fact, capabilities of processors and DSPs are often measured in MIPS (millions of instructions per second) and sampling in the 100’s of millions of samples per second can easily keep a focus on a moving object at high speed. Lasers travelling at the speed of light can zip (or zap as the case may be) 300km in 1 millisecond. i.e 1/1000th of a second.
If I were Pyongyang, I would be quite concerned about that failure.
Only The CBC Can Erroneously Turn Plankton Into A Story About Global Warming
Ask any environmentalist what the cause of global warming and they will tell you that greenhouse gases trapping the sun’s rays in our atmosphere is the dominant cause. We already have told you that 97 to 99% of greenhouse gases are water vapour which is not something within the control of man.
But tonight on the CBC nightly news they were talking about the large wave of Phytoplankton present off the west coast of North America. They even went so far as to say that it might be an effect of global warming.
What they did NOT tell you is that phytoplankton thrive on carbon dioxide, the “other” culprit in the greenhouse effect, and convert it to harmless oxygen.
From Wikipedia:
Phytoplankton, like plants, obtain energy through a process called photosynthesis, and so must live in the well-lit surface layer (termed the euphotic zone) of an ocean, sea, or lake. Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton (and terrestrial plants) are responsible for much of the oxygen present in the Earth’s atmosphere.
So let’s get this straight. Mother earth heals herself by creating more plant life and phytoplanton when weather warms, which in turn eat up more carbon dioxide, which reduces the greenhouse effect, thus cooling the earth naturally.
Only the CBC could get this story completely ass backwards and put a further fear of global warming into society when the completely opposite is true. This healing plant lifeform may be an effect of a warmer spring as they mentioned, but it is also a buffer against the carbon dioxide that traps heat in our atmosphere.
ADDENDUM I was contacted by CBCwatch.ca regarding my posting above. They say that they watched the National starting at mark 19:00 and they said:
I could find no statement by Natalie Clancy, nor those interviewed implying or suggesting that the phytoplankton was responsible for global warming.
Alternately, Angelica Pena of Institute of Ocean Sciences sad “we don’t know the consequences of global warming”
So I took a closer look.
At mark 21:07, Natalie Clancy says “Pena says it COULD be a sign of global warming.” (emphasis was Natalie’s not mine.)
Right after the above quote, the cut goes to Pena who says:
We don’t know and that I think is the worst thing about (i couldn’t make out the word) sciences is that we don’t know what are the consequences of climate change on the phtyoplankton or the ecosystem community. We are still trying to, you know, learn what are the consequences but we have no idea.
So the CBC took Pena’s words stating they have no clue what the effects of global warming are on they phytoplankton and turned them into “Pena says it COULD be a sign of global warming”. I wonder how they came to that conclusion.
To continue:
At mark 21:30, Natalie Clancy says “Scientists say they will have to monitor plankton on the BC coast for a few years before they will know for sure if all this algae is blooming because the planet is heating up (long pause) or simply because this has been an unusually warm spring.”
This last quote is emphasized because it happens right before Clancy’s sign off.
This may not be enough for CBCwatch.ca to call bad journalism, but for the CBC to TWICE discuss the warming of the planet without a stitch of proof is bad journalism and quite misleading. I encourage you to watch the clip yourself from mark 19:00 on and let me know what you think?
It's Official – Larry Zolf Is An Unknown Knob
After reading about Mr. Zolf on a few other websites and taking my poll results into consideration, it is official. Larry Zolf, semi-retired CBC Political reporter is an Unknown Knob!!
Total votes: 29
Larry Zolf is a Knob – 21 votes
Larry Zolf is NOT a Knob – 0 votes
Who is Larry Zolf? – 8 votes
I know my site is visited by a majority of conservative voters, but when Larry can’t even get a single vote stating he is NOT a knob, then I have to wonder.
a) He is an unknown knob, or
b) The same sick fascination that had over 227,000 people vote to boil Larry the Lobster on Saturday Night Live back in 1982 has afflicted the readers of my site. (Note: Larry the Lobster was saved because 239,000 people voted to NOT boil him.)
My vote is with a) considering even a tasty crustacean had more compassion from voters.
Women's Advocacy Groups Caught In Catch 22
How will women’s rights groups resolve this issue?
On one hand they vehemently defend the right of a women to have an abortion. On the other hand, it is now becoming evident that selective abortions for the sake of choosing the sex of a child is becoming more and more apparent in Canada and the females are getting the short end of the stick. Will feminists stand up for these women to be?
i.e. Similar to the situations in China, where male babies are preferred in one child families, Canadians in some parts of the country are starting to abort female fetuses (feti?).
According to data analysis, Surrey is just one part of the country that exhibits a significant deviation in the standard boy-girl ratio. Further evidence, including interviews with doctors and clinic workers, suggests a plausible reason: sex-selection abortions. Canadians are deliberately terminating pregnancies where a girl is expected, in hopes of having boys.
I have never stated publicly my opinion on the pro-choice/pro-life battle because I haven’t done the topic due diligence in research but I can admit to the following in terms of what my opinions are at the current time.
- I DO NOT support pro-choice as a method of birth control or sex-selection.
- I DO support pro-choice in cases where a female gets pregnant via rape or incest/child abuse.
- I DO feel that there should be a limit to how far into a pregnancy an abortion can be performed. Yes, Virginia! We have no law or medical reason to set this limit in Canada.
Re: Number 3 above. In 1996, Brenda Drummond shot her unborn son, Jonathan, in the head with a pellet gun. He was born and survived two days after the shooting. Brenda Drummond was charged under the criminal code but the case was tossed out in December 1996. Her defence? It was a failed abortion attempt. The Ontario Attorney General did not appeal the Court’s decision, leaving us with no law regarding this issue.
Comments are welcome.
ADDENDUM: My wife has informed me that if I think abortions are ok under any circumstance, as I do in the cases listed in number 2 above, that I am pro-choice. I still have a hard time accepting this label due to the broad sweeping brush it paints me with.
Trudeau Gets A Mountain, But Where Is Diefenbaker's??
After reading Syncrodox Sez’s article about the naming of a mountain after the Rt. Honourable Pierre Elliot Trudeau, I took it up on myself to do a bit of research on the naming of mountains in Canada after our illustrious leaders.
I did find some interesting facts out though.
1) Wilfred Laurier has 3 (count ’em) mountains named after him.
2) John Diefenbaker has no mountain named after him.
3) Chretien tried having the tallest mountain in Canada named after Trudeau shortly after his death in 2000. The locals around Mount Logan protested hard, and were thankfully, successful in blocking the naming.
4) The average height above sea level of Tory Prime Minister peaks is 3066.25 metres, and the average height above sea level of Grit Prime Minister peaks is 2736.4 metres (when counting all of Laurier’s peaks) and 3004.8 (when counting only Laurier’s tallest peak)
5) The average prominence of Tory Prime Minister peaks is 396.25 metres, and the average prominence of Grit Prime Minister peaks is 825.7 metres (when counting all of Laurier’s peaks) and 812.2 metres (when counting only Laurier’s tallest peak)
A grid showing these features can be seen below (click to enlarge)
I guess the purpose of all this was to point out that I am not upset that Trudeau now has a mountain. But I am now thinking that Diefenbaker deserves a mountain of his own. Why has he been overlooked? Whether or not he was a popular PM, or whether or not he was a long standing PM should also not matter. The man lead our nation and deserves his place in Canadian geographical history with the rest.
Diefenbaker has been Officially Screwed!!
Remember This?
Well Couche-Tard is at it again.
Last year, I wrote about the slushy drink that was being sold under the name “The Bloody Zit“. Couche-Tard, the owner of three convenience store brand names (Couche-Tard, Mac’s and Circle K) is going down the road of shock marketing for their new slushie. On CTV Newsnet this morning, I saw part of a commercial for their new drink which is taking bigger steps than a Bloody Zit. Now we have the Liposuction.
It starts out showing a doctor performing liposuction on a fairly large man. The doctor is digging away as the tube sucks his fat out. The camera then jumps to a youngster sucking on a fat clear tube as if the liposuction “suction” is being provided by the youngster.
Again, the convenience store owners have pushed the limits of advertising to the point of no return. Again, I will not let my kids order the drink, nor will I ever purchase one myself. In fact, this time I think I am just going to boycott the stores alltogether and do my convenience store shopping at Quickie Mart’s and Gas Stations.
Couche Tard … the Howard Stern of slushies … simply gross.