For Kat
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Best... cloud formation... EVAR
Spotted last night whilst driving into Kanata.
Yes, it's a PIRATE SHIP CLOUD!
Albeit a dis-masted pirate ship. But kewl nonetheless.

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Call to action
Sign the petition to make sure Elizabeth May is included in the leaders' debate whenever the next federal election is called:

http://demanddemocraticdebates.ca/

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Gap Give & Get Event to benefit CARE Canada
This Thursday through Sunday, March 12-15, the Gap family of stores are holding another Give and Get event.

Download a Give and Get coupon and you’ll get a 30% discount on all purchases at any Gap, Old Navy or Banana Republic store in Canada. Even better - 5% of your purchases will go to CARE Canada to fight poverty and defend dignity around the world!

Learn more about our work by visiting CARE.CA, print your coupon, and help spread the link! http://care.ca/main/index.php?en&GAPGiveandGet

Thanks for your support! It really does make a difference - for example, Gap is working with CARE to launch a project in Indonesia that will empower and improve the quality of life for women working in a Gap supplier garment factory in the city of Tangerang.

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'puter help
I've managed to get some malicious adware lodged in my 'puter this morn. Keeps launching browser ad windows at random intervals. AVG seems unable to track it down and remove it.

Anyone suggest how I find this thing and kill it?

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Need a new keffiyeh
I really need to get a new keffiyeh.

My poor old one which I bought off a Turkish vendor in Germany over 10 years ago is looking very much the worse for wear.

Anyone know where in Ottawa I can get a new one?
A decent one - not one of the cheapo ones they started cranking out when they become trendy.

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Appropriate moments
An icon on a group on lj gave me an urge to hear a few They Might Be Giants songs before bed.

I had forgotten all about this particular song.

But having been reminded of it... it's somewhat apt given certain current events (which I won't go into).

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A Gaza Analogy
Canadians are trying to understand what's happening in Gaza, and many express the sentiment that Israel has the right to defend itself. Which is true. But when does self defense go too far? Here's a little analogy that would perhaps make it a bit more relevant for Canada. Let's go back to the FLQ crisis.

During that crisis the FLQ conducted some 200 bombings and killed at least five people. The ultimate response of the Canadian government was to invoke the War Measures Act, post soldiers in the streets of Quebec, and detain people without trial. To this day the debate rages over whether this response was heavy-handed. But let's imagine the Canadian government had responded like the Government of Israel.

For the sake of the analogy let's imagine the FLQ was entirely based on the Island of Montreal and conducting their bombings in the surrounding city. The Gaza strip is only slightly smaller in both geography and population than the Island of Montreal. Now imagine that Canada responded to the FLQ bombings by sealing off the entire Island. Residents were rarely allowed to leave the Island, even for critical medical procedures. Those who were able to exit had to go through a series of checkpoints where they were repeatedly searched by Canadian soldiers. Some were taken aside by the RCMP and extorted - no exit for medical treatment unless they became informers. From 1969 through 1970 the army restricted the amount of food, medical supplies and fuel allowed into the Island and, for the last two months of that year with winter coming on, stopped all supplies altogether. Then the government brought in artillery and warplanes. Every time they identified an FLQ member and where they lived, they shelled or bombed the entire neighbourhood. The people living in that neighbourhood were given maybe a day's notice to leave their homes. As the number of destroyed homes grew, Montreal residents were crammed in together in fewer and fewer undamaged buildings. There were less and less places for Montrealers to take shelter when the warning leaflets came. Gradually under the bombing the hydro, water and sewage systems were damaged and broke down until there was no power for heat, no water from the taps and nowhere to dispose of the human waste. Schools and hospitals were hit by bombs, and each time Trudeau was on TV and radio justifying the strike, saying there were FLQ members there.

Imagine all that happened in Quebec in 1969-1970. Would people today be saying that Trudeau acted in the proper self-defense of Canada, or would he now be the most reviled Prime Minister in Canadian history?

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Gaza update
The latest on our worker in Gaza who was driven from his home yesterday and could not find shelter. This from one of our other people in the CARE West Bank office:

I just spoke with Jawad, who sounds much better this morning. After the airstrikes ended, the UN established a temporary camp a few hundred metres from Jawad's neighbourhood where residents could run in an airstrike. The coordinates of the camp have been given to the Israeli army, so it is a 'safe' location. Jawad and his family packed go bags of necessary items so they would be ready to run to the camp if needed. The airstrikes commenced again last night at about 10 p.m. and continued through the night, but further away. Jawad and his family - and their neighbours - chose to remain in their homes, because the bombing was no longer nearby (and the temperature dropped down to about 5C last night). They did not sleep all night. They finally slept about 5 a.m. this morning, and were awake again at 8 a.m.

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Stressed and nervous
This past week we've been getting these amazingly moving blogs from one of our workers in Gaza, talking about life in the middle of the war.

In the past hour we received an urgent notice from the CARE office in the West Bank. They had just received a desperate call from Jawad, that worker in Gaza. Isreal had dropped leaflets ordering them to leave their houses because their neighbourhood would be targetted next. He, his family, and hundreds of neighbours fled only to find all the UN shelters are full. Now he and some 400 other innocent civilians are standing in the street in the dark, with artillery shells landing one street away. They have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. They daren't go back into their houses in case the houses are hit next. On stray shell and there's going to be a massacre.

Desperately trying now to get Canadian media to report this story.

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For those suffering the bus strike
This is hilarious...

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B-day time
After that last horribly somber note, a more up beat one.

Tis me b-day this Friday, and it shall be celebrated in the traditional and time-honoured fashion: in a pub with ale and East Coast/Irish music (alas not Dave Anthony, we'll just have to make do). All are invited.

The Heart and Crown in the Market.
We have a few spots (theoretically) reserved for 7:00 for dinner. Let me or Kat know if you want to claim one. And then we park it, nurse our beers and wait for the band.

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There are days when this job just rips your guts out
This is a blog story I just received through the CARE communications network, written by one of our workers in the Gaza Strip:


Dad, when are we going to die?

My child just started crying – she just heard on the news that Israel will start bombing our neighbourhood, because there are allegedly insurgents living here. She has been having nightmares that our house will be totally destroyed, and our family will die under it. She has seen the photos of other destroyed homes on TV.

She said to me, “Dad, if they bomb us, where are we going to go? What do we do? All the houses are targeted. We can’t even run.”

I didn’t have an answer. My brain is totally paralyzed. I have a masters degree in psychology, but I have no idea how to counsel my own family.

For 10 days, the bombs have been falling. The nearest one destroyed a home 300 metres from where we live. My 12-year-old son is becoming an expert at pinpointing the distance of the bombs: “That one was 500 metres away, to the north,” he says to me. He is always right. But this is not the kind of expertise I want my child to have.

I can’t really describe what my children are feeling. They burst out crying when it is dark and cold, at night when we listen to the bombs like thunder.

We live in Rafah, about 500 metres from the border with Egypt. There are tunnels to Egypt nearby, which people use to smuggle food and supplies. So the bombing has been heavy here. Israel is trying to destroy the tunnels.

We don’t have any bread. No fruit, no vegetables, no milk. The last time I ate meat was nine days ago, bought in the market. The market is closed now. There is no more food coming through the tunnels. We have just rice and macaroni for the children. We have no stocks. No biscuits for my children, like they used to eat. We survive, just.

This is the third day without electricity. We used to get electricity for three hours a day, but that stopped with the Israeli ground troops came in. My wife has to go out with the other women to find firewood because we have no electricity to cook. We have a three day supply of cooking fuel, but we are saving it for an emergency.

The water is almost gone. We hope we will get more tomorrow. Without electricity, the water pump doesn’t work. I have a generator that we use a couple of hours a day, to watch the news, charge our mobile phones, and try to work. But the generator is not strong enough to run the water pump. I bought 10 days’ worth of fuel, and it is almost gone.

We ran out of drinking water last night, so my nephew and I went out to the desalination station one kilometre away. We know there are bombs falling, but we can’t live without water. We had to carry the 20-litre containers on our shoulders, because there is no transport. On our way home, a bomb fell nearby and we dropped the containers to take shelter – but we couldn’t leave the water behind. But it is hard to run with a 20-litre container.

We fear everything. Every day, every sound. The children in my neighbourhood – and my kids – are not hoping to live. They don’t think they will live. Instead, they are waiting to die, waiting for the bomb to fall. And they are asking me when it will happen.

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In the name of God, go!
Today I was writing a Facebook note concerning my response to an appeal for money from the Liberal Party. I was responding that I could no longer support as long as Stephane Dion is leader. While composing the note, I remembered the famous quote from Leo Amery to Neville Chamberlain in 1940: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!" and thought it appropriate, so I quickly googled it to get the words right. I found the text of the entire speech from Amery, and was astounded how appropriate all of it is to the current situation. Ignore the specific historic references and look at the sentiments behind them. This is the speech someone needs to give to Dion now.

.....................................

"The Prime Minister gave us a reasoned, argumentative case for our failure. It is always possible to do that after every failure. Making a case and winning a war are not the same thing. Wars are won, not by explanation after the event, but by foresight, by clear decision and by swift action. I confess that I did not feel there was one sentence in the Prime Minister's speech this afternoon which suggested that the Government either foresaw what Germany meant to do, or came to a clear decision when it knew what Germany had done, or acted swiftly or consistently throughout the whole of this lamentable affair.

The Prime Minister, both the other day and today, expressed himself as satisfied that the balance of advantage lay on our side. He laid great stress on the heaviness of the German losses and the lightness of ours. What did the Germans lose? A few thousand men, nothing to them, a score of transports, and part of a Navy which anyhow cannot match ours. What did they gain? They gained Norway, with the strategical advantages which, in their opinion at least, outweigh the whole of their naval losses. They have gained the whole of Scandinavia. What have we lost? To begin with, we have lost most of the Norwegian Army, not only such as it was but such as it might have become, if only we had been given time to rally and re-equip it.

We must have, first of all, a right organization of government. What is no less important today is that the Government shall be able to draw upon the whole abilities of the nation. It must represent all the elements of real political power in this country, whether in this House or not. The time has come when hon. and right hon. Members opposite must definitely take their share of the responsibility. The time has come when the organization, the power and influence of the Trades Union Congress cannot be left outside. It must, through one of its recognized leaders, reinforce the strength of the national effort from inside. The time has come, in other words, for a real National Government. I may be asked what is my alternative Government. That is not my concern: it is not the concern of this House. The duty of this House, and the duty that it ought to exercise, is to show unmistakably what kind of Government it wants in order to win the war. It must always be left to some individual leader, working perhaps with a few others, to express that will by selecting his colleagues so as to form a Government which will correspond to the will of the House and enjoy its confidence. So I refuse, and I hope the House will refuse, to be drawn into a discussion on personalities.

What I would say, however, is this: Just as our peace-time system is unsuitable for war conditions, so does it tend to breed peace-time statesmen who are not too well fitted for the conduct of war. Facility in debate, ability to state a case, caution in advancing an unpopular view, compromise and procrastination are the natural qualities - I might almost say, virtues - of a political leader in time of peace. They are fatal qualities in war. Vision, daring, swiftness and consistency of decision are the very essence of victory. In our normal politics, it is true, the conflict of party did encourage a certain combative spirit. In the last war we Tories found that the most perniciously aggressive of our opponents, the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, was not only aggressive in words, but was a man of action. In recent years the normal weakness of our political life has been accentuated by a coalition based upon no clear political principles. It was in fact begotten of a false alarm as to the disastrous results of going off the Gold Standard. It is a coalition which has been living ever since in a twilight atmosphere between Protection and Free Trade and between unprepared collective security and unprepared isolation. Surely, for the Government of the last ten years to have bred a band of warrior statesmen would have been little short of a miracle. We have waited for eight months, and the miracle has not come to pass. Can we afford to wait any longer ?

Somehow or other we must get into the Government men who can match our enemies in fighting spirit, in daring, in resolution and in thirst for victory. Some 300 years ago, when this House found that its troops were being beaten again and again by the dash and daring of the Cavaliers, by Prince Rupert's Cavalry, Oliver Cromwell spoke to John Hampden. In one of his speeches he recounted what he said. It was this:

'I said to him, "Your troops are most of them old, decayed serving men and tapsters and such kind of fellows." You must get men of a spirit that are likely to go as far as they will go, or you will be beaten still.'

It may not be easy to find these men. They can be found only by trial and by ruthlessly discarding all who fail and have their failings discovered. We are fighting today for our life, for our liberty, for our all; we cannot go on being led as we are.

I have quoted certain words of Oliver Cromwell. I will quote certain other words. I do it with great reluctance, because I am speaking of those who are old friends and associates of mine, but they are words which, I think, are applicable to the present situation. This is what Cromwell said to the Long Parliament when he thought it was no longer fit to conduct the affairs of the nation:

"You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

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Go, Quebec! Run!
I've never been a fan of Quebec separatism. Not in the least. There's no logic in it... it'll be bad for both Canada and for Quebec. But after this week I am actually starting to feel some sympathy towards sovereigntists.

Watching more and more people, including friends, come out with foaming-at-the-mouth, hate-filled rants and slurs, not just against separatists but against the Quebecois in general too, it's really no wonder they want nothing to do with the rest of us.

But more than that, watching the way things are going, I think Quebec is smart to get as far away from Canada as possible. This country is headed in bad directions and there's no reason they should want to follow us there.

This whole political mess is boiling down to Harper versus the evil Bloc Quebecois. "Oh how dare those Libs and NDP strike a deal with the Devil! We're better to stay with Harper!"

Here are just a few of the things I've seen from Harper over the past few years:

- The Conservatives find out I'm a Liberal, so they punish the entire organization I work for
- The group I work for disagrees with the government on a policy issue, so they punish again and in so doing sabotage one of the most advanced on-farm food safety systems in the world
- Farmers oppose the government on the Wheat Board, so the Ag Minister abuses his authority, gets their private business info, and publicly releases it in Parliament
- The Conservatives launch their campaign to destroy the Wheat Board, giving funding to groups that oppose the CWB, but slapping a Ministerial gag order on the CWB itself to prevent the agency from presenting its side. The head of the CWB is fired. When a vote on the CWB is held, the Conservatives jury-rig the ballot with additional misleading questions to confuse and divide the vote and ensure victory.
- Tobacco farmers get mad because Harper and Diane Finley broke their promise to help them get out of the industry. Finley threatens them that if they vote against her, they'll never get another penny from government
- In a private email an independent scientist complains about being forced to say "Canada's New Government" and is dumped from a the federal "Scientist Emeritus Program"
- The head of the nuclear safety commission does her job and stops a hugely unsafe situation, but since it caused embarassment for Harper, she's accused of being a Liberal and is fired
- A library invites a Liberal MP to a charity event. The local Conservative MP tells them they'll lose all federal money if they don't un-invite him
- The father of a soldier killed in Afghanistan criticizes the government, so a Conservative MP accuses him of being a Liberal
- Elections Canada uncovers the fact the Conservatives more or less engaged in money laundering during the 2006 election (you remember that election - the one where the Cons ran on a platform of accountability?) so Harper sues them. This after previous head of Elections Canada suddenly and mysteriously resigns shortly after having begun his own investigation into Tory misdeeds.
- It's revealed the Cons tried to bribe a dying ex-Con MP to get his vote in Parliament. So Harper sues the leader of the opposition to try and kill the story
- The Conservatives release a manual to Committee Chairs advising them how to stop the committees from working properly if they should start looking at issues the Cons don't want them to
- Harper makes a law to stop Prime Ministers from calling an election whenever is most politically convenient. He breaks his own law the very next election.
- The Conservatives promise greater accountability, but under their watch the time it takes to get documents under the Access to Information Act more than doubles. And if you make to many requests for info, you get red-flagged. The Conservatives also shut down a web site where you can see all the Access to Info requests that have been made.
- Many federal bureaucrats are now afraid to talk to non-government organizations for fear of being punished.
- And of course, the incident that set all this off, Harper tried to use a financial trick to basically wipe out all opposing political parties.

And really I can just keep going. The list just goes on of Harper's assaults and undermining of Canadian democracy. Yet somehow people think better him than the Bloc. Given the choice I'll take the Bloc. They may want to separate but at least they for the most part stick to democratic means to achieve their ends.

This will sound like hyperbole to some, but I really believe it. I've been to Zimbabwe, and frankly the only difference I see between Stephen Harper and Robert Mugabe is that Harper has not yet actually employed physical violence to oppress opposition. For now he's sticking to things that don't leave a mark.

SO you know what? I say go Quebec separatism! Get your province as far away from this country as you can before Harper drags you down with the rest of us, because Canadians are too blind to see what the real threat is.

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Don't make sense...
Brilliant adaptation of an old temperance poster by thespian

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Remember remember the fifth of November
Just give me a keg of powder and point me in the direction of Parliament.

...

Make that two kegs.
I'll stop at Liberal Party HQ along the way.

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Today I threatened coworkers with a sword


And I still didn't get a prize :P

It was a fix.
One of the judges was married to the winner.
Damn them all!

Now where's the rum gone?

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Who'da thunk it
An actual intelligent *and* entirely sympathetic poly discussion on a mainstream media site:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081030.wlgroup30/BNStory/lifeFamily/home

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Thye definition of stupidity...
...is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Somteimes I really think the human race is too dumb to survive.

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Pakistan Will Give Arms to Tribal Militias

Pakistan plans to arm tens of thousands of anti-Taliban tribal fighters in its western border region in hopes -- shared by the U.S. military -- that the nascent militias can replicate the tribal "Awakening" movement that proved decisive in the battle against al-Qaeda in Iraq.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/22/AR2008102203708.html?referrer=emailarticle
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Ok, soooo.... we gave arms to the Mujahedeen to fight the Soviets. They got rid of the Soviets then became the Taliban and turned against the west.
So we gave arms to anti-Taliban warlords to fight the Taliban government. Got rid of the Taliban government. Then the warlords set up their own fiefdoms with our arms, started producing drugs. Some of them switched sides and are now supporting the Tabliban insurgency with the arms we gave them.

And now we're going to give arms to yet another tribal group to fight the Taliban insurgency, tribes who will no doubt sooner or later turn those arms back against the people who gave them to them.

Does anyone EVER learn from history?????

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