I love British humor....
Just reading a story on the BBC about how the British Army are participating in the Gay Pride parade in Manchester, England. This will be the first time for the Army, though the Royal Air Force, which...
View ArticleVancouver USAR operational now
They seem to be the only rescue unit operating in St. Bernard's Parish. I hope they keep blogging regularly -- these guys are absolute professionals and their account will be invaluable."Today at 0900h...
View ArticleLegalize looting!
Federal and state governments should pass laws that legalize certain forms of "looting," and ensure that neither the perpetrators are punished, nor the original owners forced to suffer a loss.
View ArticleHandguns to become illegal in Canada
For many years, it has been quite difficult to legally own a handgun in Canada. (And don't even THINK about being allowed to carry one; there are about 50 concealed-carry permits active at any one time...
View ArticleBush's last gamble
There's something very odd about the latest revelations about spying on American citizens. Two things, as a matter of fact. First, Dubya has played a simple up-yours defence, saying that he broke the...
View ArticleWingnuts in Canada on self-destruct
Although the election was a squeaker -- a minority government short more than 30 seats of majority -- the election of Stephen Harper as the Prime Minister of Canada had an ominous potential. Many...
View ArticlePort deal: Not into Iran, out of Iraq
There has been some speculation that the ports deal with a UAR-controlled company is the price the UAR is exacting for cooperation in an attack on Iran. While this is possible, I think there is another...
View ArticlePresident to Dictator -- tried and tested method
There's been a lot of discussion whether Bush wants to become a dictator, whether he is already a dictator... and so on. Most of this has focused around his outrageous disrespect for the Constitution,...
View ArticleCheat and switch: illegal tariffs diverted to Katrina aid
There has been a quarrel over softwood lumber exports going on for years between Canada and the United States. Canada has taken its case to NAFTA and won repeatedly. The US has dealt with this in a...
View ArticleThe beauty of Gitmo
From the Republican standpoint, Gitmo, with its suicidal detainees that are impossible to try and impractical to let go, is a pure win-win situation. (Remember we're talking Republican here, not...
View ArticleTorture: a voice from history
One of the depressing things about reading history is finding the lessons we didn't learn. Many people have pointed out the lunacy of relying on torture for anything but causing terror, and some have...
View ArticleTurning over the chessboard
I used to have to deal with a kid with some behavioral problems. One of them was that he couldn't lose board games like chess and keep his cool. If it looked like he was going to lose, he'd just flip...
View ArticleVideo games and the popular mood
As anyone who follows video games even casually knows, the latest "hot item" to hit the market is Gears of War for the XBox 360. It's a shooter, loser-hero got-gun shoot-aliens impossible-odds...
View ArticleMarriage equality reaffirmed in Canada
During the last election, Conservative leader Stephen Harper promised to hold another vote on the legality of same-sex marriage in Canada. This in spite of the fact that mere parlimentary action would...
View ArticleRecycle Gore
A lot of people seem to be fond of the idea of Al Gore running for President again. However, Gore himself seems to feel that his work on the environment, specifically global warming, is more important...
View ArticleAutism and television
I've been a bit harsh sometimes with the people that try to link autism with heavy metal exposure (my younger son is high-functioning autistic or Asperger's). It's tempting, but the numbers simply...
View ArticleNAFTA: was Hillary projecting on Obama?
This is very short, but a story that just went up on Talking Points Memo deserves our full attention (and thanks to that site for pursuing the matter in depth). It seems that when bashing Obama,...
View ArticleIf not troll, what?
The tag "troll diary" has been retired, for good reason. Why would you want to dig up garbage anyway? But like all good ideas, the banning of "troll" has created its own problems.What do you do with a...
View ArticleTibet: 1 Logical Error and 5 Questions
There's been a good deal of debate over the China/Tibet situation here recently. Much of it has been heated, with discreditable contributions from both the "f*ck China" and the "America is always...
View ArticleGoodbye to Bisphenol A
Canada has become the first jurisdiction in the world to take steps towards ending the use of bisphenol A, widely found in baby bottles and can linings, which can mimic estrogen and has been accused of...
View ArticleGeorge Bush: Capital Felon
On 4th February, 1946, the Supreme Court of the United States sentenced George W. Bush to death.Well, not Bush himself, of course. The person under trial was a Japanese general commanding troops in the...
View ArticleReligion and universal health care
As many of you know, one of the most striking differences between Canada and the United States is in the strength of religious feelings. Despite cheerful whistling past the graveyard by the usual...
View ArticleWhat if....? (tinfoil warning)
The emphasis of the Democratic campaign has been heavily on increasing voter participation. Partly that's because there are simply more Democrats than Republicans in most places. But also there's been...
View ArticleThe Passion of the Steven Hoperites
Even if he were left to his own devices, Stephen Harper's political future is more problematic than many progressives have noticed. After an election campaign where the Conservatives enjoyed a massive...
View ArticleThe dual loyalty problem
In a recent diary on antisemitism, it was proposed that this prejudice be combated by a zero-tolerance policy toward five assertions.In four cases, this demand was reasonable, subject of course to the...
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Simple courage
This story has slipped by most news sources, including Daily Kos, to my astonishment. I guess the background noise has been too much, and as for the MSM, the heroes didn't fit into the usual mould. Or...
View ArticleWe are diminished
Jack Layton, leader of the Canadian New Democratic Party and Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, died today of cancer. He was 61.Only this year, he had fought a national election that saw...
View ArticleThe Mismeasure of Mismeasure
Samuel Morton (1799–1851) is notorious as an American anthropologist (I use this classification loosely) who purported to prove the racial superiority of "whites" by objective data, among which he...
View ArticleSkyrim: Other lives, other worlds
[Warning: Spoilers. Lots.]The natural surroundings are very pretty, if a touch bleak: Nordic. The rest of the scene leaves more to be desired. I'm tied up in the back of a lurching horse-cart and a bit...
View ArticleIs Stephen Harper Losing His Mind?
This is just a very brief diary -- a pointer, really, to the excellent Canadian bloggers who have been covering it and exploiting it, and who deserve all credit.Yesterday, the leader of the NDP was...
View ArticleKosAbility: To every rule, an exception....
We normally assume that the truth is valuable. Bad news? At the very most, veil it, step lightly around it. Best, of course, to tackle it head on. And, on no account, lie.This is especially true when...
View ArticleCanada: MP election invalidated, by-election ordered
Those of you who follow Canadian politics will already be aware of the ongoing investigation of allegations of widespread electoral fraud in the last federal election. This case is not directly...
View ArticleFriday 13th Gamer's Special: Better Left Out
If you had to nominate a candidate for a feature, situation, or character that would have been better left out of your favorite video game, what would it be?I'm thinking here not of poor technical...
View ArticleA love hate story
Analogue: A Hate Story Christine LoveHere’s the situation.There is a teenage girl, Korean, and it’s the twenty-fourth century or thereabouts. Humankind has begun to reach out to the stars, but the...
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Dishonored: assassination for pacifists
PC version reviewed. Some spoilers below, so beware.Sunset over the Wrenhaven River."Hah! I shit bigger than you!"The city guard at the foot of the lamppost has just stomped another wandering rodent...
View ArticleShooting oneself in the foot
Remember how the NRA tried to make excuses for guns themselves and blame just about everything and everyone else in society for gun violence after the Sandy Hook killings?They were particularly hot...
View ArticleThe more things change....
This being St. Patrick's Day, or thereabouts, I thought I would reproduce below one of Mark Twain's lesser-known writings, "Letter Read at a Dinner of the Knights of St. Patrick," March 16th, 1876....
View ArticleBooks That Changed My Life: The Empty Throne
Gravity's Rainbow, which appeared in 1973, was Thomas Pynchon's second published novel and the one that established the literary fame of this paradoxically publicity-shy writer. It shared the National...
View ArticleBooks Go Boom! The Politics of the 'Laozi' ('Daodejing')
A word after a word after a word is power.Margaret Atwood, "Spelling"To what extent are the different parts of a person's life, art, and thought independent of each other and capable of being evaluated...
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Narrative in video games
When it comes to telling a story, what can a video game do that is impractical or impossible in a poem, a play, a novel, a movie, or a TV series? Nothing, I'm sure some people would say -- usually...
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Thumbing Your Nose at God: The Stanley Parable
Spoilers. Many. But not enough to spoil the experience, as you'll see. You are a man named Stanley, in a first-person video game named, appropriately enough, The Stanley Parable. Stanley has an...
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Home is where the heart is
In the morning, you can tell me your dreams.You think you know where Gone Home is going before it's five minutes old.The wide-eyed innocent protagonist – Katie, a girl in her early 20s, just back from...
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Elder Scrolls, almost on line and deep in trouble
I'm sad, and angry. Mostly angry, actually.I spent last weekend watching Elder Scrolls Online turn into Elder Scrolls on Life Support right in front of my eyes. It was that bad. Still a beta, the...
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Elder Scrolls Online: It lives! but YMMV
The Elder Scrolls Online goes publicI'm pounding along a hallway in the Wailing Prison, Coldharbor, leading an old blind man I know only as The Prophet to a Daedric anchor portal. Coldharbor is the...
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Gold or stone?
Damn! He bled to death. Try again.Surgeon Simulator is a game that parodies rather than re-enacts surgery. You extract internal organs, for instance, and then drop them on the floor because they’re as...
View ArticleA small but important point
There have been a number of comments here that John L. Lewis “earned” the right to call Trump an illegitimate president by his sacrifices to secure civil rights for all. This is not only wrong, it’s...
View Article"Poor Donald...."
This is just a thought, and if it’s occurred to anyone else, I’ll delete it.But….Supposing there is at least one person on Trump’s legal defense team that isn’t suffering from a severe case of...
View ArticleA third possibility....
There have been a number of speculations concerning hacking and interference with voting machines recently. The machines are without doubt very vulnerable. But what might a hacker do?Votes being...
View ArticleCanadian conservative leader has a secret American past
Almost completely obscured by the Sturm und Drang south of the border, Canada is having a national election this month. And things just got a bit more interesting, due to the difficulty that it seems...
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⏹️⏹️ OFPMFP Short Fiction: The revenge of Gilgamesh
The gods were so sure that they had won. Gilgamesh, great king of Uruk, had tried to defy them, and he had been crushed. His lover was dead and remained so, and he himself had trudged back to his...
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