Dave Pollard has an interesting article on the function of education in today's society. In his post he points to this concise article by Russ Kick that shows how deliberate the dumbing down of society has been.

It's interesting that this topic is coming up again now, it isn't as though it hasn't been known for a long time - as Gatto points out - hell I wrote papers on it while in unversity in the early 70's - it was pretty much the idée du jour - in the left bank alternate education, deschooling society crowd that I ran with at that time. Anyone interested in education and it's place in society should make themselves famiiliar with the writers such as Paul Goodman, John Holt and Ivan Illich amongst others.

In his 1970 book Deschooling Society Illich wrote:

Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby "schooled" to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is "schooled" to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavor are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question.

n these essays, I will show that the institutionalization of values leads inevitably to physical pollution, social polarization, and psychological impotence: three dimensions in a process of global degradation and modernized misery. I will explain how this process of degradation is accelerated when nonmaterial needs are transformed into demands for commodities; when health, education, personal mobility, welfare, or psychological healing are defined as the result of services or "treatments." I do this because I believe that most of the research now going on about the future tends to advocate further increases in the institutionalization of values and that we must define conditions which would permit precisely the contrary to happen. We need research on the possible use of technology to create institutions which serve personal, creative, and autonomous interaction and the emergence of values which cannot be substantially controlled by technocrats. We need counterfoil research to current futurology.

I want to raise the general question of the mutual definition of man's nature and the nature of modern institutions which characterizes our world view and language. To do so, I have chosen the school as my paradigm, and I therefore deal only indirectly with other bureaucratic agencies of the corporate state: the consumer-family, the party, the army, the church, the media. My analysis of the hidden curriculum of school should make it evident that public education would profit from the deschooling of society, just as family life, politics, security, faith, and communication would profit from an analogous process.

In other words if you want a pliable public, largely incapable of truly critical thought, willing slaves to the work-a-day world, then create a public education system that rewards mediocrity and punishes individuality. That's what we have here in North America thanks to our forebearers who were greatly enamoured with the early 19th Century Prussian school system.

The prime fundamental of German education is that it is based on a national principle.... A fundamental feature of German education: education to the State, education for the State, education by the State. The Volksschule is a direct result of a national principle aimed at national unity. The State is the supreme end in view.

Franz de Hovre, 1917

In America the degradation of education is further compounded through the interference of fundamentalist right wing organizations and politicians who actively seek, and are often successful in their pursuit, to ban books and make religious myths equal to scientific fact.

Is it a consipracy? No, conspiracies are by definition secretive. There was/is nothing secretive about this process. America despite it's claims to be a land of eqaulity and a classless society has never been any such thing. America has always been a country where class was determined as much by the amount of money one has as by one's parentage. In the late 1800's and early 1900's the rapid industrialization of the US created a lot of wealth and a few very powerful families, the beginning of an american aristocracy.

What Greg Palast said about the 2000 election "The Best Democracy Monrey Can Buy" has always been the reality of American politics. From Grover Cleveland to Herbert Hoover, in one form or another the "robber barons" bought the democracy they wanted fairly openly - they were all of one "class", thought along the same lines and were the ones making the decvisions on the direction the country should go. There was little secretive about it. Today it is different in that it needs to be hidden, butthereality is no ifferent - Haliburton, Enron et al get what they want until their sins become to egregious to be hidden then their middle management are sacrtificed and their leaders pop open their golden parachutes.

It has always been in the interests of industrialized countries, or rather their captains of industry to have:

1. a large pool of uneducated workers
2. a rate of unemployment around 6%
3. Bread and circuses to divert the great unwashed.

So, why is this becoming a hot topic again now? Maybe it's because the inherent tension between a system designed to numb minds and dedicated teachers who are tring to stimulate those minds has reached, through the constant de-funding of education - a breaking point. Maybe it's because the actions of our politicians have become so blatantly harmful that John Q. Public can't be distracted enough anymore to totally ignore them. Maybe the world has become so tumultuous and patently dangerous place, particularly for Americans, that the lotus eaters have started to awaken from their stupors and have begun to see reality through their dreams. Maybe Ajmerica is in the act of swallowing the red pill.. I don't know the reason - I can only hope that America is finally waking up.

How would you look on life if you were 40 years old and for the past 37 years you have been totally blind and then, through a miracle of modern surgery, you regain a portion of your sight? For Mike May this is exactly what happened and he has chronicled some of his experiences on the net. It's an interesting read.

Found via Flutterby

In an unprecedented move the provincial government here in BC has issued an blanket ban on backcountry travel in the southern third of the province in an effort to reduce the risk of human-caused forest fires and has extended the provincial state of emergency.

BC is in a drought like it has never seen before. Vancouver, a city noted for its plentiful rain, has only 40 days of water left in its reservoirs. This is thedriest year on record all over the province and the forests are showing it. That's why there are over 800 fires currently burning in BC and why for hefirst time ever large communities were hreatened. It was only sheer luck, in the form of several nights of no to low winds and cooler temeratures, that saved the city of Kelowna, home to 100,000 people, from burning to the ground. That small break in the weather gave the fire fighters an opportunity to gain control over the fire.

Fortunately we have so far not had any fires here in Rossland, but now all my favourite hiking trails are closed. That I will miss. I love my trails :-(

So maybe you're wondering what you can do to make a difference on the face of this planet? Well you can make a significant difference by making less of an impact on the environment and by being a role model for those aropund you. The David Suzuki Foundation has come up with a list of the 10 things each individual can do that will make a significant positive impact on the environment:

1. Reduce home energy use by 10%: A more energy-efficient home will lower your utility bills and reduce your impact on the environment. Heating accounts for nearly 60 per cent of energy use in the average Canadian home.
2. Choose an energy-efficient home and appliances: R-2000 homes use 30 per cent less energy than standard homes. Modern appliances save more energy than older ones. New refrigerators, for example, use 40 per cent less energy than models made just 10 years ago.
3. Replace dangerous pesticides with alternatives: Small children and pets are especially vulnerable to the dangers of chemicals.
4. Eat meat-free meals one day a week: The production and processing of grains requires far less water and land than does meat.
5. Buy locally grown and produced food: Buying locally reduces greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants from food transportation. One study estimates that the average meal travels 2400 km (1500 miles) from the field to your table.
6. Choose a fuel-efficient vehicle: A typical SUV uses almost twice the fuel--and releases nearly twice the emissions--of a modern station wagon, although both seat the same number of passengers
7. Walk, bike, carpool or take transit: Researchers in California found the air we breathe inside our cars can be up to 10 times more polluted than the air outside.
8. Choose a home close to work or school: A convenient place to live reduces the amount you drive, which means you'll lower your emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. You'll also have more time to spend on things you care about
9. Support car-free alternatives: More alternatives to the car mean less pollution, gridlock and urban sprawl.
10. Learn more and share with family and friends: By working together we can inspire our elected leaders to incorporate environmental conservation into public policy. A healthier environment isn't possible unless we all get involved

He poses a challenge, Nature's Challenge to everyone, choose any three of the above 10 things you could do to leave the planet a better place than how you found it and walk the talk. not very difficult is it? It will make a huge difference. How am I doing?

I'm a renter so I can't do much about 1 or 2 but when I did own my own home I replaced all the appliances with new energy star efficient appliances. I sealed what cracks I could find and insulated hte windows better during the winter. Had I kept the home I would have improved the walls' insulation. I eat less and less meat and most of my meals are meat free these days (but I'll never give up Black Forest Ham :-)). The grocery store I shop at stocks local produce wherever possible and a lot of local products - I buy local where possible. I don't own a vehicle, I walk or ride a bike wherever I go. If I need a vehicle I borrow one. I'm sharing with you now :-) So I think I'm doing not bad on his challenge. How are you doing?

Thanks to The Self Proclaimed Resident Crone of Blogdom for bringing River Bend Blog to my attention. It is purportedly written by a very intelligent and well informed Iraqi woman living in Bagdhad. As it is a blogspot blog there is no way to tell and Shelley raised a doubt, but it really doesn't matter as the message of the blog is on target and well worth reading.

I was flipping channels when I ran across a David Suzuki special tonight and in the few minutes I saw he had a couple of interesting things to say. He was talking about a meeting he had with Al Gore and said shivers ran down his back because he had never met a politician before that so clearly understood environmental issues and what to do about them He says he tried to convince Gore to move to Canada - said he would do whatever he could to get him elected PM - Hey I'd go along with that :-) But I think the most interesting of things that Gore told him was politicians are followers not leaders, don't look to politicians to lead the way on environmental reform - get the public onside and the pols will trip over themselves to represent that view. He's right, very vew politicians have the strength of character and the honesty to be real leaders. For the most part they are slavering slaves to the will of those who speak loudest (and money shouts). The question now though is how do you get the public onside when they are lied to so professionally?

I have long maintained, since my days on the FidoNet Debate Echo actually, that the single biggest problem (but certainly not the only problem) with the US justice system is this weird concept they have that , sherriffs, police chiefs, judges and prosecutors (district attorneys ) should be elected. I can hardly think of anything in the system more guaranteed to lead to innocent people being convicted than that. All of the above must be seen to be "tough on crime" in order to win re-election over some up and comer that wants their job. The situation is not made any better by the fact that these people (judges excepted) all have unelected underlings that do most of the work for them, because those workers know that their job, should they wish to keep it, depends on them making their boss look good enough to get re-elected.

An article in todays NYT bears this out all too well. DNA evidence has proven very embarassing for prosecutors all over America (Canada too) as convict after convict, proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers, are now being found to be innocent on the basis of DNA evidence that was not available at the time of therir conviction.

Do these court officials welcome this and shout out yes, justice at last. Nope, nada, nein, hai (gaijin joke - stop laughing Jonathon) - no, instead they are trying to fight it and keep innocent people in jail saying other evidence points to their guilt. Let's look at one case taken from that article, and illustrative of many I can assure you:

In Florida, Mr. Dedge had to sue to have the evidence in his case retested, over the objections of prosecutors who said that the state's interest in finality and the victim's feelings should preclude it.

Judge Winifred J. Sharp dissented in a 1998 appeal ruling that initially turned down his request. "The results of the tests, if successfully performed, will likely be absolutely conclusive of either guilt or innocence," she wrote.

The tests were performed in 2000. Though the victim said that only she, her sister and the rapist could have left the hairs in her sheets, the tests excluded the sisters and Mr. Dedge.

But prosecutors say that Mr. Dedge has not proved his innocence or his entitlement to a new trial. They rely on three other pieces of evidence against him.

The victim, who was 17 at the time, identified him. But she first said that her assailant was 6 feet tall, weighed 200 pounds and had a hairline receding to the point of baldness. Mr. Dedge is more than six inches shorter than that and weighs about 145 pounds; at the time of the crime, according to court records, he was about 125 pounds. He still sports a full head of hair.

A prison informant testified that Mr. Dedge had confessed to him in a passing conversation. The informant received a 120-year reduction in his sentence in exchange for his testimony. A truck confiscated by the state was also released to the informant's wife as part of the same deal.

And an expert witness was allowed to testify that his dog had compared the victim's sheets three months after the rape to a selection of sheets from the local jail and had picked out Mr. Dedge's sheets. Such "scent line-ups" have since been questioned by the Florida courts.

In June, a trial judge, J. Preston Silvernail of Brevard Circuit Court in Viera, ruled that Mr. Dedge could pursue his motion for exoneration.

"There is," he wrote, "a reasonable probability that the defendant would have been acquitted if the DNA evidence excluding the defendant as the contributor of the pubic hair had been introduced at trial." Prosecutors appealed that decision.

Kind of frightening isn't it?

Now you might be wondering why I titled this Real Republican Justice. Well that wouldd be for a numbver of reasons, not the least of which is that Texas and Florida are two states leading the way in trying to block overthrowing convictions on the basis of DNA evidence. But, I also call it that because on the whole Republicans are more anti-science and more into punishment rather htan rehabilitation than Democrats are. Broad sweeping brush I know, but none the less true overall.

The US justice system needs an overhaul and it needs it starting from the top. Folks, if you let GWB and his gang of thieves win in 2004 then you are going to see more and more efforts to get stuff like DNA evidence banned all together - after all you can execute a lot more people when you can rig the election court case.

In the end it is their utter cuteness that pulls your heartstrings :-)

First the parry

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

and then the riposte

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

One of Canada's lower moments was the forced resettlement, and confiscation of property, of Canadian citizems of Japanese extraction during WWII. The west coast of Canada had a large population of issei, nissei and sansei (1st, 2nd and 3rd generation) Japanese Canadians. Their lives were hard, particularly for the women, many of whom were married sight unseen in contract marriages to men in Canada while they still lived in Japan.

The greatest concentration of Japanese Canadians was in Steveston located right at the mouth of the Fraser River.From late in the 19th C onwards Steveston was a fishing village and its primary crop was/is salmon. By the time WWII rolled around the vast majority of fishermen, boat builders and other suppliers were Japanese Canadians. With the start of WWII they lost everything, boats, homes livelyhoods, except their memories.

Tonight on the History Channel there was a wonderful documentary called Obachan's (Grandmother's) Garden 祖母の庭 :

In 1923, Asayo Murakami left Hiroshima and settled in a fishing village in Steveston, BC. Her family remembers a happy woman who sang, danced and nurtured a colourful flower garden, but underneath, the memory of what she left in Japan haunted her deeply.

Delicately peeling back the layers of her grandmother Asayo's life, filmmaker Linda Ohama discovers a painful, buried past. In poignant interviews, Obaachan, now 103 years old, recalls life in Japan, her arrival in Canada as a "picture bride," her determination to marry a man of her choice, the bombing of Hiroshima and the forced relocation of her family during World War II.

Beautifully rendered dramatic sequences are merged with an exquisite collection of memories,feelings, images and voices. Culminating in an emotional reunion with a long-lost daughter, this film is an intensely personal reflection of Japanese-Canadian history and a testament to one woman's incredible endurance and spirit.

In the usual tradition of the National Film Board of Canada this was a most marvelous film. I highly recommend this to anyone who gets a chance to see it (or buy it - it's only $19.95 Canadian)

If you would like to know more about the Japanese Canadian experience during WWII I can't recommend highly enough the novel Obasan by Joy Kogowa

According to a NYT article today Howard Dean is making a big move towards obtaining the 2004 nomination. While I would rather see these results for Kucinich if he isn't going to get the nomination (a very long shot but read this) then I suppose Howard Dean is an acceptable distant second choice.

In that article there were a couple of things that really stood out for me

Holding oceans of blue Dean placards at every stop were nearly all white hands, a homogeneity the campaign tried to counter with a rainbow of supporters on stage, which only drew more attention to the lack of diversity in the audience

If he can only attract whites then he has no chance whatsoever of beating Bush. Whoever wins the nomination not only has top attract the black vote but also all those disaffected liberals and middle-of-the-roaders that have stopped voting because they couldn't see any real significant difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. Failure to do this will result in an overwhelming majority for the Republicans - even without their gerrymandering in Texas.

The other thing that caught my attention was this comment

For each of the 800 people who skipped the Green Bay Packers game on Saturday night to chant "We want Dean" in a Milwaukee airplane hangar, there must be many like the young woman in the pink taffeta strapless bridesmaid's dress who went to the hotel bar where reporters and supporters were mingling over martinis and wondered, "What's going on here?"

Told it was the Dean campaign, she looked blank. Howard Dean, someone said. Running for president.

"President?" she asked. "President of what?"

and that is one of the saddest things I've read in a long time.

The need for political awareness in the US has never been greater. America is at a turning point in its history. The current administration is carrying out a concerted onslaught designed to reduce constitutional rights and freedoms, remove labour safety regulations, destroy environmental controls and impoverish everyone from the middle class down for the foreseeable future. It is obviuos to anyone without political blinders on that the agenda is to return the US corporate scene to that of pre FDR, and his progressive "New Deal", when the robber barons could do what they pleased.

There are far too many citizens in America today who show the kind oif political ignorance as evinced by the young woman in the quote above. Indeed it is that very ignorance that allows Bush & Co. to get away with what they are doing.

Some bloggers are convinced that this media is the be all end all for solving the populations ignorance problem. I beg to differ. Of the 50% of the American population that is online, roughly 140 million, only a miniscule amount have actually heard of blogs never mind actually visited one, If they have visited one the chances are that it isn't a progressive political blog, but rather it's a personal blog belonging to a friend or family member. One of those ones along the lines of what I ate today and who dissed me at school. The vast majority of Americans have never been to a weblog, are not accomplished web surfers, they simply use the web, if they use it at all, for some shopping, email, gambling and porn. Bloggers are NOT going to turn the political tide and if they count on doing so they will be helping to elect Bush not defeat him.

To defeat Bush people like the woman quoted above need to be educated and the only way you are going to do that for large numbvers is via traditional media - specifically TV, radio and newspapers in that order. Politics on the net is not on their radar. Yes there is a lot of politics happening on the net, a lot of activity and people being orgamized. hell Dean and Kucinich etc have raised a lot of money over the net. But, that is deceptive. On the net they are preaching to the choir and that just doesn't cut it come election time.

If you want to make a difference you have to tackle the traditional media. Call into conservative talk shows and point out how Bush et al are really not conservatives, write letters to the editor, write the sponsors of right wing shows and tell them you are not going to buy their products any more and yuo are organizing a consumer boycott. I'm sure there are lots of ways to get the message out. It's up to you.

As we slide down the bannister of life may the splinters never point the wrong way!

First I'd like to take a moment to slam CNN. On the one hand we have a supposedly international cable news network that purports to cover breaking news from around the world. On the other hand we have a city of 100K people, in the US' largest trading partner, that is in dire threat of being completely burned to the ground by an out of control class 6 forest fire, where 1/3 of the population had to be evacuated and where at last count 248 homes had already been incinerated. Did CNN pay any attention to this tragedy? No, not so much as a passing comment. Did Canada not react with compassion, sympathy and help after the horror of 9/11? Did our media ignore that tragedy or other natural tragedies like hurricanes in the US and the havoc wreaked on communties by those natural disasters. No, we haven't and we don't. Apparantly it just isn't news when it happens in Canada.

Things have improved in Kelowna over the past couple of days due to cool nights and the lack of high winds. They almost have the main fire under control. If the winds stay down then they will be able to continue creating firebreaks and back burning to remove fuel. This is so necessary. Friday night as the main fire came rolling over the last hills into the first subdivision it was travelling about 5km (3 mi) an hour and the wall of flames was 120m (400ft) high. Houses in its path didn't burn they exploded as the gases released by the fire, from the trees, bushes etc - moved in advance of the fire and superheated the structures. When the flames reached the gasses would ignite and the structures explode. There are no words to describe the bravery of the firefighters who stood their ground and fought to sabe homes. For every one they lost they saved two. That is real bravery, real courage.

If the weather holds, or brings rain (without lightening) they should be able to bring this fire under control without losing more homes. If the weather takes a turn for the worse before they can finish the backburning then the fire can easily once more jump the fire lines and threaten the entire city. I'm sure CNN will still not cover it, unless of course some stupid american tourist tries to get too close to the fire to take pictures and gets himself and his family killed. Then of course CNN will cover it (and still get all the facts wrong).

If you are interested in this tragedy you can track it at http://www.castanet.net

If you want to help the people in Kelowna and the other BC communities that have been devastated by fire this year - one community of some 60 residences and businesses was burned to te ground in another fire - you can donated through these organizations - remember to specify it is for BC Forest Fire relief:

Canadian Red Cross -

Acromedia

The, er......brights certainly don't like it but then agaim they can't explain it either :-) From the Sydney Morning Herald via The Gamers Nook

Druids have been brought in to reduce the number of accidents on Austria's worst stretch of autobahn.

The Druids have put up huge roadside monoliths to restore the natural flow of "earth energy". After the one tonne pillars of white quartz were erected beside a notorious stretch of road during a secret two-year trial, the number of fatal accidents fell from an average of six a year to zero.

Gerald Knobloch, who describes himself as an archdruid, used a divining rod to inspect the 275-metre stretch of the A9 in Styria and restore "earth energy lines".

"I located dangerous elements that had disrupted the energy flow," he said. "The worst was a river which human interference had forced to flow against its natural direction. By erecting two stones of quartz at the side of the road the energy lines were restored."

The pillars had a similar function to acupuncture, he said. "Acupuncture needles also restore broken energy lines. What acupuncture does for the body, the stones do for the environment."

Harald Dirnbacher, an engineer from the motorway authority, admitted that they turned to Mr Knobloch as a last resort.

"We had put up signs to reduce speed, renewed the road surface and made bends more secure but we still kept getting accidents," he said. "At that point we couldn't think of anything else to do and decided we might as well try anything.

"I admit when we first looked at it [energy lines] we were doubtful. We didn't want people to know in case they laughed at us, so we kept the trial secret and small-scale. But it was really an amazing turnaround."

Scientists are sceptical of the claims. "Natural sciences need evidence. Whatever can't be measured, does not exist," said Georg Walach, a geophysics professor at Leoben University in southern Austria. "These energy lines and their flow cannot be grasped or measured, and their existence is therefore rejected by scientists." But the motorway authorities are extending the Druids' role across the country, paying them about $A6300 for each investigation - a fraction of the cost of resurfacing a road.

Public Service Announcement

Hey if you're looking for a better place to put your weblog than what you have right now, and you have your own domain name, go see Shelley. Shelley rented a dedicated server from the data center I work for and has put together a truly awesome bloggers co-operative. Great server, good speed - you can't ask for more than that (well OK a dedicated OC3 to the server would be nice, but really..........).

It's instructive to review how the Bush administration rewards those who serve the nation's interest. Note I said the nation's interest not Bush's interests as it has become painfully obvious those are divergent paths.

If you are an armed forces veteran then you will find your benefits cut. It doesn't matter that you put your life on the line for your country, indeed that elicits, in private, nothing but contempt for you from those in charge of this administration. Sure in public they praise you for your sacrifices, they even pretend to be like you , though few if any of then have actually served as you did and now they conduct a foreign policy designed to waste the lives and health of america's youth while creating many more veterans. Why should they care about you, after all you are not of their social class. If you were you would have never enlisted, or, if you are of an age to have been drafted, you would have found a way out of the draft, like daddy getting you into the Air National Guard ahead of more qualified people, or by moving to Canada.

Bush and Co. however, reserve their greteast rewards for those who are in their social class and who choose to serve their country rather than Bush et al. As John Dean puts it:

On July 14, in his syndicated column, Chicago Sun-Times journalist Robert Novak reported that Valerie Plame Wilson - the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, and mother of three-year-old twins - was a covert CIA agent. (She had been known to her friends as an "energy analyst at a private firm.")

Why was Novak able to learn this highly secret information? It turns out that he didn't have to dig for it. Rather, he has said, the "two senior Administration officials" he had cited as sources sought him out, eager to let him know. And in journalism, that phrase is a term of art reserved for a vice president, cabinet officers, and top White House officials.

On July 17, Time magazine published the same story, attributing it to "government officials." And on July 22, Newsday's Washington Bureau confirmed "that Valerie Plame ... works at the agency [CIA] on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity." More specifically, according to a "senior intelligence official," Newsday reported, she worked in the "Directorate of Operations [as an] undercover officer."

In other words, Wilson is/was a spy involved in the clandestine collection of foreign intelligence, covert operations and espionage. She is/was part of a elite corps, the best and brightest, and among those willing to take great risk for their country. Now she has herself been placed at great - and needless - risk.

Why is the Administration so avidly leaking this information? The answer is clear. Former ambassador Wilson is famous, lately, for telling the truth about the Bush Administration's bogus claim that Niger uranium had gone to Saddam Hussein. And the Bush Administration is punishing Wilson by targeting his wife. It is also sending a message to others who might dare to defy it, and reveal the truth.

Now if only the order to do so could be traced back to Bush. You see it is a felony, punishable under the Espionage Act, to reveal classified material, and the identities of working CIA field agents is definitely classified material. Whoever did this could, and should, be thrown in the slammer for 10 years or more.

Like the intimidation of the american people as a whole by making them afraid and suspicious of everyone they likewise introduce a fear for their very lives in those who serve their country. A warning to them to side with der Führer or die.

Read John Dean's whole column on this subject. It's a good one.

Fear. In the absence of a recent major tragedy or an imminent visible threat fear takes hold over a population slowly, rooting itself in little crevices of consciousness, festering away, raising its head to take pot shots at unlikely targets, pushed along by those whose interests it serves.

In a free society there are certain institutions we expect, without second thought, to be bastions of free speech. We expect these instiitutions, be they public organizations such as libraries or commercial ventures such as newspapers, publishers or bookstores, to "go to the wall" defending free speech, not just because it is in their best self interest to do so, but because it is the right thing to do as well.

But these are strange times. Forces are at work in America to turn a once proud courageous collection of individualists into a nation of fearful sheep eager to agree with whatever they are told, be it by Madison Ave. or the White House. Oh, this isn't something totally new by any means. This path has been long in the making - it is in fact almost imperative given the nature of capitalism and corporatism as practised today. It is not something that can be laid solely at the feet of the current administration but those who work to these ends are certainly their ideological peers.

Bush and his cronies have, since 9/11, done a very good job making hte aberage American afraid. Afraid of anyone who is different. Afraid of any thought not approved of by the administration. Where have our expected champions of freedom been during this time? Sitting in White House press conferences listening to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al lying to them and afraid to call them on the lies. Publishing White House press releases as the gospel sans any editorial content. And now we come to this. What next Borders, book burnings? Look at you, you didn't even need to have the spectre of a "Tailgunner Joe" to make you jump into line to kiss the Emperors feet. Is this what we have come to? I fear it is so. I fear for my friends to the South, stand up friends, stand up. When you see institutions that you once counted on caving into this fear stand up and remind them of what they should represent.

Nyah Nyah, na Nyah Nyah, liar liar pants on fire Bill O'reilly and Fox lost their "fair and balanced" lawsuit against Al Franken

Saying "This is an easy case," a federal judge ruled Friday against Fox News in its lawsuit asserting that a book by liberal satirist Al Franken violates its trademarked slogan, "fair and balanced."

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, after listening to about half an hour of oral arguments, said the lawsuit was "wholly without merit, both factually and legally."

Obviously a smart judge :-)

Franken's attorneys said, trademark or not, the phrase "fair and balanced" is as old as journalism itself, is a principle taught in journalism classes and is "common vocabulary of the news media dating back well before Fox even existed."

A point I made, regarding prior art, in the comments to this post

This wsa a harassment suit plain and simple. Faux never had a chance 'nor did they deserve one. Chalk one up for the good guys.

Tim Burton is going to do a remake of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (what you still haven't read it - I told you to read it last Tuesday - get off your butt) with ..........wait for it....................... Johhny Depp as Willie Wonka - that should be really interesting. Well if you are going to use an adult instead of kid for the role I'd say that Depp is a good choice.

Kelowna is BC's 3rd largest city after Greater Vancouver and Victoria. It's 150 km (90 miles) north of the United States border and 395 km. (247 miles) east of Vancouver. It is now besieged by forest fires.

• As of 4:30pm today evacuation numbers show that approximately 7,000 people were forced out of their homes last night by the Okanagan Mountain Park fire.
• About 2,300 homes are affected in south east Kelowna and the southwest Mission.
• More than 11,000 people are on Evacuation Alert.

It is a disaster in the making. Last night about 20 homes were lost after the fire broke the fireline and entered a residential area. The owner of the Data Center I work for , Rackforce was one of the evacuees. I talked to him this morning and he said the fire came down the mountainside behind his house like a freight train on a cannonball run. When he left it was about 2 blocks from his home. It was stopped before it got there thankfully but the fire is very much out of control and they are losing more houses as I type this. This is unbelievably bad.

I have a number of friends in Kelowna and most of them are in danger. My thoughts are with them in this terrible time. We could lose hundreds maybe thousands of homes.

Update 8:30am Saturday

The fire has been classed as a level 6 fire -the most serious level. Between 300 and 400 homes have been lost so far, more to come. THey are not going to be able to stop the fire on the forested edges of the city, they are going to make their stand in the residential areas where there are fewer trees. By the time this is over it is likely to be several thousand homes destroyed by fire. There are some incredible photographs of the fire here

Samantha Bennet has a perceptive column in the Pittsburgh Post Gazzette. In her July 30, 2003 column "It's not just the weather that's cooler in Canada" she compares Canada to the US and does it very well.

You live next door to a clean-cut, quiet guy. He never plays loud music or throws raucous parties. He doesn't gossip over the fence, just smiles politely and offers you some tomatoes. His lawn is cared-for, his house is neat as a pin and you get the feeling he doesn't always lock his front door. He wears Dockers. You hardly know he's there.

And then one day you discover that he has pot in his basement, spends his weekends at peace marches and that guy you've seen mowing the yard is his spouse.

Allow me to introduce Canada.

The Canadians are so quiet that you may have forgotten they're up there, but they've been busy doing some surprising things. It's like discovering that the mice you are dimly aware of in your attic have been building an espresso machine.

Did you realize, for example, that our reliable little tag-along brother never joined the Coalition of the Willing? Canada wasn't willing, as it turns out, to join the fun in Iraq. I can only assume American diner menus weren't angrily changed to include "freedom bacon," because nobody here eats the stuff anyway.

And then there's the wild drug situation: Canadian doctors are authorized to dispense medical marijuana. Parliament is considering legislation that would not exactly legalize marijuana possession, as you may have heard, but would reduce the penalty for possession of under 15 grams to a fine, like a speeding ticket. This is to allow law enforcement to concentrate resources on traffickers; if your garden is full of wasps, it's smarter to go for the nest rather than trying to swat every individual bug. Or, in the United States, bong.

Now, here's the part that I, as an American, can't understand. These poor benighted pinkos are doing everything wrong. They have a drug problem: Marijuana offenses have doubled since 1991. And Canada has strict gun control laws, which means that the criminals must all be heavily armed, the law-abiding civilians helpless and the government on the verge of a massive confiscation campaign. (The laws have been in place since the '70s, but I'm sure the government will get around to the confiscation eventually.) They don't even have a death penalty! .......MORE

By Rep. Dennis Kucinich, AlterNet
August 19, 2003

Editor's Note: The following was written by Dennis Kucinich from the campaign trail in Iowa.

With an estimated 50 million Americans and Canadians left without power and in some cases water, common sense requires us to reflect on the absurdity of deregulation of public utilities. The right of utility franchise is vested in the people. We give utilities permission to operate, and enable them to set up a profit making business in exchange for the promise of affordable and reliable service.

In 1992, investor-owned utilities pushed the Democratic House to pass HR776, which granted electric utilities broad powers. The bill was supposed to restructure the electric utility industry to spur competition.

Instead, utilities used deregulation to effect a series of mergers limiting competition. In order to accelerate profits, cost cutting ensued, involving the layoff of thousands of utility company employees, including some who where responsible for maintenance of generation, transmission and distribution systems. A number of investor-owned utilities stopped investing in the maintenance and repair of their own equipment, choosing to cut costs to enhance the value of their stock rather than spending money to enhance the value of their service. ...... MORE

As a native Vancouverite I can tell you that there is just waaaaaaaaaaay too much truth in these points. :-) It's also what makes Vancouver a great place to live if you like big cities.

1. Your coworker has 8 body piercings and none are visible.
2. You make over $ 250,000 and still can't afford a house.
3. You take a bus and are shocked at 2 people carrying on a conversation in English.
4. Your child's 3rd grade teacher has purple hair, a nose ring, & is named Breeze.
5. You can't remember...is pot illegal?
6. You've been to more than one baby shower that has two mothers and a sperm donor.
7. You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee beans are grown and can taste the difference between Sumatra and Ethiopian.
8. You also know which Yaletown restaurant serves the freshest arugula.
9. A really great parking space can move you to tears.
10. A man gets on the bus in full leather regalia and crotchless chaps; You don't even notice.
11. A woman gets on the bus with live poultry; You don't even notice.
12. The guy at 8:30 am at Starbucks wearing the baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like George Clooney IS George Clooney.
13. Your car insurance costs as much as your house payment.
14. The gym is packed at 3 PM ....on a work day.
15. Your hairdresser is straight, your plumber is gay, the woman who delivers your mail is into BDSM, and your Mary Kay rep is a guy in drag.
16. You watch the weather from a Seattle TV station because it's more accurate.
17. You pass an elementary school and the children are all busy with their cell phones or pagers while waiting for their personal rides home.
18. You're sure you're the only one on the road with a REAL driver's license.
19. The weather forecast calls for possible sunny periods, some cloudy periods, and a probability of rain showers... AND EVERY DAY IT'S THE SAME!
20. The more expensive the car, the worse the driver!

If you are familiar with the story "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (what you're not shame on you - go feed your inner child) and you hate Bush et al (you don't? then why the heck are you reading my blog there ain't nothing for you here dude) you will love this great Flash rendering ¹of "I Want It Now" and the "Oompa Loompa" songs.

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus' lodging; such a waggoner As Phaeton would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread they close curtain, love performing night! That runaway's eyes may wink,and Romeo Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen! Lovers can see to do their amorous rites By their own beauties; or, if love be blind, It best agrees with night. Come, civil night, Thou sober suited matron, all in black. ¹

I wonder for how many of the millions of easterners affected by the blackout it was their first real opportunity to get a good look at the stars in the night sky? For how many was the experience of real night time darkeness an original experience? What did they learn from it, to be afraid? Or to look on the universe with awe?

A paradox of modern society is that it teaches us to not be individuals while at the same time creating a sense of isolation within us and glorifying the cult of the individual. When confronted with the unexpected and the unfamiliar, such as a lifetime city dweller plunged into real darkness, the natural reaction is to seek light and companionship at any cost. For many sudden, unfamiliar, darkness will highlight their isolation in the universe and produce dread, fear and anger. Isaac Asimov treated this theme brilliantly in his 1941 short story "Nightfall" where an entire planet's population must come to terms with the idea that they are but an infinitely small part of the universe.²

For some however darkness is not a time of fear, loneliness and dread. Rather it is a time to seek answers to unanswerable questions, to delve deep into one's soul and seek one's place in the universe. It is a time to celebrate and a time to stand in awe of that which we are so blessed to be a part of and to be aware that we are a part of it.

You never enjoy the world aright, till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more so, because men are in it who are everyone sole heirs as well as you. ³

One of the joys of living where I do is that there is very little light pollution and we are treated to a full panoply of galaxies and constellations, planets and moons, meteors and comets each night when the sun goes down. I hope this past weekend that in at least a few people who have never experienced this before the same sense of awe and beauty wil have been evojed. More so I hope that they will realize their loss when the lights came back on and lend their support to groups seeking to limit the damage done by excessive lighting such as the International Dark-Sky Association⁴. What a sad world this will be when finally the stars go out. Let us not hurry it along.

David Isenberg was a recent guest speaker at the Intel Capital CEO Summit where he sat on a panel "The Internet Five Years Out" with Vince Cerf and David Farber. Here is the intro that Davis Isenberg prepared for the occassion. I think he nails it right on the head. If you care about the future of the Internet in the US and the future of broadband in the US you better get politically involved because the direction it is going in is not in your best interests.

Four Scenarios for the Future of the Internet
by David S. Isenberg

Now that home Ethernet is almost as common as a cable
modem, it a misnomer to talk about, "the last mile." Clay
Shirky points out that today's Internet is dumbell-shaped;
it is fat on the premises, fat in the backbone and at least
100 times skinnier in between. So to me, the big issue for
the next five years is how the skinny middle will achieve
the girth that technology makes possible. Here are four
scenarios, alternative futures that sample the space of
possible outcomes.

Scenario #1. The telcos would have us believe that they'll
give us that fat middle pipe. They'll have to lose their
vertically-integrated business model to do it, or they'll
have to find a way to cripple the end-to-end property of
the Internet. It is a huge challenge for an established
company to change business models. And if they cripple
end-to-end, they're likely to cripple the very thing that
makes the Internet so useful to so many people. But it's a
plausible scenario, in fact it is The Official Future
Scenario.

Scenario #2. Other utilities -- the electric company, the
gas company (and maybe the cable company) -- could use
their rights of way to build the fat pipe to the premises.
Utilities are good at delivering bulk, low margin goods.
But can utilities be entrepreneurial enough to open new
lines of retail business?

Scenario #3. Customers will own the technology that
extends the fat home network towards the fat backbone,
eliminating the "access" sector. The ownership model might
be condominium fiber, or fiber owned by homeowner
associations or other kinds of small quasi-governmental
organizations. This fiber will probably coexist with
customer-owned 802.11 and other wireless link and
distribution technologies. For this to scale, premises
network infrastructure must become more self-connecting and
self-operating than it is today. A further warning -- the
only wireless solutions that scale enough to encompass any
reasonable end-game are multi-hop or packet relay networks.

Scenario #4. The telcos lawyer and lobby and legislate to
preserve previous power and prevent customers, utilities
and other competitors from building the network that we
really want. They'd use this last strength, their
remaining core competence -- to make broadband end-to-end
networks illegal. This is the scenario that's most
demonstrably happening in the United States today.
According to a recent ITU study, among the developed
nations, the United States is now #15 in broadband
penetration per capita and falling fast.

I think Intel -- and Intel's partners -- and the rest of us
-- would prefer scenario 3, where the customers own the
connection to the backbone. This outcome is not
guaranteed. To get Scenario #3 we'll need good technology,
strong partners and a rich value matrix, of course. But to
stop Scenario #4 from making #3 impossible, we will need
some major policy innovations.

Five years from now, the U.S. will have the Internet it
deserves. It might well be an Internet that is further
behind the rest of the world's Internet than we can
possibly imagine.

Folowing a link in David Isenberg's latest newsletterI found an interesting website Politics & Science that was instigated at the request of Representative Henry Waxman. The site's function is to track and record the inteference, by the Bush administration, in scientific research and who profits by that interference. It's a long list. Here's the intro from their site:

The American people depend upon federal agencies to develop science-based policies that protect the nation’s health and welfare. Recently, however, leading scientific journals have begun to question whether scientific integrity at federal agencies has been sacrificed to further a political and ideological agenda.

At the request of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the minority staff of the Government Reform Committee assessed the treatment of science and scientists by the Bush Administration.

The report Politics and Science in the Bush Administration (.pdf) finds numerous instances where the Administration has manipulated the scientific process and distorted or suppressed scientific findings. Beneficiaries include important supporters of the President, including social conservatives and powerful industry groups.

This website is an ongoing record of interference with science by the Bush Administration.

As you all know, this election may be the most critical election in the US' history. I, for one, do not want to see the Supreme Court again decide who my American friends' next President will be. That's why I am urging my American readers who are not yet registered voters to take part in an online voter registration project that AlterNet.org, one of my online news sources, is embarking on in conjunction with Working Assets.

You can fill out a voter registration form in seconds at the URL below, and ask your like-minded friends to do the same. All you have to do is print it out, stamp it and put it in the mail! This election is too important to sit out -- let's stand up and make this democracy work!

To fill out a voter registration form, go to:
http://workingforchange.com/vote/?ms=ALT001

Well I did a 3 hour hike today combining two of the more uphill paths, Technogrind and KC Ridge, that I usually take singly. I'm sure glad I bought this when I was in Vancouver a couple of weeks ago as I went through a lot of water today.

You can see from the shot above, taken from the top of KC Ridge, that the smoke from the forest fires is laying pretty thick around here. Normally this would be a fairly clear view. This shot looks down the valley into Trail BC about 2500 feet below me and 2000 ft below Rossland which from this vantage point is directly behind me and down 500 ft. Brian, Lora and the kids came back early from their vacation up the Slocan Valley because they said the smoke was so thick up there they couldn't see across the lake and it was getting pretty miserable. We had a litlle rain the past two days - we need a lot more sans lightening.

The first signs of fall are starting to show along the trails as plants begin to fruit out and turn yellow.

Also there are a lot more bear signs along the trails too like this log that's been recently torn apart for grubs.

Last Friday after work I went for a walk along a different trail and saw a lot of bear droppings. At one point I was deep into the woods and had just passed some relatively fresh droppings when there was a noise of something coming up the trail behind me - I just about jumped out of my skin :-) but fortunately it turned out to be a guy on his mountain bike.

I plan my hikes so that I walk around midday if possible - not the best time for comfort but certainly safer in so far as bears are concerned. We have both black and grizzly bears in the area and I really don't want to meet up with either - particularly grizzlys (they are pretty rare around here though). Bears ar predominately twilight to dawn creatures and they generally crash out during the heat of the day so noon is a good time bear-wise to go for a hike. But as summer progresses they start coming down from the alpine valleys etc to lower elevations, follwing the berry crops etc. - so we need to be more aware of the possibilities of encounters the closer fall gets. Time to get my bear bell out again I guess. Let them hear you coming and they will give you a wide berth. Whatever you do don't startle them because you can't outrun or out climb them!

Awhile back I blogged an entry on the tussle between O'Reilly and Franken at the National Booksellers Convention. It has become the most heated set of comments ever on this blog, which I have no objection to (the volume of comments that is, I do object to the content). However it isn't regular readers that are commenting there, it is mostly right wing whackos who, well there's no other way to say it clearly, are basically foaming at the mouth. They have nothing intelligent to say and in that respect they sound just like their hero Bill O'Reilly. That is, all they can do is SHOUT and curse and be as abusive as their limited grasp of language and paucity of functioning grey cells allows. Anything , I guess, to drown out the truth.

I guessed, and my site stats confirm , that what's happening is there appears to be a concerted effort by these poor examples of humanity to search out any mention of Franken and O'Reilly together and to go there and be as abusive as possible. What sad lives these people must have, what sad sad lives.

For the first time in a very long time I was driven to delete a comment today it began (and mothers cover your childrem's eyes):

All of you are a bunch of liberal assfucked bastards

and devolved from there. Real intelligent you know. Well I would keep comments open on that post if it were my own regular readers debating, but it for the most part isn't and I don't want this kind of poison on my blog so I've turned comments off on it and this post. THe morons can go play somewhere else. What struck me was that without exception they were all anonymous posters, I gues they don't have the courage of their own convictions - cowards one and all, whereas the lefties identified themselves for the most part or at least gave a realistic name :-). Interesting to note that the more abusive they were the more likely their IP address was an AOL one. I guess they need to have someone hold their hand (while excessively charging them for doing so) to get on the net just like they need the O'Reilly's of this workd to do their "thinking" for them. It's all so very sad.

Late Breaking News:
by: The Driveler

Fox News commentator Bill "Fair and Balanced" O'Reilly has announced that he is suing certain proponents of the Sufi religion known as the Whirling Dervishes. Commenting on the suit O'Reilly stated thayt the had a patent and a copyright on spin and that the Dervishes were clearly infringing on his rights to spin exclusively. When O'Reilly was questioned by this reporter about their fair and balanced right to freedom of religion he responded by turning very red in the face and yelling "SHUT UP SHUT UP cut off his mike" and spraying copious quantities of saliva across the set. O'reilly was last seen leaving the set with his hands in his pockets playing pocket pool mumbling something about liberal media bias.

Greg palast has an interesting article on the recent powr outage over on TomPaine.com go check it out

I can tell you all about the ne'er-do-wells that put out our lights this past week. I came up against these characters -- the Niagara Mohawk Power Company -- some years back. You see, before I was a journalist, I worked for a living, as an investigator of corporate racketeers. In the 1980s, "NiMo" built a nuclear plant, Nine Mile Point, a brutally costly piece of hot junk for which NiMo and its partner companies charged billions to New York State's electricity ratepayers.

You can almost hear the wheels turning over in Osama's head after the last two days. al-Qaeda could cause far more damage to the US than it did on 9/11 if in the midst of this winter it causes a similar cascade iun several of the grid sections simultaneously. Not only would it damage the economy to have several power sources taken down for months or years, but many more people would die than did on 9/11. Power is needed to run furnaces as well as electric heaters. Many people would freeze to death especially if it is a rough winter. Food distribution would become sporadic and fresh food would be nigh impossible to find after 24 hours.

How could they do it - well it wouldn't be all that difficult as east coasters found out the past two days. All it would take is a couple of well placed shoulder fired surtace to air - stinger style - missiles taking out 3 or 4 major generation and distribution centers. Or better yet if they can, explode a large EMP generating device beside the generation facilities and knock out all the electronics in particular the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems which are used to control powr surges etc. Doing that would be the kiss of death for a good portion of the North American grid.

So much for Homeland Security.

The forest fire situation in BC is grim. Already one town - several hundred homes, was basically burned to the ground and others are threatened. Currently there is a province wide State of Emergency declared by the provincial government. There are 865 wildfires burning in BC as of yesterday and no end in sight. Please people use common sense - If you go into the woods stay on well maintained paths, don't smoke, don't break glass bottles (aside from the obvious the glass fragaments act as magnifying lenses and will start fires if hit by strong sunlight at the right angle), don't under any circumstances do anything that involves flames - open or otherwise.

We now have fires close to me. I think the closest one is about 30 or 40Km away but when I went outside after work today I found the area blanketed with smoke. The wind is blowing out of the east and pushing the smoke our way. I hope they get it under control soon, it could get hard to breathe for the elderly, asthmatics and people with other breathing problems if it gets any thicker.

Be safe, Be Aware!

How strange that the US administration is so anti-gay. Strange because it seems the conservatives favourite game is to see just how badly they can screw veterans. Recruiting seargents should be upfront with potential recruits. They should tell them that if they serve their country honourably the Republicans (and all the brain deads who worship at the feet of O]Reilly, Rush et. al.) are going to do their level best to fuck them over. They will not be treated with honour unless it can win Bush and his cronies a vote. Otherwise theu will have their benefits cut and their health ruined.

Scott has a horror story over on The Gamers Nook that every fucking conservative who supports Bush should be forced to read and explain. Then again maybe some public school teachers will pick this up in the fall and use it to teach civics - a greeat example of how to destroy your country from within.

Just how screwed up can the US patent asnd copyright system get? How can a tern that has been used for generations, that is "fair and balanced" be copyrighted? Whose bank balance was enlarged by that deal! Now way should Faux be allowed to copyright it (never mind that Faux wouldn't know fair and balanced reporting if it bit them). I encourage everyone to use the term Fair and Balanced frequently on their blogs and websites.

Mick appeared on the Newfie version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" and towards the end of the programme had already won $500,000.

"You've done very well so far," said the show's presenter, "but for $1 million you've only got one lifeline left - phone a friend. Everything is riding on this question......will you go for it?"

"Sure," said Mick. "I'll have a go!"

"OK. The question is: which of the following birds does NOT build it's own nest? (a) Robin, (b) Sparrow, © cuckoo, or (d) thrush."

"I haven't got a clue," said Mick, "so I'll use my last lifeline and phone my friend Paddy back home in Come-Bye-Chance"

Mick called up his mate, told him the circumstances and repeated the question to him.

"Fookin hell, Mick!" cried Paddy. "Dat's simple......it's a cuckoo."

"Are you sure, Paddy?" asked Mick.

"I'm fookin sure."

Mick hung up the phone and told the TV presenter,

"I'll go with cuckoo as my answer."

"Is that your final answer?" asked the host.

"Dat it is, Sir."

There was a long, long pause, then the presenter screamed,

"Cuckoo is the correct answer! Mick, you've won $1 million!"

The next night, Mick invited Paddy to their local pub to buy him a drink.

"Tell me, Paddy, how in God's name did you know it was the cuckoo that doesn't build it's own nest? I mean, how do you know fookin'-all about birds?"

"For fooks sake!" laughed Paddy.

"Everybody knows a fookin cuckoo lives in a clock!!!!

You just gotta love the chutzpah of the right wing when they go about claiming things like al-Qaeda and the Taliban are finished. Osama is still on the loose, al-Qaeda is blowing stuff up in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East and yesterday theTaliban blew up a bus in Afghanistan and enganged in two running gun battles with western forces for a death toll of 58. As one news story (on canada.com today - link dies in 7 days so I'm no longer linking to them or NYT articles) put it

The deaths were part of a trend of stepped-up attacks and killings that are increasing the pressure on the fragile Afghan government and creating an atmosphere of constant fear in the country...

Afghan officials have said Taliban rebels are using bases inside Pakistan to launch cross-border attacks. Suspected Taliban fighters have been stepping up attacks over the last several months in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

al-Qaeda and the Taliban are far from dismantled or history. They are every bit as dangerous today as they have always been. Taliban supporters have been steadily gaining strength, both in numbers and politically, in Pakistan in the provinces along the Afghanistan border.

It is a pathetic attempt, along the same lines of tossing a flight suit onto Bush and flying him in as a PASSENGER to the flight deck of a carrier, to try and make their agenda out to be successful and their leader courageous. Bush has never showed so much as a scintilla of courage (or for that matter intelligence either) and the real enemies of the US, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are laughing at him and his efforts to get rid of them.

This story was told by a nurse... and she swears this really happened on her ward. A man suspected of SARs is lying in the hospital bed with a mask over his mouth.

A young auxiliary nurse appears to sponge his face and hands.

"Nurse," he mumbles from behind the mask, "Are my testicles black?"

Embarrassed the young nurse replies, "I don't know Sir, I'm only here to wash your face and hands."

He struggles again to talk through his mask and repeats, "Nurse, are my testicles black?"

Again the nurse replies, "I can't tell. I'm only here to wash your face and hands."

The Head Nurse was passing and saw the man getting a little distraught so she marched over to inquire what was wrong.

"Nurse," he mumbled, "Are my testicles black?"

Being a nurse of long-standing, the Head Nurse was undaunted. She whipped back the bedclothes, pulled down his pyjama trousers, had a real good look, pulled his pyjamas back up, replaced the bedclothes and announced, Nothing wrong with your testicles!!!"

At this point, the man pulled off his mask and screams out, .....

I SAID, ARE MY TEST RESULTS BACK ?

Time really is a great healer if given half a chance. Maybe it's time, maybe its all the exercise I've been getting, maybe it's the fantastic weather we have had this summer - almost no rain since May and hot hot hot - or maybe it's a combination of all the above, but I finally feel like I am healing from the divorce. I've started laughing spontaneously again, finding humour in odd places as is my usual want. The anger has decreased, and with it hte need to vent on any topic but the one that was really eating me away. It's very ego deflating to have two marriages go astray, especially after you worked hard at both. But as an acquaintance said to me a couple of months ago in regards to this latest failure

it's not like you could make yourself any sexier

(for those of you who don't know my ex decided she really liked women better than men and exploded out of the closet)

I thnk I started the real healing process when Jan told me that. We sat in her office and howled with laughter for a good 5 minutes or more. It was truly the first real unforced, whole hearted, unrestrained laugh I'd had since the breakup a year earlier, it was time.

Whatever the reason, I'm grateful. I go for my hikes now and instead of scowling I'm smiling. Instead of avoiding people on the trails I greet them. I feel younger (now if only I could look younger - 54 looms) and the future doesn't loook quite so black anymore.

I hope this lasts.

I love the foods availablearound this time of the year - fresh blueberries for my morning cereal, fresh herbs from the garden and one of my all time favourites fresh baby potatos. Dinner tonight: Fresh Baby Potato Salad

Dressing
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Provençal mustard
Balsamic Vinegar
Thyme from the garden
Fresh squeezed lemon juice
Lemon zest
Fresh ground Black Pepper
Kosher salt

Salad
Oyster mushrooms sautéed in butter with garlic - cooled
Baby potatos boiled until they slide off a fork - cooled cut in quarters lengthwise
Fresh Green Beans - steamed until tender - french cut - cooled
Roma tomato chopped

Mix together then add dressing - asdjust seasoning to taste!

Awhile back I wrote about a company that has, in my opinion., a rather silly idea of hauling servers to the moon and doing secure remote backups. There are enough holes in this idea to ram a Mack truck through sideways. However, that's not what I want to comment on today. No, it's something the company president had to say in the article:

"We're the only company licensed to send a commercial mission right now," says Dennis Laurie, TransOrbital president and CEO. "We're shooting for the first quarter of 2004." On December 20 of 2002, the company launched a rocket to test telemetry, positioning, and other concerns in preparation for the upcoming mission. TransOrbital had to obtain approval from the US State Department and the military to gain its license, and has also been consulting with officials at NASA. The licensing process took two and a half years, according to Laurie, and involved getting a specific license to take pictures from space.

WTF? Is the US now trying to lay an ownership claim on the moon and earth orbits? Last time I looked the moon and near space didn't belong to anyone.I'm sure the Russians, Chinese, French and other countries that are lobbing satellites into orbit will be interested to hear they need to get US permission to do so now. Under International treaty (not to mention common sense unless you want to risk becoming a crispy critter) a counntry launching a high altitude or orbital rocket must inform everyone tha5t they are doing so and give times etc - but that is not the same thingas getting a license to do so. Space is no mans land and I sure as hell hope it stays that way.

Clicking on images opens a larger one

More Lichen		A new Discovery
Inside the new discovery	Old Mining Jink	Old Miner's Cabin

Well so far the replacement camera is working fine. Keeping fingers crossed :-)

While climbing Miners a couple of weeks ago I thought I caught a glimpse of another x-country ski shack like the one I saw further up on Miners a few weeks earlier. Today I set out to find it again and check it out. I also decided to check out a couple of unmarked side trails off of Miners. It turned out to be a productive walk - I discovered a really good spot to go picking huckleberries next year - assuming we get hte right weather. This year's crop was pretty poor.

So I found it and climbed up to it - couldn't find the trail that leads up to it from where I was - surprise there wasn't one :-) and it turned out to be quite a comfy looking one - nice over struffed couch, couple of camp chairs and a wood stove. These "cabins" are there for anyone to use. The other one is called The Sasquatch Place and it has a guest book inside - I looked at it today and there were a lot of entries including one from today. Once I was there I found the trail leading to it coming up from a natural gas pipeline route - I am impressed that these guys managed to get a stove and couch up there! On one if the side trails I took I found an old miner's cabin that has just about completely fallen apart. Scattered along the trails and the mountain side there are still old bits of mining gear from the turm of the 20th Century. The picture her is of one of the carts that were used to haul ore up from the mine shaft on pulleys. It is turned upside down.

Everywhere we go in the forest there are mosses and lichens

The affter effects of 50 years of mining is a lot of blast rock and some interesting minerals revealed.

Nude Rock - no one seems to know how it got its name but almost yearly someone repaints the name.

A rare sight around here these days- a Pileated Woodpecker. I haven't seen one for a couple of years. This was one of a pair that were flying around in dense forest. Unfrtunately I couldn't get any closer.

Hetty has a good take on Arnie's qualifications for Governorship.

I heard Schwarzenegger on tv complain about the huge Californian budget deficit. Has he ever noticed the gigantic budget deficit of the Republican administration now in power in the US? As I said, no brains.

Mark, over at Forget I Said That has written a very good article on why its wrong to oppose same sex marriages. You can read it here.

While I'm at it you should make a point of dropping by Mark's site every so often. He doesn't write often but when he does it's always worth the time spent reading it.

If you have never been to the west coast of Canada you are missing a truly "Super Natural" experience. There is a really good site to explore BC from at the Knowledge Network Check out the video and other stuff - bet you plan a vacation here soon :-)

It doesn't get much sicker than this.

Found via thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse

As I mentioned yesterday Jonathon is back and in as good a form as ever. One of his first posts regards his confusion over the chinese characters in a sign for a strip joint.

Late last week, on my way to visit a friend at St Luke’s hospital near Kings Cross, I noticed this neon sign at the entrance of a Darlinghurst Road strip club and was immediately curious about the Chinese characters (the sign on the other side of the entrance was in Korean and Japanese, the latter in katakana saying raibu shoh).

I’m not good at recognizing stylized characters but the second character is easy—hito (person)—and I was sure I’d quickly figure out the rest from one or other of my kanji dictionaries. After an hour or so of frustration I gave up and emailed Trevor Hill (glome.org)....

While there is some interesting discussion going on in the comments, his post brought back a memory I had from my time in Japan. While there were many occurances that drove home to me the differences between Japanese culture and Noth American culture in the late 70's one instance in particular really stood out for me.

First a wee bit of background. I was teaching conversational English in Nara (the capital of Japan from 710 AD to 787 AD) at that time. While I really despised the school I was working for, and most of my classes, I really enjoyed one class I gave in the evening. It was an "Open Conversation" class which means the conversation was free form intended to simulate real life conversational experiences. I decided early on that trying to do this in a class room was not the easiest way. I convinced my students - mostly doctors, dentists and mid level bureaucrats from the Nara kencho (prefecture civil servants) looking to improve their professional standing that the best way for them to practice English was to get out of the classroom and into the real world. These were people whom, unlike many of my classes, actually wanted to be there and to learn. It took a bit to get them onside as it was so unconventional, but one advantage of Japanese society is the reverence they hold for teachers and their tendency to do as they are told by any authority figure. The result of all this was we would meet at the school then go out on the town discussing, in English, what we were seeing and doing. It gave me an opportunity to see parts of Nara and Japanese society I otherwise likely would not have. After a cuople of sessions like this my students took to it with a passion and their conversational abilities improved greatly. The upshot of all that was I soon became hteir favourite teacher and that leads to the story this post is all about :-)

One weekend my free conversation class decided they wanted to reward me for my efforts on their behalf (lord knows the school sure wasn't - but that's another story). They took me away to a seaside resort for the weekend - lots of gambling - geishas - more booze than you care to think of etc. A great time was had by all :-) So there we were having all this fun and several of my students asked me if I would like to go to a dance. Now understand I'm really two left feet, quite shy, and really don't like dancing. However I didn't want to upset them and thought OK I'll just sit and watch and have a few more drinks so I agreed to go along.

Ah the joys of ESL. Where they were actually taking me was to a Japanese strip club. Let me tell you, what those ladies did in the 70's in Japan would have had them arrested and the club shut down anywhere in North America. The main feature of the club was a glass catwalk that went over he audience's heads which the ladies used with great abandonment, enough said. While it wasn't news to me it did drive home a realization of the enoormous difference in how each society treats sexuality. The Japanese are far less hung up about sex. Of course, unlike the west, they don't have the "benefit" of two thousand years of a religion telling them how sick, sinful and perverted sexual impulses are so those forces are largely absent from their society.

Throughout my adult life I have encouraged any youth I get a chance to talk to, to go live in a radically foreign culture for a year or so. Step outside of your own cultural milieu and while you are there go to a dance.

If you live in California show your support for reform by supporting Arianna Huffington in her run to replace Gray Davis. She has proved her dedication to progressive causes through her newspaper columns for years, unlike those that find the light only as election time nears.

Big-money interests have much too much influence in Sacramento. Politicians have turned the state house into a huge vending machine, where lobbyists put in their money, and get out the policies for which they pay.

It's the reason we're so deeply in debt. The reason corporate fat cats get away with not paying their fair share of taxes. The reason we have crumbling schools and gleaming jails. The reason our natural resources are for sale to the highest bidder.

I'm running because the time has come to take back our government, and ensure that it works for all Californians -- not just those who can afford to buy their own personal politician. This is not a question of right or left; it's a question of right or wrong.

If you are interested in George Lakoff and politics and the failings of the Democratib Party and what can we all do about it, I suggest you hie yourself over to The Right Christian (yeah I know, what the hell is a pagan doing sebding you to a Christian site) amd get involved in the Rev, Allen Brill's Theory of Everything

Nothing could be more obvious than that American progressives need a clearer view of the "big picture" of our political landscape. We're accused by the Right of wishing for Bush's foreign and domestic policies to fail because that's our only hope for victory, and when we look at much of what progressives have to say, it must be admitted that the focus is on what's wrong with Bush rather than what's right about Democrats. Even some of our best pollsters appear to have been caught off guard by what took place in the 2002 mid-term elections--a sure sign that we're operating without a good theoretical model of the electorate. I think it's one reason our leaders often look indecisive and weak (Clinton's uncanny instinctive feel for the electorate may have spared him from this perception.) One of our best writers, Frank Rich of the New York Times, is left to glumly hope for a change in the political cycle. Tucker Carlson gloats to Rich that:

"'They [the conservatives] believe in nine things. They all know the catechism.' In Mr. Carlson's view, Democrats are all over the ideological map in the post-Clinton era, and there can be no effective media without a coherent message."

I have been among those who have been writing about George Lakoff and his book Moral Politics. Lakoff, a linguist, cognitive scientist and liberal, attempted something of a TOE following the Democrats' disastrous performance in the 1994 mid-terms. He concluded that the Right was far more effective at appealing to the deep metaphors of those who hold a Strict Father morality in our country than Democrats were at communicating their message to those with the Nurturant Parent worldview who were their natural constituency. I could not be more disconnected from the gurus of the progressive movement and the Democratic party, but I must say that I can detect little impact of Lakoff's thinking upon our efforts in the seven years since his book was published. What were the differences in the Democratic message between the mid-term efforts in 1994 and 2002? Most importantly, is it possible to detect a improvement in the coherence of our message or lack thereof that Carlson taunts us about? I'm afraid not.

An excellent article. Found via Mousemusings

I despise McDonald's and other fast food mongers. They are one of the primary reasons for the failing health of North Americans and particularly the growing obesity of our youth. It would be a blessing to all, outside of agribusiness, if these companies would just go away. However we know that isn't going to happen and if one fails another will rise to take its place. That is the nature of capitalism, so long as there is a market someone will try and fill that market. If the market doesn't exist someone will try and create it.

Having said that, I must congratulate McDonald's for several decisions it has made recently. No doubt these decisions were made not out of concerns for corporate citizenship or the environment but because they are losing share value and market share and therefore need a new hook to get people back in their doors. Still the decisions were made and the end results benefit society.

With the total collapse of the beef export market in Canada, due to the single case of BSE found in May, McDonald's has stepped forward and said that henceforth all beef used in their restaurants in Canada will be Canadian beef. This is of tremendous help to a devastated beef ranching industry. I'm sure the fire sale rock bottom impoverishing below cost prices of Canadian beef had nothing to do with McDonald's decision. Let's hear it for Mickey D's corporate patriotism.

On another front McDonald's in the US, reacting to significant pressure from 13 consumer and environmental groups such as Union of Concerned Scientists, Environmental Defense, the Sieerra Club, National Catholic Rural Life Conference and the Humane Society, has announced that they have informed their suppliers of chicken to phase out he use of growth hormones and antbiotics in the production of poultry.

The company formally acknowledged in late June that the heavy use of growth-stimulating antibiotics by the meat industry threatens human health. It advised its poultry suppliers to phase out the practice or face the prospect of losing the business of America's largest buyer of meat products. The warning is less firm for hogs and cattle, but those suppliers know they are on notice too. Mickey D is listening to his customers. "We would love to be a catalyst for change industrywide," McDonald's director for social responsibility affirmed.

Excuse my cynicism but the information on the negative effects these substances have on human health and the environment has been around for a long time now. McDonald's is only seeing the light now because they, as a company, are in trouble. Appealing to the growing eco-consciousness in their markets can only help their bottom line and the moment it stops doing so does anyone believe for a second they won't revert to their old practices?

Still after all is said and done this is still a good trend. So congrats Mickey D, regardless of your motivation for dong so.

If anyone is even remotely interested I took some pictures of my parents and my brother while I was visiting last weekend. The replacement camera seems to be working much better than the other one so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. You can view the photos here if you're interested. Dad's not looking too bad for someone who's 91, has pneumonia on one lung, fluid on the other and a tough staph infection as well.

The visit went well. I stayed with my old friends Hillwalker and Artemis and visited with my parents and my brother. I took mom and dad out to a local park along the Fraser River delta (Gary Point in Steveston) and dad sat in the sun while mom used his walker to do a tour of the park.

After the park we went to a local restaurant on the pier at Steveston and had a meal while listening to a live jazz band playing on the pier. It was a good day.

Today the world of blogdom is a brighter place. Jonathon has replaced the burned out light bulb with a spotlight! May it burn bright and long. Welcome back Jonathon, you were missed.

Pfizer pharmaceuticals just issued a threat to Canafian pharmacies who sell drugs across the border to US customers. If caught selling Pfizer drugs to Americans for cheaper than Americans can buy it at home (note to our American friends: you are being ripped off at home drugs are much cheaper up here) those pharmacies will be cut off from selling Pfizer drugs in the future.

How about this Pfizer? If you follow through on that threat Canada will ban the sale of all Pfizer prescription drugs in Canada AND will revoke all patent protection in Canada on your current and future drugs until such time as you come to your senses and stop trying to restrict trade.

Write the PM and your MP and suggest this cource of action!

If you aren't yet aware of Greg Palast you should be. He is an excellent reporter. His book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy is a thorough investigation of the theft of the 2000 election. Much of what he has uncovered, indeed most of it, has resolutely been ignored by american media (so much for the "liberal bias" charge with regard to hte media). WorkingforChange.com is serializing exerpts from Palast's book and the series is well wortb the time spent reading it. Go check it out, then don't let it happen again in 2004.

Apparantly Bush would rather lie than tell the truth. It seems that tendency to lie rather than be straightforward with the truth permeated his whole SOTU speech, not just the parts about Iraq and WMD. The following letter was sent to Bush on July 31, 2003 by four members of congress.

The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

In this year's State of the Union address, you stated that your proposed Clear Skies Act "mandates a 70 percent cut in air pollution from power plants over the next 15 years." The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analysis of the Clear Skies Initiative that was available before the State of the Union address reveals that this statement is simply not true.

EPA modeling makes clear that the goal to reduce emissions by 70 percent will not be achieved over the next 15 years (by 2018), as you stated. A September 2002 EPA analysis indicates that in 2020 your proposal would achieve slightly less than a 65 percent reduction in emissions. EPA predicted that even 18 years after enactment, emissions reductions would still fall approximately 945,000 tons of pollution short of a 70 percent reduction.

At a time when the States have to work hard to achieve every additional ton of air pollution reduction, nearly a million tons of extra air pollution is a substantial discrepancy.

Moreover, on July 1, 2003, EPA released updated modeling that reveals that your proposal would eliminate even less pollution over the next 15 years (by 2018) than previously predicted. According to EPA, by 2020, your proposal would reduce annual SO2, NOx, and mercury emissions by only 63 percent. This means that even two years after the timeframe promised in the State of the Union address, power plant air pollution would still exceed the caps of the Clear Skies Act by an additional 1,260,000 tons.

Under your proposal, a substantial majority of the emissions reductions would be achieved by reducing SO2 emissions. Yet the cap of SO2 emissions would be attained so distantly in the future that EPA modelers refuse to identify a specific year that the 3 million ton annual emissions cap will be attained. At a congressional briefing, the EPA staff said the cap could be reached "maybe in 2025." This is startlingly different than your assurance that a 70 percent reduction would be mandated over the next 15 years, or by 2018.

Many experts believe that the Clear Skies legislation will allow more air pollution than current law. Regardless of policy disputes about whether the Clean Air Act should be weakened, Congress and the public need to be able to rely on the veracity of your statements in order to evaluate the competing policies and proposals. Based on EPA modeling, your statement in the State of the Union appears to fail this test.

Mr. President, we urge you to correct your statement or supply Congress and the American people with any additional analytical work upon which your statement was based. Alternatively, you could direct EPA to modify the Clear Skies proposal to be in accordance with your statement. Although these actions would not ameliorate our concerns about the merits of the proposal, if we are to have a fair and honest debate, we must begin with accurate and complete information.

Sincerely,

Thomas H. Allen
Member of Congress

Edward J. Markey
Member of Congress

Frank Pallone, Jr.
Member of Congress

Lois Capps
Member of Congress

I go away for three days and when I leave the monitor is working "fine" (it's always been a bit fuzzy). I come back today and turn it on and it is shot. So now I have to buy a damned monitor and I can't afford a good one - that sucks.

I have always hated Roman Catholicism more than any other religion. To me it represents all that is wrong with religion - the corruption of power, be it political, social or spiritual powr. The "Church" has ruined more lives and created more suffering than any other force in human nature. In my eyes it is the face of evil and its only redeeming feature is that 800 odd years ago it preserved a lot of mankind's knowledge during the Dark Ages.

Now it once again tries to weild its considerable, but thankfully waning, power to prevent gays and lesbians from getting married. Their misogyinistic self righteous bastard of a leader is trying to present himself and his church as a moral authority. Moral authority my ass. They wouldn't know moral behaviour if it bit them, just ask all the children their priests have sexually molested over the millenia. Ask all the women that have died in childbirth because the church prevented them from using contraceptives or getting abortionws. Ask all the jews the church refused to help escape Nazi Germany. The list goes on and on and on. If ever there was a Satan then the leaders of this church and the doctrine they preach are doing his work for him.

Now that I have had that little rant, on to the reason for it. Today the existance of a document that, if authenticated, proves beyond any doubt the complicity of the entire RC Church heirarchy in the coverup of sexual abuse by priests goes back at least to 1962. It is a very damning article and I hope it proves to be the straw that broke the camel's back and ultimately leads to the destruction of this "religion' as people's eyes are opened to how they have been duped by it. The leadership is completely morally bankrupt. The vatican itself could, and should, be facing racketeering charges under RICO. I truly hope it happens. Indict the Pope.

Can someone tell me how Emeril Lagassi ever got through cooking school? He's a teribble chef. I've seen him do things on his show that would have a restaurant shut down if a food inspector saw it - like handle raw chicken then go on to hadle other foods without washing hands or cutting board. Total insanity. Aside from his poor kitchen hygiene he's simply a really clumsy plater and he really has no eye for plate presentation. His portions are too big, they're sloppied onto the plate and relatively unimaginative. so far as I can see the only thing he has going for him is a sense of showmanship.

I want one of these real bad :-) You may have trouble raching the site since it was listed on Mike's List today and it is a Geocities site which means it keeps going over its allocated traffic limits. Keep trying.

When Big Brother gets too intrusive people get smart and find ways around the government. PATRIOT act is way too intrusive. Librarians across the country have been protesting it from the git go due to its provisions that allow the government to see what someone has been reading.vEnter the Boulderr Colorado librarians:

If a federal agent asks a Boulder librarian for a list of all the books checked out by John Q. Public in the last month, the answer will be "Records? What records?"

"People have a right to read what they want to read without other people looking over their shoulder," said Priscilla Hudson, manager of the Boulder Public Library's main branch.

The library has decided to almost completely stop recording what books patrons have checked out. The library will keep tabs only while a book is checked out; when the book is returned, that record will be purged from the library's computers.

I raise my glass in a salute to the ingenuity and perseverence of the Boulder librarians.

Found via Heli's Heaven and Hell Radio

I'm heading to Vancouver this weekend (it's a long weekend here in BC) to visit my parents. In all likelyhood this will be the last time I see at least one of them. THey are both quite ill, not to mention old. My father will be 91 in 5 weeks, but he currently has pneumonia in one lung, fluid on the other and an antibiotic resistant strain of staph that he picked up the last time he was in the hospital My mom at 81 is not a whole hell of a lot better.

I shipped my camera back to the dealer on Monday and today I had my friend Hillwalker go over to the store and pick up the replacement. I really need that camera in working condition this weekend as I really need to get some pictures of mom and dad.