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Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.
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[contact me] My Blogger Profile View my photo galleries. Listen to my radio station. Currently ReadingThis is an Ottawa blog (Ontario, Canada). Cool blogs: McWetlog wood s lot La Tribu du Verbe Wil Wheaton Darren Barefoot Lectio.ca Blogger profiles in Ottawa Other good sites: Slashdot Wired News Mark Morford's Notes & Errata This page uses Extreme Tracker which is determining your referrer by running some JavaScript. 
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Saturday, March 01, 2003
PBS Frontline: The War Behind Closed Doors. How the US ended up with a Bush Doctrine based on Wolfowitz's theories of pre-emptive attack. The Village Voice: The Attack on Civil Liberties The procedure has been roughtly this: once the rights set down by the founding fathers of the United States started to actually mean something, in the 1960s, the US Government has been going about systematically removing them with "special exceptions". The war on drugs has provided particularly fertile ground for "emergency" measures to do so, and the war on terrorism a hundred times moreso.
war - theatrical protest
Not tonight, I have a protest reports on The Lysistrata Project. Ottawa Jonquil Garrick-Reynolds St. Giles Church, First & Bank Ottawa Isabelle Aubut/French Reading In French at La Nouvelle Scène Welcome to March. Beware the Ides. And the Ideas. Oh and also the bombs. Main website stats for February 2003: ~rakerman: 68320 (total) ports table: 39319 security: 15574 digiphoto: 1714 money: 1128 At this rate it will be something over 750,000 hits for 2003. That seems like quite a lot to me. I should probably work on my site more. Friday, February 28, 2003
Went to Copenhagen at the NAC. It was very good. Recommended. I cannot imagine remembering so much precise dialogue. 2 hours with just three people to carry it all.
news - frontline online
PBS Frontline has a bunch (currently 13) of full video reports available to watch online. Thursday, February 27, 2003
I know you've been saying to yourself, if only I had a list of all the bad things all of the democracies have done since WW II. Well... The Acts of the Democracies It is far from perfect but it's worth a quick look. Global Illicit Drug Trends via Economist article The UN's downer on drugs. Fun fact: In 2000, about 4500 metric tonnes of cannabis herb were seized audioblogger? Who asked for that? I want my template to publish without turning ampersand symbol into ampersandampampampamp... I want to be able to type in a post without worrying that as soon as I hit Post some Microsoft ASP error or some damn thing will eat my posting. How about you get the core of Blogger working before you go off adding new features, eh. Everybody and their ontheinternetnobodyknowsyou'rea-dog has already linked to How to block spambots, ban spybots, and tell unwanted robots to go to hell but I just wanted to get my 3 cents in. This sort of stuff annoys me. I must say, I have an even bigger hate on for the "brand enforcement" bots than the routine "hi I'm a loser" email grabbers. It's not enough for corporations to be pains in the rest of the world, they have to have "we're so important we can ignore robots.txt" bots sucking up MY bandwidth in order to enforce their brandwidth? Fvck.
money - feeling charitable?
Another Rob Carrick article: Charities, banks starting to click with on-line donations points out two main websites: www.charity.ca www.canadahelps.org
money - GriffTax Simple for Windows
Rob Carrick writes in New player enters tax software market as feds eye Intuit about GriffTax Simple for Windows, a basic tax package which is free to download and which charges $5 for you to NetFile. So according to Bush, war on Iraq will bring about Middle-East democracy and peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Wow. War is great. We should have them more often. Thank goodness there aren't any other places in the world with cruel dictators where the region could be improved by removing them. Because otherwise, logically, the US would have to go around overthrowing all of them too. And after all
Who is going to prevent that? That's right, current President Bush, speaking in the pre-election debates. Yeah, those Clintonites. Always trying to interfere in furrin nations. There would be none of that in a Bush presidency. Fortunately, G.W. understands the difference between vague potential beneficial outcomes for war and real, solid reasons for war. Yes, in his words in order to use US force
It is such a relief to see he is holding to his repeatedly declared principles. No US overdeployment in a Bush presidency. Clear missions. Exit strategies. Yes sir. This whole freaking thing is because no one in the US government can state a simple sentence of truth: US money goes to the House of Saud, who use part to support ridiculously lavish lifestyles, and another part to support fanatical Wahhabi Islam. That's it. That's the only freaking problem they face. No money to Saudi Arabia would equal no money for Wahhabi Islam which would equal no legions of wealthy well-educated fanatical anti-Americans. The idea that the US faces some vague global terrorist threat is farcical. Yes, imagine the terrible destruction that could be unleashed by all those angry illiterate impoverished people who have never left their home villages. Why, all they would need is decades of education, more money than they will ever see in their entire lives, and transportation thousands of miles across oceans and deserts in order to pose a realistic threat! Meanwhile, the US deals with their actual real threat, Saudi Arabia, by selling them billions of dollars of sophisticated weapons. The US Government is currently ![[high]](http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/images/threat/high.jpg)
Does Ashcroft know about this? Image from http://www.whitehouse.gov/ Update: The US Government is now mellowing yellowing out at condition ![[elevated]](http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/images/threat/elevated.jpg)
transportation - Ottawa City Council approves Rapid Transit Plan
The headline is Council adopts light-rail future. There is certainly light rail in the plan, but there's a lot more than that. The plan comes out at $3 billion over 20 years, $150 million per year. If the city can at least get a cut of the gas tax money, as Eves has semi-proposed, that would help. Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Popdex is another one of those blog citation popularity things. Here are my citations: http://www.popdex.com/citations.php?url=blog.akerman.ca/ Most of them usually end up being one of those automated weblog lists of recently updated blogs. I must say, some of the citations it reports seem pretty bizarro to me.
security - CERT 2002 Annual Report
CERT Coordination Center 2002 Annual Report via OCIPEP Daily Briefing Went to Savanna Cafe (correct name is Savana Cafe) on Gilmour for lunch yesterday. It was packed. Had Kalaloo soup and Pad Thai. Very yummy. Battle of the blands. In Ottawa for several weeks we were subject to this HOT 89.9 campaign. It's coming! It's radio! You must listen! And what bold new programming do they have? Wait for it... #1 hits!!! Wow! I can't get enough of that! Particularly since Kool something.something plays exactly the same music. Not that I would ever listen to either. But while I am watching top important Buffy developments I am subjected to alternating commercials. Kool, it's the music you want "I'm just Jenny from the block". Hot, it's the music you want "I'm just Jenny from the block". Hey, I have an idea for a radio station. We could play the greatest hits of the 70s, 80s, 90s and today! Thank god for Classique 97.1 and CBC Radio 2. It's cold. Day after day it's cold. Sweet jaysus it's cold. You want a wishlist? Ok here goes: mec.ca Underwear > Expedition Weight MEC Expedition Stretch Long Johns Men's Product Number 4017-468 Underwear > Midweight MEC Mid Weight Power Dry Long Johns Men's Product Number 4010-386 Socks Wigwam 40 Below Socks Product Number 4008-030 Wigwam Ice 2 Socks Product Number 4010-121 Wigwam Merino Light Hiker Socks Product Number 4011-843 Gloves MEC Matrix Thermal Pro Gloves Product Number 4013-865 In case you're wondering, all of the above, along with a classic old Burberry scarf and an assortment of well, I would say hats but I guess to be canaydiun I should say toques, anyway that's what has been keeping me alive. I particularly recommend the Expedition Stretch for standing around waiting for the bus in -25°C. Tuesday, February 25, 2003
And spam #4000 is... Treat as Urgent A classic Nigerian scam email. Ah, the classics, they have a certain quality. Technically it is spam #4103 since I started archiving on 23-08-2002. I hope those SpamAssassin people are getting medals and such. They are life savers. The latest word I have heard on Mr. Choo and 320 MacLeod is that instead of his old, 9 storey proposal he has a new... 9 storey proposal. While this is better than his previous 20 storey proposal, it does not change the fact that the maximum allowed is somewhere between 4 and 6 storeys. The heritage architect is apparently a "consultant". Sigh. You may wish to write Councillor Arnold.
war - constitutional language
Language is power. And there has been a systematic effort over the past decades since the 2nd World War to make language meaningless. So flexible that it means whatever you want it to mean. In fact, it has become... American Newspeak (You can get it for $19 from Amazon.ca... but it will take 2 months. If you'd rather pay $22 and get it in 24 hours, then try Chapters instead.) These games with language are how you end up with an American President who can declare
Gawrsh, that's funny, because I thought Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution stated fairly clearly
Speaking of the Congress, the venerable Senator Byrd is fairly eloquent: October 3, 2002 Senate Remarks: Rush to War Ignores U.S. Constitution February 12, 2003 Senate Remarks: We Stand Passively Mute
transportation - Straight Ahead
The rather lamely named Straight Ahead - A Vision for Transportation in Canada is Mr. Collenette's plan for transportation in Canada. via The Globe: Collenette unveils transport blueprint
software - TextWrangler
The free BBedit Lite has snuffed it. They want you to buy their new bare bones text editor TextWrangler instead.
war - Iraq 2 apology
An American Apology To The World. Via wood s lot. Um, not accepted. There is one and only one solution to this problem. Americans have to stop their political leaders. We can all sit out here in The Rest Of The World and rant against Bush, or America, or some selected parts of America, or whatever. But it all makes zero difference. It may be the "correct" view to be anti-Bush but not anti-American but I'm sorry you lot of Americans elected him (or stood by while he was elected) you lot fix it. They can spend months trying to impeach a President for getting a bl0w job, but if one wants to blow up the world, that's no problem?
jobs - reskilling
Vitesse is one of those well-intentioned government programs to provide you with exciting new skills, such as photonics. Oh wait, all of the jobs in photonics disappeared. Anyway, you might find something of use there. I personally think all this "skills shortage" stuff is bogus. There is no skills shortage. There is an "employers willing to hire anyone who isn't either 1) overqualified and desperate, thus producing expensive work cheaply or 2) fresh out of skool and desperate, thus working insanely hard and cheaply" shortage. PS If you think you can get anything other than maybe government job using resumes, hahahhaha. Everything is through your network. Even for the gov jobs your network is a huge help.
security - spyware
CNet on spyware. Via Macintouch. When in the Windows world, I use the free Ad-Aware 6. Monday, February 24, 2003
books - W.H. Calvin
The River That Flows Uphill: A Journey from the Big Bang to the Big Brain. All chapters are webbed, with inline photographs and sound files from Leonard Thurman's Grand Canyon River Running web pages. via wood s lot. Or if you prefer, read his latest: A Brain for All Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change. All of his books are "webbed" online. I have only read them in paper format. As best I can recall, I've read How the Shaman Stole the Moon The Ascent of Mind The Cerebral Symphony I am a fan. But a rather behind-the-times one as you can see from the publication dates. Long time since I read any Calvin, as you can see, it barely made the bottom of my chronological books read list. (Note: the list is imperfect - like many pages I got tired of updating it - there are book reviews buried in my blog I haven't gotten around to putting on that permapage.) I liked in Ascent how he tried to work out the sheer difficulty of getting the human brain big enough, fast enough, with an evolutionary justification. It's actually quite challenging to do.
blogworld - new tools from daypop
Top Word Bursts Top Weblogs In my perverse anti-popularity way I was hoping I don't read any of the top weblogs. However the erudite wood s lot shows up at #66.
transportation - take the train
![[Going places]](http://www.oecdobserver.org/images/754.photo.jpg)
from OECD Observer Transport troubles. Also see today's article Take the train, please in the Globe and Mail. The OECD report is Policy Instruments for Achieving Environmentally Sustainable Transport. As far as I can tell, you have to pay for it.
Test of Title and RSS
Ok, there are four things I don't understand:
I think I have an RSS feed now at http://blog.akerman.ca/blogger_rss.xml Blogger's latest fun bug is refusing to connect to FTP servers. At least the ones I'm trying to publish to. Either that or Dal CS has suddenly decided to start blocking Blogger FTP. But you will never know of these problems, because I can't publish this. Finding all those technical details at the US Ready.gov site hard to follow? ![[radiation]](http://www.ready.gov/i/vis_rad_distance.gif)
Fortunately, patriotic citizens have produced enhanced graphics to simplify things. ![[radiation 2]](1045957980_radiation2.gif)
More available via IdleWords and additional IdleWords. PIPSC's negotiations on new CS contract continue. I am in an odd place because PIPSC isn't even my union. My union is so small they basically wait for PIPSC to complete and then piggyback on that agreement. TBS's latest offer is 2 1/4 % per year and an extension of the current terminable allowance for three years. Which is better than their last ridiculous offer, but still ridiculous, as it is less than inflation. Watched The Wedding. Russian with English subtitles. It was good. Mariya Mironova is very pretty indeed. Sunday, February 23, 2003
There is a simple solution to the American voting machine problems: Have two election methods. For important offices, such as president, mark X on paper. For the other 937690367 things they vote on, use the useless rigged voting machines. HOME - |