Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

Why are prisoners allowed to use a restricted drug not essential to life, at all? Just who’s in charge at a prison anyway? If guards feel they are in danger by enforcing the rules, then changes should be made to make them safe to enforce the rules.
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Employees at Hewlett-Packard and Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND) were charged stemming from a 2 1/2 year probe by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police into shady billing and work done by HP at the DND in Canada’s nation capital.
“[An employee] Mr. Champagne was fired by DND in 2003 over alleged billing irregularities involving supplier Compaq Canada, which was later acquired by Hewlett-Packard. The company repaid the government $145 million and launched a $107-million lawsuit against Mr. Champagne, accusing him of theft and fraud. None of the allegations have been proved in court. The civil action is still before the courts, the RCMP said.”
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I got word last evening that miners trapped in Potash mine refuge rooms were smoking. That’s the word on the street anyway. It makes one wonder how seriously they were taking their situation. What’s the worst thing that can happen in a mine fire: nicotine withdrawl from running out of cigarettes, running out of oxygen, or 2nd hand smoke poisoning? If you ask the average miner, I guess you’d have your answer, and it wouldn’t be mine.

Esterhazy is one place I travel to for my job. Here’s a picture
of a potash mine north of the town, possibly the K2 where the accident
occurred [otherwise it’s another potash mine close to K2 which I know
I’ve seen before during my drive out there. There are several
mines in the area around Yarbo.].

The 72 miners trapped after a fire underground, are now safely on the surface.
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It wasn’t an ad on one of my pages, but on a news report where a Penn.
supermarket’s sealed soup can contained a sewing needle, there was this
Google ad: “Buy Huber Needles here”. Tasteful.
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I was on John Gormley’s show for the first time today as a caller for a
topic. The topic of the show was TV in 2012, the “Death of TV as
we Know It”. I’ll try to record it when it’s replayed tonight,
and give you a transcript here later. I got to bash the CRIA’s dirty
lobbying of potential MPs destined to run Heritage Canada so they could
introduce DMCA type copyright legislation, and plug watching VHS
through my 17″ LCD computer screen.

Ha, someone [Mike the Greek, the fellow who tipped SK off as to the
China Lilly Soya Sauce “crisis”] who called after me said that if
someone wants to watch a reality show, they should open their window
and look out at the people outside. “It’s craaaziness!” he intoned, and
remarked too that he got rid of his cell phone and he’s the only
business man he knows who’s done that. He had his “best year
ever”, from doing it. I don’t own a cell phone either, although I
have one for work emergencies that I’ve used about 5 times in almost 2
years. Even most pay-as-you-go phones are not cheap, they cost
about $200 a year after taxes and cards per month with only minimal use.
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Rank: 29,240 (70 links from 66 sites) my stats onTechnorati have improved a lot since last time, I’ve moved up more than 10,000 in rank in just one week. At this rate I’ll be number one in just 3 weeks, har har.
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I am what I eat, and I think too therefore I eat.

Profound, no?

Well, it’s a mathematical proof sadly, it just kinda slipped out into a
conversation I was having.

We think, therefore we am.

We am what we eat…

Therefore we think what we eat. QED, right?

On TotallyStupid.com I saw the link for VeggiePets a horrid pet food site where people go to get information on how to “ethically” mal-nourish their pet in the unnatural vegetarian way. These sellers and buyers must be the same twerps who propose giving wild carnivores a lifetime supply of tofu rodents to survive on. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Also on a food note, and just as stupid, but hey this time it’s funny, is The Toast Shop. These British blokes at the Shop stole my idea though, since I’d sold toast on eBay several years ago to a couple happy customers.

Again from TotallyStupid.com is StuffOnMyCat.com where people submit pictures of their cats, with stuff on them. Fortunately these loving pet owners don’t put heavy things the cat doesn’t like on top of them, because that would be a bad idea. Well, it’s arguable that anything on top of a cat is a bad idea, but who’s to say where the line is drawn if kitty doesn’t object?

And in other senseless news, the ad for a Regina restaurant where the narrator of the ad describes himself in nothing but “a gitch” because he’s had his meal delivered, is back on the air. I heard it on CJME radio’s evening show the other day. Why would a restaurant want to associate its food with the word gitch [which means tight men’s underwear]? Stupid, stupid, stupid…
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On my drive back home from Watson, Spalding, and Engelfeld I passed by Insinger which has two Ukranian churches within 4km of each other.

A Ukranian church at Insinger, Saskatchewan

Let’s take a look at how my second election prediction did against the seat count as it stands today:

Fox News headline: “Canadian Voters End 13-Year Liberal Presidency”. And that’s all I have to say about that - for now. OK, I couldn’t hold off speaking about Fox News’ ridiculous site. “[Harper wants to]… tighten security along the U.S. border to prevent terrorists and guns from crossing,” they say, as if implying that it’s Canada’s responsibility to stop guns and terrorists from going INTO the United States. Harper, if he said that, would be saying it to stop those things from ENTERING CANADA which is a Canadian responsibility.

“The Liberals have angered Washington in recent years, … enacting punitive Canadian lumber tariffs.” And when the truth doesn’t matter - lie. I guess it’s OK for Faux News to neglect to mention to its brilliant viewers that the USA enacted illegal lumber tariffs on Canada years ago and has refused to pay us back?
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“Bush also said he kept key members of Congress informed.

“You know, it’s amazing that people say to me, ‘Well, he was just breaking the law.’ If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?” Bush said, apparently referring to former Vice President Al Gore’s accusation last week that he was “breaking the law” by authorizing the program.

“These are not phone calls within the United States,” Bush said. “This is a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States. ”

Mr. Bush, are you trying to get some Congressmen in trouble too by
tattling on them knowing about your crime and they did nothing to stop you?

Comments are here at Daily Kos.
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This CBC page has a list of some of the high profile losses and victories of the election. Goodale and Belinda won, and Anne McLellan and Svend Robinson lost. You might be pleased to hear that Sarmite Bulte, the former Liberal MP lost her seat to the NDP, and is for now no longer an immediate threat to Canadian copyright law. Keep an eye open for Bev Oda of the Conservatives though to take on the role of DMCA champion. Tony Valeri the former Minister responsible for rail line removal, also won’t be back this time.
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I drove over to Semans today, and the roads were not completely clear. I had to slow down at some points to avoid losing control on the slush and ice. When I got back in the evening, I downloaded a photo, and got confused and deleted two or three pictures I didn’t have backed up. I tried using FreeUndelete with no real luck, although it did recover a whole lot of files I didn’t want any more. If I kept at it, I could get the pictures back, but they were essentially duplicates from different angles anyway as far as I remember, so I’ll just let go of them instead of banging my head against the desk in frustration all night. Yes, even computer geeks occasionally wish for magic on
their computers.
UPDATE: It’s never worth getting frustrated over something. I went to look back at my photos, and found the missing picture(s) I thought I lost, it turns out I’d removed only duplicates after all. Now pardon me a moment while I go back up those pictures properly this time.

Listening to the radio today there were plenty of interesting stories. The most interesting was the accusation of voter fraud in Sask.’s northern riding of D-M-Churchill River. A recount is being launched there, where the Liberals beat the Conservatives by barely 100 seats and under unusual circumstances. Elsewhere in the country, former Ag. Minister Andy Mitchell lost to the Conservative Tony Clement.

This parliament isn’t what I hoped for, it’s only what I predicted [the second time around a few days ago]. However, I do think a Conservative minority government is a better outcome for Canada than another Liberal minority or majority would have been. Some individuals will disagree strongly, because the Conservatives will make their life difficult in the short term, but I think it’s short term pain for longer term gain. If you can survive the coming year of a Conservative minority government, you can look forward to a rejuvenated Liberal party down the road, and hopefully a much stronger Green and NDP seat count. Harper might actually enact parliamentary reform, so that our senate will be elected, and elections called on a fixed schedule [which I have mixed feelings about].

Strategists were taking two lines of thinking, one that Harper might try to push through his most repugnant law changes such as banning government recognized marriage of homosexuals, early so as to catch opposition parties in a bind where they can either bring down the government and
make Canadians mad, or enact the law and make Canadians mad. The other strategy to govern which I hope Harper chooses is to pass his GST reduction law and reforms to parliamentary responsibility, and then try the fewer people want. The point was also raised that he peeved the civil service last week, by implying that they’d sabotage his government because they were mostly Liberal appointees. He has to bring the civil service back onto his side before he’ll hope to get
much real work done.

A former professor of mine was on the Noon Edition call in program on CBC, Stephen Kenny. He teaches Canadian history at the University of Regina, and was the guest helping to answer callers questions and comments about the election. One caller noted the potential voter fraud in SK’s north riding, and a few brought up their concerns about the new Harper government. One caller repeated the now tired mantra that I hear everywhere, that “people can’t complain if they
didn’t vote.” I think people should be encouraged to complain, but they should realize too that they look a bit like a hypocrite doing so. It is more important statistically to convince other people to vote the way you do, than it is to vote at all in 99% of major elections, but non-voters have a lot of nerve to whine about government if they don’t do anything about it. I think people just grow tired of hearing hypocrites speak about politics, so the media came up with the now massively popular urban myth that only voting gives one the right to contribute to democracy between elections.

The Green Party didn’t fare as well as I was hoping, but did better than I expected because I was very concerned about the vote polarization by the Liberals and Conservatives. The NDP got a taste of their own medicine, and didn’t get the seats they were due thanks to the fearful voting by Liberal supporters in many ridings. The Green Party was in danger of being squeezed right out, but managed to increase their voter base by many thousands. I’m concerned that unless the Green Party can convince a member to defect and sit as a Green MP, then Canada might never see the Greens in the debate, and thus start to take them seriously as a national party.

The Conservative MP Garry B. in Yorkton Melville won yet again, with an obscene number of votes. It’s a shame to think of the good those votes could have done for Keith Neu and the Green Party, and they were just wasted on piling up way past the point of putting Garry’s number over the top. Yorkton-Melville could have sent a strong message for change by either electing a different MP than the one who’s done little or nothing for them in the previous 13 years, or electing him but voting strongly for the Green Party which could have attracted national media attention.

Jeepers, the audacity of news agencies is galling. CTV at 9PM CST has projected a Conservative minority government. The polls aren’t even closed in B.C. yet! Many of the seat projections they are working with come about from 1 polling station result out of nearly 200 in a riding. Their projections are an embarasment to journalism. CBC was making stupid comments too, when literally 10 votes were in for some ridings, and talking as if they’d stay that way. Allyce Herle [Lib] in Regina Qu’appelle was leading significantly after one polling station reported. We’ll see how much she loses by later.
It will probably be the case that the Conservatives will have a minority government, but to announce it as fact before it’s mathematically confirmed is just plain dumb, especially after all of the election prediction mistakes in recent memory.
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I’m getting a lot of hits tonight from people looking for election results. Please pass on any links you’ve found that are helpful, or let me know if you’ve found my blog entries to be of help.

Canada’s CBC reports on the elections law in Canada that is preventing timely release of election results in the eastern parts of Canada before western polling stations close at 7PM PT. An American website can provide the results as they are available, without prosecution, but Canadian Paul Bryan in 2000 tried publishing results online and was fined $1,000 CDN. He is appealing the ruling, which has been reversed twice already. Also, the official CBC blogger today removed his link to Captain’s Quarter’s Blog, in fear that results could be available to Canadians there before they are on the Television, Radio, or news websites. Just minutes ago on election night, CBC Radio International cut off their live streaming audio for some bloggers, it’s been reported on The Surly Beaver. Results will be made available on Wikipedia, and Elections Canada’s official website.

Jan. 21, 2006 Saturday

CBC reports that Peter MacKay made a sexist/ageist, or knittingist crack at former NDP leader Alexa’s expense, on the radio.  I’m not one to groan at bad puns, but a writer slipped a bad one into the report: “It’s not the first time the two have needled each other during an election campaign.”  Groan!  Maybe I’ll respect it as a pun in the morning.
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A large, but mostly funny Shockwave Flash animation featuring characters from the UofR Computer Science Student Society [2.6MB].  Plenty of inside jokes, but I think it’s funny even if you don’t know the people.
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Canada Post censored the The Sex Party.  This new B.C. party hasn’t registered nationally yet, but say they plan to candidates in the next federal election, and hope to introduce more sexual education into schools, and remove restrictive laws regarding harmless nudity.
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I had gone to Regina to see Underworld II but the theatre was sold out.  Before my friends and I drove over to Galaxy to drive around for 5 minutes looking for parking, we watched “Underworld” [5/10] on DVD, and were largely unimpressed with this vampires and werewolves movie.

andrewcoyne.com: The Election story so far

The popular blog of Andrew Coyne featured the graphic from pollingreport.ca, the site of a good friend of mine. He said he had over 40,000 hits the other day, due in part to Andrew’s link.