Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

An English prince is being sent home from the only useful job he’s had in life (ie. something other than being a figurehead) thanks to the Drudge Report. Matt Drudge is famous for breaking stories, and made the wrong choice in revealing where the prince is serving in military deployment. British media, which is famous for messing up the most simple of secrets, had actually been keeping the embargo going for 10 weeks.

It was working too. I had no idea that Harry was in Afghanistan, and thought he had been deployed to Iraq. Apparently after his deployment to that country became known, he was not allowed to fight in Iraq lest he become a political target for assassination.

It appears to me that Matt Drudge decided that another moment of fame was worth more to him than the honourable career of another man. If it had been me who Drudge had ruined my job for, well, I certainly wouldn’t be sending any Christmas cards his way.

Aside from his apparently gross ego, Drudge isn’t all bad. He does have some pretty interesting news stories [like that one about Russia’s new president] gathered now and then. And he doesn’t copy other peoples’ work and claim it is his own. Linking to other peoples’ work, doesn’t count as copying.

Regina has been recognized, by the real estate market, as one of the top destinations for movers within Canada. Housing prices are setting records, and I don’t predict an end in sight even with the disaster in the United States housing market. Yet even as more people move here, and with many more expected, there are school boards who have a loser mentality. They can’t imagine growth in the province, and are stuck on planning for a decline that will not come in the next ten years. We will see the opposite trend in population growth [and student enrollment], from the one they are planning for!

Real Renewal is organizing an effort to stop the destruction of more than a dozen city schools. It’s frustrating how little value the people who want the schools closed, place on facts and evidence. So I don’t hold high hopes that they “get it” when they are presented with a big petition, but since this is a peaceful country that’s the best way known to club someone with the facts between election dates.

Petition to the Regina Board of Education
The Regina Board of Education has proposed a plan to close 12 elementary schools and two high schools in Regina,
increasing the number of students in each school and leaving some neighbourhoods without a public elementary school.
In addition to the school closures, the board proposes to spend $96.5 million to enlarge remaining school facilities to
accommodate up to 50 per cent more students, as well as up to $1.68 million annually to bus the students.

We, the undersigned, oppose this plan for the following reasons:
• enrollment statistics the Board has presented as rationale for the school closures are grossly inaccurate;
• the assumption of declining enrollment in the current climate of our city is dated and inaccurate;
• the Board has overlooked the evidence that children learn better in small neighbourhood schools;
• the Board has failed to consider the value of these schools to students, communities and local economies;
• the proposed plan has a disproportionately negative affect on disadvantaged students and in particular aboriginal
youth;
• the proposed plan limits geographic access to French immersion;
• the Board has failed to consider the environmental and health impacts of increased busing;
• the Board has failed to consider the effect that increased busing and school closures will have on sustainable
communities and urban renewal within the city of Regina.

The Board has not publicly responded to written questions and concerns submitted to the Board at public meetings
(including but not limited to the above concerns).
Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Regina Board of Education to immediately impose a moratorium on school
closures.

Further, we call on the Board to reject the current plan and to initiate an independent third-party review, using the Ontario
Ministry of Education’s pupil accommodation guidelines as a model. Such a review would be overseen by a joint boardcommunity
committee that would address the above concerns and present a revised plan for public consultation.

Name | Address | Signature

Please return completed petition by Saturday March 8 to the Groovy Mama shop 3100-13th Ave., Ph. 347-2229.

I think they may be my blog’s first experience with February 29th. It’s Sadie Hawkins Day (if it isn’t celebrated in November, as John Murney pointed out to me), where for most of the 20th Century anyway, the stereotypical gender roles of dating are supposedly turned on their heads. I wonder how many marriage proposals there are on this leap year day, coming from the woman to the man? Alas, I am not about to dig into Statistics Canada’s site to see if they know.

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UPDATE:
I heard an interesting story today I thought needed to be shared somewhere on the Internet. I was mentioning the strange story of a child who had gone deaf in one ear, to a co-worker. The boy regained his hearing after a q-tip cotton swab fell out, years after it was mysteriously lodged in the outer ear canal. That prompted my co-worker to recall a story of a man from Southey, SK who as a teen put a sunflower seed up his nose. He was too embarassed to seek medical help in removing it after his attempts failed, so he left it there… for years! As a man, decades later it came out on its own.

Who knows what kind of effects it had on his life. Maybe he snored up a sunny storm every night because of it, or would get birds pecking at his face as he walked down the street? Maybe it grew a sprout? Frankly, I think I’m better off not knowing. And in case you’re wondering, the person who told me this story knows a guy who knew this guy, so it has to be totally accurate. Right?

If he’d just gone to the doctor right away, it wouldn’t have made for such a strange story, and wouldn’t have wound up on the Internet, like it now is. If this was you, please leave a comment ;-)

On Thursday I saw “The Vagina Monologues” for the first time. It was a production at the University of Regina, and there’s another show tomorrow on Friday. Ticket sales are raising money for Sophia house in the city.

One reason I mention this play is that the law has changed in Canada, quietly in Bill C-10, to allow the Minister of Heritage to block funding to cultural events like plays, so long as the Minister (the person) feels squeamish about something in the play. This is a terrible problem looming over the film and theatre industry in Canada, as if the pending copyright bill changes weren’t likely to be bad enough.

With approximately 10% of my daily site traffic coming from a blog post I did about high school girls in New York state who were punished for performing a portion of the Vagina Monologes, I’m reminded every time I check my site stats just how curious people are about censorship, but especially censorship of vaginas.

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And this story isn’t exactly censorship, but it’s still big. It’s not at all shocking to me, unfortunately I expect this kind of avoidance from the Saskatchewan government. Who do those civil servants think they are going to fool? We have the Internet to share such incredible correspondence, and we aren’t afraid to use it.

–
Hat Tip to Sask Liberty Train

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And staying with the theme of governments doing things they have no business doing… Chuck Cadman is probably smiling down on us all again, because more of his story is coming back to haunt some apparently corrupt Conservatives. Bribing an MP is a crime! If Harper knew of it, as public statements by Cadman’s widow claim, that would make Harper a criminal. Obviously the RCMP are going to have to investigate, because apparently journalists aren’t paid to do that kind of political investigation.

I was talking with someone who hasn’t seen Discovery Channel or National Geographic, or listened to Quirks and Quarks apparently. They didn’t know that THIS happened to male praying mantises…

Insects are odd. Glad I’m not one of them, anyway.

In the last few days I’ve talked with various people who found trouble using software or data created in Windows Vista, which was created by Windows XP software. One incompatibility wasn’t the fault of the Operating System (OS), but was the fault of Microsoft. I was unable to make a Microsoft document reader plug-in (that works for some versions of Microsoft Works) function in Word 2003 so that it could understand Works 2003 document files. There are programs and hardware that don’t work in Vista because of new or different security standards in the OS. Some programs and hardware are intentionally disabled, as a Microsoft sellout to content lobbyists, instead of a bow to demands of consumers who pay for Windows on their new PCs.

Speaking with Eric the other day, I learned about a bug in Vista’s Media Player where if you press X to close a DVD movie and not File > Close, then the next time you go to play the disc, you’re confronted with a Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) bug that thinks you’re a DVD pirate, and it blocks you from watching the movie you’ve bought/rented. Apparently it could happen in XP as well, but I’ve never seen it. I never use Windows Media Player to watch DVDs, because VLC works perfectly, and is free.

Vista is actually less compatible with XP than some versions of Linux which run a Windows emulator. Linux developers have been working for years to integrate data produced in either OS, into the opposite system, so people feel comfortable about switching between the two. The world is largely Windows based, with a growing Mac UNIX population, and growing Linux community as well. Linux has had to focus on finding ways to read otherwise unreadable and locked Windows generated information, so I think they may even have an advantage over the Microsoft Vista developers who’ve put interoperability on the back burner.

It’s quite probable at this point, that the Canadian public will go to the polls on the same day as Americans. I don’t know if that has ever happened before. It appears the Liberals are spinning the Conservative budget as a Liberal-lite budget. It’s a really poor strategy and a blatant excuse for sluffing blame of their disorganization and unpopularity onto average Canadians.

Dear Liberal Friend,

As you know, earlier [Tuesday] the Conservative government tabled its third budget. Immediately following the Budget speech in the House of Commons, our Leader Stéphane Dion declared that the Liberal Opposition will not give the Conservatives the election they so badly want based on their latest budget because it adopts many of the measures that Liberals have championed.

The Conservatives have in effect presented a watered-down version of pre-existing Liberal policies. In fact, they appear to have repackaged many Liberal initiatives and commitments including:
…blah blah blah

So the Liberals are telling Canada, that even though a minority of voters elected the Conservatives, we’re happier with them in power than we’d be with the opportunity to put another party in their place? I know some people are going to tell me I’m missing the point, that Canadians aren’t content with the Conservatives, but just really don’t have the time/money for an election right now. I think that most people, the Liberals included, have realized they aren’t all that different from the Conservatives, and Canadians can’t do much about that [in the short term, anyway]. Americans are faced with the same dilemma when choosing between Democrats who are too scared to bring down the corrupt government there, and the Republicans who have lost all honour (if they ever had any).

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The Green Party meanwhile is also sending out email, this time with a serious update. Not surprisingly, to me anyway, CTV and the big broadcasters are still refusing the Greens equal media coverage in the coming election (despite laws demanding the contrary).

They’d like supporters of open and democratic elections to sign the petition again, even if they have once (they claim to be able to clear duplicates, and just want to show the broadcasters that support hasn’t dropped over time).

I just spoke with the President of CTV. He called to let our leader, Elizabeth May, know that the heads of Canada’s broadcast consortium met today with representatives of the four parties currently invited to participate in the next nationally televised leaders’ debates: the Conservatives, Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois.

“No decision has been reached”, he told me, in regards to the inclusion of Elizabeth in the debates.

You can really help, right now, by signing the Demand Democratic Debates petition. By signing today, a message will automatically go to the members of the television network consortium who ultimately determine who will be included in a televised leaders’ debate.

Sign today and then forward this e-mail to at least 3 other people you know who support the Greens or who simply feel that, in this country, all party leaders have a right to voice their party’s platform and be heard by the people who make the voting decisions.

It will only take a moment of your time and it will provide a meaningful push for free and democratic debate in Canada!

77% of Canadians say they want Elizabeth in the debates. Our Green Party polled ahead of the NDP last November as Canada’s third most popular party. We have tied the NDP again this month and have polled consistently ahead of the Bloc.

This is a matter of fairness and democracy. Please help - with an email to the heads of the TV consortium now.

Thanks so much,

Adriane Carr
Deputy Leader
Green Party of Canada

PS. If you signed some time ago, please sign the petition again. We’ll clear any duplicates, but this will ensure we have an updated list of supporters!

… is to learn who predicted the truth. I think at the very least these debates about the fate of the world’s resources, are fascinating and among the most important questions of modern life. Sitting in one of the most resource rich areas on earth, Saskatchewan, (lacking only billions of people, a rain forest, and easy access to an ocean) I have a life where I’m on the inside looking out at those who lack the building blocks of industry and life. It seems obvious that “peak oil” is coming, but has it already arrived? Are we in the slow plateau that has been predicted by Big Oil as taking place in a probable 2025?