Limes with Orange

There's a firestorm already started in the comments for this post about Bush's latest veto on stem cell research. I've been weighing in on this one (on the pro side for embryonic stem cell research funding, for those of you who don't know me well enough to know that's obvious). Check it out. Maybe even join the debate.

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Labels: health, news, politics

Browsing through my emailed headlines today, "Put Home Energy Hogs on a Diet" caught my eye. And it's description of "Electronics devices like computers, PVRs and audio systems make hypocrites out of even the environmentally conscious" caused me to click on the link. According to the article:

The Department of Energy estimates that in the average home, 40 per cent of all electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. Add that all up, and it equals the annual output of 17 power plants, the government says.

Yikes. I read on, afeared that I was being an energy hog myself.

But it turns out that I'm doing pretty well. I already have my computer programmed to go to sleep after 20 minutes of inactivity (10 minutes sooner than the recommendation in the article), plus I turn it off every night anyway. I already turn off all of my audio equipment when I'm not using it. Granted, my DVD player is sucking energy when I turn it off by the remote and not the switch on the player itself. So I guess I could be doing a little better than I am, but all in all I think I'm safe in proclaiming myself energy hog free. Are you?

Labels: news

As my regular readers know, I'm big in my support of indie artists in general and indie musicians specifically. So I was very interested in this new service offered by tourdates.co.uk for unsigned artists: an unsigned chart with free music downloads. Their press release:

Tourdates.Co.UK, Britains fastest growing new music website, has launched a chart for unsigned bands.

The site allows new bands to upload promotional tracks, announce gig dates and create profiles to promote themselves alongside major artists such as the Artic Monkeys and The Twang.

Tourdates Jarrod Robinson says, there are some fantastic unsigned bands in the UK and we wanted them to know how much our community likes their music, an unsigned chart seemed the perfect answer.

Chart results are announced on the site at 19:00 every sunday, the sametime as the No1 single of the week is announced on BBC's radio 1.

I think it's a great idea and I hope that someone in North America considers doing something this progressive. (If anyone knows of a site on this side of the pond that is doing this already, please let me know.)

Labels: music, news

Here's a novel idea… embed interesting news videos or articles on your blog and get paid. That's the opportunity that The News Room offers. Yep, not only is the content free but you could potentially make money, too. We're talking hundreds of thousands fully licensed news stories that can be published, or 'mashed', on your site. You can focus on local or international news, science, sports, entertainment… anything that suits your blog and your interests. I think it's great to have access to such a vast library of quality content. That way, if there's something going on in the world that I want to talk about, I can also include videos or news stories to back it up or fill in the blanks or whatever I need it to do.

What is 'mashing'? You might be asking. Well, it's really just a cool word for embedding. They provide the code, you then paste it into your blog and their player will stream the content on your site. (If you've ever embedded a YouTube video, you know the drill.) It’s easy, secure, legal, free and best of all, you make money from the advertising revenue when the news is viewed on your site. And did I mention it's legal? Don't worry, that's not short-term memory loss at work… I just reiterate that particular point because many sources of videos on the internet are somewhat more questionable in the legality department.

So how can you get paid for something so simple? Well, there is a wee bit of advertising with the content, but in this day and age we're all used to the occassional ad, right? If you're still on the fence, just watch for yourself:

Labels: cool sites, news, videos

A couple of articles on Boing Boing started me musing, once again, on the ridiculous abuse of copyright. (Remember "Apathy Reigns Triumphant" and "Tunes on TV"?)

First article: Vancouver Olympics will own words like "winter," "2010" and "Vancouver"

"Canadian Industry Minister Maxime Bernier recently introduced Bill C-47, the Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act, through which the Vancouver Olympics are guaranteed exclusive public use of the following words: winter, gold, silver, bronze, sponsor, Vancouver, Whistler, 2010, tenth, medals, and games..."

Um... huh? Since when can you grant someone the right to govern the use of generic words like "winter"?

Second article: Dear CSPAN: you're not Disney, Congress isn't Mickey

"Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi posted a minute of video of herself testifying on her blog. C-SPAN sent her a take down notice and she caved in complied. The Speaker should have stuck to her guns and told C-SPAN to fuck off that she was asserting her fair use rights to that material..."

No shit, Sherlock. Oops, was that my outside voice?

These both reminded me of the whole Starbucks vs. HaidaBucks debacle. (At least the little guy won out that time! Check out their amusing comparison of the two companies and their even more amusing comparison of Starbucks and other common bucks .)

All of this leads me back to the common question of why common sense is so uncommon? (So trite, but so true.) I wish I had a good answer but damned if I know. I don't even have the energy for a full-scale rant on the subject, it's just too depressing. But further insight (or perhaps I should say "actual insight") on copyright issues can be found in Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large (check out his Copyright Currents section) and the Fair Use Network.

P.S. I wonder if I should now be worried about getting a takedown notice from Boing Boing or the Vancouver Olympics or Starbucks or the creators of the Rocky Horror Picture Show or anyone else that I referenced or quoted.

Labels: news, politics, rant

I keep having ideas about current topics that I want to blog about (such as Democratic Senator Barack Obama throwing his hat in the presidential ring, or George Dubya's insane "troop surge" plan, or the death of tabloid princess Anna Nicole Smith… okay, I don't really want to blog about that last one, but you get the idea). But I keep not getting around to writing those posts. Why? Partly because I'm really busy, partly because I feel like everyone else is already blogging about it and partly because I want to know the facts about something before I form an opinion that I'm going to be posting on the internet for all to see.

Don't get me wrong… I love research. But when life gets crazy busy, it would be nice to do a little less. I already have headlines emailed to me from my local paper and from CNN, but that hardly represents a wide variety of sources and perspectives. Which is why I end up spending so much time searching the internet in a variety of ways, looking for that new angle or some interesting aspect of a story that I moves, inspires or vexes me. Some way to write about it that would only be written by me.

So today I checked out this website called Newscribe that provides an avenue for news readers to obtain unbiased, quality news articles from multiple news streams. You can also comment on articles, read other people's comments, read reviews about articles, rate the reviews and, to top it off, you can also customize it to your tastes and needs. For example, you can click to "keep" interesting news articles for quick reference and then you'll receive recommendations based on those stories that you chose to track.

I'll have a better idea of how it all works once I've had a chance to play around with it for a while, but it seems like an intriguing idea that has a lot of potential. Whether it lives up to that potential partly depends on the people who end up using the site and the quality of their comments and reviews. So I'll definitely follow up and let you know who's using it and how it's working for me.

Labels: news, politics, pop culture

A couple of days ago, I received a pair of emails from the Alberta Liberal Party saying that there was going to be a Town Hall Meeting with The Honourable Stéphane Dion, Leader of the Opposition followed by a casual meet and greet at the James Joyce Pub.

As I mentioned in Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way, I had been hoping for Bob Rae to be leading the Liberals. Obviously, that didn't happen. But I found out that a friend of mine, who is very involved in the Liberal party, thinks Dion's win was the best possible result. Now I haven't always seen eye to eye with this friend when it comes to politics but I do respect his opinion, so I wanted to check out Dion for myself. Which is why I was actually pretty pumped to go to this thing (even though no one else I know was interested, and my cousin's reaction pretty much confirmed my theory that most people would rather play a rousing round of Russian roulette than go to a political meeting).

So I went to the theatre where the town hall meeting was supposed to be held only to be told that the meeting had been cancelled and Dion was already over at the Joyce... and that the pub was already packed. I decided to drive by the pub just to see for myself, and couldn't help but notice the swarms of people still walking over to the pub from the theatre. It was then that I realized how tired I was from my day and the idea of fighting through the crowds for the remote possibility of being able to learn more about this man as a leader... well, it just didn't seem like it would be particularly useful nor was it something I could muster the energy to do.

I would really like to know why the meeting got cancelled and if it's going to be rescheduled. I've gotta say, it's not really a great first impression.

Labels: news, politics

I just found out yesterday about Bob Woodward's 2004 interview with Gerald Ford, where Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the Bush's justifications for invading Iraq. The Ford interview—and a subsequent lengthy conversation in 2005—took place for a future book project, though he said his comments could be published at any time after his death. (Read the Washington Post Article: Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq. Way to go, Ford!) I wonder how long it will take Woodward to get the book published this time.

Labels: news, politics

Unfortunately, this new Liberal day is not dawning with Bob Rae at its helm but with Stéphane Dion. Better than Ignatieff, in my opinion, but I'll admit that I don't know as much about Dion because I didn't really see him as a contender. Plus he's an old guard Liberal, so I question how much of a new direction we'll see from him. But all we can do now is wait and see (and pray a little, if that's your thing).

Actually, first I guess I need to get over my disappointment with the results. And the fact that I'm flummoxed that the members of the Liberal party couldn't see how much vitality and intelligence Rae would have brought as leader of the party. Flummoxed.

Labels: news, politics

There's a particular topic much on my mind these days that I've avoided writing about. I think it's because the outcome matters too much to me and I'm afraid to say my piece and then have it all go to hell. What am I getting so overly dramatic about? The Liberal leadership race.

There are probably those of you out there who think I'm silly to be so worked up about this, but I AM worked up about it and dammit I think you should be too. Apathy has reigned for far too long in this country's political sphere. Our country's falling apart and our international reputation is being flushed down the toilet by our current Prime Minister. Something's gotta change. ("I realized right then that it was all wrong, that it all had to change, and that change had to start with me." ~ Utah Phillips, Korea, The Past Didn't Go Anywhere)

If Bob Rae does not win the leadership, I don't know what hope this country has. There, I've said it. And I'm not the only one saying it...

Rae our choice to lead Liberals
November 29, 2006 | Toronto Star Editorial

"In our view, Bob Rae stands out as the best choice to lead the Liberals because of his vision, progressive policies and experience. From the outset of the race, Rae rightly projected a vision of the country that started with the premise, as he says, that "prosperity matters, wealth creation matters." But he adds, with equal conviction, that "sharing opportunity" matters "because it is right. But also because it creates more prosperity and better social cohesion." On this, Rae is truly passionate. …in the Star's view, Rae is the person who should lead a revitalized Liberal team into the next election. He offers the best prospect of renewing the party, moving it boldly forward in a socially progressive direction and giving Canadians the government they deserve."

Bob Rae is our best chance to defeat Stephen Harper's Conservatives. I even joined the Liberal party to support this man! I couldn't bear it if he doesn't win. This man is a born leader, please let him lead this party... and this country. Please.

Labels: news, politics, rant

This article was in with my CNN headlines recently and I found it very interesting, about fear, risk and habituation:

How Americans are Living Dangerously
By Jeffrey Kluger
Excerpts of a Summary of this week's Time magazine cover story: "Why We Worry About the Wrong Things"

It would be a lot easier to enjoy your life if there weren't so many things trying to kill you every day.

The problems start even before you're fully awake. There's the fall out of bed that kills 600 Americans each year. There's the early-morning heart attack, which is 40 percent more common than those that strike later in the day. There's the fatal plunge down the stairs, the bite of sausage that gets lodged in your throat, the tumble on the slippery sidewalk as you leave the house, the high-speed automotive pinball game that is your daily commute.

Shadowed by peril as we are, you would think we'd get pretty good at distinguishing the risks likeliest to do us in from the ones that are statistical long shots. But you would be wrong... We wring our hands over the mad cow pathogen that might be (but almost certainly isn't) in our hamburger and worry far less about the cholesterol that contributes to the heart disease that kills 700,000 of us annually.

We pride ourselves on being the only species that understands the concept of risk, yet we have a confounding habit of worrying about mere possibilities while ignoring probabilities, building barricades against perceived dangers while leaving ourselves exposed to real ones...

...Unfamiliar threats are similarly scarier than familiar ones. The next E. coli outbreak is unlikely to shake you up as much as the previous one, and any that follow will trouble you even less. In some respects, this is a good thing, particularly if the initial reaction was excessive. But it's also unavoidable given our tendency to habituate to any unpleasant stimulus.

The problem with habituation is that it can also lead us to go to the other extreme, worrying not too much but too little. September 11 and Hurricane Katrina brought calls to build impregnable walls against such tragedies ever occurring again. But despite the vows, both New Orleans and the nation's security apparatus remain dangerously leaky.

"People call these crises wake-up calls," says Dr. Irwin Redlener, associate dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. "But they're more like snooze alarms. We get agitated for a while, and then we don't follow through."

For the rest of the CNN summary, click here.

For the full cover story from Time magazine, click here.

Labels: news, politics

Something must be amiss in the natural order of things today, because I find myself supporting Prime Minister Stephen Harper in his actions at this week's Francophonie summit.

Harper blocks Lebanon resolution
Calgary Herald | September 29, 2006

Canada’s rookie prime minister vetoed an amendment that said the 53-member organization "deplored" the effect of the month-long conflict on the Lebanese civilians it endangered. The amendment, which didn't mention Israeli civilians, was brought forward by the Egyptian delegation and backed by "a majority" of countries at the table, according to French President Jacques Chirac.

Harper said he couldn't support the amendment because it didn't recognize that losses were suffered by civilians on both sides.

"The amendment wants to recognize and deplore the war and recognize the victims of Lebanon. We are able to deplore the war, we are able to recognize the victims, but on both sides," Harper said at a news conference.

"The Francophonie cannot recognize victims according to their nationality. Recognize the victims of Lebanon and the victims of Israel."
...

I must confess I never expected that level of enlightenment from that man. But don't worry, I'm not holding my breath for a repeat experience. I know that even a broken clock is right once a day (twice if it's analog). So the law of averages says he's gottta get it right once in a while... once in a very long while (though that doesn't seem to apply to George Dubya... but that's another kettle of rotting fish).

Labels: news, politics

I just received this in an email from Athena Reich. It's very compelling and I HIGHLY recommend reading it. (I was tempted to post the whole thing here, but it's very long.):

Hurricane Katrina — Our Experiences By Paramedics Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky

I also recommend reading Michael Moore's Open Letter: Here's How You Can Make an Immediate Difference in Louisiana.

Labels: news, politics

For everyone who's ending up here looking for the "Telus Idol" video that has been quietly removed from most websites, you can find a torrent of this file at Pirate Bay. If you're not familiar with this type of file sharing system, first download and install a BitTorrent client such as BitLord. Then click on "download this torrent." It's a pretty big file so it will take a while, but you'll end up with your standard .mpg file that will play normally on whatever software you usually use. (For more info on torrents, check out this Wikipedia article or the Introduction at BitTorrent.com, the original BitTorrent client.)

I've only watched the first part of the video but, in my opinion, it just looks like a lot of men and women embarrassing themselves. I don't really see how it has anything to do with the Telus strike or the ensuing scandal of Telus blocking the union's website (some interesting comments about that on this blog: Telus Plays Some Dirty, Dirty Pool). Maybe I need to watch the video all the way through to make that connection, or maybe people are just reacting to the inappropriate — but sadly normal — way that some people act at corporate retreats. I have a feeling it's simply the latter and that the furor about this video is really about some managers behaving badly in a way that is completely unrelated to the strike (and in no way unique to Telus). A feeling that's partly confirmed by reading The Video that Outrages Telus Employees.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Telus (or the behaviour in the video) in any way, shape or form. My sympathies tend to fall on the union side of things. (Admitting that makes me feel somewhat hypocritical since Telus is my service provider and I have yet to consider switching. Call it the head-in-the-sand attitude, if you like.) But I think that people should stick with the real issues and not make a mountains out of mole hills. As to whether this video is a mountain or a mole hill, I'm leaning towards the latter but I'll weigh in properly once I've finished watching the damn thing.

Labels: news, politics

I guess I did have something to post after all... I just checked recent searches that landed folks on my blog and found a bunch for: "Video Killed the Radio Star" & Belinda Stronach. Huh? So I did a little search myself and found an article called A funny thing happened on the way to the House of Commons that said, among other things:

Stronach's move to the Grits remains fodder on the Internet and revived the Buggles 1981 hit Video Killed the Radio Star.

It's been redone by persons unknown as Liberals Killed the Conservative Star.

Included in the parody are some of Peter MacKay's post-dumping comments - "Didn't see it coming," and "Came home to clear my head."

Some of the lyrics:

"I heard you joined the party in 2002, you lost the leadership and your ambition grew, you dumped the party and dumped your boyfriend, too."

The song also pokes fun at Stronach's fortune:

"They want your pretty face, they want your pedigree, they want your credit card, that's loaded with mon-ey."

Naturally I had to try to find this thing and hear it for myself. Which I did... oh so funny. So, if you haven't already heard it, here ya go: Liberals Killed the Conservative Star.

Labels: humour, news, politics

One of my favourite movies as a kid was "All The President's Men" (I know, I was a strange child). So when I saw a news clip that the identity of Deep Throat was finally going to be revealed, I was very excited (perhaps I'm a strange adult, as well). But now that the secret's out (former Deputy Director of the FBI, W. Mark Felt), it all seems a little anti-climactic. As Jon Stewart said, "Deep Throat is... a guy you've never heard of."

Stewart went on to report that G. Gordon Liddy, who went to jail for the Watergate break-in (minor detail), was asked his opinion about Felt's actions. (D'ya think the person asking the question actually thought Liddy would say, "he's a hero, man... two thumbs up"?) Apparently, Liddy said that Felt had "behaved unethically." ("You keep using that word. I do not think it means, what you think it means"... non-sequitur courtesy of The Princess Bride.) Jon Stewart surmised that Liddy probably went on to say "through this man's unethical actions, I went to jail for crimes I committed." (I'll link to the Stewart clip once it's available on the website.)

But if you want actual news coverage, check out The Washington Post's FBI's No. 2 Was 'Deep Throat' (it's only fair to start with the paper that started it all), CNN's Deep Throat's Role Revisited or the New York Post's 'Deep Throat' Coughs it Up (yep, that was the actual headline).

I also did a Technorati blog search to see what people are writing on their blogs about this and I was dismayed at the number of people saying how disappointed they are that Deep Throat turned out to be some whiny bureaucrat who only squealed because he'd been passed over for promotion. Granted, I just admitted to being a little disappointed myself, but my disappointment stems from the low key and commonplace way this 30 year secret was revealed (and the fact that I'd never heard of the guy before). Quite honestly, I think Felt did the right thing and I don't particularly care why he did it. So I prefer the opinions expressed on the blog So Let It Be Written... (Deep Throat): "You don't have to be a hero to do the right thing." Amen to that!

Apparently, Woodward had prepared for Felt's eventual death by writing a short book about Deep Throat. (Woodward & Bernstein had promised not to disclose his identity until after his death.) I'm guessing that his publisher is gonna have that book on the shelves in no time flat. And if you think I'm gonna buy it... well, you'd be right.

Labels: humour, jon stewart, news, politics, tv

I was planning on writing a post earlier in the week about Belinda Stronach walking the floor to the Liberals. I was gonna start it with "It just got interesting" (a generic-enough sounding phrase, but in my head an oblique Friends reference... remember the scene with Monica and Chandler at the craps table in Vegas when a marriage proposal rested on the roll of the dice? But, as usual, I digress). Unfortunately, my hyperexcitable brain was migraining for most of the week and now the big confidence vote is over and the government is still the government.

What I find interesting now is my ability to alternate between cynical and idealistic from one heartbeat to the next. Naive, idealistic me likes to believe that Stronach saw how divisive Harper's "leadership" was (is) to the country, causing her to defect to a party that might actually be trying to do something useful (maybe this sentence should be considered "naive squared"). Cynical me thinks that she's bitter about having her ambition thwarted by not winning the Tory leadership and saw an opportunity to become a medium sized fish in a bigger pond and jumped at it, leaving all ideology aside. I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the murky middle. But the immediate result is the same either way... no June election... whew!

Labels: news, politics