Gay marriage approved in Great Britain

George Takei posted this photo montage in celebration.

Canada played hunger games with Aboriginal children

Reading this made me sick: Hungry Canadian aboriginal children were used in government experiments during 1940s, researcher says:

The first experiment began in 1942 on 300 Norway House Cree. Of that group, 125 were selected to receive vitamin supplements, which were withheld from the rest.
At the time, researchers calculated the local people were living on less than 1,500 calories a day. Normal, healthy adults generally require at least 2,000.
In 1947, plans were developed for research on about 1,000 hungry aboriginal children in six residential schools in Port Alberni, B.C., Kenora, Ont., Schubenacadie, N.S., and Lethbridge, Alta.
One school for two years deliberately held milk rations to less than half the recommended amount to get a ‘baseline’ reading for when the allowance was increased. At another school, children were divided into one group that received vitamin, iron and iodine supplements and one that didn’t.
One school depressed levels of vitamin B1 to create another baseline before levels were boosted.
And, so that all the results could be properly measured, one school was allowed none of those supplements.

How appalling that anyone thought they had the right to treat other Canadians this way. Who published this research anyway -- the Mengele journal?

Enemies lists and members bills

The Harper Cons are warning new and shuffled Cabinet ministers about who their friends and enemies are:

On the “Transition Binder Check List” are 10 items, such as: “What to expect soon” and “Who to appoint,” as well as “Who to engage or avoid: friend and enemy stakeholders” and “What to avoid: pet bureaucratic projects.”
Item No. 6 on the list is “Who to avoid: bureaucrats that can’t take no (or yes) for an answer,” but Furtado said in a later email that day — also obtained by the Star — that this list was “no longer required.”

Another news story adds the tidbit that new ministers are also being briefed about "private members bills" -- I wonder if this lends credence to the assertion that the Harper Cons are purposefully using such bills as an easier way to implement government policies without all that bother of committee reviews and hearings?

The bitter legacy of race in America

I'm not surprised at the Zimmerman acquittal and neither is anyone else.
First, the prosecution didn't really prove its case very well; second, in the United States, white people usually get the benefit of the doubt, while black people do not.
When Obama was elected in 2008, the self-satisfied attitude of the media was that the race problem in America could now be declared solved.
It wasn't, of course.

It is a complicated thing to be young, black, and male in America. Not only are you well aware that many people are afraid of you—you can see them clutching their purses or stiffening in their subway seats when you sit across from them—you must also remain conscious of the fact that people expect you to be apologetic for their fear. It’s your job to be remorseful about the fact that your very nature makes them uncomfortable, like a pilot having to apologize to a fearful flyer for being in the sky.
If you’re a black man and you don’t remain vigilant of and obsequious to white people’s panic in your presence—if you, say, punch a man who accosts you during dinner with your girlfriend and screams “Nigger!” in your face, or if you, say, punch a man who is following you without cause in the dark with a handgun at his side—then you must be prepared to be arrested, be beaten, be shot through the heart and lung and die on the way home to watch a basketball game with your family. And after you are dead, other blacks should be prepared for people to say you are a vicious thug who deserved it. You smoked weed, for instance, and got in some fights at school (like I did)—obviously you had it coming. You were a ticking time bomb, and sooner or later someone was going to have to put you down.

The skinny on Sharknado

When we saw the ads this week for Sharknado, we thought it was another Shark Week joke commercial, like Snuffy the Seal.
But Sharknado is real. Terribly terribly real.
Its the newest trend in movies, the schlock ripoff.  More here --Inside the Asylum, One of the Most Successful Low-Budget Movie Studios:

For a typical film, the Asylum floats a concept to its stable of writers. They blast back a slew of 100-word pitches. If the Asylum chooses Horton’s concept, he bangs out a draft in 10 days, then hands it off to a producer; revisions are made, then the Asylum shoots the film, fast.
...When Latt runs down the list of the Asylum films slated for production in the first half of this year, it sounds like a list of hot-button search terms: zombies, sharks, haunted houses, talking dogs. It’s almost as if the Asylum doesn’t even have to make the movie—but it does, for “just a little bit less” than what they will collect from the Netflix-Redbox-Syfy group of middlemen who are likely to buy it. It doesn’t matter how unwatchable it is.

Never underestimate the creativity of Hollywood.

End of the game

When I read Ender's Game I enjoyed it and looked forward to reading more.
Then I found out how virulently anti-gay Orson Scott Card is, and how extensively he worked against gay marriage.
So I just can't read anything else he has written, because it only reminds me of his mean-spirited bigotry.  I guess many others feel the same way -- there's a boycott being organized of the upcoming Ender's Game film.
So now Card is whining about how everybody should demonstrate how fair they are by being tolerant of his intolerance.  The internet is laughing at him.

Lac-Mégantic disaster

The Lac-Mégantic disaster happened when we were on holidays and we were not really following the news.
Now that I am catching up, I have realized that the magnitude of this terrible disaster.  Police have now released several photos of the destruction.
These comparison photos ran in our newspaper:


The more I read about it, the more it looks to be one of those "perfect storm" situations where a series of problems and maybe also some human or systematic errors cascaded and compounded.  Looking at the photos, its not surprising that they haven't found all of the bodies yet, and maybe never will.

Legoland stupid

Hey, I'm back.
And noticing that government doesn't have a monopoly on the stupid -- here's one from Toronto's Legoland -- they wouldn't let a man and his daughter in because they didn't have a child with them:

John and his daughter, Nicole St-Onge, saved up, planned the trip and made the three-hour drive [from Windsor to Toronto], only to be turned away at the door because of a rule, unbeknownst to them, that adults must be accompanied by a child in order to get in.
"They wouldn't let us go in and so we asked to see a manager," Nicole said. "Five minutes later the employee came back and said the manager was too busy to see us, but that was their policy, they weren't allowed in without a child and there was nothing they could do about it."
As a result, they turned around and headed back to Windsor.
"I was crushed. My dad is 63 years old, he was devastated. The look on his face was like a child not getting the gift at Christmas that they want. He felt discriminated against because he's a senior citizen who also happens to like Lego," Nicole said.

Nothing they could do about it? What is it with corporations that act like their policies were handed down to them from the mountain on stone tablets? And these are the first guys who'll complain when a government bureaucrat doesn't give them a break.

Holiday road

Tomorrow we're off on vacation for a couple of weeks -- we're going west and I will try to post a few photos along the way!
In the meantime, enjoy some of the best Vacation scenes:


I wonder if these guys know the Commodores?


This is no longer a vacation, its a quest, a quest for fun.


We're here!

And just for fun:

Momo the cat

Momo the swimming cat becomes "a symbol of hope" for the Alberta flood:

Yeats's mother, Lori Yeats, said her son was caught off-guard when the truck suddenly went underwater. The windows wouldn't open, trapping him and his pet inside, and the windshield began to crack.
"He couldn't get out, so he had to smash out the back window with his elbow and, of course, the cat was trying to beat him out," she said.
Momo's plunge into the muddy flow moments later was to be expected, she said, noting the indoor cat has a longtime fascination with water.
"She will crawl in the tub with [Kevan] or crawl in the shower with him, so that was probably a good thing that she's been around water a little bit," she said.
There was no doubt her son would jump in after his beloved pet, she said.
"Kevan and that cat are tight. In fact, I was giving him heck for going back and rescuing his cat, he says 'Mom, it's like my baby, you know, I couldn't live with myself if something happened,"' she said....
Momo — who is believed to be part Maine Coon — may have developed a distinctive swimming style.
Lori Yeats said her son noticed his cat was "using her tail like an alligator does" during their watery escape.
"Their tail kind of wiggles back and forth when they're swimming and they use it as a rudder, and she was using her tail like that when he was swimming behind her. He said he couldn't keep up with her, she was doing so well swimming in the water," she said.

Our London home away from home

Nice to see that the Canadian High Commission in London has apparently joined the Unique Home Stays organization and is now hosting Canadians who are on vacation in England.
When we went to London a few years ago, it cost us a fortune to stay in a hotel for a week. I sure am looking forward to staying for free at the Canadian High Commission next time.

Looks pretty nice, doesn't it.


We have enough airmiles already for the trip -- how far ahead do we have to book?

James Gandolfini

The Sopranos Final Scene - YouTube: ""

"Try and remember the times that were good."
I wonder if it was like this for him? He will be missed.

The smear is backfiring

Today's least surprising news story is that the nursing home foundation which sandbagged Justin Trudeau last week by complaining about how he owed them $20,000 has close ties to the Harper Cons.
Its pretty obvious what happened here -- the word went out from the PMO to the Con MPs "For heaven's or Harper's sake, please find something, anything, that we can smear Trudeau with so we can get Duffy off the front pages!"
So all of a sudden, Ottawa is buzzing about Trudeau's speaking fees. And Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall joined the chorus.
Trudeau initially gave the smear some legs by taking refuge in the "it wasn't me, it was the agency" excuse, and then the "it was perfectly legal" excuse before finally smartening up and declaring he would "make it right" for any charity who wanted to be reimbursed.
And today the smear is collapsing like a cheap suitcase:

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall had called on Trudeau on Friday to repay the money charged to the Literacy for Life conference, but a spokeswoman said the organization would not be asking for the money back.
“The conference met our objectives,” said Veronica Baker, a spokeswoman at Saskatoon Public Schools, which organized the event. “Mr. Trudeau was hired to speak as an education advocate, not as an MP.”
A spokesman for an Eastern Ontario Catholic school board that paid Trudeau $15,000 for a speech at a professional development conference in May 2010 also said it would not be asking for any money back.
“His speech was well received by those in attendance,” Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board director of education Jody DiRocco said in an email.
“Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board has not considered a request to be refunded for the speaking engagement.”

UPDATE: I was just indulging in speculation when I blamed the Prime Ministers Office for this debacle -- but it has turned out to be true.

Well, that was ugly

Unrepentant to the end, Quebec soccer is still trying to save face by blaming their racist turban ban on FIFA's supposed "ambiguities" -- the rules of soccer, you know, are just so difficult to clarify for all those hundreds of thousands of people around the world who play this game.
Why, I guess they're almost as confusing as those Senate expense rules!
But at least the federation has finally lifted their idiotic ban -- and being the polite and truly Canadian gentlemen they are, Sikhs have moved on:

The news was greeted with cheers by a mostly Sikh crowd at a solidarity soccer game organized in a Montreal suburb, where people of all ages and skills charged onto the pitch wearing turbans.
“I’m excited and I’m proud as a Quebecer that the decision has come to allow the kids to get back on the field,” said Amar Magon, one of the organizers of the game.

Wait for it

Has anyone else been following xkcd: Time?
This xkcd cartoon has been changing by one frame an hour since the end of March, and has now posted more than 2000 pictures telling the story of Cueball and Megan first building an elaborate sandcastle and then setting out to explore their world.  The cutline for this comic is "Wait for it."
Someone has made a map of where they have walked since they finished the sandcastle: edfel.atwebpages.com/Time-Map.php
People are discussing it at the ExplainXKCD page here: www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1190:_Time
You can find all of the comics from the beginning here: geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/ This site is set up to automatically update whenever the comic changes.
The whole project is fascinating.