the blog quebecois

The voice-recognition (VR) software to be bundled with Windows Vista would seem to be in need of a few tweaks. (Warning: Clip above is from a TV program.)

I've never had occasion to use it (I mean VR generically), but people who do -- mainly the blind, but also others who might have to take notes while not having the use of their hands, like doctors -- find it a more robust technology than this. I don't know if Microsoft is developing something from scratch or trying to integrate some third-party VR with Vista.

Whatever, this thing is likely going to touch off World War III: "No, no! I said 'Hire Jim Thistle,' not 'Fire Missile!'"

Yahoo News:

Two teams stand on wooden blocks and take turns to knock their opponents off by swinging a five-foot (1.5-metre) dead eel on a rope at them, The Daily Telegraph said.

The oddball antics attracted around 3,000 locals and amused tourists to the charity fundraiser.

But a single complaint by an animal rights activist has put a stop to it after claiming the bizarre sport is disrespectful to dead animals.

Let me just say this: A world that forbids hitting each other with dead eels is not the world my forefathers fought for.

Newsweek:

"Listen, I'm all for blaming things on the Jews," said bin Laden, "but this guy went too far."

I've been on the Internet for about ten years now, and I've developed fairly good instincts about what's safe and what's not. For instance, chat rooms are very dangerous. Not because the nubile 14-year-old girl you're attempting to woo is in fact a grizzled undercover cop named "Al." No, the true hazard is that you might accidentally encounter a 14-year-old girl:

OMG! OMG! R U 4 reel!!!! :):):)

Et cetera. So my advice is to skip chat rooms.

I rarely recommend downloads, at least not of popular stuff. Screensavers, icons and wallpapers from commercial sites are often buggy with spy-and-adware.* One study found that 80% of sports screensavers from one site were infested with it.

One exception I'll make is when it comes from a site identified with one person, who puts, in effect, her personal guarantee on the program's integrity. Such would be AJScreenSaver. It's a very nice collection of 14 different clock designs, such as the one pictured, designed by Charles Salim.

You can get many more safe, free screensavers here. (Note: Only the screensavers on the site itself are screened for viruses, spyware, etc. They can't vouch for any programs appearing in banner ads.)

*If you're not clear on what spyware is, this Wikipedia article should get you up to speed. Spyware isn't inherently destructive, though it can drain your system resources and slow your computer down if you have too much of it running.

It's a good idea to periodically scan your computer. Two of the best freeware programs to check for it are Ad-Aware (download Ad-Aware Personal from the left sidebar or from here) and SpyBot.

Some file-exchange programs like Kazaa and Limewire won't function if you remove their included spyware. You can quarantine individual spyware components until you determine they aren't needed for other software to work, at which time you can remove them entirely.

I've been accused of being a cheerleader for Israel in the recent hostilities. I confess, this is largely true. I somehow can't summon up the required "nuance" to find the moral equivalence between a democratic nation and a gang of criminals.

That doesn't mean that I can't fiercely criticize the Zionists. Watch this:

Israelis -- at least, the native-born -- have a problem with the "rr" phoneme when speaking English. So, to use a topical example, "terror" becomes "tawwo," lending a slightly Elmer-fuddish quality to the conversation.

Apart from that, I support Israel's campaign to eliminate the tawwoists.

That is all. Cawwy on.

A flight simulator of sorts, created by superimposing an airplane onto a backdrop of Google Maps. You can turn, go up (not really -- the mapscale doesn't increase) or down (too low and you crash) or fire your spacebar gun at nothing in particular.

I have no idea where the terrain is, but I feel safe to say that it has tennis courts.

Update: I didn't at first notice it, but you can pick from London, New York, Paris, Tokyo and Washington, DC.

Captain Ed has a sighting of the elusive Raul Castro! I guess Fidel must be on the mend, what with Raul off on a busman's holiday. Exclusive photos here.

All is not gaiety at the gay Outgames:

Homophobic locker-room jokes by members of a Laval water polo team have "blighted" the Outgames experience of competitors from London, the British squad's manager said yesterday [...]

[...] before competition resumed, Rajotte read a prepared statement condemning the remarks made by the Laval players and asking the offending four to withdraw from the tournament, which they did.

Even short-handed, the team proved too strong for the competition. Laval advanced to the gold-medal match yesterday in the inaugural Outgames water polo tournament [...]

Good Lord, what manner of wussies are these people? Gimme that old-time water polo any day:

The only direct bearing these events had in Melbourne came when the Soviet water polo team met the Hungarians in the semifinals. Hungary won 4-0, but the match turned ugly after a Hungarian player was pulled bleeding from the pool with a deep gash over his eye from a Soviet head butt. A brawl quickly ensued involving both players and spectators and the police had to step in to prevent a riot.

In other sporting news:

From worrying about which bridge to crash under for the night, to jetting off to Africa for an international soccer tournament -- homeless men are being picked for Canada's Homeless World Cup team. Players from Calgary are in Winnipeg today vying to make it to the tournament, which sees 48 squads meeting in South Africa, next month.

I did some checking; and yep, it's for real. Here's the Wikipedia entry for it. You'll notice that Canada does about as well at the Homeless World Cup as it does at the real thing.

The cheapest air fare I found for a roundtrip Toronto-Johannesburg ticket at this time of year is $2300, not counting taxes and fees -- but just think of all the money on hotel rooms that they'll save.

Via Nealenews

Over the last few nights, CBC has been boasting of some new combat footage it's gotten of the Princess Pats in Afghanistan. It is indeed riveting, but they never show more than 15 or 20 seconds of it. And given that with the CBC, that it's all about the CBC, where are the feature stories about the intrepid cameraman (or let it be a woman! We'd never hear the end of it!) who put his butt on the line to get these images?

So I wander over to the CBC's website to see if they've put it up there. Nope -- not even the stories in which it was used.

Next stop, the DND's video archives. They have four pages of Afghanistan-related stuff, but none of the videos I'm looking for.

So I try YouTube. Bingo!

They were shot by Army combat photographers, which might explain the CBC's coyness as to their origin. Some are jarring, like this clip of an ambush:

Or strangely beautiful, like this dawn raid on a Taliban compound:

More here, here, here, here, and here.

Warning: Much noisy thunderstick activity and various other wizbangs. There's no obvious blood and gore. In fact, I can state that no Canadians (as far as I can see) were harmed in the production of these videos. As for the Taliban, I don't think they were quite that lucky. You will also find out that soldiers tend to use a certain 4-letter word (the Swiss Army Knife of obscenity, if you will) liberally. Though I've heard worse at some hockey games.

Or if you'd like a more leisurely-paced account of the battles in Panjawai province, here's an email from a Forward Observation Officer:

When the Company Commander asked me what the safety distance for a hellfire was I literally had to go to the reference manual I carry (J Fires Manual) because I had never seen one before and had no idea what it actually could do. I told him the safety distance was 100m. To which he asked how far we were from the compound – the laser said 82m. We debated the ballistic strength of the mud wall beside us and in the end he decided to risk it. Nothing like seeing an entire Company in the fetal position pressed up against a mud wall! The hellfire came in and it was the loudest thing I have ever heard.

Here's an easy way to add a fully-functional Google map to your blog or webpage. Why you would want to do that I don't know. It's your blog, after all, and one day you'll have to answer to your spouse and/or God about it.

Click here, then on the red WikiMapia button at the upper right of the page, then on the "Map on your page" dropdown option. A box will appear that you can drag to the location that you want (you can zoom in to the maximum resolution and also resize the borders to whatever rectangular shape you like). Cut and paste the HTML code into your page and there you go.

It's unnatural, I tell you. If we were meant to study roofs from such a height, we would have been equipped with stilts. Warning: Music and sound effects. It's a quite large QuickTime file, so you might want to let it buffer for a few seconds before clicking the Play button.

Update: Hmmph. What it seems to do is duplicate my Google ads in an iframe box. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I can always use the extra exposure.

Odd. I've looked at a couple of other blogs using it, also with Google ads, and there doesn't seem to be a problem. I've also crossposted it at Dodgeblogium; again, with no problem.

Aw, screw it. I'm too tired to figure this out and I'm going to bed. Sorry to disappoint. I've heard, though, that if you click on those Google ads, wonderous things can happen.

Update2: Now it's working. Goodnight, already.

I first thought that the song was called "On Treadmills" because that's the title that comes up on the video. You know, a deeply philosophical treatise, something like John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, but with more exercise equipment.

I should have known better. The band is OK Go; the song is "Here It Goes Again"; and the treadmills are mere stage machinery.

If these guys ever decide to stop writing catchy pop music, they may have a future as a professional synchronized swimming team.

The American Prospect:

"Put another Japanese student on the phone," I said.

She found a guy named Yuki, who’d been in the States six years and spoke lovely English.

"Codebreaking?" he replied. "In Japanese, that’s kaidoku."

The race to find the next Sudoku, and why crossword puzzle-makers are rather miffed about it.

Via Waxy.org

Oh, this is cruel. SingShot is a karaoke site that lets you put your vocal chops out there for all to vote on, and laugh at.

Witness:

Sert, or "Ché" as his friends call him, is a Turkish gentleman. This is not a hard-and-fast rule, but I find that if someone demonstrates no singing talent by the age of 26, it's unlikely to be lurking just below the surface.

I've chosen to showcase Sert's rendition of The Beatles' "Yesterday" because:

a) It's an easily recognizable tune, the most-recorded in history, and;

b) because it's mercifully brief.

The site is still in beta and kind of wonky. If the song stops, wave your cursor over the flash player. For the love of God, don't click on it, because then you'll have to listen to it from the start again.

It's a pay site, but offers a two-week free trial. (You won't be asked for a credit card until the two weeks are up.) I couldn't find out how much it costs, because when I clicked through to find out, I was rewarded with this message:

Your session has been expired!
Please re-login, to access our services

Kind of strange, considering I hadn't logged in at all. Like I said, the site still seems to have some bugs.

Note, too, that you don't have to subscribe to it to listen to recordings, vote on them or comment -- it's only if you want to record your Whitney Houston impressions for posterity and the chance to become the laughingstock of the Internet. Maybe that's why the poor woman found solace in drugs.

Update: The folks at SingShot were kind enough to send this comment:

Hi - We're sorry about this error with the link in our Help / FAQ section. It will get fixed shortly, but just so you have the info, our subscription fees after the 2 week trial are:
US $4.95 per month if you commit to an annual subscription plan.
US $7.95 per month if you commit to a quarterly subscription plan.
US $9.95 per month if you commit to an annual subscription plan.

I believe that last option should be for a monthly, rather than annual subscription. I would say that it looks like good value if you're into karaoke. There's an impressive amount of (officially licensed) music.

The sinistrosphere was ablaze last night with this tale of Stephen Harper's arrogance:

By way of illustration, on a recent trip, the Prime Minister was asked by a flight attendant to turn off his cellphone and BlackBerry. Mr. Harper declined. The pilot then made a request, saying it was for safety purposes. The PM relented. But, at the end of the journey, one of his staffers gave the pilot some news: His services would no longer be required on prime ministerial trips.

The aviator should have known that this is the new Ottawa. In Harpertown, you fall in line or fall from favour.

See here, here, and here.

I was just looking at opening paragraphs at the Canadian Blog Exchange; I didn't bother to click through on any of them. The story stuck with me, though. I looked for it today in the two daily newspapers I read. Nothing there. Nothing online about it.

Surely the press would be jumping all over this example of Tory high-handedness? I went back to the Exchange and found out that all the excitement was because of this column by Laurence Martin.

Oh. Chretien's hagiographer. I've got tile grout fungus with more credibility than him.

He of course provides no names, no sources. Is it believable?

First, I doubt that the Prime Minister bothers to fiddle around with a Blackberry or a cell phone. One of the perks of being the PM is that you get to have other people wreck their thumbs on your behalf.

Second, the alleged interference with airplane navigation and control from personal electronic devices (PEDs) is just that, alleged:

what the industry doesn't tell passengers is that there is no scientific proof to support these claims.

What also isn't widely known is that pilots have blamed portable voice recorders, heart pacemakers, electric shavers and hearing aids for interfering with their cockpit controls, yet there are no restrictions on their use during flights.

The industry's evidence of cell phone-caused interference is purely anecdotal -- instances engineers have tried but failed to duplicate under "controlled conditions."

[...]

Although there is no clear evidence that PEDs interfere with onboard instruments, the RTCA recommends against the use of PEDs during the "critical phases of flight" -- taking off and landing -- when the plane is most likely to be bombarded by signals from other sources, like industrial heaters, cable TV networks and FM broadcast stations.

"I guess we should all feel a little nervous during takeoff and landing," Sheehan said.

In fact, the FCC has lately been holding hearings on allowing cell phone calls from airplanes. Most of the remaining objections concern the annoyance factor of having the usual yakkers discussing their recent hemorrhoid surgery throughout a long flight:

While the FAA and DOJ raised safety concerns, most of the subcommittee's members raised objections to mobile phone calls during flights based on the potential nuisance to other passengers.

Third, Harper travels on a military jet, fully in contact with his office, Cabinet officials, and civil and military authorities at all times. Are we to imagine that he'd break off a call from, say, George Bush or Vladimir Putin because some bossy stewardess told him to?

Over, gnatroots. Do you copy?

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times: "gnotalex, when will we have more sheep-based entertainment on this fine blog?" And as always, my reply is, "If you don't like the amount of sheep-based entertainment on this fine blog, maybe you'd be happier going to other blogs." And then they say, "Well, just maybe I'll do that," and then I say, "See ya 'round, loser," and then they say, "That's it! I'm really going now," and then BOOM! I slam some quality sheep-based entertainment down.

I'm not proud of it, but I play you people like a violin.

Warning: Whether you're at work or not, you'll want to turn the music off (leftmost top button). Also, you should read the Help file, as some things about the game aren't immediately obvious.

when you can fall for chains of silver
you can fall for chains of gold
you can fall for pretty strangers
and the promises they hold

dire straits

NewScientistTech:

In 2005 a team led by Leyvand's colleague Yael Eisenthal asked people to rate the attractiveness of faces in almost 200 photographs. Software then analysed the images, measuring distances between facial features and ratios such as that between facial width at eye and mouth level, and the thickness of the eyebrows. It compared these with the attractiveness ratings given by the volunteers to create a set of rules, known as the "beauty function", for assessing whether a face is attractive.

Leyvand has now written a second piece of software that applies this algorithm to a facial image to make adjustments to features so that they more closely obey the rules. It then analyses the results to determine which changes have been successful, and discard any that don't work. Users can also adjust the severity of the changes.

Call me an insensitive pig

Insensitive pig!

but I still think she looks like Mark Knopfler. It's probably the headband.

Via Red Ferret Journal

Toronto Star:

A few years later, when Michel was around 8 years old, I remember him complaining to my mother that my older brother and I both had more friends than he did. My mother told him that, unlike us, he had the greatest friend of all: he had Fidel.

Pierre Trudeau's witless spawn, Alexandre, waxes poetic about the old murderous creep:

He lives to learn and to put his knowledge in the service of the revolution. For Fidel, revolution is really a work of reason. In his view, revolution, when rigorously adopted, cannot fail to lead humanity towards ever greater justice, towards an ever more perfect social order.

Of course, that "perfect social order" requires the cracking of a few eggs:

Humberto Sori Marin was arrested in April of 1961 as a counterrevolutionary and his brother Mariano went to visit Castro, pleading clemency for his brother. If for no other reason, than for "for old times sake," pleaded Mariano, recalling when Fidel and Humberto had been Revolutionary comrades.

"Don't worry, Mariano," a smiling Castro said while slapping him affectionately on the back. "In the Sierra I learned to love your brother. Yes, he's in our custody, but completely safe from harm. Absolutely nothing will happen to him. Please give your mom and dad a big hug and big kiss from me and tell them to please calm down."

The next day Mariano collapsed at the sight of his brother, Humberto's, mangled corpse in a mass grave. Castro's firing squad had pumped over 20 shots into his brother's body that very dawn. Humberto Sori Marin's head was almost completely obliterated, his face unrecognizable.

Update: Some are wishing the tyrant many happy returns:

Oh did I mention I was in a Cuban hospital, not a Yankee one. I pity you Yanqui's your lack of healthcare, whereas we in Cuba get it for free......

He probably isn't recuperating in this one.

Ezra Levant:

Maria Minna called on [Wajid] Khan to resign, calling Khan's appointment a "slick, sick, calculated move" by Harper, an assessment shared by Hedy Fry. Minna worries that if Khan is allowed to attend Liberal caucus meetings, he might be a spy for Harper.

"How can I express myself on Lebanon when somebody preparing a report for Stephen Harper is listening in on what I have to say?" There's no evidence Harper, with the entire foreign policy bureaucracy at his fingertips, is aching to find out what the brain trust of Minna and Fry have to say on the complex subject of the Middle East, but let the woman have her conceit.

Are you sitting down? Because I've just heard of this new disease, and man, it sounds bad:

Specifically, the Conference seeks to:

� expand public awareness of the continued impact of and global response to HIV/AIDS

Who knew? Hang on, I think I've uncovered what they call a "vector":

� Safer sex. If you are sexually active while in Toronto, be sure to practice safer sex. Free condoms are available at the Health Clinic and in the PLWHA Lounge.

� Safer drug use. If you use prescription or non-prescription injection drugs, always use new equipment (needles, filters, sterile water, stems for smoking crack, etc.) Free safer drug use equipment will be available at the The Harm Reduction Networking Zone in the Global Village or you can call The Works at Toronto Public Health 416 392-0520 for information on where else you can access free safer drug use supplies.

which would be -- if you can't keep it in your pants, let alone suppress your other appetites over a six-day, ostensibly scientific, meeting; then -- maybe, just maybe -- it might be that you are part of the problem.

I was required to use that title; it's in the Blogger's Code (467.6 subsection iii [b], which states, in part, "Never pass up the obvious boobie joke.").

Yahoo/AFP:

One Israeli woman has received an unexpected boost from her breast implants during the Lebanon war -- the silicone embeds saved her life during a Hezbollah rocket attack, a doctor said.

"This is an extraordinary case, but it's a fact that the silicone implants prevented her from a more serious and deeper wound," Jacky Govrin, of the hospital in Nahariya that treated the woman, told army radio Tuesday.

"The young woman went through surgery two years ago to have a larger chest," he said. "During the war she was wounded in the chest by shrapnel" that got stuck in the implants instead of penetrating further.

The woman did not emerge from her ordeal completely unscathed, however.

"The shrapnel was removed but the implant had to be replaced," Govrin said.

So you see I had no choice in the matter.

Pierre Bourque grabbed a screencap of the Liberal party webpage, showing sock-puppet leader Bill Graham receiving marching-orders from his American boss.

The Guardian:

Bill Clinton called for the world to prepare to tackle the cultural taboos surrounding circumcision yesterday if, as many expect, trials show that it protects men and the women they sleep with from Aids.

In a speech to the International Aids conference in Toronto, Canada, Mr Clinton said that if the trials had good results, there would be a major job of persuasion ahead. "Should this be shown to be effective, we will have another means to prevent the spread of the disease and to save lives, and we will have a big job to do," he said. "It is important that as we leave here we all be prepared for a green light that could have a staggering impact on the male population but that will be frankly a lot of trouble to get done."

Uh, yeah, good luck with that one.

When I ran across the story at Dust My Broom I was immediately reminded of a very funny scene in a novel by Joseph (Catch-22) Heller, God Knows, an "autobiography" of the biblical King David. I only dimly recalled the punchline (it's been years since I read it), so I googled around and found this précis of it:

Take the story of Michal’s dowry, for example. Saul sets Michal’s dowry at 100 Philistine foreskins. Heller spends pages (pages!) discussing David’s deliberations with Abner on how to go about this. First they figure on six men per Philistine; four to hold him, one to prop up the phallus, and one to perform the circumcism. Eventually they figure they can just kill each Philistine, and “bring back the whole dick.”

It's a long-held adage in American politics that "politics stop at the water's edge," meaning that partisan bickering about foreign policy should cease once the President decides on a particular direction.

It's actually a rewording of this part of a speech in 1948 by Senator Arthur Vandenburg:

To me, 'bipartisan foreign policy' means a mutual effort, under our indispensable, two-party system, to unite our official voice at the water's edge so that America speaks with one voice to those who would divide and conquer us and the free world.

Vandenburg, a Republican from Michigan, was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A former isolationist, he was instrumental in throwing his weight behind Democrat President Harry Truman in favor of his policies creating the Marshall Plan and NATO.

Alas, it's a convention more honored in the breach than the observance these days; gone, too, is the quaint notion that ex-Presidents avoid criticising their successors, offering at worst non-committal support.

At least when it comes to the Democrats. Bill Clinton, as usual, is all over the map. Here he slams Bush. Here he supports him. Must be his fabled "triangulation" in action.

You can't beat, however, Jimmy Carter. As much as you'd like to. With a stick. Here he is a couple of days ago in the German magazine Der Spiegel:

Unfortunately, after Sept.[11], there was an outburst in America of intense suffering and patriotism, and the Bush administration was very shrewd and effective in painting anyone who disagreed with the policies as unpatriotic or even traitorous. For three years, I'd say, the major news media in our country were complicit in this subservience to the Bush administration out of fear that they would be accused of being disloyal. I think in the last six months or so some of the media have now begun to be critical. But it's a long time coming.

It's a thankless enough job without a miserable little ankle-biter like Carter making misery for your ankles.

Sorry, ran out of metaphors there. I must have been distracted by his comic assertion: I think in the last six months or so some of the media have now begun to be critical.

Good one, Jimmah! No wonder Ronald Reagan bounced you out on your ass after your pathetic one-term Presidency. What an embarrassment you are.

Indeed.

Captain's Quarters:

The ruling yesterday to forbid the President to continue his warrantless surveillance of international communications involving one party within the US seems likely to find resistance in the appellate court, not so much for its conclusion but for its emotional and mostly weightless reasoning. The Washington Post notes that legal scholars found themselves underwhelmed by the legal justifications of Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, and after reading the decision myself a couple of times, I'm glad to see that my reaction matched theirs:

It screams for an answer, but as far as I can see, I am the only one to raise the question. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's ruling that the NSA's warrantless wiretaps are unconstitutional is drawing widespread ridicule from the commentariat. I leave it to others to debate the substantive issues. I, as usual, will address the overlooked:

Anna Diggs Taylor? Is that anything like Joanie Loves Chachi?

More to the point, how do I get this called to the attention of the fine folks at Digg?

The National Post:

Mr. Lewis criticized Stephen Harper's government for not responding to fears over the future of Vancouver's safe-injection centre Insite for intravenous drug users. The site's three-year exemption from federal drug laws expires on Sept. 11 but despite numerous appeals, the government has yet to announce whether it will extend it.

"It would be positively perverse to close the Insite safe injection facility when it has been positively evaluated in a number of studies," he said. "In fact, there should be several more such facilities. To shut Insite down is to invite HIV infection and death. One has to wonder about the minds of those who would so readily punish injecting drug-users rather than understanding the problem for what it is: a matter of public health."

Mr. Lewis described the Bush administration's insistence that a third of the U.S. AIDS prevention budget is spent on abstinence programs as "ideological rigidity."

"Abstinence-only programs don't work," he told the crowd of 6,000. "Ideological rigidity never works when applied to the human condition. It's an antiquated throwback to the conditionality of yesteryear to tell any government how to spend its money for prevention. That approach has a name: neo-colonialism."

. . . to cure AIDS by throwing Stephen Lewis into a volcano. I don't know if that would lead to a cure for AIDS. But it can't hurt, and we'll never find out if we don't try, right?

I've got cats in a record store.

Al of Londoun ys aflame wyth newes of the grete entertaynment of 'Serpentes on a Shippe,' the which ys perfourmed ech daye by the menne of the gild of beekeeperes (and thus ys ycleped a 'b-movie'). Ich haue just nowe retourned from a trippe to see yt wyth Litel Lowys and Tommy Vske. Whan ich was ther, Tommy founde for me a copye of the romaunce in fyve chapteres on whiche the performaunce ys based, and Ich shal pooste yt heere for yower redyge. (This writer hath a verye good style - ich am reallye jealous. Oon daye, peraventure, ich shalle write sum thyng of Arthur; and yet, the matir of Troye hath alwey ben easier for me.)

If you couldn't get enough of The Canterbury Tales in English 101, good news; Chaucer's got a blog. (On Blogger, the cheapskate.)

Old Geoff's keeping up wyth the tymes, thogh. His Amazon Wish List includes NWA's Straight Outta Compton and the first season DVD of Pimp My Ride.

A satirical Australian TV show uncovers some cracks in airport security. Mildly funny, but they could have killed with the infamous "Mike Hunt" zinger. (And I am getting impatient waiting for those dopey golf commentators to figure out that "Mike Weir" sounds like "my queer.")

AFP/Yahoo:

Smoking scenes in "Tom and Jerry" cartoons are now banned in Britain, following a viewer's complaint to the government agency that polices the airwaves.

In one episode of the classic US cartoon series, Tom is seen smoking a roll-up cigarette in a bid to impress a female cat. In another, Tom's opponent in a tennis match was seen smoking a large cigar.

Following an investigation prompted by the anonymous viewer's complaint, regulator Ofcom said Monday that children's TV channel Boomerang has agreed to edit out scenes deemed to glamorise or condone smoking.

"We note that, in 'Tom and Jerry', smoking usually appears in a stylised manner and is frequently not condoned," said Ofcom, recalling how the cartoons were made in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s when smoking was not so controversial.

"However, while we appreciate the historic integrity of the animation, the level of editorial justification required for the inclusion of smoking in such cartoons is necessarily high."

I've written about the anti-smoking zealots before, as fierce and uncompromising in their quest for moral purity as the Wahabbists or Taliban. I suspect it won't be long before they demand that all film and television portrayals of smoking be digitally censored. It's going to be odd seeing Humphrey Bogart repeatedly putting his hands to his mouth for no apparent purpose, but it's a small price to pay to pretend that he didn't die of throat cancer.

Or as one comedian put it: Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing. (I was about to attribute the quote to another notorious smoker, Groucho Marx, but Google informs me that it was more likely Redd Foxx; happily, for the sake of symmetry, also a heavy smoker.)

Bah. Here's a Tom and Jerry game that you can play until they ban it for violence or somesuch. Warning: No smoking, thank God, but there's music, of which your boss and/or the Taliban might not approve.

All was fine for many months, and then, just last month, I happened to be sitting in the next room, when I heard a tremendous crash. I thought that a plane had hit my house, and I ran into my bedroom to see what happened.

The top shelf of the Avdeco stand EXPLODED sending shards of glass to every corner of my bedroom. Fortunately for me, I wasn't sleeping at the time, or I would have been hit by flying glass.

A cautionary tale about a defective $1,000 TV stand. The manufacturer looks like it's trying to dodge honoring the warrantee. Miraculously, the guy's plasma TV and other electronic gear survived.

A nice little game that combines Pacman ghosts with a Qix-like interface. You capture parts of the screen by surrounding them; 80% of the territory takes you to the next level. There are typical video game noises, but nothing too alarming.

Profile:

Glen
* Age: 21
* Gender: male
* Astrological Sign: Taurus
* Zodiac Year: Ox
* Industry: Student
* Occupation: Univeristy Student
* Location: Calgary : Alberta : Canada

Blog.

I've never given it much thought -- it doesn't matter to me one way or the other -- but I just naturally assumed that our national treasure Mark Steyn is Jewish.

It wasn't until recently that I noticed the FAQ section on his site, where he addresses the question:

Mark is of Jewish descent, but was baptized a Catholic, confirmed an Anglican, and currently attends a small rural American Baptist Church. As John Podhoretz of The New York Post said, “You’re not Jewish or gay? But you wrote a book on musicals?”

He further discusses his status in today's National Review Online:

Earlier this year, I chanced to be at a public meeting with the great Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post. Afterwards, a gentleman from the audience casually made some allusion to some or other aspect of the Jewish calendar, at which I looked momentarily befuddled. And so Caroline helpfully explained to him that “Mark’s not a Jew, but he plays one on TV.”

I posted some videos of Canadian troops in Afghanistan a few weeks ago mistakenly thinking they were the work of Army combat photographers. They were in fact made by American journalist Scott Kesterton, embedded with the Princess Pats, as detailed in today's National Post.

David Frum also quotes Kesterton:

In the last engagement working with the Canadian soldiers we were ambushed in a small village. As three of us were making our way toward the enemy, a Canadian squad leader appeared at our right flank, killing a Taliban soldier who was poised to shoot us. The Canadian saved not only the lives of two of his fellow soldiers, but the life of this American photojournalist.”

A few days later Kesterton asked Canadian soldiers how they felt about this war that had begun with an attack on American soil. The answers were virtually unanimous: "It's time that someone else steps up. The United States shouldn't have to carry the fight alone. We may be Canadians, but the attack was an attack on our common values and beliefs. 9/11 was an attack on all of us."

The intrusion of harassment law into office politics can only make matters worse by poisoning relationships. Already there have been calls for yet more zero-tolerance anti-harassment codes, more policing of e-mails, more awareness training. At this rate, we might all soon be scared to talk to workmates, unless reading from a script approved by company lawyers.

Schools were the first to expand the definition of bullying to include such everyday playground issues as being shouted at or �excluded�. Now it is being imported into the adult worlds of the City - and even the Armed Forces.

Mick Hume looks at the worrying trend of using the courts and government to regulate any and all manner of personal conduct. If you wonder who's employing those otherwise unemployable psychology majors, wonder no more.

Update: Note the instant appearance of ads celebrating the phenomena. Buy short, sell long. Or something like that.

This, I gather, is part of an art project. It uses FAA data to simulate a day's air traffic over the US. Quite beautiful. It's a large Quick Time file, so let some of it buffer before you hit the play key. There's a smaller version here, if you've got a slow connection. Warning: Music and some sfx.

You might remember this earlier version, done by NASA.

Do I let the fact that I have absolutely nothing to talk about deter me from posting?

I do not.

I instead put up links like this one, to a gallery of New York scenes constructed from Lego. I think they probably used more bricks than in the original buildings.

what's the hook, the twist
within this
verbose mystery?

afi

National Review Online:

Recruiting women into the organized feminist movement begins with convincing women that they are victims. Recruits are told that women suffer because of an oppressive societal structure — the patriarchy — which gives men power over women. Marriage lies at patriarchy’s core: Traditional marriage and family is a trap for women. Men are viewed with suspicion, potentially violent and looking to oppress. Salvation lies in an enlightened workplace, with generous paid maternity leave, free onsite daycare, and salaries that ignore factors like the number of hours you work or your job responsibilities, but ensure men and women are all paid the same.

Job-hunters with a degree in Women's Studies might want to play down that fact. Personnel directors are beginning to understand it is almost invariably the sign of at best a moron; at worst, an abrasive, combative, litigious moron.

Canada ranks third in the world at creating annoying personalities, falling behind only the United States and France. Our country's smugness and self-righteousness are world-renowned, and our isolated and state-sponsored media produces an abundance of vacuous, self-regarding talking heads. Annoying people incubated in Canada have gone on to annoy millions of others around the world. We should be proud of our leadership in this area, but I feel our country is instead at best apathetic, and at worst, ashamed.

Yes, it's that time of year again. The leaves change color and fall; the children prepare to return to school; Bruce at Autonomous Source hosts his perennial search for the Most Annoying Canadian. Get on over there and nominate your favorite. I haven't made up my mind yet, but that cop banging at the door wanting to arrest me on some stupid morals charge is starting to be a very strong contender.

From an otherwise fawning piece on the US Minority House Leader, Nancy Pelosi, in Time:

Pelosi carries a chip on her shoulder, believing that fellow Democrats and media elites have constantly underestimated her political ability, dating back to her unsuccessful effort to become head of the Democratic National Committee in 1985, when she was called an "airhead" by a labor-union official.

Well, maybe, but I prefer columnist Zev Chafets' description of her: "Ralph Nader in a pantsuit."

was originally composed for three violins and basso continuo (a bass-chord combination like cello and harpsichord). Jeong-Hyun Lim, who's only been playing for six years, manages to combine all of that into an electric guitar (with a bass-and-drum backing track) tour de force.

The first time I saw this I was impressed. The second time I saw it I was amazed.

You ordinarily can't get those complex syncopations without using some variant of fingerpicking, i.e., using the fingers of the strumming hand to separately pluck and chord, while the thumb hammers out an independent bass line. But look at his right hand. He's playing all of this with a pick. That's dazzling technique.

The New York Times, which tracked him down, was similarly wowed:

...it require[s] high-level mastery of a singularly demanding maneuver called sweep-picking.

Over and over the guitarist�s left hand articulated strings with barely perceptible movements, sounding and muting notes almost simultaneously, and playing complete arpeggios through a single stroke with his right hand.

The Times piece requires free registration, but it's nothing too complicated: Just your real-or-fake name, a password, and real-or-fake country, if I recall correctly.

there are some things you can`t cover up with lipstick and powder
i thought i heard you mention my name
can`t you talk any louder

elvis costello

Oh, this is hilarious.

Newsbusters provides a transcript.

Via small dead animals

My first born has a name that no one else has, he is a first, Abeus ( Abe E us ) it is a strong name, and as for getting along with other children his age, there is not a doubt in my mind he has friends. He gets along with other children, and is not picked on because of his name.

This is one of my favorites. It has everything, nice and compact. It's got a bad name, which sounds like a combination or fragment of a normal one, spelled strangely, and emphasized poorly.

Plus, it has a mother who insists the child is unique, and then insists in a rather desperate tone that he isn't a total social outcast, spurned by humanity and destined to live in a sewer in the bowels of Gotham City because of the badly spelled, poorly emphasized bad, bad name. Really, she acts like having friends is something you believe in, as an act of faith, as opposed to something you witness with your own eyes.

All this, and there's a good bet the kid's no more than 10, so she's presumably watching him with her own eyes a good deal. Is she rationalizing the time the kids locked Abeus in the composting toilet as a friendly hazing incident?

(Reader Tom points out, and I can't believe I missed it, that Abeus is an anagram of "abuse.")

I spent way too much time today reading this site. It's by a woman who harvests awful names that people are thinking of naming their kids off pregnancy-related bulletin boards and then makes snarky fun of them. I love it. *

* It might be pointed out that someone named "gnotalex" has little room to laugh at other people's names.

In my defence, I would like to note that at least it is the traditional spelling and not some new-fangled abomination like "gnotylex" or "knnnotalexx."

In trying to summarize Iowahawk's satirical vision, filtered through note-perfect parodies of pop culture, I usually give up after the third beer or so and just recommend you go read the whole thing. In this case, from his archives, the evisceration of Ward Churchill, the Grey Owl of our time. (With the proviso that Owl more-or-less comported himself honorably.)

To the bone, I tell you.

As you know, I have a strict policy against promoting commercial properties on this fine blog, unless they pay me. However, I have temporarily relaxed this rule so that you might partake of this wildly entertaining * promo game (Warning: Some quiet music and sound effects) for the movie Superman Returns, which opens opened about three months ago.

I guess I'm going to have to start getting up earlier in the mornings if I want to cash in on that crazy blog payola I've been hearing so much about.

* Sort of.

Via Ursi's Blog