Owner: Carson's Post URL:http://carsonspost.wordpress.com Join Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:36:18 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Two guys talking about politics and society, a generation apart. Site statistics:Click here
Ex-U.S. Ambassador backs Canada’s Arctic claim 2007-08-20 12:01:03
Wow, having to endure all those imperious lectures from former US Ambassador
Paul Cellucci is finally paying a dividend: he is saying that the Northwest Passage should be part of Canada
.
“That would enable the Canadian navy to intercept and board vessels in the Northwest Passage to make sure they’re not trying to bring weapons of mass destruction into North America,” Cellucci told CTV’s Question Period yesterday. “My hope is that the United States will take a second look at our long-standing position.”
It’s not the first time Cellucci has made the pitch. He spoke out on the subject on a trip to the North in 2004 and reiterated his views last year.
Cellucci is a long-time friend of US President Bush.
The Toronto Star story is here: Ex-U.S. envoy backs Canada’s Arcticclaim
Tomboy Trades: sweating in pink 2007-08-20 11:38:01
Cute story. Woman, tired of tying up her macho work boots, decided to do something about it.
Marissa McTasney started Tomboy Trades Ltd. which offers everything from boots and tool belts to hard hats and tinted safety glasses in female-friendly sizes, colours and styles.
“It’s not just about wearing pink boots. It’s about not trying to look like a man to fit in on a work site. It’s about saying, `We are here!’ And it’s about style, comfort and personal taste,” explains the energized entrepreneur.
McTasney is here alright. Since the launch last March, her clothing business has quickly become one of the most popular work apparel lines offered online by Home Depot Canada. Jumping on board was a no-brainer for the retail giant with an increasing number of women entering the skilled trades and the recent explosion in the home improvement industry.
The Toronto Star has the full story here: These boots are made for workin’
LawnBott: a robotic lawnmower that works 2007-08-20 11:03:12
Don’t like to mow during the dog days? The electric LawnBott – a device from Paradise Robotics that looks like the child of R2D2 and a tiny Ferrari – can roam a yard solo, its mulching blades whirring quietly, then dock and recharge until its timer awakens it.
We wondered whether the one we tested (a $2,500 Evolution model) would know a dandelion from a dog, and what patterns it would leave in its Roomba-style meanderings. We ran its boundary wire around a 20-by-40-ft. patch of lawn, staking it flush every 10 feet. Then we placed the 22-lb. machine inside.
LawnBott advanced to the wire, spun around, and set off. At one point it mowed in circles, grazing outward from a tuft we wondered if it would cut later (it did). LawnBott found the wire again and cut it – ching! – stopping and chirping helplessly. We rewired, staking every three feet to account for unevenness. Later, we plopped a bag of compost in front of the LawnBott to approximate a dozing retriever; LawnBott bu
Facebook surfers cost their bosses billions 2007-08-20 10:57:28
Monitoring your friends moods and movements is costing the Australian economy up to $5 billion a year, estimates an internet security company. The culprit, of course is Facebook
.
So what to do? Ban Facebook during company hours?
Ah, well, no.
SurfControl chairman Richard Cullen told Australian radio that banning Facebook from work computers was not necessarily the best way to combat time wasting, as the site encouraged socializing, which in turn made people happier to work longer hours.
So, it would seem Facebook doesn’t cost the company $5 billion after all, they just have to keep their doors open a little longer or earlier for their happy little employees.
The Reuters story is here: Facebook surfers cost their bosses
billions
U.S. foreign policy experts oppose surge 2007-08-20 10:46:05
Here is an advanced appraisal of how the surge has gone in Iraq and just how much this is Bush’s war.
The source, Foreign Policy, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the experts polled on May 23 to June 26 included former government officials in senior positions including secretary of state, White House national security adviser and top military commanders. Reported by Reuters in an article entitled U.S. foreign policy experts oppose surge
• 53% of the experts polled by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress said they now oppose Bush’s troop build-up
• that is a 22% point jump since the strategy was announced early this year
• two-thirds of conservatives saying it has been ineffective or made things worse in Iraq.
• seven of 10 experts supported the redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq. Experts have increasingly cited the war as the root cause of what they believe to be U.S. failure to win in its war on terro
When Post Traumatic Stress Disorder becomes your own fault 2007-08-20 10:33:05
Treating the trauma of war – fairly - Yahoo! News:
The US is doing what warring countries have done since the First World War, changing the definition of what ‘Shell Shock’ or ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’ (PTSD) means.
In this article Treating the trauma of war – fairly we learn that the US military is trying to wiggle out of long-term costs by taking the blame from war and placing it on the soldier:
The military, however, has changed the terms and given many thousands of enlisted men and women a new diagnosis: “personality disorder.” While the government would be obliged to care for veterans suffering from combat-related trauma, a personality disorder – defined as an ingrained, maladaptive way of orienting oneself to the world – predates a soldier’s tour of duty (read: preexisting condition). This absolves Uncle Sam of any responsibility for the person’s mental suffering.
The new diagnostic label sends the message: This
Airline industry lobbies against your comforts 2007-08-20 09:58:59
Corporation don’t tend to do things for its consumers that they don’t profit from or they aren’t regulated to do.
A classic example is the airline industry
. In an article in USA Today entitled How airlines mistreat fliers and get Congress to go along the newspaper lays blame on lax behaviour within the airline industry to their powerful lobby.
The airline industry, which opposes new mandates, has lobbied with great success. While it can’t seem to scare up a bag of peanuts to feed stranded fliers, it coughed up millions to fuel lawmakers’ campaigns and to finance its lobbying activities.
The struggle to force airlines to do what most businesses do on their own — treat customers decently — repeats a battle fought in 1999.
Then, industry lobbying killed a bill that would have forced it to improve service. Instead it negotiated a voluntary, 12-point “Customers First” commitment.
A review last year by the Transportation Department’s i Read more:Airline
, against
Those female football sideliners 2007-08-19 13:40:14
Are those women with a microphone on the sideline of TV football games out of place? “An obligatory pair of heels among the cleats, a woman who is to football telecasts what Vanna White is to “Wheel of Fortune.”
A lot of people think so, including me — and another curmudgeon, Andy Rooney, who famously complained; “I’m not a sexist person, but a woman has no business down there trying to make some comment about a football game.”
That’s the term for it, ‘out of place.’ If they had a place in professional football they would be sitting beside Terry and Howie and the rest, but they don’t because the football field is all male all the time, so these women are relegated to the sidelines where the networks hope they will feminize the game a little to draw in a few more eyeballs, include those with mascara.
Actually, I feel sorry for these sideliners because their profession is hopeless: if there is one occupation with a plate glass ceiling foot
US and its ‘reverse brain-drain’ 2007-08-23 22:06:58
The toxic mix of xenophobia and paranoia that has seeped into US policy since 9/11 is having a corrosive impact on the US economy.
First it was at US colleges where fewer and fewer foreign students were being allowed in. Then it decimated immigration. Then even visiting experts and scholars were stopped at the border. And now the statistics are revealing just what an impact the fear of another 9/11 is having on the country.
In an AFP article entitled Tougher US immigration leading to &lsquo
;reverse brain-drain’ we get some stats from a study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation :
• more than one million potential immigrants, including scientists, engineers, doctors and researchers, are competing for just 120,000 permanent US resident visas each year.
• some applicants must wait several years, in part because the number of employment visas issued to immigrants from any single country is fewer than 10,000 per year.
• a majority of immigrant company founders, i
Congratulations Vancouver, you are #1 2007-08-23 13:21:33
For the fifth year in a row, the UK Economist magazine has selected Vancouver
the “most livable” city in the world in 132 cities it evaluated.
According to this article in the Globe and Mail, Vancouver tapped as world’s most ‘livable’ city, the city again achieved the mark “due to a low crime rate, little threat from instability or terrorism and a highly developed transport and communications infrastructure.”
It may also have added that Vancouverites are often the most polite and friendly people in any urban centre and, the city is a wonderful example of the wealth from multiculturalism.
Now, if the city could just win a Stanley Cup its world’s ranking of 1.3 (’0′ being exceptional, ‘100′ being intolerable) could finally equal the legal blow limit.
Others in the top 10 include: Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Sydney in Australia, as well as Vienna, Copenhagen, Geneva and Zurich. Toronto was number 5.
Algi Read more:Congratulations
YouTube effaces video art with ads 2007-08-23 12:14:42
Further to our post: YouTube
: multi ways to make a buck
“These video
s are made by us, for us, and should not see the creative content impeded.”
I think this guy, EloiCasali, who emailed YouTube to complain about the over-layed video ads, has a valid and perhaps even a legal point.
And Cenzo74 complained, “Video is art. Film is art. And for you to paint over their artwork (with their ads) is a complete atrocity. Place your ads somewhere else.”
Does YouTube have the right to change a submission for any purpose, never mind to make money?
Wouldn’t it be like flickr adding a corporate logo to the pictures you upload?
YouTube has the right to make money through advertising, but do they have the right to place that advertising directly on the creative submission itself?
There must be all kinds of legal precedent for this so it would seem they have the right. But in seeming so, it is unseemly.
The story is here: YouTube fans rant, threaten to leave over new ads.
A peaceful approach to Iran is necessary 2007-08-23 11:57:24
Finally, someone is suggesting a peaceful approach to Iran. It’s a wind of fresh air.
In a recent poll by Terror Free Tomorrow, a nonprofit research group that develops strategies to counter terrorism, 70 percent of Iranians thought that normal relations with the West should be a high priority, but only 29 percent thought nuclear energy should be, and an astonishing 61 percent disapproved of Ahmadinejad’s government.
The internal vulnerabilities of Iran’s ruling circles make this a perfect time to extend an olive branch to the people of Iran with a diplomatic initiative that involves economic incentives and development opportunities for the poor, the middle class, and the reformers. Multilateralism is a must if we want this to happen, because Europe, Russia, Japan, and others maintain good relations with Iran’s business sector, the kind necessary in order to provide socioeconomic development assistance. If the Revolutionary Guard and the president block these
The US needs a major make-over 2007-08-23 11:28:37
While the brain trust in the Pentagon is busily trying to figure out what to do in Iraq over the short, medium and long term, the brain trust in the State Department should be hard at work re-evaluating what the US responsibilities are in the rest of the world, in the short, medium and long term.
Obviously, the US has to change its policies, its world view, immediately. The fading superpower is investing obscene amounts of taxpayers money in a military that is just so yesterday, while today the country falls apart for want of needed infrastructure investment.
And the US is increasingly hated for its bullying belligerence, its blatant America-first aggression and its malevolent regulation-free corporatization.
Increasingly, the US government is out of step not only with world opinion, but with its own, failing democracy.
The US superpower could once muscle through the pesky interference from the UN, the Euro-block and the mounting regional interests from South America to Sout
Banning baggy pants and slightly underwear 2007-08-23 10:25:18
No baggy pants, no display of boxers or the unsightly thong, not even a bra strap, not one of them if authorities in Atlanta have their way.
“Little children see it and want to adopt it, thinking it’s the in thing,” says Atlanta Councilman C.T. Martin Wednesday. “I don’t want young people thinking that half-dressing is the way to go. I want them to think about their future.”
But, apparently, teaching students to dress more appropriately isn’t an option, not according to this AP article entitled Atlanta considers banning baggy pants.
The proposed ordinance states that “the indecent exposure of his or her undergarments” would be unlawful in a public place. It would go in the same portion of the city code that outlaws sex in public and the exposure or fondling of genitals.
The penalty would be a fine in an amount to be determined, Martin said.
Earlier this year, the town council in Delcambre, La., passed an ordinance that carrie Read more:Banning
Newfoundland now a ‘have’ province 2007-08-22 14:52:16
Fantastic news! After languishing as a &lsquo
;have-not’ province for its entire history, at the stroke of a pen, the Rock crossed to the other side of the ledger.
According to a Memorial University economist on CBC, Newfoundland
and Labrador will no longer get federal equalization payments starting next year and its expected to be well into the black until at least 2025.
Oh, what oil can do for an economy.
The Hebron oil field, located 340 kilometers (210 miles) southeast of St. John’s, Newfoundland, and discovered in 1981, holds an estimated 700 million barrels of reserves.
Talks between Chevron and the government to develop it had broken off last year, but resumed last month on the eve of a provincial election.
Newfoundland has agreed to purchase a 4.9 percent stake in the project for 110 million Canadian dollars (104 million US) and expects a return of 16 billion dollars (15 billion US) over 25 years, Williams said.
The federal government, meanwhile, would bank se
Butt Cam: free with the $900 jeans 2007-08-22 13:15:31
PHOENIX The Huffington Post — Worried that new pair of high-fashion jeans may just make your butt look fat? Now shoppers in one upscale Scottsdale store can check it out for themselves before someone else makes the observation … using the Butt Cam, a camera positioned just so that’s connected to a video screen on a dressing room wall.
The cameras at Hub Clothing illustrate what many already know the most important test of a great pair of jeans is how they look from behind.
Hub, which sells mens’ and womens’ jeans for between $135 and $900, rolled out the cameras this week, and already they’ve created a buzz.
“It gives you a perspective that you can’t find any other way,” said Kip Merritt, a 50-year-old interior designer who was checking himself out in front of the camera. “What other choices do you have? A three-way mirror?”
“They want to look good to other people, not just themselves,” Simon said. “An
On Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia Jepp 2007-08-22 12:21:06
One egg split three times into four babies: Autumn
, Brooke
, Calissa and Dahlia. A one in 64 million chance. Long odds to have identical quadruplets.
And think of the work ahead … and the confusion. Quadruplets’ parents feel lucky but overwhelmed
If they’re identical, and so far their parents can only tell them apart by the name plate over their beds, think of the potential for complications. I mean, how easy would it be to get Brooke mixed up with Dahlia? It could all be sorted out by the foot prints and the finger prints but it will be really off-putting, wouldn’t it, never being entirely sure which one is which?
I heard the father say that they were thinking of colour coding them with clothes or using different coloured nail polish on each. You’d have to do something like that or the bonding process, if that actually matters any more, would be improbable, if not impossible.
But did they ever look like the kind of parents who were up to the task: you
Sidney Crosby wants to be your tailor 2007-08-22 11:51:00
How much money do these young athletes need? And just because you can make more, just by signing your name, don’t you lose something, too? Like respect.
These kids are sucked into the corporate vortex on the lure of glits, glamour, money and exposure and what they spit out is meaningless, soulless … stuff. In Canada, you couldn’t watch TV for an hour without Wayne Gretzky trying to sell you a car. Now it’s Sydney Crosby
trying to get you into a new wardrobe. His:
Sidney
Crosby has been doubling as a fashion consultant with Reebok and has developed his very own line of clothing. It’s been a hands-on experience for the NHL’s most valuable player.
“It was funny because I was getting these prints and these designs sent to me at home,” Crosby said Tuesday at the launch for the fall collection of his Rbk SC87 line. “I’d be with my parents and we’d be discussing what’s in style and what’s out of style.
Yes, it&rs Read more:wants
Fisk, no 9/11 conspiracy theorist but … 2007-08-27 23:43:23
Middle East Correspondent Robert Fisk claims to be no conspiracy theorist on 9/11 and then writes …
But - here we go. I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11. It’s not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93’s debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field? Again, I’m not talking about the crazed “research” of David Icke’s Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster - which should send any sane man back to reading the telephone directory.
I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers - whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C - would snap through at the same time?
US Obesity climbs 2007-08-27 23:18:39
Wow, talk about visual evidence of an epidemic. Obesity rates continued their climb in 31 states last year. No state showed a decline. See the story at USA Today.
Pilates, now a discipline. Meet the disciple. 2007-08-27 12:57:54
“It’s a not-for-profit professional body.”
Huh? Not for profit exercise? That’s an oxymoron, isn’t it?
Lynne Robinson, the recognized Queen of Pilates
, has formed an international Body Control Pilates Association that hasn’t been established to grind out yet another buck from the exercise industry.
She wants to turn Pilates into a science.
As this Globe and Mail article The Queen of Pilates holds court explains, “The association sets a curriculum and a series of exams, both practical and written, that potential instructors must complete before going on to do apprenticeships in studios. It developed a Pilates instruction certification standard called L3, the world’s first.
Ms Robinson has established a curriculum of a 110 Pilates exercises, only 8 of which came down from Joe Pilates, the German-cum-Brit-cum-American who established the exercise regime after the 2nd WW that became so popular with dancers rehabing their injuries.
“Thrilling:” Stems cells repair heart in major breakthrough 2007-08-27 12:27:20 In a major scientific advance, U.S. researchers have used human embryonic stem cells
to repair damaged heart tissue in rats that had suffered cardiac arrests.
The &ldquo
;thrilling&rdquo
; accomplishment, released in a study yesterday, seems to overcome two of the most persistent and perplexing hurdles that have thwarted use of the promising embryonic cells for organ repair.
“One was how to coax the human embryonic stem cell to turn into (heart) cells,” says Dr. Charles Murry, director of cardiovascular biology at the University of Washington’s Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine. The other was to keep them alive after transplantation.
“Embryonic stem cells can turn into hundreds of different cell types and the trick was to turn them into the cell type of interest, to the exclusion of all this other stuff. It’s like getting the roulette ball to go into the right slot in the wheel.”
The study was published yesterday in the journal Read more:Thrilling
The US Army’s ‘Quick Ship’ Bonus of 20 grand 2007-08-27 12:23:17
Wow, talk about an army of mercenaries. The US military is not just a &lsquo
;get out of jail’ card, as many have complained, it is become the fast track to the middle class.
More than 90 percent of the Army’s new recruits since late July have accepted a $20,000 “quick ship” bonus to leave for basic combat training by the end of September, putting thousands of Americans into uniform almost immediately.
Many recruits who take the bonus — scoring in many cases the equivalent of more than a year’s pay — leave their homes within days, recruiters said. The initiative is part of an effort by Army officials to meet year-end recruiting goals after a two-month slump earlier this year. With the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the Army hopes the extra cash motivates those interested in joining or entices those just considering enlisting.
The full story is at the Washington Post entitled Many Take Army’s ‘Quick
Ship’ Bonus
.
‘If I did it’ — Amazon top 5 pre-orders 2007-08-27 12:12:12
The unseemly saga of The Juice continues.
Deemed &lsquo
;obscene,’ OJ Simpson’s tell-all cum if-all was pulled from the printers when the courts ruled an injunction against it. The aggrieved Goldmans got that injunction lifted as a way of realizing some of the $38 million wrongful death award the families received from a civil court. The book will soon be published.
But not stocked, not by Amazon
and, perhaps, not by the others who will, at any rate, fill all orders
.
Hard to pick a winner in this one: not OJ, not the families, not the publisher, not the booksellers. With all, profit and greed are the inspiration to ignore morality. And not the book buyers, either.
If the average reader buys one book a year, let it not be this one.
Why is Greece on fire? 2007-08-27 11:48:34
Even the 2,800 year old site of Olympia is being threatened.
The entire country seems up in flames. The Christian Science Monitor asks why.
This has been one of the hottest and driest summers in recent history, and much of southern Europe has been plagued by forest fires. In Greece
, the dry conditions have played a role. But many of the fires, government and forestry experts say, have been set by arsonists, hoping to clear land for development.
Airlines tickets: the hope will become a prayer 2007-08-27 11:32:34
There was something reassuring about that airline ticket you held in your hand. It didn’t always get you on the plane, you may have been bumped for any number of reasons, but at least it told you that you should be on the plane.
That ticket is all but gone now and will be finally finished by June next year when the paperless ticket will be universal, bought out by the e-ticket, so many bytes stored wherever the carrier says it is stored.
This Reuters article entitled Airlines
body bids farewell to paper tickets tells us why this change-over is happening and when and to what gain, but it doesn’t deal with one of the central issues of this modernity: nerves.
You have a plane to catch, people to meet, places to see, experiences to be had — does the airline remember? And when it doesn’t what do you show the indifferent clerk beyond your sweating brow?
The Kibbutz in the Age of Selfishness 2007-08-27 11:19:26
For much of Israel’s existence, the kibbutz embodied its highest ideals: collective labor, love of the land and a no-frills egalitarianism.
But starting in the 1980s, when socialism was on a global downward spiral and the country was mired in hyperinflation, Israel’s 250 or so kibbutzim seemed doomed. Their debt mounted and their group dining halls grew empty as the young moved away.
Now, in a surprising third act, the kibbutzim are again thriving. Only in 2007 they are less about pure socialism than a kind of suburbanized version of it.
On most kibbutzim, food and laundry services are now privatized; on many, houses may be transferred to individual members, and newcomers can buy in. While the major assets of the kibbutzim are still collectively owned, the communities are now largely run by professional managers rather than by popular vote. And, most important, not everyone is paid the same.
Once again, people are lining up to get in.
An interesting New York Times article: The K Read more:Selfishness
Afghanistan opium: so many questions without answers 2007-08-27 11:11:02
The UN says opium production in Afghanistan
has soared to record levels, with an increase on last year of more than a third.
How’s that for a bizarre headline. NATO soldiers are over there fighting off the now Pakistan-based Taliban so that Afghani farmers can be free to nurture their illegal crop.
There are a lot of questions
about the war in Afghanistan but are there any answers
?
Here is the BBC story: Afghanistan opium at record high. When reading it, remember Columbia and remember that Columbia is another of the lost drug wars.
Goodbye and Hello 2007-08-29 13:58:22
We have moved … and while we have done all the heavy lifting, you have to follow the new directions, otherwise you will be lost and our move will have been all for nothing.
So let’s get together on this. Here is the new address, it’s pretty simple:
http://carsonspost.com/
And a note. When I said we did all the work on this I lied misspoke. My co-blogger and son, Sam, did all the work, single handedly and when you visit the new site I think you’ll agree he did a terrific job.
How did he do it? I’m no techie but I understand Sam used the Drupal ‘engine’ which, apparently, allows for much greater blogging flexibility, a flexibility which will be dynamic, allowing new features to be added from time to time.
I’m proud of our new site and proud of Sam for his effort. So visit us and if you agree with me, let Sam know: there’s an easy Contact Us button in the menu bar, one of the flexible features I referred to.
And thanks for yo Read more:Goodbye
, Hello
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