Grimm's weblog

Jack Layton & Canada's NDP present David Suzuki on Climate Change: Sustainability Within a Generation

University of Toronto
Convocation Hall
April 2, 2005 8:00 pm

The North American security and prosperity partnership, signed three days ago by Canada, Mexico and the United States, has a familiar sound and feel. It sounds and feels remarkably like the North American security and prosperity agenda launched in January of 2003 by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, Canada's premier big-business lobby group, and blessed in Washington two months later at a meeting between Canadian business leaders and senior Bush administration officials. Security, the Canadians were told, trumps all other concerns; if they wanted the border to stay open, they would have to help build a security perimeter around North America and support America's military, energy and economic interests abroad.

The pre-announced "Alliance for Security and Prosperity" was barely mentioned in the official declarations. Unspecified working groups are slated to elaborate on unspecified proposals, and present strategies in three months. Emphasizing that "(security and prosperity) go hand in hand" Bush stated that the prosperity agenda in the hemisphere is based on free trade while the security agenda continues to pivot on counterterrorism measures.
Although unsaid, the prosperity part also has to do with the need for the United States to reinforce the North American Free Trade Agreement in the face of the dismal prospects of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas .

Canadians are angry at the needless U.S. ban on Canadian cattle that has cost us $7 billion, and the outrageous American tariffs on lumber that have cost us $4.5 billion more, at a time when we are spending $16 billion more on defence and aid, to bolster U.S. security.

Reports indicate that the new agreement doesn't resolve the more contentious issues between the countries such as the U.S. ban on Canadian beef and the tariff dispute over Canadian softwood lumber.

According to onlineconversion.com , Unix time is supposed reach 1111111111 on Fri, 18 Mar 2005 01:58:31 GMT That's only 1036372537 seconds from 2^31 (ie Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:08 GMT)!!"

• NX-Plog(Pat's Weblog) v2.0 is hacked out of Noizex.com. Gets converted from XML to a more multi-user friendly SQL datastore. Is then haphazardly put into a "community" based site called tribe.noizex. So that my fellow Swan Building cohorts can make use of this fun new weblogging thing.
• New stylesheets are added.
• Code updates happen...
• Code updates happen...
• Code updates happen...
• Last code update is reverted after catastrophic data corruption problems with new code.
• Code updates happen...
• The now infamous White Shadow stylesheet is introduced
• The Internet Explorer - Go to hell, public service announcement is added to the front page
• WKRP Shoutcast streams are introduced
• Code updates happen...
• Linkin Park Groupware debuts, as a roaring success. Interal bittorent downloading skyrockets
• Code updates involving, SQL free search, happen...
• Freshmeat RSS datafeed dropped from front page
• nx-list introuduced... people still don't get how incredibly useful it is
• XMLhttp upgrade to nx-bookmarks, is hardly noticed
• Major interface updates, barely noticed due to sneaky CSS cloaking of actual changes

• Code updates happen...
• The wraps are taken of some major interface changes

Dear Condi,

I'm glad you've decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It's a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more.

I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.

But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can't quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.

As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we've had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we're going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence.

Sure, that doesn't match the gargantuan, multi-billion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting a "liberation war" in Iraq, laying out more than half of all weapons expenditures in the world, and giving massive tax breaks to the top one per cent of your population while cutting food programs for poor children.
Just chalk that up to a different sense of priorities about what a national government's role should be when there isn't a prevailing mood of manifest destiny.

Coming to Ottawa might also expose you to a parliamentary system that has a thing called question period every day, where those in the executive are held accountable by an opposition for their actions, and where demands for public debate on important topics such as missile defence can be made openly.

You might also notice that it's a system in which the governing party's caucus members are not afraid to tell their leader that their constituents don't want to follow the ideological, perhaps teleological, fantasies of Canada's continental co-inhabitant. And that this leader actually listens to such representations.

Your boss did not avail himself of a similar opportunity to visit our House of Commons during his visit, fearing, it seems, that there might be some signs of dissent. He preferred to issue his diktat on missile defence in front of a highly controlled, pre-selected audience.

Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.

If you want to have us consider your proposals and positions, present them in a proper way, through serious discussion across the table in our cabinet room, as your previous president did when he visited Ottawa. And don't embarrass our prime minister by lobbing a verbal missile at him while he sits on a public stage, with no chance to respond.
Now, I understand that there may have been some miscalculations in Washington based on faulty advice from your resident governor of the "northern territories," Ambassador Cellucci. But you should know by now that he hasn't really won the hearts and minds of most Canadians through his attempts to browbeat and command our allegiance to U.S. policies.

Sadly, Mr. Cellucci has been far too closeted with exclusive groups of 'experts' from Calgary think-tanks and neo-con lobbyists at cross-border conferences to remotely grasp a cross-section of Canadian attitudes (nor American ones, for that matter).

I invite you to expand the narrow perspective that seems to inform your opinions of Canada by ranging far wider in your reach of contacts and discussions. You would find that what is rising in Canada is not so much anti-Americanism, as claimed by your and our right-wing commentators, but fundamental disagreements with certain policies of your government. You would see that rather than just reacting to events by drawing on old conventional wisdoms, many Canadians are trying to think our way through to some ideas that can be helpful in building a more secure world.

These Canadians believe that security can be achieved through well-modulated efforts to protect the rights of people, not just nation-states.

To encourage and advance international co-operation on managing the risk of climate change, they believe that we need agreements like Kyoto.

To protect people against international crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, they support new institutions like the International Criminal Court -- which, by the way, you might strongly consider using to hold accountable those committing atrocities today in Darfur, Sudan.

And these Canadians believe that the United Nations should indeed be reformed -- beginning with an agreement to get rid of the veto held by the major powers over humanitarian interventions to stop violence and predatory practices.

On this score, you might want to explore the concept of the 'Responsibility to Protect' while you're in Ottawa. It's a Canadian idea born out of the recent experience of Kosovo and informed by the many horrific examples of inhumanity over the last half-century. Many Canadians feel it has a lot more relevance to providing real human security in the world than missile defence ever will.

This is not just some quirky notion concocted in our long winter nights, by the way. It seems to have appeal for many in your own country, if not the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal or Rush Limbaugh. As I discovered recently while giving a series of lectures in southern California, there is keen interest in how the U.S. can offer real leadership in managing global challenges of disease, natural calamities and conflict, other than by military means.
There is also a very strong awareness on both sides of the border of how vital Canada is to the U.S. as a partner in North America. We supply copious amounts of oil and natural gas to your country, our respective trade is the world's largest in volume, and we are increasingly bound together by common concerns over depletion of resources, especially very scarce fresh water.

Why not discuss these issues with Canadians who understand them, and seek out ways to better cooperate in areas where we agree -- and agree to respect each other's views when we disagree.

Above all, ignore the Cassandras who deride the state of our relations because of one missile-defence decision. Accept that, as a friend on your border, we will offer a different, independent point of view. And that there are times when truth must speak to power.

In friendship,
Lloyd Axworthy

How many forum members does it takes to change a light bulb?

• 1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed
• 14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently
• 7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs
• 1 to move it to the Lighting section
• 2 to argue then move it to the Electricals section
• 7 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs
• 5 to flame the spell checkers
• 3 to correct spelling/grammar flames
• 6 to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb" ... another 6 to condemn those 6 as stupid
• 2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is "lamp"
• 15 know-it-alls who claim they were in the industry, and that "light bulb" is perfectly correct
• 19 to post that this forum is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb forum
• 11 to defend the posting to this forum saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to this forum
• 36 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty
• 7 to post URL's where one can see examples of different light bulbs
• 4 to post that the URL's were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL's
• 3 to post about links they found from the URL's that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group
• 13 to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add "Me too"
• 5 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy
• 4 to say "didn't we go through this already a short time ago?"
• 13 to say "do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs"
• 1 forum lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now and start it all over again.

(via: annoyances.org)

A city ordinance bans complete nudity at all gentleman's clubs... The ordinance does give nudity exclusions for artistic displays which include dance, ballet and dramatic performances, so every Monday and Tuesday, the club encourages customers to sketch the models as they perform nude routines.