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Another way to blame Hollywood?
As is probably apparent, one of my favorite sections of Salon.com is the War Room. The little bits of minutia that they manage to find for that section, coupled with the wit and writing skills of Tim Grieve, make it a truly fascinating read every day. In today’s War Room is a wonderful little piece about how it is actually the show “24,” as opposed to any official policy, that encourages “U.S. soldiers to think that torture is acceptable.”
11
Feb
Stereotype thy neighbour?
For several weeks now, the town of Herouxville, Quebec has been embroiled in something of a controversy over some guidelines published by town council for immigrants to Canada. I’m the first person to be in favour of Canada, and supporting Canadian identity, but the tone of voice you use in that is vitally important, as is the focus of your comments. The town of Herouxville is finding that lack of tact in those departments is a dangerous thing in today’s world of media sound-bites. Its easy to see how many of the pronouncements generated the controversy they did … here’s a small sample:
08
Feb
Anyone for methane-skiing?
Its been a while since I’ve gone all geeky on your asses, but I couldn’t resist posting this rather cool radar image from Titan. The Astronomy Picture of the Day from February 7th, 2007, this image is a false-colour representation of radar data collected by Cassini on a 2006 flyby of Titan, and recently published in Nature as the best proof yet of surface liquid on a planet other than earth. Its still not conclusive … these images simply show areas of higher radar absorption vs areas of lower absorption, but similar patterns appear with radar images of many solid/liquid combinations.
08
Feb
Much ado about Garth
Well, it seems the last few days have been a bit interesting in Canadian politics, as much of an oxymoron as that would appear to be. But the fact is, its been nowhere near as interesting as talking heads have been trying to make it. It seems that the national media is out to paint Garth Turner as a turncoat, no matter what it takes. Perhaps its because he was so vocal about the David Emerson affair, as Rex Murphy seemed to think in his editorial on the National last night … the media is looking for ways to paint him with the same brush, but as much as I usually respect Murphy’s “rants” (and I use that word with high respect … his “rants” are pithy and cogent, with a point honed to razor sharpness, whether I agree with the point or not), he and others trying to paint Turner’s joining of the Liberal party as an example of just the sort of party jumping he opposed in the Emerson affair are missing the point completely on this one.
07
Feb
Goalie and goat …
This seems to be the week of the goalie here at View from the Edge. First the news of the death of Gump Worsley, then the retirement of the #29 jersey of Ken Dryden in Montreal, and now, last night, another goalie’s jersey was lifted to the rafters, this time in Calgary. Representing only the second jersey to be retired by the Flames, in many ways, Mike Vernon represents an excellent second choice to Lanny McDonald’s first place.
Mike Vernon is a different sort of character entirely IMO, but it has little to do with skills. As a hometown boy, being drafted by the Flames meant intense pressure for the young Vernon, even in the context of the high-pressure NHL. Vernon’s story is, in many ways, that of the local boy who makes good beyond his wildest dreams, playing for the hometown team, and bringing home the Stanley Cup for them. But the relationship between Vernon and the fans throughout his time in Calgary is a good illustration of the double-edged nature of that “local boy” story-line. When Vernon was at the top of his game, Calgary loved him as a son … at the same time, after a few bad games, no player in Flames history has been more quickly derided, with the possible exception of Kent Nillson (who was always the guy who could change a game, when he ‘bothered to show up to play”).
04
Feb
“… numéro vingt neuf, number twenty nine …”
I wanted to make a post earlier in the week about the retirement of Ken Dryden’s #29 jersey by the Montreal Canadians, but the day of the retirement ceremony was also the day I posted my tribute to the late Gump Worsley, and on that day I felt strange about bumping Gump down the page, even in favour of a goalie as great as Dryden. In fact, I have a feeling Dryden himself might appreciate the desire not to steal Gump’s thunder, even on such an important day for him.
Ken Dryden from his playing days … in classic pose, waiting for action … getting ready for the play … Dryden in classic puck-stopping form. Pictures from Couchmaster.ca, and Legends of Hockey (the last two) respectively.
02
Feb
When a civil war is not a civil war
Tim Grieve over at Salon usually does a wonderful job of hitting the meaty centre of issues with his choice of quotes, and some of the quotes from US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley today certainly qualify. Go ad have a look at the complete exchange that Grieve has quoted for more of the context, but I thought the following quote was particularly interesting …
02
Feb
More spam protection and new email notification system
This is more of an admin post than anything else. I’ve added a few new toys to the blog in the past few days … the spam protection should be transparent to readers. I don’t expect you see much spam anyway, and the new plug-in is more to help reduce the amount of crap I have to delete daily rather than to ensure it doesn’t get posted. So far, however, I must say that between the Simple Math plug-in, and this new Trackback/Link Spam filter, I’ve almost completely eliminated the spam IO have to delete. Not completely, but its down from 100 messages a day to 5 or 10 … so I’m pretty happy with the results so far.
01
Feb
The cult of First Life
I’m the sort of person who thinks virtual reality is a cool thing. i grew up on a steady diet of cyberpunk, whether it be William Gibson or Ridley Scott, and so the idea of ‘jacking in’ to a virtual world where we can explore an electronic universe is something I can inherently connect to. When I first started to see ads and news stories about Second Life, the new (ish these days, I guess) online virtual world that seems to be growing in leaps and bounds, I thought the idea looked interesting. I’ve even made a couple of attempts to forray into Second Life, and I simply haven’t been able to find the attraction, despite what would seem to be a natural fit.
01
Feb
The limits of religious and parental freedom
We tend to think of religious freedoms in the west as absolute, and on the face, we will defend very vigorously our right to believe whatever we want without criticism, without sanction, and the right to act on those beliefs in private reflection of our relationship with the divine. Even atheists claim this right, even if they do it by denying religion all together … without the freedom to believe anything, or nothing, an atheist’s belief’s are just as ridiculous to a religious person as the other way around. To demand the right not to believe in anything, we MUST accept the right to believe in anything.
Labels: elron steele, global paradigm, lyle bateman, steeletech, view from the edge
posted by Elron @ 6:49 p.m.
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