Technoratti technical question

Do I need to go contact the site, or can the blogosphere help me out?

Why does Technoratti not realize that I have updated not only in the past 300 days, but 3 times already today?

Why does Technoratti know that Noise From the Right, Conservative Canadienne, CalgaryGrit, and liberalcatnip, amoung others, have posted recently? Some of these blogs don't even contain Technoratti code (as I didn't until last week). Any idea how I can fix this?

2008 Presidential Race: McCain, Hilary, or....Bill?

Dilbert's Scott Adams, of all people, has come out in favour of President William Gates:

For my president I want a mixture of Mother Teresa, Carl Sagan, Warren Buffet, and Darth Vader. Bill has all of their good stuff. His foundation will save more lives than Mother Teresa ever did. He’s got the Carl Sagan intelligence and rational mind. He’s a hugely successful businessman. And I have every reason to believe he can choke people just by concentrating in their general direction. You can’t tell me that wouldn’t be useful at a summit.

Now in the interest of balance, I have to acknowledge there would be some downside to the Bill Gates presidency. For example, he doesn’t have a voice you’d want to hear every night on the news. But I’d be happy if he just stayed home and ran things by e-mail. I really don’t need to hear him yammering to know he’s working. If I have questions, I'll check his blog.

Second – and this is the most disturbing part – I noticed on the www.BillGatesforPresident.net web site that Bill is starting to look like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. (See his picture with Queen Elizabeth.) That’s only going to get worse. But I’m willing to overlook it.

About 50,000 comments to this post, but in my mind the highlight is

"There is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with a money touch, but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers." Theodore Roosevelt

I agree with Theo, Pluto isn't even a planet anymore. i sure as hell dont want them coming down here and telling me what to do.

I dont no any Bill Gates - but it all sounds like Yankie talk to me.

Another poster with possible tin foil hat issues also takes issue with this plan

A univerally needed computer utility nobody seems to have come up with

One of the most annoying things to occur in the last 5 years of computing (courtesy of Microsoft, as you may have guessed) is the "innovation" that a Hotmail address that goes 30 days without being checked is suspended until the user logs back in again. I'm not sure who came up with this idiotic notion, but they seriously need to have their head examined.

I know somebody who used to have an email address. You could email her, she sometimes would email you back, when she travelled the world she exchanged this email address with you and you could communicate with her after she returned home. This entire system worked fairly well. Until something unpleasant happened.

She -- and I know the eggheads at Microsoft have trouble comprehending this -- didn't have a computer, and once never got around to visiting me or her parents or somebody else she knew with a computer for a few weeks. So what happened? Her Hotmail account was suspended: her address book remained, but she didn't really have most of the people she'd talked to in her address book since she had mails from them in her Inbox that she wasn't planning on deleting. Hundreds of highly personal (not in the dirty sense, but in the sense that they weren't cold business emails but stories of how the family was doing, or what Person X she met has been up to) emails, comprising of parts of her relationship with now-distant friends, vanished overnight. Dozens of email addresses that she was "saving" were...no longer saved.

Needless to say, she wasn't impressed by this. She dutifully logged in, nearly cried over the loss, and over the next month or two simply stopped caring about the internet entirely. [what's that like? -ed] Hotmail lost a customer, the internet lost a 20-something user, all because of this single boneheaded policy.

Is there not some better way to weed out non-used email addresses? Can't Hotmail do this for accounts not checked for a calendar year? 30 days seems more than a little bit excessive. For example, since Hotmail brought in this policy, I have gone on two vacations that have lasted for 30+ days. I ended up in both cases needing to run to an internet connection and login to my Hotmail addresses (I have quite a few...running into the double digits) lest I lose them. Every once and a while I still end up losing them: with that many addresses sometimes it hard to remember to check the more obscure ones that not many people know about (which is, of course, why I have them).

Which this morning got me to thinking: why on earth hasn't somebody created a server-side program where you can punch in your Hotmail addresses and have the system automatically log into them for you? Security minded people might not want this sort of thing, but it would be perfect for anybody who decides to take a monthlong holiday and has better things to do on a sandy beach than sitting in a stinky foreign internet cafe making sure that Microsoft doesn't delete moderately-important messages in punishment for not staying at the office. Also perfect for people like me (and contrary to the standard case, in this instance I believe there are a lot of people like me) who have quite a few Hotmail addresses and would like to keep "checking" them regularly even if I don't get around to reading the latest exciting newsletter sent to me by the Edmonton Centre NDP Riding Association.

There are plenty of programs to IMAP or look for new mails on Hotmail programs, ePrompter for example, but nothing that can sit in the background (ideally on a website's computer, so I don't have to leave mine on for when I go on vacation, but if I install one on a friend's for the vacation that might work) and just log in every 25 days to remind Hotmail that I still exist (in all of my forms).

I found another blog discussing this with a fairly active comment thread. A few of the comments I feel the need to address:

om, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last. frankly, there is no excuse for leaving valauable information on msn, gmail and the likes without having the most important stuff backed up, so stop flaming and blame yourself.

as mentioned above, use your msn account with messenger to avoid this in the future or even better, slam the door on microsoft.

First off, its always tempting to blame the user in this case, but we have to remember (and Hotmail does as well) that most people don't know much about computers or security. We may not like this fact, but that does not alter its fundamental truth. Some people like the girl I told you about above don't even own computers (or in her case, internet access), and therefore don't really have a fallback position. In the end, this is a horrendously dumb idea that needs to be fixed by somebody. As for the second note, having MSN does not automatically log you into Hotmail every time you sign in, it merely checks Hotmail (like ePrompter does) to tell you if there are new emails. If you ignore the new emails (or don't get any) for a month, your account is similarly shut down.

Tom-

First of all, Sorry this happened to you. The only thing I can really do is:

1) Appologize
2) Tell you that we are working very hard on changing the current policy

We do not actually back up our site. That would be impossible. GMail also does not back up their site. They have redundancy on the network for failures to hardware.

When an account is deleted, it takes a few days for the data to make it’s way out of the system. In your case (I don’t know how long it was deleted) the chances of recovery are unlikley.

Having said all this, I can understand if none of what I am saying matters. All I can do is appologize for what happened, and for the rather restrictive and poor expiration policy and let you know that I don’t consider the current situation acceptable (see #2 above).

Given the size and scope of the service, decisions like this take a while to work through.

Thanks,

Omar Shahine
Windows Live Mail

This, naturally, is a fake.

Oh man oh man, got the same complaint here. Years of old emails, vanished. To the argument that “it’s a free service, you play by their rules,” can the counterargument be made that, since we’re subjected to ads every time we log in, from which Microsoft draws revenue, it’s not like we’re total freeloaders?

I say why not look at this from the opposite point of view: instead of saying "well its free, they can screw us around any way that they want", take the 2nd part of that and carry it to its logical conclusion: Microsoft wants us to be using Hotmail. It is in their best interests to keep this girl happy, or she and others like her will do as she ended up doing: saying "screw you Hotmail" and backing away from the internet entirely. Free service or not, this is not in M$'s interests. The same poster who I just quoted later said this:

It’s foolish to rely on a web-based email service as storage, but tons of us do it, and rather than punish our idiosyncrasies, Hotmail should have indulged. Gmail beat them to the punch. Gmail is everybody’s kindly, permissive, net-based grandma.

Exactly!

I don’t know who any of you are, but I just typed in: My whole hotmail inbox just got deleted- and you came up. I had years of letters in that file, including pretty much the entire correspondence from my first relationship. so, thank for providing such a shit service Microsoft. Thanks, also for making it really clear that you were about to delete me. Also, thanks for having the nerve to ask me what junk I want when I try to find my old emails.
I feel terribly stupid. I would rather have the robots at google read my crappy love letters; at least they let me keep them for a while.
this blog seems to have the right idea though.

Just logged in to find all of my emails gone. As most people, I didn’t use it because of how horrible it was but logged in every once in a while since it served as an archive of my emails over the past 5-6 years. I also signed up for Paypal with it and wanted to keep my contact email the same.

Atleast now I have the incentive to break all ties with it.

I can’t even believe it has been 30 days since I last logged into hotmail. It hasn’t been 30 days since I logged into messenger. My last 5 years of messages are gone. Sure it’s nothing I can’t live without but some good things, addresses, and I still legitimately used it on at least a monthly basis.

Hi. same things just happened to me. really ticked off. usualy i wont always go on the computer after ive just come in from work. and when i do try, sometimes msn just plays up big style and doesnt even let me sign in to my hotmail account! dont know if its just me or what!

i can see why hotmail is crap! 30 day limit! why the F@/K do they limit you to that when like you say other providers like yahoo and that give you atleast a couple of months! MSN has really gone OTT this time!

It happened to me too! All my emails since 2003 have been deleted. It’s insane! But what can I do? Can I get them back!?

I think you don’t even need to forget logging on for 30 days to get your emails deleted with Hotmail. I check my emails maybe 10 times a day. And every couple of days I loggon via MSN messenger too. Yesterday morning I could not log on because it said my password was wrong. I know it is not a hacker thing because it happened in the past as well because I was continuously logging on from different machines and there were web certificate issues (all bullshit) etc. Anyway I recovered my password using the secret question and logged on to the account. And then the big shock. All my emails were deleted even from the trash can folder. I have no idea what kind of stupid policy or bug could cause something like that. It is always the same Microsoft thinking it is smarter than the people using its products and continuously doing things behind closed doors. What can I say?

Are you guys saying there is no way to resurrect those emails back? And it is perfectly legal for MSN to purge emails with 30 days inactivity? I feel terrible of losing my 8 yrs emai history for this stupid policy, and I feel like I want sue them…

And then some people go a little over the deep end...sheesh. Sorry about the emails buddy, but I'm not sure a lawsuit is really your best response. Unless you think you could win a court battle against Microsoft!

I think the final lesson we can learn from all of this is that its quite the problem, and if Hotmail won't solve it, somebody else should. The closest I can find is IE Auto Login which looks a little suspicious to be trusting passwords to. I suppose that is the main reason nobody has done it: anybody with the desire to do so cannot be trusted. Alas.

Day Break Episode 3 mini-review

Well, I'm not from BC or anything, the reason this review is a couple hours late is because I had a food-related emergency and had to tape Day Break while I scrubbed a pot and learned that its actually possible to burn Kraft Dinner.

Anyways, onto the episode. When we left last time, Andrea had a dead guy at the bottom of her balcony. Today, things shift into high gear. The answered questions:

1. The "dead" guy's name is Eddie, Hopper's former-former partner (how many does he have, anyways? Eddie is a drug user who Hopper got kicked off the force, who was sleeping with Andrea, and whose habit was the reason Andrea was in trouble with Internal Affairs
2. There was a 2nd package, and Hopper's sister got it: a photo of an old police investigation that involved Hopper's father and Eddie (in Eddie's first ever case)
3. The BMW guys have been able to always find Hopper/Rita/Jennifer thanks to GPS units secretly attached to the undersides of their cars.
4. Solving the complaint I had in the previous Day Break post, Hopper has a limited ability to affect people into the next day: Andrea's near-death experience made her re-evaluate her life the 'next' morning, calling Hopper at 6:30am, getting Eddie into rehab, and coming clean to Internal Affairs

And of course, unanswered questions:

1. Is Jennifer's husband Randall (played by seaQuest alumni Don Franklin) involved with the BMW guys?
2. Why was the second package sent to Jennifer? Who called Jennifer the night before Hopper's longest day to tell her/threaten her about the package? Did they try calling Hopper too?
3. How did Quarry Guy know about Hopper's mad rush of phone calls? Did they anticipate Hopper getting the case # of the Jane Doe and have people in place for when they started asking questions?
4. The Dodger fan in the bar raises the question if there are other people similarly trapped in this day.
5. How much influence can Hopper have on the previous day? Is the effect multiplied with each "new" morning, or does it spike the first morning and start to taper off?
   Does this "temporal emotional memory" have any dangerous side effects if/when it starts influencing BMW guys?
6. Who's fingerprint is on the hourglass? Probably Garza's assistant.
7. What would have happened had Hopper not helped Andrea and waited for Quarry Guy? Was the guy in the grey jacket and the newspaper one of his men?
8. How does Eddie and Hopper Sr.'s old case tie in with the BMW guys, the Latin Disciples, and the conspiracy?
9. What does Chad know Internal Affairs pulling that old file photo that Garza sent Hopper's sister? What else does Chad know? For somebody who isn't supposed to know Hopper is being framed yet, he sure does try hard to get Hopper inside police headquarters.

A great moment was the scene in the last unanswered question, where Chad is snidely asking Harper what else he can do to be of service: "Walk your dog? Wash your car? Maybe you want to sleep with my ex-wife? Oh, wait..." It reminds me of Jayne explaining to Simon in the Firefly episode "Bushwacked" about space garbage, ending with the tone "hey now, that would be a bit like you and your sister now, wouldn't it?"

Post-PPV Suckfest response

Edmonton loses 3-2 in OT.

From Battle of Alberta:

They should've known Hemsky bruised like a peach!
Oh and the post-glory Pronger conference. Gag.

I almost saw spots from the rage.

From TSN.ca:

Message to Kevin Lowe....... FIRE THE COACHING STAFF NOW. With all due respect for the guys behind the bench its time for a reality check. As a long time Oilers fan I will say that this team as a whole has no life, no fire and no passion - tonight they looked scared and never attacked. Where is the speed? Where is the banging? Where are the scoring chances???? As they stand now, this team will never beat top level teams unless luck is involved and I dont want to rely on luck all the time. Lets make some changes before its too late! GO OILERS!!!!

Uh, no one want to fight or hit Pronger? Since they hate him so much, why not hurt him? Good for the Ducks and too bad for Oilers. Get used to it.

(Oiler fan Mudcrutch also has a recent Pronger post I missed)

In other hockey news, I've started making a surge of moves in our fantasy hockey pool: today I dropped Mike Richards (C), Francois Beauchemin (D), Kyle Calder (LW), and Anson Carter (RW) in favour of picking up Kristian Huselius (LW,RW), Chris Simon (LW), Stephane Robidas (D), and Todd White (C). Also decided to put Brian Gionta (RW) out as tradebait. The time of ignoring my fantasy hockey team is coming to a middle...

My two most recent posts have a common thread

Quebec gets unfair amounts of HDTV programming. Chris Pronger had a 3some with two hot 19 year old twins (seriously, that's the story I heard today).

What's the common thread between these two things? The Slashdot post about CBC and HDTV mentioned the poor HDTV coverage in Canada. Today, courtesy of instant messaging:

fuck... you figure for the price I'm paying for this PPV, they'd at least do it in HD

That's right, this huge Oilers pay-per-view is only available in Standard Definition. Sounds about right, n'est pas?

The day I had to get my buddy out of jail

The Battle of Alberta has its Edmonton vs. Anaheim gameday post up.

Let the bashing begin. Damn you (Chris Pronger/Al Strachen/Lauren Pronger/Christie Chorley/Dantes' Waitress/Mike Comrie)! Damn you all to hell!

Other Pronger posts:
Battle of Alberta:Pronger Roundup, Monday Night
Battle of Alberta:Pronger Roundup, Monday
Battle of Alberta:raped
Battle of Alberta:Chris Pronger's press conference
Battle of Alberta:It all starts now
Battle of Alberta:Stop It! You're making the baby Jesus cry
Battle of Alberta:I've been pronged
Battle of Alberta:Pronger Q&A
Battle of Alberta:So I Married a Team Murderer
Battle of Alberta:Not again, again
Battle of Alberta:Not again
Colby Cosh:Pronged
American Hockey Fan:Hello, "Christ Pronger Rumors" people
Girls don't love hockey:Everybody Hates Chris
Battle of California:Ducks Pre-Game Day: Countdown to the Oil
Battle of Californai:An Open Letter to Edmonton Fans
Just a Game:Pronger could have stopped the rumours and innuendo
Deadspin:Is This The Real Reason Pronger Wants Out?
www.themidiots.com:Chris Pronger, Next On Jerry Springer

Third Edge of the Sword:Arar rumours: like Pronger rumours,only with uglier chicks
Third Edge of the Sword:Chris....Pronger is it? Neverheardaya
Third Edge of the Sword:Chris Pronger rumours updated:
Third Edge of the Sword:That Bitch Whom Is Mrs. Pronger - the rumour mill edition
Third Edge of the Sword:"I want to do to you what Lauren Pronger did to the Edmonton Oilers"

So why the post title? Because of this line on a post on the message board of our fantasy hockey league:

game will be a gong show, I think some on is going to jump onto the ice and assult pronger

To which I replied:

I'm off on Wednesday, so you can give me a call if you need somebody to come down to the Law Courts and bail you out.

---

(from Mr. Lauren Pronger at the SAS Wiki):

Chris Dillhole Pronger is 4'6", and his nickname is faggot. He was named to the Cocksucking All-Star team as he is one of the best cocksuckers in the league. In 1999-2000, he was named Gay Pride Parade Marshall. He and his bitch wife Lauren (aka Yoko) have two bastard kids. He has received many dildo's in the arse, and is considered one of the top vaginas in the league. Also, 4 out of 5 dentists recommend that Chris Pronger should cry like a school girl bitch. Oh, and he smells.

Update, 10:21am: Earl Sleek at the Battle of California has added an important open letter to Edmonton fans that is certainly worth a read. It has been added to the list of Pronger posts for easy reference.

Oh Lord, it's hard to be profitable, when you only get $1 billion for free a year....

Slashdot has a post up about a recent article stating that the CBC insists there is no market for HDTV. Amoung several interesting tidbits is that frogspeak HD programming is everywhere. The CBC spends abnormally large amounts on Quebec programming? Quelle surprise!

As for my own beliefs, HDTV is much ado about nothing. I've seen it. It's nice. It's not worth all the extra cash and attention. If TVland is looking for where to spend money on, its on getting some good writers!

"Ahhh, the game's afoot, eh?"

Tim at TABaker has decided to play a dangerous game. A game of chess. Against our old adversary, the American Navy

So a Red October quote in a post with a Star Trek VI title? Eh, it can be done. I've thrown these two films together before.

But anyways, TABaker has posted a picture of a hot Israeli model who also happens to be a soldier. [careful, or you'll find yourself supporting the notion of chick soldierin', and then you need a new editor -ed]

I cannot possibly let this stand, so here's a few more hot girls from the 2006 Fringe:



Your turn, blogosphere. Try to compete with me in the hot girl photo department!

Just in time for Christmas, London shows itself to be disgustingly Green and Red

"Social Activist" (read: Communist nutbar) Glen Pearson won the London byelection today, and in second place was "Courageous Green Party Leader" (read: Communist nutbar who doesn't bathe)

Can we finally just give up on this bullshit "Canada" nonsense and separate now please? The worst that can happen is civil war, and at this precise moment I would not shed a tear if we carpet bombed the entire useless province of Ontario with tactical nukes.

Not that it can even happen, mind you. I've quickly run the numbers. The Americans' nuclear supply is pretty limited. American Mk-61s, the Mod-11 being the most powerful, can produce a 7.5km thermal radiation radius (and for those weak in the mathematics department, 177 square kilometres). With 1076395 square kilometres in the province, it would take at minimum 6091 such bombs to obliterate those Liberal-voting morons. Problem is that the U.S. nuclear arsenal only has about 20 of those bad boys. The total US stockpile is actually sad and rather pathetic. I don't think they could turn Ontario into a barren waste if they wanted to. What kind of "Great Satan" outfit are they running down there anyways?

Update, 11:23pm: I had completely forgotten about this, but if the Quebec question was helping Morton last week, this byelection might (if used properly... you listening guys?) help Morton assume the Premiership this week.

What on earth would you be reading my blog for when there are blogs like this

Girls-n-Girls.BlogSpot.com

I guess if I'm going to compete, its time I put up a few photos I've had kicking around for a long time.

Hot 2006 Edmonton Fringe Festival Chicks (sexy ass from "Hi Yo Fringe, Away")!

Only 242 days behind schedule

Technoratti seems to think the newest post on this site was this March 29th entry where I discovered not only the face of the sodomist Dan Hunt (his brother Mike must be horribly disappointed), but that there was a James Loney in the minor leagues (he later ended up playing for the Dodgers when Nomar was out for his annual trip to the DL.

On the bright side, it leads to some enjoyable reading of old material. With the 1 year anniversary coming up soon, I need every tool at my disposal.

My blog titles are catching on!

Money, cash, moola, деньг, geld, χρήματα, гроші, dinero

Bonus discovery #1: An active thread about a soccer post I once did. (And a less active post as well).

Bonus discovery #2: I can't be that much of a fan of Eugene Plawiuk's blog since I managed to miss all of these posts about me.

The graphic that JimDinning.com would pay money to have (and will have to, since I can't afford it)

That's right, if somebody wants to plonk down cash and unlock my trial copy of Abrosoft FantaMorph 3, we can get rid of the "trial" watermark and really make some political hay.

As an added bonus, here's the video turning Ed Stelmach into a coward, and a fairly decent halfway-morph still graphic. For those wanting concrete reasons not to vote for Ed Stelmach, here's a good starting point.

YouTubular

Taking a bit of a political break, I figured why not share a few YouTube videos of interest:

Apparently some Canadian culture mockumentary came out last May. The Oilers were en route to the Cup, so understandably we missed this one:


A clip from the 2006 Grey Cup (taken by a cameraphone):


The "Call Me Al" music video back before Chevy Chase and Paul Simon became totally washed up SNL parodies of themselves (doubly ironic in Chase's case):


The song sucks, but the ass is hot, so you'll sit and watch the whole thing. I know you will. Because I sure did:


Speaking of hot ass, Avril Lavigne in a MAD TV sketch about sex-ed:


Clips from the Corner Gas pilot, just because Dust My Broom has a Corner Gas post up that I might link to later:


Finally, Babylon 5 war clips done to music from The Matrix:

Deleted from Wikipedia?

Then WikiDumper might end up being your new home. This blog is a collection of Wikipedia entries that were marked for deletion, and some may have survived. Most, however, don't.

Of particular interest is this one:

The beard theorem
The Beard Theorem is a political theorem that relates to the Communist Party and its members. The Beard Theorem is a theory that suggests that the size of one's Beard, whether it be a puff, French Fork or Mutton Chop, has a direct correlation to the radicality of a person's Socialist views. If one was to have a large, beard, that person has a higher chance of being a communist revolutionary than one other person who has only as moustache, or worse: no facial hair at all. This theorem is proved by many of the communist Russian revolutionaries of the 1900's, those like Karl Marx, who has a massive, beard and, in accordance to the theorem, is a great communist. V.I. Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, had a beard, yet it was not as profound, thus he is not as truly communist as Marx or Engels, as he has a relatively small beard, but it is still present and is truth of his communisity. Josef Stalin, the leader of the Communist Vanguard Party in Russia from the mid 1920's to 1952, has no beard, yet has a moustache. Stalin, in accordance to the theorem thus has very little Communist Blood in him, as he is a Stalinist, and a social fascist. Exceptions to the rule is most East Asian Communist leaders.

I had such an impressive Morton post up you missed the new stuff

As always on Third Edge of the Sword I followup a sticky post (in this case, this preview of the PC Leadership race that really was good, even though nobody commented on it) with a little post hinting at what you missed. This wasn't like the Halloween posts, where there was so much sticky that it was easy to lose the new, but just in case:

Harper and the Great Reform Act of 1832 (originally posted 1:53pm on November 25)

Steve Janke (on his recently highly streamlined blog) writes about Stephen Harper's push to reform the Constitution in ways that don't have anything precisely to do with Quebec. Namely, he's thinking about limiting federal government powers in areas of provincial responsibility.

A Tale of Two AlbertaBlogs (originally posted 2:37pm on November 25)

The Prairie Wranglers blog has recently been nominated as "Best Conservative Blog" in the "Canadian Blog Awards".

This is the first year that Wrangler has been online (and therefore qualified) for the awards.

There's another blog out there that is also in its first year and has therefore qualified for the awards for the first time. Yet no nomination.

Bonus additional content: The Serenity quiz alluded to in this post about Neo-Cons has been linked to.

Qapla' (sorta)

No first-ballot winner in race to replace Ralph (Jason Fekete, Calgary Herald)

While results were still rolling in at press time, it appeared three hopefuls remain in the hunt for Premier Ralph Klein’s throne after no majority winner was likely in Saturday’s Tory leadership vote.

Jim Dinning, Ted Morton and Ed Stelmach were each headed for strong showings that would propel them to a second ballot in one week.

With 73 of 83 ridings reporting, Dinning had captured 24,688 votes (28 per cent) versus Morton’s 22,796 (26 per cent) and 13,948 (16 per cent) for Stelmach.

A total of 86,295 ballots had been reported from the 73 ridings by press time, a vote total that already doubled those cast in the first ballot in the 1992 PC leadership race.

The question is what now?

Will Stelmach supporters accept that they must vote for Morton in order to beat Dinning? Will Hancock and Oberg supporters follow their man's recommendation? What will the Edmonton Norris community do?

Over the next week I hope to address some of these questions. For now, Morton is firmly on the 2nd ballot, so the first mission is accomplished.

The Albertinator 2: Judgement Day

(This post will remain at the top of this blog until Sunday November 26th...scroll down for new content)

Today's the day. Is this a bold new step towards a glorious Independent Republic of Alberta? Or will we defeat Paul Martin on January 23rd only to see him resurface in Mordor more powerful than before thanks to interference from the fallen Dinninguman The White? Or will I have my literary licence revoked for referring to both Lord of the Rings and Terminator in the same post?

I've got my $5 in handy, and my Wendy's 2-for-1 Big Bacon Classic coupon firmly in hand. I shall use both this afternoon, to celebrate the Morton appearance on the second ballot with a healthy feeding of Alberta Beef (and some Manitoba Pork for kicks). I strongly encourage anybody else who loves Alberta enough to refuse to let it be toyed with by Ottawashed liberals of any party affiliation. Just to mess with the universe, I'll quote another geek franchise:

I will not sacrifice the Enterprise. We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats. They devalue our oil and we fall back. They accomodate sexual deviants and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far and no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!

Other relevent Alberta Leadership posts:
- Ted Morton update and Reasons to support Morton.
- Reasons not to support Dinning.
- Reasons not to support Stelmach.
- Lyle Oberg should take up drinking.

A Tale of Two AlbertaBlogs

(This was posted November 25 at 2:37pm)
The Prairie Wranglers blog has recently been nominated as "Best Conservative Blog" in the "Canadian Blog Awards".

This is the first year that Wrangler has been online (and therefore qualified) for the awards.

There's another blog out there that is also in its first year and has therefore qualified for the awards for the first time. Yet no nomination. [and no 62 comments in a single post either -ed] I must say I'm heartbroken. Is it because he's figured out how to do this "preview part of a post and click to view the rest" trick in blogger that has eluded me? Because every post starts with a pretty picture, while I've been known to do 16 text-only posts in a row? Because Small Dead Animals accused him of liberalism knows who he is?

Well, there's always next year. With my traffic, I might legitimately go in under "Best New Blog"...

Harper and the Great Reform Act of 1832

(This was posted November 25 at 1:53pm)

Jim Hacker: Dorothy, this could be like the Great Reform Act of 1832. These councils are like old rotten boroughs. Y'know, half a dozen people deciding who'll be in the town hall for the next four years.
Dorothy Wainwright: Precisely.
Jim Hacker: And I shall be the great reformer! Hacker's Reform Bill. I shall introduce it myself.
Prime Minister James George Hacker: The power of this country does not lie in offices and institutions, it lies in the stout hearts and strong wills of the yeomen of Britain!
Annie Hacker: Women have the vote, too!
Jim Hacker: The yeowomen of Britain. Yeopersons. Yeopeople? No...
Prime Minister James George Hacker: The people of this island race. On their broad and wise shoulders...
Annie Hacker: You can't have wise shoulders.
Prime Minister James George Hacker: On their broad shoulders and wise hearts... heads... In their wise heads lies our destiny. We must give back power to the people!
Jim Hacker: And I shall be the one to introduce this... um... What shall I call this new scheme?
Dorothy Wainwright: Democracy?

Steve Janke (on his recently highly streamlined blog) writes about Stephen Harper's push to reform the Constitution in ways that don't have anything precisely to do with Quebec. Namely, he's thinking about limiting federal government powers in areas of provincial responsibility.

Steve (Janke, not Harper) is noticing that the main benefit of this plan is not to be a money bill to restrict future federal spending (though it is also that), but rather that this is keeping the responsibility of various elected representatives clearly delinated. I don't think this is as huge as Steve (Janke, not Harper) says, though. For example, the City of Edmonton goes ga-ga to provide huge amounts of social services that are the provinces job, and it doesn't raise so much as an eyebrow amoungst the socialist set. Clearly this idea Steve (Harper, not Janke) has is an admirable one, but its not the paradise that Steve (Janke, not Harper) is talking about.

Of course, if you really don't believe me, you can go read about it from Angry in the Great White North. Or check the CTV article, or the blogging opinions of Kerplonka.

Two thoughts that are the same on two nations that are the same

Mike Jenkinson of the Edmonton SUN has a new post up about the Harper announcement.

And then coming out of a massive dry spell, Lorne Gunter of the National Post is back, writing about the decision.

Canada may be on the verge of a revival of Mulroney-era doublespeak on Quebec. Remember how Brian Mulroney tried to have it both ways on the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords? He and his francophone ministers would assure Quebecers that federal pronouncements were the fulfilment of all their cultural and constitutional aspirations. Meanwhile, Canadians in the rest of the country were reassured just as fervently that those same pronouncements would do nothing to upset Confederation's balance.

In the coming weeks, as they fan out across the country and try to defend Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to ask that Quebec be designated a nation within a nation, Conservative MPs will no doubt point out that Harper has not proposed making Quebec "a nation within Canada," but rather recognizing the Quebecois -- Quebecers themselves -- as a nation.

Frankly, this is a distinction without a difference. It is impossible to confer nationhood on Quebecers without also conferring it on the province that is their home within Confederation.

Note that I recently solved this mystery.

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This Morton thing is picking up steam. Calgary Grit and Eugene Plawiuk are both excited that Morton might resurge the Alberta Liberals [maybe if they got Ralph Klein as their leader? -ed].

I'm just excited that somebody thought to make JimDinning.com.

The Alberta Toronto is Ready For

Dear Liberals,

You may know me as a Tory but trust me, I am your best friend in Alberta.

I've given money to Paul Martin, worked my ass off for former Alberta Liberal leader Nancy Macbeth, forced Ralph Klein to quit early and am doing everything I can to keep an actual conservative from becoming the next leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta.

That is why I am asking you to support my campaign. Buy a membership, donate money, attack any of the other candidates in the media. And you will get "The Alberta - Toronto is Ready For"

Sincerely,

Jim Dinning

(I've also done a small update to this Appeal of Support for Ted Morton)

Name 3 Neo-Conservatives in the Bush Administration. Name 3 non-Neo-Conservatives in the Bush Administration. What's the difference between them?

Adam Daifallah decides to address this talk about "neo-conservatism". And about time too.

"Neo-cons" sounds good when Rabble.ca and Adbusters talk about it. But what does it mean? Daifallah is criticized in his comments to this entry for using a "wrong" definition of neocon. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a right definition for it!

Dick Cheney is considered the quintessential neo-con. But pretty much everybody connected with the Bush Presidency [or, as brain-dead liberals call it, the "Cheney Presidency" -ed] has been labelled a "neo-con". Harper has been labelled a neo-con by the Raging Granny crowd. Is John Ashcroft a neo-con? Was Donald Rumsfield? Is Peter MacKay? Ralph Klein? Jim Dinning? Mike Harris? Is there a test you can apply to differentiate? Or is "neo-con" just a term for a conservative who can't be pigeonholed as either a libertarian or a social conservative? Can there be a mix therein? Can you be 30% Libertarian, 15% Religious Right, and 55% NeoCon? Is it like those "which Serenity character are you?" quizzes where the totals can surpass 100%?

Nobody tells you. Because they don't know.

Neo-Con is just shorthand for "somebody we don't like".

I hated Old Media when Old Media was cool

Nothing ruins your day like discovering that this website exists.

Nothing really ruins your day until you realize that they are on the friends list of somebody who you've seen naked.

Ted Morton update

Dylan at Right of Centre Ice reports that Morton and Dinning may be closer than previously imagined.

This and the sizeable "anybody but Dinning" factor might mean that my own recent contribution could be important. READ THIS LINK! It is vital for the health of this province! If this information is correct, Morton might get a late push for first ballot supremacy. Even if he's not 50%+1 on the first ballot, a #1 overall showing for Morton should be huge come the second ballot, especially if the choices are Dinning and Oberg (or to a lesser extent Dinning and Norris).

Dylan writes:

It's time to give Jim Dinning the push we need!

I agree!

Day Break Episode 2 (3) mini-review

Hey, I figured I'd post a little bit about Day Break, which had a new episode air on Wednesday night.

It's the first episode after the pilot, but the pilot was really 2 episodes just aired at once, so this is Episode 3 but actually the second one. Got it?

Anyways, this is an episode which started answering some questions, and bringing up other ones. First the answered questions:

1. Garcia sold out the informant in the safe house
2. The two guys in the BMW(?) got a hold of Garcia two days earlier and convinced him to sell out Damien
3. The package is nothing but a miniature hourglass
4. Garza's assistant sent the hourglass at his request, and she's involved sexually with Garcia

Now for the new questions:

1. Who did Andrea kill at the end of the episode?
2. What's the big deal with the hourglass?
   Did Garza have anything to do with the timeshifts? Is this the best clue he could give?
3. How did the BMW guys manage to track down which car had Hopper and Garcia in the trunk? Are they in league with Damien or something?
4. Why was (apparently) no attempt on Rita's life made by the BMW guys in this episode?
5. Why was no effort made to kidnap Hopper and take him to the abandoned quarry? He didn't make himself hard to find on either of the 2 days shown in the episode.
6. What's Rita's big traffic secret that only Chad knows about?

Now for a bit of a nitpick. On the first of the 2 days shown in this episode, Hopper sticks a gun into Chad's back and goes on the run from the hospital (after spending the morning acting totally out of character and weirding Rita out by demanding she avoid a trauma scene). From Rita's point of view, Hopper is totally weird and out of control and dangerous. When Chad gives her a ride home, he offers to sleep on the couch as an added level of protection, which she graciously turns down. Now on the 2nd day, Hopper saves her precious family heirloom. He talks to her about his personal problems, gives her a kiss and leaves on great terms. From Rita's point of view, Hopper is a much more genuine and agreeable person. Yet now, apparently, she changes her mind about the couch sleeping? That makes no sense. Sure its painful for Hopper to watch her get "closer" to him day after day, but if there was any night she would have had him sleep on her couch it should have been day one, not day two! Seems sloppy.

Quebecois are a really pathetic nation within a nation

Over at the Western Standard Shotgun blog, Terry O'Neill writes "My thinking has been evolving on this subject, but it's hard for me to get too worked up about Stephen Harper's recognition of the Quebecois "nation" within Canada." There are (so far) 73 comments to the thread, but by far the most unintentionally comical comes from so-called Quebec separatist (and terrorist-appearing Frog apologist) Marc, when at 7:21:57 on November 23rd he wrote:

Mr. Macleod,

I'm wondering if the book from Mr. Parkman also talks about the fact that those Canadian Westerners forefathers were just a bunch of coward Brits who fled in the woods (West) to escape the American Independence War...?
Nah, of course not.

Hey! How's everybody tonight??!

Of course we are a NATION. We're much more than that. We're the reason why Canada is looking so charming and “in advance» into the eyes of the World.
*We are*
-Maurice Richard (and the rest of the list…)
-René Lévesque
-Georges-Henri Lévesque
-Gilles Villeneuve (and Jacques)
-Armand Bombardier
-Bernard Lemaire
-Guy Laliberté
-Celine (it’s crap, but still)
-Charles Binamé
-Leonard Cohen
-Émile Nelligan
-Félix Leclair
-Jacques Lemaire
-Lucie Laurier
-Pascale Bussières
-Denys Arcand
-André Chagnon
-Daniel Langlois
-John Molson
-The Bronfman Family
-Éric Lucas
-Martin Bouchard
-Marc-Aurèle Fortin
-Jean Drapeau
-Serge Godin
-Robert Charlebois
-Jean Leloup
-Gilles Groulx
-Claude Jutras
-Oliver Jones
-Oscar Emmanuel Peterson
-frère Marie-Victorin
-DJ Champion
-Norman Laprise
-Hubert Reeves
-Gerald Bull (most of his prolific period)
-Louis-Joseph Papineau
-Pierre Perrault & Norman McLaren
-Geneviève Cadieux
-Louis Cyr
-Broue, the Piece (…not the habit)
-Mtl International Jazz Festival
-Le Festival “Juste pour rire” (+ your version…)
-Hydro-Québec
-ALCAN
-A Worldwide example for performance in telecommunications.
-A Worldwide example in Multimedia.

Etc… etc…

I mean, if some of those pals and expertises right here cannot help you figuring out and accept WHY *Quebec* is such a special and distinct place; totally disconnect from a BIG part of ol’Canada…Well…then don’t…
You, not being proud of that shit up there, is about 75% of reasons why Quebec is slowly, but surely getting out of the big house…
Anyways, Quebec never looks into the eyes of their fellow Canadians for a gentle tap on the back.
What can I say? …Others around the world do understand the beauty of our specific culture and most important: we know how much we’re talented.
So, if Canada’s split up tomorrow because people are tired of this failing system “la Confederation”…well, I’ll stick with those guys up here + the “MINORITY” of 50% of Independentists. (nice twist man) who’s already fed up with our “brothers in laws”.

With the occasional exception [and did you notice he curiously omits Mark Steyn? -ed], this is not a list you would think to be proud of. It certainly does not make the nation of such citizens "charming". A better word would be annoying (as the classic David Letterman Top Ten List once said). Of course, Quebekers take pride in this sort of thing. It can't be easy when your proudest national moment was having your collective asses kicked by a small contingent of British Marines.

A final call/appeal in support of Ted Morton

I know everybody who might come across this blog is one of the following:
a) Already decided 102% in favour of the candidate they are about to elect as the PC leader on Saturday (and subsequent days)
b) Not an Alberta resident and therefore unable to vote for a candidate even if they wanted to
c) An Alberta resident who's read about the results and is finding this in the archives
d) "Great bit of blogging on your site! If you get a chance look at my site personal development" spammers

Nevertheless, I still feel its important I make a brief statement about Ted Morton.

Look, right now we seem to have it good. Harper isn't going to bring about the NEP, or reinstitute the Crow Rate, or give away the CF-18 fighter contract. But the Liberals are climbing in the polls, and eventually Ontarians are going to hand control of the nation right back to Bob Roe and the NDP.

You know what they'll do.

The question is going to be, who is going to stop them and how? Will Rona Ambrose, leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, be able to toss her hair and seduce enough Liberal MPs out of the chambers to stall big votes against Alberta interests? Will angry press conferences by James Rajotte and Rahim Jaffer stop the appeal of satisfying lib-left voters in Ontario and Quebec and pleasing liberal U.S. media outlets and CBC reporters-cum-Governor Generals? No. You want to know what will stop the carbon tax? What will put same-sex adoption in its tracks? What is guaranteed to shut down talk of a national daycare system or a federal pocketknife registry? Premier Ted Morton. Because Morton is willing and capable to do the things that all of the above cannot. The NDP backbencher given the Ministry of Public Safety portfolio might give the RCMP authority to arrest any WASPs in a pulpit denouncing sodomy, but Ted Morton will have already removed the federal cops from positions of authority. Huge tracts of Alberta's wealth may be fiated out of existance in the name of funding feminist youth camps for the Maritimes, but only Ted Morton has altered the income tax structure so that Alberta can withhold the cheques from Ottawa and nip those plans in the bud.

Jim Dinning won't do that. Ed Stelmach wouldn't even stand up to EPS. Lyle Oberg can't win a fight with the Alberta Teacher's Association, and Norris would be too bright-eyed and impressed that he's in power to actually use it. Hancock agrees far too much with the NDP in the first place, and if you'll excuse the offensive humour [if you won't excuse it, you're really on the wrong blog -ed] Gary McPherson doesn't have the legs for a fight like that.

Only Morton can stand up to Ottawa. Only Morton will stand up for Alberta. If you care about this province, you'll vote for Ted Morton. If not, get the fuck out.

Update, 3:45am: Turns out Morton may be in better shape than was first thought. This is encouraging.

Update, 5:34pm: My original post about Ed Stelmach might be worth a read. I've linked appropriately to it in the above rant.

Normally I'd say that this makes no sense, but it does involve Quebec after all

Today Stephen Harper announced that "the Quebecois form a nation within a united Canada" and gave it the full weight of Parliament. Perhaps not 100% surprising, the Quebec Liberals along with both the federal Liberals and their NDP brethren all are in favour of the Harper motion. (The NDP, in their particular idiocy, also support the upcoming Bloc motion on the same subject).

Probably the most damning statement against the Harper motion comes not from the Tory backbenches nor the Bloc-heads, but Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis (formerly the chairman of Joe Volpe's campaign until Volpe replaced him with a zombie) who stated:

Are we going to have a Greek nation within Canada, a Ukrainian nation within Canada, a Chinese nation within Canada? Sorry, Canada is the nation.

Myself, I'll go bold. Quebekers, Quebecois, les francophonies, effin' frogs, whatever you want to call them, are morons. Not all of them, but a sizeable percentage. Let's say 85% to pick a ballpark figure. It may be a little lower, or a fair bit higher, but that's a good range. Separatist Quebecers are morons (see Steyn), federalist Quebecers are morons (see Byfield), and those in between are likey morons still (see Mario Dumont v. Exceptions That Prove the Rule).

The fact that Quebecers are morons is critical to understanding why such words are both vitally important and conferring no special rights whatsoever. As a sensible westerner, I'm not interested in language "recognizing Alberta's distinct heritage", I'm interested in codified laws establishing Alberta as a sovereign nation outside of Canada, completely separate and alienated from all Canadian laws and treatises. Quebecers seem to be somehow influenced by this, and that this sort of talk can turn a so-called "soft separatist" into a "federalist" [why on earth is nobody willing to refer to a group of Quebecers as "soft federalists"? -ed]. This of course makes absolutely no sense: either the language has some sort of legal ramification and confers some sort of government fiat or additional level of civil or legislative rights, or else its a meaningless preamble-style bit of drivel that wastes Parliament's time and can be just as happily without than within.

Again, though, not to beat this issue to death anymore than I already have, it doesn't have to make sense, because it is dealing with the moronic province of Quebec.

SteynOnSouthpark reborn

I mentioned Mark Steyn's meeting with George Bush and a curious similarity with a South Park episode almost a month ago.

So odd that he should extensively quote South Park's Steve Irwin show in his obit of the Aussie crocodile hunter:

Asked by Jay Leno how he determined the sex of a croc, Irwin replied, “I put my finger in here and if it smiles it’s a girl, and if it bites me it’s a boy.” There was more than a grain of truth in the South Park episode in which the guys are lounging on the couch watching an Aussie crocodile hunter and his missus gliding down the river. “As we steer our boat down, looking for these dangerous predators …boy, there’s a king croc right here!” says the TV naturalist. “He must be four meters; 12, 13 feet long at least.” The mighty beast raises its head out of the water. “This croc has enough power in its jaws to rip my head right off… I’ve got to be careful. So what I’m gonna do is sneak up on it and jam my thumb in its butthole.”

Also of interest is in Steyn's letters, where his reader Dave Schneider writes about the "2 year" rule as it applies to American military will. Since the letters page is so fluid, this link won't show up in a couple weeks, so I'm quoting the letter verbatim:

AMERICAN ATTITUDES TO WARFARE
I'm a great admirer of your columns and wish you continued success.

I wanted to give you a bit of an idea. I teach history at a community college in New Jersey and part of my lecture regarding US History is an explanation of what I consider to be the American reaction to warfare. It is a synergy of two principles. The first is the "1/3 Rule" as explained by John Adams during the Revolutionary War. They second is my rule on American war spirit, which I call the "Two Year Rule". How they work is thus:

John Adams once said that only about 1/3 of the American people were for the Revolution, 1/3 were neutral and 1/3 were against it.

This split is still the functioning system of the American electorate today. About 1/3 are hard core Democrat, 1/3 are hard core Republican and 1/3 are "swing" voters.

When a war breaks out, the swing 1/3 can be expected, if the provocation is sufficient, to swing to the side of the war, causing it to be prosecuted. However, once a war starts, the "2-year Rule" begins. Because no matter what the provocation, no matter what the reasoning, 1/3 of the population already opposes it and will begin immediately to attempt to end it, regardless of any other fact.

The 2-year rule states that majority support for a war will last a maximum of two years. This is because most Americans are not warlike in nature and only react after provocation. As time passes, the provocation loses its strength and the neutral 1/3 begins to swing naturally to opposition to the war. After two years, unless the war is clearly heading for outright victory, anti-war movements gain enough strength to serious effect the conduct of the war or even cause it to end.

These are the proofs:

The Revolution was an exception. It lasted longer than two years due to the determination of the minority to prosecute the war combined with the decentralized nature of the government. The neutrals and anti-war Tories were unable to influence the leaders of the rebellion because there was no real centralized government to influence - the Continental Congress was totally controlled by the war faction and there were no elections.

The War of 1812 ran dangerously close to the 2-year Rule. By 1814, the anti-war feeling in New England had reached the point that a congress of those states held in Hartford, CT was on the verge of declaring secession and seeking a separate peace with England. I believe that the willingness of the U.S. government to accept a peace which did almost nothing except establish status quo ante was given impetus because of the fear of disunion over the war.

The Mexican War was too short to run into the 2-year rule and was quickly crowned with victory so that although the anti-war movement was rapidly growing in strength towards the end of that conflict, it never got a chance to end it.

The American Civil War was torn with anti-war activity. Draft Riots throughout the north, large scale desertion in the south. Lincoln himself was doubtful of reelection and the Republicans did lose many seats in the Congress. It was only the Northern victories of the second half of 1863, the feeling of many that the North would win and the voting support of Lincoln by the Union Army kept the Republicans in power.

The Spanish-American War, the "splendid little war" only lasted a few months and didn't generate much opposition.

The First World War saw the Wilson Administration from the very start take strong steps to crush opposition, jailing many who would oppose the war. Further, the American phase of that war didn't last two years, so again anti-war movements were unable to get traction.

The Second World War was also a partial exception. The Roosevelt Administration took massive steps to silence opposition, even to the point of exiling suspect ethic groups to "camps". However, WWII by the time where the 2-year Rule would be effecting (late 1943) it was so obviously heading for a victory that most people continued to support it.

Korea was a prime example of these two principles working. In two years, the opposition to this war became so great that the Truman Administration was unable to even consider running for reelection and the Democratic Party candidate (the party of the war) was crushed by the Eisenhower campaign which promised to end the war.

Vietnam is another prime example. The anti-war movement forced Johnson out of office and it led to the election of Nixon. But Nixon failed to end the war fast enough and so it turned on him, so much so that the majority of my students come into my history class believing that the Vietnam war was the fault of Richard Nixon.

The Iraq war is also becoming a prime example. With no clear-cut victory and no clear-cut end, the hostility to the war, regardless of the reasons for it, has grown to the point where the party in power has be removed by the electorate.

Thus, the lesson to be learned is clear. The U.S. can not go into any war without majority support and at the same time, the war must be concluded, within two years.

Iraq therefore is doomed. It’s been over two years and the majority now opposes it, regardless of the consequences.

Dave Schneider

Bonus Steyn letter:

According to Albert Speer, Hitler once opined that Germany would have been better off if Islam had successfully conquered Europe. That way, Aryans wouldn't have been saddled with wimpy Christianity but a religion more attuned to conquest and domination. Seems Adolf may eventually get his wish.

Bill Manuel
Spokane

I don't feel bad, nobody knows

Colby Cosh asked what biographical oddity Stalin shares with U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney last Friday. So far, as of early Tuesday morning, he has not posted the answer. It was supposed to be posted on Sunday if nobody got it.

I've glanced at the two Wikipedia entries. No clue, but I didn't look all that hard. Both have kids who they publicly refute and who hate them back, but somehow I don't think that's the answer.

Stalin at one point studied for priesthood, but Cheney didn't (while a lot more prominant people did). Guess I'll find out when the rest of you do.

Update, 1:05pm: The answer has been posted, and turns out that the choice of Cheney should have raised mental flags over what his big news story has been this year...shooting of a friend while out hunting.

The more things change, the creepier the similarities become

Atheling2 at The Pugil Stick tells us the story of how George Bush, a devout Christian, warns us about the dangers of Islam. He also recounts how America was fighting for Christian values in the wake of a deadly attack on September 11th, how the media was biased towards the Muslim hordes, and how Germany/France/Italy was quietly allied against American interests. In the end, America backed down based on its need for the resources from the Arab world, and Christianity suffered as a result.

Sounds boring enough, I hear you say. It doesn't even mention Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Osama bin Laden. Well, it shouldn't. It's not George Walker Bush, but Reverend George Bush (W.'s first cousin five times removed) who made the quoted statements. The Christians in our story were Greek and the Muslims were Turks, the journalist was worried that airing an anti-Turk story would "queer [him] at Constantinople", and the economics had nothing to do with oil (some queer black substance that rose from the ground and was impossible to clean) but rather with a construction of infrastructure (particularly railways).

2006 Grey Cup

An epic battle where a team from a city filled with a bunch of ethnics who don't speak English or consider themselves Canadian defeat another city filled with a bunch of ethnics who don't speak English or consider themselves Canadian.

Post #500 Baby!

That's right boys and girls! Believe it or not (and if the answer is "not" then I have bad news for you, since this blog's archives validate my contention), after just over 11 months of blogging I have now accumulated 500 posts! From baseball to extreme right wing politics, from slandering local musicians to uncovering dead chicks, Third Edge of the Sword has been your one stop shop for all sorts of stuff. I'll shut up about this and get onto the good stuff, a 1 year retrospective next month is a better time to cover this sort of territory.

Post #400 was barely a month ago. In the rest of October, 59 posts were added over 19 days 11 hours and 25 minutes. That's a post every 0.33 days (ie. every 7 hours, 55 minutes, 20.33 seconds). Not bad, not bad.

So far in November (not including this post), 40 posts in 18 days 15 hours 23 minutes for a post every 0.466 days (ie. every 11 hours, 11 minutes, 4.5 seconds). Talk about your healthy posting rates! Typically if you visit this site once a day, you'll have 2 new posts worth of content to peruse...every bloody time!

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New features
I haven't added much, but there are a few developments.

Live weblogging: Game 4 of the World Series was live weblogged, and it turns out I could have done the same for Game 5. Similar events, such as other sports events, may be possible. Or TomKat's wedding.

Home-spun graphics: Having pulled my old copy of Jasc's Paintshop Pro out of retirement, I've had the ability to make several graphics that have helped to illustrate points. Particularly during the live weblog: photos were available for every contingency. This sort of thing gives me just another tool to express myself. I try to limit it, I don't think all text or all photos is a good thing to try on a blog.

AlbertaBlogs: I am now on the AlbertaBlogs server, which means that my regular updates keep this blog located at or near the top of the list, meaning more and more people will find it possible to come here. More people means more exposure means more comments means more exciting developments. And that's win-win for everyone!

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Best reads

Baseball
• You can't win 'em all, and my NLCS predictions certainly bear that out
• The rain delays and work and social commitments put the live weblogging of a WS game in jeopardy. It also gave me time to discuss MLB's commercials for the postseason on FOX
• Naturally, the peak of my baseball posts on this blog to date was my live weblogging itself. Spanning almost 6 hours, 51 sub-posts, and 9 graphics. Very good, very good.
• I was around for Game 5, but didn't live weblog. I also congratulated the Cardinals on their win hours before it happened, because I'm so smart.

Politics
• North Korea went all crazy with nukes. Does anybody else remember this? The U.S. election seems to have removed the meme from our attention. Anyways, I covered it with musical accompanyment and then as a followup wondered what the U.N. did to piss Kim Jong off.
• The Alberta PC Leadership race didn't reflect enough, I feel, on the crap that Rona Ambrose went through last month.
• Canadian healthcare has been ignored by the media for a while now, which is odd since the health of a Canadian became big news during the fight over a Missouri proposition.
• Mark Steyn met the (real) U.S. President. Stan and Kyle met the (fictional) U.S. President. Yet both Bushes made the same comment. I get to the bottom of which came first.
• On Stardate 43015.7, Jack Layton, clad all in black, hid in the dining chamber and awaited the arrival of the man he wished to take prisoner. If this seems pretty much like how you feared the Layton "environment chat" with Harper would end up, you'll understand this. Wait until you see Belinda in the gold bikini tied up to a grossly overweight Paul Martin.
• Albertans, when dissatisfied by their governments, take immediate and decisive action to change how the government operates wastes time and energy starting up a new political party.
• George Bush looks like a monkey. Monkeys are stupid and uncivilized. Therefore George Bush is stupid and uncivilized. Also therefore, asians are disgusting retards. Discuss.
• The U.S. had elections that turned out badly. This post quotes a story of sorts, and probably has the most haunting title of any post I've ever done.
• I defended Peter MacKay against Belinda. I defended enviro-weenies against Rona. I am proud of both of these.
• I'm also proud of a discovery that Bush himself gave a speech that resonated for the wrong reasons in the minds of American voters.
• I also defended Ralph Klein against Belinda. My internal consistency just knows know bounds!
• The Harper government closed a loophole on income trusts that they promised that they wouldn't. Alberta Treasury Branches has its own opinion on the matter.
• Jim Dinning seems poised to be Alberta's next premier. Watching these videos might change your mind.

Comedy
• A mysoginist Arab has a video explaining why women don't think. I observe his drawing skills.
• Captain Capitalist defends fat girls. I poke holes in the theory.
• Good old Belinda. I correct an error in her Wikipedia entry.
• Snoop Dogg is in trouble with the law again. I suggest that it would serve the purposes of the law better if they kept him out of trouble with the law and got him into trouble with his fans and therefore in trouble with his accountant.
• A recent post on a nightclub closing doesn't translate well. At least, not when ran through babelfish three times for no particular reason.

Who polices the police?
• Edmonton Police take bribes during domestic disputes involving young children.
• The Secret Service takes down 14 year old blonde girls and Texas cops get sexually excited by dead bodies.
• Three letters to three papers that never got printed on the subject of police violations of privacy laws, violent tendencies, and CSIS incompetance.
• Calgary cops steal guns when a program is created where people bring their guns into the police station. Surprised?
• EPS is so corrupt, even the Russians are offended by the flagrant power abuse.
• EPS is quick to investigate when there's a case of wrongdoing. The ACS kickbacks? The young girl beat up on Whyte by the cops? Taser-fest 2005? Nah, somebody dropped their lunch in front of a mosque!

On a personal note
• I happen to be in a hockey pool with several friends this NHL season, and figured I'd share my team
• In this first part of a two-part series during the past 100 posts about finally revealing to the world what I look like, I plug my face into a generator that compares me to celebrities. This is what the results look like.
• I took a trip to Calgary in late October, and pondered a few restaurants (and even got reader suggestions!)
• If you're name is Megan and you're a bartender in Grande Prairie, Alberta, then there's an IM conversation about you that you might be interested in.
• I rant about the lost art of obtaining Halloween candy.
• Upset over a missing feature on the Sonic 102.9 website, I write them a letter.
• Upset over a missing feature on CityTV's late night programming, I write them a letter.
• I challenge readers (and still do) to figure out these NHL trivia questions
• Do I write like a woman? Much of the time, an algorithm says yes.
• In part two of the "what my face looks like" series, I basically just morph one half of my posting handle into the other, with interesting results.
• I spent last Friday partying with Dust My Broom's Darcey. Except I was in a different city. And he doesn't know I exist. And its not as creepy as it sounds

Crime and bars
• In one evening, three men were murdered at the same Edmonton bar. My early morning reactions are available here.
• A little online digging and suddenly I again beat the Edmonton newspapers in revealing some information on the deceased. I also get into a lot of trouble in this thread for quoting somebody as characterizing the club where 3 black men were killed by another black man in what may be related to last month's shooting of a black man by another black man as "a black club".
• Edmonton was big news that day, and completely filled the Google News page on Canada.
• A Canadian boxer is murdered in Jamaica. I'm the only person to notice that finally we're sending some people over there to be murdered as opposed to the other way around.
• Barry T's has reopened under yet another new name. I complain about the factors that got the original, and the now defunct 2nd edition, closed down in the name of progress.

November 2006 election: please don't elect a centrist!

No, this isn't about the U.S., this is about the upcoming PC leadership vote. I've had little if anything to say on this matter. That may change in a couple of weeks, I'm not 100% sure (ABF's thread on Ted Morton might give a clue to what I mean by this answer).

For now though, here are a couple of good YouTube videos (one put up by obvious Morton supporters, the other by mere Dinning haters trashing Dinnings relations with the federal Liberals):