1 2<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>ColbyCosh.com</TITLE> <META NAME="description" CONTENT="The personal homepage and weblog of the Canadian newspaper columnist Colby Cosh."><META NAME ="keywords" CONTENT="Colby, Cosh, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Canadian, news, journalism, weblog, comment, National Post"> </HEAD> <BODY LINK="000000" VLINK="000000" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> 3<IMG SRC="cbanner.gif" align="left" ALT="Welcome to the golden treasury of Colby Coshery."> 4<BR clear="left"> 5 6 7<TABLE WIDTH="95%" VALIGN="TOP" cellpadding="5" UNITS=relative> <TD BGCOLOR="#6F7803" VALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="21%" UNITS=relative><font color="#FFFFFF" size="-1"><CENTER>About <A HREF="who.html">Your Host</A><BR><A HREF="mailto:[email protected]">Send</A> Me E-Mail<BR><A HREF="oldarchives.html">Browse</A> the Archives<BR> 8<A HREF="#pico">Search</a> the Site<BR> 9<A HREF="http://flickr.com/photos/colbycosh/">Look</a> at Photos<br> 10<HR> 11 12<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post"> 13<input 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PKCS7-----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-----END PKCS7----- 16"> 17</form> 18 19 20<HR>FRIENDS<BR> 21<A HREF="http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/gunter/default.aspx">Lorne Gunter</a><BR> 22<A HREF="http://agileminor.blogspot.com">Ian Gilmore</a><BR> 23<A HREF="http://www.theambler.com/">Kevin Grace</a><BR> 24<A HREF="http://www.jeremylott.net/">Jeremy Lott</a><BR> 25<A HREF="http://sarahevekelly.blogspot.com/">Sarah Kelly</a><BR> 26<A HREF="http://ricksmiscellany.blogspot.com/">Rick Hiebert</a><BR> 27<A HREF="http://kellyjanetorrance.com/">Kelly Torrance</a><BR> 28<A HREF="http://thrashor.blogspot.com/">Chris Hammond-Thrasher</a><BR> 29<A HREF="http://battleofalberta.blogspot.com/">Battle of Alberta</a><BR> 30<A HREF="http://mc79hockey.com/">Tyler Dellow</a><BR> 31<A HREF="http://thenq.ca/">The NQ</a><BR> 32<A HREF="http://fragileworks.com/fresnelle/">Fresnelle</a><BR> 33<A HREF="http://kevinsteel.org/">Kevin Steel</a><BR> 34<A HREF="http://threebrightstars.blogspot.com/">Liz Medwid</a><BR> 35<A HREF="http://carmenwittmeier.blogspot.com/">Carmen Wittmeier</a><BR> 36NATPOSTBLOGS<BR> 37<A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/fullcomment/index.html">Full Comment</a><BR> 38<A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/comment/blog/chevreau.html">Jonathan Chevreau</a><BR> 39<A HREF="http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/geekboutique/default.aspx">Peter Nowak</a><BR> 40<A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/comment/znaimer.html">Libby Znaimer</a><BR> 41<A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/kinsella/index.html">Warren Kinsella</a><BR> 42<I>POST</i>/POST-<I>POST</i><BR> 43<A HREF="http://www.marksteyn.com/">Mark Steyn</a><BR> 44<A HREF="http://www.macleans.ca/paulwells/">Paul Wells</a><BR> 45<A HREF="http://jkay.ca/">Jonathan Kay</a><BR> 46<A HREF="http://fence.blogspot.com">J. Kelly Nestruck</a><BR> 47<A HREF="http://www.georgejonas.ca/">George Jonas</a><BR> 48<A HREF="http://www.daifallah.com/musings.htm">Adam Daifallah</a><BR> 49<A HREF="http://www.popwherry.blogspot.com/">Aaron Wherry</a><BR> 50<A HREF="http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum-diary.asp">David Frum</a><BR> 51<A HREF="http://www.drjandmrk.com/">Weissenberger/Koch</a><BR> 52<A HREF="http://forums.macleans.ca/advansis/?mod=for&act=dis&eid=22">Andrew Potter</a><BR> 53<A HREF="http://forums.macleans.ca/advansis/?mod=for&act=dip&pid=39875&tid=39875&ref=publish&eid=21">Luiza Savage</a><BR> 54<A HREF="http://forums.macleans.ca/advansis/?mod=for&act=dip&tt=&pid=40012&tid=40012&eid=31&so=&ps=&sb=&tso=&tps=&tsb=">Adam Radwanski</a><BR> 55CANADA<BR> 56<A HREF="http://westernstandard.blogs.com/">The Shotgun</a><BR> 57<A HREF="http://www.members.shaw.ca/nspector4/">Norman Spector</a><BR> 58<A HREF="http://www.thecourt.ca/">The Court</a><BR> 59<A HREF="http://www.dangardner.ca/">
59Dan Gardner</a><BR> 60<A HREF="http://www.smalldeadanimals.com">Kate McMillan</a><BR> 61<A HREF="http://www.bloggingtories.ca/">Blogging Tories</a><BR> 62<A HREF="http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/">Darren Barefoot</a><BR> 63<A HREF="http://mezzoblue.com/">Dave Shea</a><BR> 64<A HREF="http://www.relapsedcatholic.com/">Kathy Shaidle</a><BR> 65<A HREF="http://ty4.blogspot.com/">Tybalt</a><BR> 66<A HREF="http://atomiq.org/">Atomiq</a><BR> 67<A HREF="http://thebalance.typepad.com/">Jeremy Loome</a><BR> 68<A HREF="http://gorgeoustown.typepad.com/lex_culinaria/">Lex Culinaria</a><BR> 69<A HREF="http://caterina.net/">Caterina Fake</a><BR> 70<A HREF="http://youareablog.blogspot.com/">Erin Loxam</a><BR> 71<A HREF="http://tbray.org/ongoing/">Tim Bray</a><BR> 72<A HREF="http://www.peaktalk.com/">Pieter Dorsman</a><BR> 73<A HREF="http://www.dowlersolutions.ca/blog/">Ginna Dowler</a><BR> 74<A HREF="http://www.jasonhayes.org/">Jason Hayes</a><BR> 75<A HREF="http://www.jenandtonic.ca/">Jen & Tonic</a><BR> 76<A HREF="http://homiebear.blogspot.com/">Homie Bear</a><BR> 77<A HREF="http://jaycurrie.info-syn.com/">Jay Currie</a><BR> 78<A HREF="http://www.ianking.ca/">Ian King</a><BR> 79<A HREF="http://willcocks.blogspot.com/">Paul Willcocks</a><BR> 80<A HREF="http://www.tartcider.com/blog/">Chris Selley</a><BR> 81<A HREF="http://blog.thismagazine.ca/"><I>This</i></a><BR> 82<A HREF="http://www.snappingturtle.net/flit/">Flit</a><BR> 83<A HREF="http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog">Joey DeVilla</a><BR> 84<A HREF="http://angryrobot.ca/">Daragh Sankey</a><BR> 85<A HREF="http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/">Grant McCracken</a><BR> 86<A HREF="http://www.ghostofaflea.com/">Nicholas Packwood</a><BR> 87<A HREF="http://www.saunderslog.com/">Alec Saunders</a><BR> 88<A HREF="http://www.jayjardine.blogspot.com/">Jay Jardine</a><BR> 89<A HREF="http://slaw.ca/">Slaw.ca</a><BR> 90<A HREF="http://johncairns.blogspot.com/">John Cairns</a><BR> 91<A HREF="http://www.stephentaylor.ca/">Stephen Taylor</a><BR> 92<A HREF="http://pithandsubstance.blogspot.com/">Pithlord</a><BR> 93<A HREF="http://wasabicowgirl.blogspot.com/">Wasabi Cowgirl</a><BR> 94<A HREF="http://www.damianpenny.com/">Damian Penny</a><BR> 95<A HREF="http://www.mikecampbell.net/the_campblog.htm">Mike Campbell</a><BR> 96<A HREF="http://dominionpaper.ca/weblog/">The Dominion</a><BR> 97<A HREF="http://johngushue.typepad.com/">John Gushue</a><BR> 98<A HREF="http://blogquebecois.com/">Blog Québécois</a><BR> 99<A HREF="http://autonomoussource.com/">Bruce Gottfred</a><BR> 100<A HREF="http://davesim.blogspot.com/">Dave Sim</a><BR> 101<A HREF="http://iectomorph.blogspot.com/index.html">I, Ectomorph</a><BR> 102<A HREF="http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-journal.php">Daniel Negreanu</a><BR> 103<A HREF="http://freejasonfrasor.blogspot.com/">The Reader</a><BR> 104<A HREF="http://recursed.blogspot.com/">Jeffrey Shallit</a><BR> 105<A HREF="http://scruss.com/blog/">Stewart Russell</a><BR> 106USA<BR> 107<A HREF="http://www.mattwelch.com/">Matt Welch</a><BR> 108<A HREF="http://volokh.com/">The Volokh Conspiracy</a><BR> 109<A HREF="http://highclearing.com/">Jim Henley</a><BR> 110<A HREF="http://www.godofthemachine.com/">Aaron Haspel</a><BR> 111<A HREF="http://www.kottke.org/">Jason Kottke</a><BR> 112<A HREF="http://agendabender.blogspot.com/">Agenda Bender</a><BR> 113<A HREF="http://www.educatedguesswork.org/">E.K. Rescorla</a><BR> 114<A HREF="http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/">David Friedman</a><BR> 115<A HREF="http://instapundit.com/">Instapundit</a><BR> 116<A HREF="http://www.kenlayne.com/">Ken Layne</a><BR> 117<A HREF="http://www.101-280.com/">Evan Kirchhoff</a><BR> 118<A HREF="http://www.aleph.se/andart/">Anders Sandberg</a><BR> 119<A HREF="http://www.udolpho.com/weblog/Default.asp">Udolpho</a><BR> 120<A HREF="http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/">Rogers Cadenhead</a><BR> 121<A HREF="http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/">Lindsay Beyerstein</a><BR> 122<A HREF="http://fittedsweats.blogspot.com/">Jeff Johnson</a><BR> 123<A HREF="http://www.robmacdougall.org/">Rob MacDougall</a><BR> 124<A HREF="http://www.dynamist.com/weblog/">Virginia Postrel</a><BR> 125<A HREF="http://www.kausfiles.com/">Mickey Kaus</a><BR> 126<A HREF="http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/currentview.html">Jerry Pournelle</a><BR> 127<A HREF="http://www.isteve.com/">Steve Sailer</a><BR> 128<A HREF="http://www.lukeford.net/blog/index.php/">Luke Ford</a><BR> 129<A HREF="http://olimu.com/">John Derbyshire</a><BR> 130<A HREF="http://www.gnxp.com/">Gene Expression</a><BR> 131<A HREF="http://www.corante.com/pipeline/">Derek Lowe</a><BR> 132<A HREF="http://www.marginalrevolution.com/">Marginal Revolution</a><BR> 133<A HREF="http://www.knowledgeproblem.com/">Lynne Kiesling</a><BR> 134<A HREF="http://www.2blowhards.com/">2 Blowhards</a><BR> 135<A HREF="http://www.artsjournal.com/aboutlastnight/">About Last Night</a><BR> 136<A HREF="http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/">Hit & Run</a><BR> 137<A HREF="http://hnn.us/blogs/4.html">Liberty & Power</a><BR> 138<A HREF="http://www.cato-unbound.org/">Cato Unbound</a><BR> 139<A HREF="http://genehealy.com/">Gene Healy</a><BR> 140<A HREF="http://juliansanchez.com/notes.html">Julian Sanchez</a><BR> 141<A HREF="http://theagitator.com/">Radley Balko</a><BR> 142<A HREF="http://jessewalker.blogspot.com/">Jesse Walker</a><BR> 143<A HREF="http://www.two--four.net/weblog.php">Billy Beck</a><BR> 144<A HREF="http://stevenjens.blogspot.com/">Steven Jens</a><BR> 145<A HREF="http://evanmc.blogspot.com/">Evan McElravy</a><BR> 146<A HREF="http://willwilkinson.net/flybottle/">Will Wilkinson</a><BR> 147<A HREF="http://www.simpleton.com/">Tim Cavanaugh</a><BR> 148<A HREF="http://hayekcenter.org/prestopundit/">Greg Ransom</a><BR> 149<A HREF="http://janegalt.net/">Jane Galt</a><BR> 150<A HREF="http://www.therestisnoise.com/">Alex Ross</a><BR> 151<A HREF="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/">Andrew Sullivan</a><BR> 152<A HREF="http://www.newcriterion.com/weblog/armavirumque.html">Armavirumque</a><BR> 153<A HREF="http://tonypierce.com/">Tony Pierce</a><BR> 154<A HREF="http://www.lileks.com/bleats/index.html">James Lileks</a><BR> 155<A HREF="http://www.joannejacobs.com/">Joanne Jacobs</a><BR> 156<A HREF="http://www.buzzmachine.com/">Jeff Jarvis</a><BR> 157<A HREF="http://www.soundsandfury.com/">A.C. Douglas</a><BR> 158<A HREF="http://www.emmanuelle.net/">Emmanuelle Richard</a><BR> 159<A HREF="http://www.drweevil.org/">Dr. Weevil</a><BR> 160<A HREF="http://maialazar.com/">Maia Lazar</a><BR> 161<A HREF="http://comedian.blogspot.com/">The Comedian</a><BR> 162<A HREF="http://www.buddyhead.com/gossip/main.php?ID=log.html">Buddyhead</a><BR> 163<A HREF="http://docsurg.blogspot.com/">Aggravated DocSurg</a><BR> 164<A HREF="http://balkin.blogspot.com/">Jack Balkin</a><BR> 165<A HREF="http://www.getreligion.org/">GetReligion.org</a><BR> 166<A HREF="http://terrenceberres.com/">Terrence Berres</a><BR> 167<A HREF="http://classicalvalues.com/">Eric Scheie</a><BR> 168<A HREF="http://blog.wired.com/sterling/">Bruce Sterling</a><BR> 169<A HREF="http://www.kk.org/cooltools/">Cool Tools</a><BR> 170<A HREF="http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/">Mark Chu-Carroll</a><BR> 171<A HREF="http://mahalanobis.twoday.net/">Michael Stastny</a><BR> 172<A HREF="http://www.billingsgazette.com/citylights/">Ed Kemmick</a><BR> 173<A HREF="http://eve-tushnet.blogspot.com/">Eve Tushnet</a><BR> 174<A HREF="http://www.affbrainwash.com/">Brainwash</a><BR> 175<A HREF="http://hnn.us/blogs/2.html">
175Cliopatria</a><BR> 176<A HREF="http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/">Language Log</a><BR> 177<A HREF="http://www.robotwisdom.com/">Jorn Barger</a><BR> 178<A HREF="http://j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/">Brad DeLong</a><BR> 179<A HREF="http://corner.nationalreview.com/">The Corner</a><BR> 180<A HREF="http://skittlesmaze.blogspot.com/">PWS</a><BR> 181<A HREF="http://dienekes.blogspot.com/">Dienekes</a><BR> 182<A HREF="http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/">Cognitive Daily</a><BR> 183<A HREF="http://www.kirchersociety.org/blog/">Kircher Society</a><BR> 184<A HREF="http://11d.typepad.com/blog/">11D</a><BR> 185<A HREF="http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite/">Nielsen Hayden</a><BR> 186<A HREF="http://paul.kedrosky.com/">Paul Kedrosky</a><BR> 187<A HREF="http://prettygirlshooter.blogspot.com/">James DiGiorgio</a><BR> 188<A HREF="http://www.radosh.net/">Daniel Radosh</a><BR> 189<A HREF="http://www.advicegoddess.com/goddessblog.html">Amy Alkon</a><BR> 190<A HREF="http://chimeraobscura.com/mi/">Minimally Invasive</a><BR> 191WORLD<BR> 192<A HREF="http://dev.null.org/blog/">Null Device</a><BR> 193<A HREF="http://boingboing.net/">BoingBoing</a><BR> 194<A HREF="http://timblair.net/">Tim Blair</a><BR> 195<A HREF="http://www.denisdutton.com/">Denis Dutton</a><BR> 196<A HREF="http://www.badscience.net/">Ben Goldacre</a><BR> 197<A HREF="http://dailyspeculations.com/">Daily Speculations</a><BR> 198<A HREF="http://www.boris-johnson.com/">Boris Johnson</a><BR> 199<A HREF="http://www.crookedtimber.org/">Crooked Timber</a><BR> 200<A HREF="http://www.warrenellis.com/">Warren Ellis</a><BR> 201<A HREF="http://www.overcomingbias.com/">Overcoming Bias</a><BR> 202<A HREF="http://www.scottymac.blogspot.com/">Scotty Mac</a><BR> 203<A HREF="http://therussiandilettante.blogspot.com/">Russian Dilettante</a><BR> 204<A HREF="http://www.anglican.tk/">Anglican.tk</a><BR> 205<A HREF="http://dantravels.blogspot.com/">Daniel Butler</a><BR> 206<A HREF="http://www.samizdata.net/blog/">Samizdata</a><BR> 207<A HREF="http://gfactor.blogspot.com/">Chris Brand</a><BR> 208<A HREF="http://www.andrewiandodge.com/">Andrew Ian Dodge</a><BR> 209<A HREF="http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/">Adam Smith Inst.</a><BR> 210<A HREF="http://pekingdork.blogspot.com/">Peking Dork</a><BR> 211<A HREF="http://blog.ianhamet.com/">Ian Hamet</a><BR> 212<A HREF="http://kaiserkuo.typepad.com/">Kaiser Kuo</a><BR> 213<A HREF="http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/">Mig Greengard</a><BR> 214<A HREF="http://www.danwei.org/">Danwei.org</a><BR> 215<A HREF="http://www.economist.com/debate/freeexchange/">Free Exchange</a><BR> 216<A HREF="http://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/timharford">Tim Harford</a><BR> 217<A HREF="http://japundit.com/index.php">Japundit</a><BR> 218<A HREF="http://yaplog.jp/strawberry2/">Shoko Nakagawa</a><BR> 219<A HREF="http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Etimkr/chess2/diary.htm">Tim Krabbé</a><BR> 220SPORTS<BR> 221<A HREF="http://lowetide.blogspot.com/">Lowetide</a><BR> 222<A HREF="http://www.coveredinoil.blogspot.com/">Covered in Oil</a><BR> 223<A HREF="http://www.mirtle.blogspot.com/">James Mirtle</a><BR> 224<A HREF="http://offwing.com/">Eric McErlain</a><BR> 225<A HREF="http://blog.dallasstars.com/">Daryl Reaugh</a><BR> 226<A HREF="http://www.sportsmatter.blogspot.com/">Sports Matters</a><BR> 227<A HREF="http://hot-oil.blogspot.com/">Hot Oil</a><BR> 228<A HREF="http://vhockey.blogspot.com/">Irreverent Oiler Fans</a><BR> 229<A HREF="http://blackdoghatesskunks.blogspot.com/">Pat McLean</a><BR> 230<A HREF="http://littlestdefenseman.blogspot.com/">Littlest Defenseman</a><BR> 231<A HREF="http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.php/A2Y/">Abel2Yzerman</a><BR> 232<A HREF="http://jesgolbez.blogspot.com/">Jes Gõlbez</a><BR> 233<A HREF="http://www.canuckscorner.com/weblog/nhllog/">Tom Benjamin</a><BR> 234<A HREF="http://www.leaderboard.com/rodent.htm">Hockey Rodent</a><BR> 235<A HREF="http://sharkspage.com/">SharksPage</a><BR> 236<A HREF="http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/primer/">Baseball Think Factory</a><BR> 237<A HREF="http://www.footballoutsiders.com/">Football Outsiders</a><BR> 238<A HREF="http://www.boatmenblog.com/">Boatmen Blog</a><BR> 239<A HREF="http://freedarko.blogspot.com/">Free Darko</a><BR> 240<A HREF="http://deadspin.com/">Deadspin</a><BR> 241<A HREF="http://kissmesuzy.blogspot.com/">Kissing Suzy Kolber</a><BR> 242<A HREF="http://www.firejoemorgan.com/">Fire Joe Morgan</a><BR> 243<A HREF="http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/">Tangotiger</a><BR> 244COMICS/FUN<BR> 245<A HREF="http://www.maakies.com/">Maakies</a><BR> 246<A HREF="http://achewood.com/">Achewood</a><BR> 247<A HREF="http://www.fartparty.org/">Fart Party</a><BR> 248<A HREF="http://www.jerkcity.com/">Jerkcity</a><BR> 249<A HREF="http://www.qwantz.com/">Dinosaur Comics</a><BR> 250<A HREF="http://angryflower.com/">Angry Flower</a><BR> 251<A HREF="http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/index.html">Stupid Comics</a><BR> 252<A HREF="http://www.deuceofclubs.com/">Deuce of Clubs</a><BR> 253<A HREF="http://www.somethingawful.com/">Something Awful</a><BR> 254<A HREF="http://weeklydig.com/music/burn_unit/">David Thorpe</a><BR> 255<A HREF="http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/">Fake Steve Jobs</a><BR> 256<A HREF="http://jimtreacher.com/">Jim Treacher</a><BR> 257<A HREF="http://cockeyed.com/">Cockeyed</a><BR> 258<A HREF="http://www.animationarchive.org/index.html">ASIFA</a><BR> 259<A HREF="http://www.aspecialthing.com/phpbb/portal.php">A Special Thing</a><BR> 260<A HREF="http://joshreads.com/">Comics Curmudgeon</a><BR> 261<A HREF="http://daveslongbox.blogspot.com/">David Campbell</a><BR> 262<A HREF="http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/">John Kricfalusi</a><BR> 263<A HREF="http://blog.myspace.com/pattonoswalt">Patton Oswalt</a><BR> 264<A HREF="http://www.maximumfun.org/blog/">TSOYA</a><BR> 265</center> 266 267<P> 268<!--WEBBOT 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268 <noscript> <a href="http://s12.sitemeter.com/stats.asp?site=s12colbycosh" target="_top"> <img src="http://s12.sitemeter.com/meter.asp?site=s12colbycosh" alt="Site Meter" border=0></a> </noscript> <!-- Copyright (c)2002 Site Meter --> <!--WEBBOT bot="HTMLMarkup" Endspan --> </font><font size="-2"><BR>visitors since August 1, 2002<P> 269 270<a target="_blank" href="http://205.210.235.93/feeds/0001/000162.feed.rss"><img border=0 src="../images/rss.gif"></a><BR> 271scrape provided by the courtesy of<BR> 272<A HREF="http://www.blogmatrix.com/sparks_main/"><IMG SRC="../images/bmxbutton.gif" border="0"></a> 273 274</FONT> 275</TD> 276 277<TD WIDTH="5" UNITS=pixels></TD> 278<TD BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"><FONT SIZE="-2"> 279 280Note to webmasters: the "semipermalinks" at the bottom of each entry will be good for about 40-60 days: then entries will migrate to their permanent place in the Archives. This site is hand-coded. <B>HIT "REFRESH"</b> to ensure you are seeing the newest content.<BR><HR></font><FONT SIZE="-1"> 281 282 283Notice to all those smartmouth pantywaists who, for half a decade, have been heaping abuse on this site's shabby appearance and lack of ding-dongs and cyber-spittoons: <A HREF="http://www.colbycosh.com/mt/">I'm transitioning to Movable Type</a> as an experimental <I>ennui</i> remedy. You are invited to declare and demonstrate your illimitable expertise in stylesheets, MT templates, and design. Drop me a line at the usual address. Challenges will include giving the site a distinctive look, finding a way I can add my blogroll to the sidebar without fucking around with some teenager's third-party plugin, and adding a banner. No reward aside from reluctant gratitude is offered. -10:39 pm, May 26<HR> 284 285 286 287Here's <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters/story.html?id=b40eb243-8bd4-4137-ac1f-95a995f1ac1d">my <B>Friday <I>Post</i> column</b> on Shane Doan</a>. -9:51 am, May 5<HR> 288 289 290This collection of <A HREF="http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/grindhouse-movies.php?page=1">grindhouse-style posters for serious movies</a> is an all-time artistic high point for the Something Awful forum goons. -9:49 am, May 5<HR> 291 292 293 294Many of you have noticed already, but for those who haven't, I am on <A HREF="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=669650696">Facebook</a> now. -9:47 am, May 5<HR> 295 296<B><I><A NAME="rfac"> 297Coshery roundup 298</A></i></B><P> 299 300One of my greatest pleasures as a journalist is finding stories that have been underreported in Canada for my Notebook page in the <I>Western Standard</i>. Two recent favourites [registration req'd] are <A HREF="http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=2385">this column busting a widespread myth about the Canadian origins of radio broadcasting</a> and <A HREF="http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=2440">a piece about how the forgotten cruise-missile protesters of the 1980s just won an important victory</a>
300 long after they all cut their hair and got real jobs.<P> 301 302Over on the <I>National Post</i>'s Full Comment site I've thrown in recent tidbits about <A HREF="http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/04/25/colby-cosh-men-in-shorts.aspx">a quiet sign of NATO progress in Afghanistan</a>, the <A HREF="http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/04/23/colby-cosh-bill-gates-and-j-k-rowling-two-of-a-kind.aspx">hidden connection between Bill Gates and J.K. Rowling</a>, and a <A HREF="http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/04/25/colby-cosh-the-good-loser.aspx">longer entry about Toyota's takeover of the world automobile market</a>. (Favourite recent Full Comment entry not by me: <A HREF="http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/04/23/barbara-kay-what-cho-seung-hui-may-have-learned-from-lionel-shriver-s-we-need-to-talk-about-kevin.aspx">Barbara Kay finds a surprising literary precedent</a> for spree killer Cho Seung-Hui's horribly innovative strategy of blocking exits in Norris Hall.)<P> 303 304Be sure to watch for a new signed column from me in Friday's <I>Post</i>; if you enjoy my occasional forays into John Allen Paulos-meets-Malcolm Gladwell-and-they-have-a-slightly-stupider-child sci-media criticism, today's your lucky day. [UPDATE, 6:59 am: <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters/story.html?id=7c1a2496-bbe7-45ff-9bad-6ea4acbbc7d5&p=1">Here 'tis, free and online</a>.]<P> 305 306<CENTER>- 12:19 am, April 27 307<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#rfac">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 308<P><HR> 309 310<B><I><A NAME="gavt"> 311'Gruffy and angry' 312</A></i></B><P> 313 314One of my first thoughts upon the disclosure of the basic details about Cho Seung-Hui was that it seemed awfully odd for an English major to go on a rampage in a building consisting mostly of engineering classes. One of my very next thoughts was that being an English major at a university with "Tech" in the name is an awfully awkward thing to be, period. And that would seem to go double for someone who did not speak any English at all in his family home and who used the language--as you can see from reading his one-act plays or looking at his "manifesto"--exactly like an inept subtitler of Chinese B-movies.<P> 315 316In other words, the scattered bits of infomation about the (apparently borderline-retarded) killer practically screamed out a very likely fact about him--namely, that he had taken some poor high-school grades into the English program at Tech in the hopes of transferring into engineering, or had started in engineering, made a hash of it, and clung to his varsity eligibility (in a fashion familiar to undergraduates everywhere) by migrating into English. I hesitate to add the words "...in the hopes of pleasing his family" to either of these cases, since it borders on stereotyping to assume that Cho somehow misplaced the stock script for a second-generation participant in the American Dream. But then again, if you're looking for evidence that he faced real or imagined familial pressures, you might note that in the past few days that some of his extended-family members have described his parents as too poor to seek out the mental-health assistance they (and everyone who ever so much as laid eyes on him) knew he needed. Where, then, did the money to send him to an American university come from? I think it's safe to say he wasn't the type to win a bundle of scholarships, and if he ever held a job, no one's yet come forward describing themselves as a former boss or co-worker. (Important caveat: he might easily have earned a salary working for the business his parents owned.)<P> 317 318At any rate, some circumstantial evidence suggesting that Cho had hopes of qualifying as an engineer has <A HREF="http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=2989654&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.3.1">emerged this evening, courtesy of Fox News</a>:<P> 319 320<blockquote> 321Why did the English major target Norris, a building dominated by engineering and foreign language classes? Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior who went to high school with Cho, said he remembers seeing Cho on campus a lot freshman year, and concluded that Cho, like him, started out as an engineering major.<BR> 322"If he started in engineering and had to switch to English that might be a reason why he's angry at the engineering department," Davids said.<P></blockquote> 323 324I raised more assignment-desk questions about the killing spree <A HREF="http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/04/19/va-tech-questions.aspx">at Full Comment earlier this week</a>. And readers can also catch my <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters/story.html?id=ee25920b-ba46-4fa6-8be7-57e3fc63199b">Friday column on Bert Brown's imminent elevation to the Senate</a>.<P> 325 326<CENTER>- 1:57 am, April 21 327<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#gavt">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 328<P><HR> 329 330In today's <I>Post</i>: my slightly belated but undeniably sprawling article about <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=12d308d5-ce67-4d09-9f10-46db69bcb2c9">the hidden greatness and misleading myths of <B>Jackie Robinson</b></a>. Bonus suggestion: Keep one eye on <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/fullcomment/index.html">FullComment.com</a> for a take on events at Virginia Tech. -11:54 am, April 17<HR> 331 332 333<B><I><A NAME="plur"> 334Sigh 335</A></i></B><P> 336 337I knew if I missed that "plurisapience" <A HREF="#paew">bus</a>
337 last Monday, there wouldn't be another one around for a while. I was busy last week <A HREF="http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/04/13/colby-cosh-on-the-liberal-green-love-in-st-phane-dion-meet-kevin-potvin.aspx">dictating conventional wisdom on the Liberal-Green electoral accord</a> (ousted Green candidate Kevin Potvin <A HREF="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070415/potvin_denied_070415/20070415?hub=Politics">is blaming my editorial</a> for his comeuppance), <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=4206f205-a5ca-405a-a721-fcfa7569a5e4&k=0">bidding farewell to Kurt Vonnegut</a>, arguing that you should <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=b2b0fc86-2dec-424e-9005-9c6a237be086">be able to sell your own damn kidney to whomever you like</a>, and (on top of all of this) writing a gigantic piece on Jackie Robinson that will have to be either implanted in the <I>National Post</i> with a crane sometime this week, dismembered, or binned. I am told the former is still being attempted.<P> 338 339Readers suggested many alternatives to <A HREF="#fdjs">"plurisapient/plurisapience"</a>, and at least one made a <A HREF="http://www.mattwelch.com/archives/2007/04/08-week/#2895">manful but failed effort to smuggle it into the pages of a major metropolitan newspaper</a>.<P> 340 341<blockquote> 342Another good word, which plays off misunderstanding, might be <B>massunderstanding</b>. But that works only as a noun; I can't see an adjective coming out of it.<BR> 343<B>Panperception</b> and <B>panperceptive</b> work as <I>n.</i> and <I>v.</i>, but they're not as precise as plurisapience/-ient.<BR> 344My last entry would be <B>throngtelligence</b> and <B>throngtelligent</b>, but they're not as elegant as yours. <I>-Terry O'Neill</i><P> 345 346In the spirit of "let's mash some Greek words together", how about <B>plethosophy</b>, from <I>plethus</i> for crowd and <I>sophos</i> for wisdom? <I>-Michael Smit</i><P></blockquote> 347 348I'll just note that any word that one cannot pronounce without breaking one's jaw has very little chance of being adopted into the language. But that didn't stop others from going down the same road.<P> 349 350<blockquote> 351<B>Plethosophia?</b> I think itÂ’s got about the same chance of being understood as "plurisapience--and it's Greek! That may give it a leg up with the all-important Christian market. Plus, I just like the phrase "plethosophical insight." Yes, better than "plurisapient insight." <I>[...he said, as if he or anyone could possibly pronounce "plethosophical." -ed.]</i><BR> 352IÂ’ve also been thinking about ways of incorporating the prefix <I>pleb-</i> as I think that adds the subtle hint that the crowd doesnÂ’t have to be a crowd of experts or anything. <I>Plurisapience</i> could conceivably refer to something rather like peer review, could it not? [I think the notion of the "plural" applies more accurately to a summed or averaged judgment of the many than it does to a series of individual judgments, like peer review of a scholarly paper. -ed.]<BR> 353So: <B>plebignosis</b>? It looks god awful to the eye, but it sort of rolls off the tongue. [Yes--the way a drunkard falls out of bed. -ed.] Or: <B>plebitenent/plebitenence</b>? IÂ’m not sure IÂ’ve got the spelling there, but I think plebitenent is a nice word, perhaps because it makes me think of crowds of Scottish people drinking delicious Tennants lager, and THAT is a form of plurisapience/plethosophia I can whole-heartedly endorse.<BR> 354Of course, most successful neologists understand that the real money's in mixing Latin and Greek elements. So: <B>
354ochlosapience? Plebisophic?</b> <I>-Marc Webster, OFM</i><P> 355 356Mock away: <B>demosophy, populosagacity, throngudition</b>. <I>-Miles Jenkins</i><P> 357 358I love noun plurisapience, adjective plurisapient. Although I'm also fond of <B>aggresagacity</b>, or <B>aggresagacious</b>. I think "aggresagaciousness" might be a bit much however. This based on, of course the idea of the aggregate or gathering, rather than simply a pluralism and sagacity or soundness of judgement.<BR> 359...I also think plurecient or plurecience might capture the idea as well. <I>-Jordi Morgan</i><P> 360 361I propose <B>grous</b>, a portmanteau of <I>group</i> and <I>nous</i>. It's more concise than your offering, which is a blessing in this busy age of ours. Also, Greek trumps Latin dignitywise. <I>-Fred Sheppard</i><P></blockquote> 362 363Alas, newreaders unbellyfeel "grous" sensewise.<P> 364<blockquote> 365 366While I'd agree a word is a good idea, so far this one isn't doing it for me. Seems like a word only William Buckley could love.<BR> 367The problem is "sapience," which seems to imply intelligence or thought. I think more of quorum-sensing in tiny organisms - it's basically identical to "wisdom of crowds" but no sapience is involved. The mechanism of crowd wisdom has more in common with such cellular automata. How about "meta-mata"? Har. <I>-Byron Fast</i><P> 368 369</blockquote> 370Of course, is "sapience" is out, we can't call it the "wisdom" of crowds either, since the two words are synonyms.<P> 371 372The weblogger Dr. Weevil offers <A HREF="http://www.drweevil.org/?p=293">the strongest advice</a> when it comes to being backed up by good taste and classical education, but his preferred suggestions are the throat-clearing "ochlosophy" on the one hand and "vulgisapient" (from L. <I>vulgus</i>) on the other. The suffix <I>-sophy</i> is now totally unsuited in English to describe a <I>process</i> of judgment, as opposed to a body of metaphysical quackery, and the use of <I>vulgi-</i> suffers from a similar defect--it is too intertwined with the notion of "vulgarity." Generally all of the recommendations herein have been chosen with plenty of attention to etymological superiority and almost none to whether they can practically embed themselves in a living Germanic language. I, therefore, win. Ha!<P> 373 374<CENTER>- 8:58 am, April 16 375<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#plur">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 376<P><HR> 377 378 379<B><I><A NAME="paew"> 380'Play all night!': Easter weekend YouTubeology 381</A></i></B><P> 382 383<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MtSIEkPqVgk"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MtSIEkPqVgk" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><BR> 384 385Billy Cobham absolutely flattens an NYC audience at the rudder of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, 1973. Warning: risen Christ may not approve of clip's New Age overtones. [Reader note--"Plurisapience" update to follow in the P.M.]<P> 386 387<CENTER>- 1:58 pm, April 9 388<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#paew">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 389<P><HR> 390 391<B><I><A NAME="fdjs"> 392For discussion 393</A></i></B><P> 394 395James Surowiecki's concept of <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds">"the wisdom of crowds"</a> has proven so influential, pervasive, and powerful that we are clearly in need of a single word to attach to it. It's obviously not acceptable for us to go on saying that such-and-such a decision was made on a "wisdom-of-crowds basis" or that a "wisdom-of-crowds technique" was devised to address some situation. Any minute now I expect to hear "wisdom-of-crowdsish" used as an adjective. The amazing thing is that Surowiecki missed his chance to attain true immortality by coming up with a single neologism to describe his thesis. Boob.<P> 396 397I've put a lot of thought into this and I'm starting the bidding with noun <B>plurisapience</b>, adjective <B>plurisapient</b>. It's unused, but it sounds convincing and dignified, and gives the new reader enough information to guess more or less what it means. (It would help if Mr. Surowiecki would adopt it. Dude, that whole "boob" thing was just a little chop-busting. Mad respect.) I send greetings and love in advance to future lexicographers who find this paragraph, and assure them that my creation is, as of this date, wholly original to the best of my knowledge. Anyone who's got a better word in mind can send it to the usual address so that it can be recorded here. And mocked mercilessly.<P> 398 399<CENTER>- 5:49 pm, April 1 400<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#fdjs">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 401<P><HR> 402 403 404<A NAME="fwsl"> 405<IMG SRC="../images/westa.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 406 407<B>Recently in the <I>Western Standard</i></b>: I'm still contributing to the finest conservative magazine afloat, and if you feel up to registering for its site you can check out some of my favourite recent work there, including a column <A HREF="http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=2306">about threats to the privacy of your data--and the NHL's--in U.S. courts</a>, a piece on <A HREF="http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=2329">the latest psychologically revealing trend in mass marketing</a>, an account of <A HREF="http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=2362">my first visit to a pro lacrosse match</a>, and a piece <A HREF="http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=2385">busting one of the great enduring myths of Canadian history</a>.<P> 408 409<CENTER>- 4:27 pm, April 1 410<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#fwsl">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 411<P><HR> 412 413
414A parapsychology believer asked a skeptic what he thought was a terribly clever question: <A HREF="http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/03/how_do_you_prov.html">"How would you prove to a blind man that photography exists?"</a> He didn't like the answer very much, apparently... -2:48 am, March 31<HR> 415 416 417<B><I><A NAME="enbp"> 418Extremely nerdy baseball postscript 419</A></i></B><P> 420 421Signed another pitcher today to occupy the 25th roster slot while Pedro is on the DL--the Bucs' Paul Maholm. I had to share these first half/second half splits from 2006 with <I>someone</i>:<P> 422 423<PRE> 424GS W L IP ERA BB SO BAvs OBPvs SLGvs 42518 3-8 102 5.10 52 66 .317 .400 .468 42612 5-2 73 4.28 29 51 .263 .343 .412</pre><P> 427 428Play ball!<P> 429 430<CENTER>- 2:22 am, March 31 431<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#enbp">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 432<P><HR> 433 434<B><I><A NAME="hptl"> 435Hey, I thought we were supposed to print the legend 436</A></i></B><P> 437 438Mythbusters dept.: the March 22 edition of the <I>Gauntlet</i>, the University of Calgary's student newspaper, <A HREF="http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/story/11213">contains a hilarious profile of Bob Boston</a>, a 1970s phys-ed major whose class photo on the wall of the kinesiology department is rubbed so often for good luck that the external glass needs frequent replacing. According to campus myth, the ex-beardie scored 100% on every single assignment and test he took at the U of C. But Boston proved surprisingly easy to find for investigator Amanda Hu and was quick to set the record straight. His summary of his undergraduate years? "Looking at my life back then, I should be dead."<P> 439 440<B>Bonus content</b>: catch me at <A HREF="http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/03/30/your-dog-wants-marketing-choice.aspx">NP's Full Comment this morning</a> with a link to my latest column.<P> 441 442<CENTER>- 7:46 am, March 30 443<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#hptl">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 444<P><HR> 445 446 447<B><I><A NAME="bpgl"> 448A baseball prospectus 449</A></i></B><P> 450 451<IMG SRC="../images/ABCsmall.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 452The other day I read, and suffered undisguisable jealousy at, the news that <A HREF="http://www.godofthemachine.com/">Aaron Haspel</a> was not only <A HREF="http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/baseball/flb/story?id=2797500">in a fantasy baseball league with Geddy Lee for many years</a> but won it six straight times. Actually the thing that really irritated me was that Aaron mentioned this only when it was too late for me to solicit fantasy advice from him. Readers may recall that <A HREF="../archives.html#twfa">2006 was a difficult season</a> for the Spruce Avenue Supernauts. The injuries ran the gamut from <A HREF="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=21&entry_id=13574">a high-ranking prospect's spring-training tussle with a sunscreen bottle</a> to the year's two most nauseating, Theismann-esque incidents (Matsui's wrist, Nick Johnson's femur). The gods of baseball being so capricious and insolent, I can only wonder at the calibre of competition that allowed Mr. Haspel to win any league twice in a row, let alone six times.<P> 453 454With Opening Day around the corner, a (very) few of the readers who are still wondering why I disappeared for most of March may be interested in the details of my radical rebuilding program. The league is head-to-head, uses weekly scoring, and has 12 teams; each is allowed to protect six players each year.<P> 455 456On August 1, with the league's trading deadline fast approaching and the team falling ever further out of contention (it finished the season with virtually the same winning percentage as the real-world Kansas City Royals), my depth chart looked about like this:<P> 457 458<PRE> 459C Victor Martinez 4601B Nick Johnson 4612B Jeff Kent/Luis Castillo 4623B Eric Chavez/Brandon Inge 463SS Michael Young 464OF Ken Griffey Jr. 465 Mark Kotsay 466 [Jeremy Hermida/various waiver-wire garbage] 467DH Adam LaRoche 468SP Brandon Webb 469SP John Smoltz 470SP Mike Mussina 471SP A.J. Burnett 472SP Matt Cain 473SP Ian Snell 474RP Chris Ray 475RP Brad Lidge</PRE><P> 476 477Having all but given up on the season, I had to take a hard look at this lineup and ask myself which of these players were worth applying keeper tags to in the off-season. I had helped myself in the long run by paying high draft prices for steady players at scarce positions (Martinez and Young) but almost all the other good players seemed to fall into the "more trouble than they're worth" category. I had a potential case for keeping as many as four starting pitchers, but the mechanics of a weekly-scoring league (in which front-four starters will sometimes be benched in favour of poorer pitchers who have tw
477o rotation starts) make it inadvisable to protect even three of them in the off-season.<P> 478 479I took refuge in humanity's most inflexible principle of right conduct. "Buy low, sell high." Smoltz and Mussina, two old pitchers whose careers could end with any start, were earning all my short-term points. I decided to package them together as an irresistible stretch-drive acquisition and try to turn them into one ironclad '07 keeper. Ten owners greeted my overtures with audible snores and then promptly shrieked with girlish anger on August 8 when <A HREF="http://sportsmatter.blogspot.com/2006/10/miners-win-inaugural-abc-championship.html">Avi Schaumburg traded me King Felix Hernandez</a> for the pair, riding their arms to the league title. Felix looks pretty much to me like Dwight Gooden without the drug habit (knock on wood). The hidden gain from the trade is that the ten owners who were caught napping now pay a little more attention when I put offers on the table. Bitches.<P> 480 481The explosive move paid off somewhat in the off-season as I continued to try consolidating the keeper portion of my roster. With Johnson crippled, I had Webb, Felix, Victor, and Mike Young as plausible keeper-grade guys. After scouring the other owners' rosters, I gave away some draft value in exchange for extraneous talent, upgrading a reliever-heavy Avi in exchange for B.J. Ryan and cutting a deal with Matt Fenwick, who had somehow ended up with both Scott Rolen and Troy Glaus on the roster and was happy to unload Rolen. I was even able to patch the resulting holes in the draft a little bit by getting our resident Yankees fan to take Matsui off my hands--although in theory Godzilla should bounce back from a freak injury, you never like to see a power hitter hurt a wrist, and the stat line shows modest signs of decreasing authority at the plate. Plus, let's face it, I was kind of bitter about his injury, having counted heavily on MLB's reigning ironman to stay in the lineup and cover for Griffey.<P> 482 483Aside from a couple of weeks of cabin fever in which I pondered protecting Stephen Drew instead of Young (and part of me still thinks I'll regret not doing it), this gave me six keepers I could live with-- 484 485<PRE> 486C Victor Martinez 4873B Scott Rolen 488SS Michael Young 489SP Brandon Webb 490SP Felix Hernandez 491RP B.J. Ryan</pre><P> 492 493In plain English: baseball's #2 catcher, top-five guys on the left side of the infield, a Cy Young winner, the most exciting young pitcher in the world who's not currently rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, and the closer with the highest K-rate. At this point I felt like I had done all the heavy lifting I could. I wouldn't be writing about this if I didn't think I had an outside chance of making the playoffs this time. For the very nerdy, here's how my draft shook out (with overall rankings, counting the protected players as nos. 1 through 72, in parentheses):<P> 494 495<B>Adam Dunn</b>, OF (#75): My reward for finishing 10th last season, he was the third pick behind a carelessly-discarded Lance Berkman (!??!?!) and Frankie Rodriguez. Our league does take away points for strikeouts, but the walks will soak many of those up, he plays every day (<I>that's what you said about Matsui--ed.</i>) and in light of Ryan Howard's spring flailings he is probably the best overall bet to hit 45 homers.<BR> 496<B>Todd Helton</b>, 1B (#94): I actually looked at taking Helton with my first pick, and was amazed he came all the way back to me at the end of the second (i.e., eighth) round. There's an awful lot of volatility built in, obviously--he's coming off a run of poor stats, he suffered a life-altering illness last year, his body type has changed, and then there's the Coors humidor to consider. He still seemed like at least as good a bet as other unprotected sluggers like Delgado, Drew, or Giambi.<BR> 497<B>Frank Thomas</b>, DH (#99): Can you tell I was a little obsessed with offence early in the draft? Thomas seems happy in Toronto and he is repeating the light spring-training regimen that worked for him in 2006. But, no, I'm still not thrilled with having to take two <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tmesis">Tmesis Guys</a> in a row ("He's Frank frigging Thomas!").<BR> 498<B>Ray Durham</b>, 2B (#123): Wait... the Giants are hitting <I>who</i> cleanup behind Bonds?<BR> 499<B>Dave Bush</b>, SP (#142): Still a little early to grab a third starter, but he's a good pitcher turning 27 on an improving team.<BR> 500<B>Chris Burke</b>, 2B/OF (#143): The unlikely beginnings of cobbling together an outfield-by-committee behind Dunn. I had intended to go slow filling in my outfield, but even the mediocre full-time starters got hoovered up so fast that no one openly questioned this pick. 2B eligibility makes him extra attractive as a backup for Durham--anybody who qualifies at 2B but plays in the outfield in real life actually has a kind of double position value in a fantasy league, because he's bound to be injured less. He's 27, and speed coupled with right-handed line-drive power facing a short fence gives him two possible ways to be good. If I never have to start the guy, I'll be thrilled. Since I dropped Nick Johnson, he also fulfills my "former Edmonton Trapper" karma requirement.<BR> 501<B>Mike Mussina</b>, SP (#161): Look who's back! And at a discounted draft price no less.<BR> 502<B>Brian Fuentes</b>, RP (#166): We start two RPs each week in our league, and while there are usually some dual-eligible RP/SPs available off the waiver wire, there just aren't as many of those around in 2007. I had really been hoping to get Chris Ray or Lidge back, but my ABC colleagues weren't born yesterday: I got caught off-guard by a run on closers and had to act faster than I'd anticipated.<BR> 503<B>Corey Hart</b>, OF (#171): Burke without the multiposition eligibility but more power (he even has the celebrity namesake, and is also 27). I studied video of Burke and Hart (surely there was some Edwardian music-hall duo by that name?) and I figure one or the other is bound to bag 22-24 cheap HRs along with some steals. Probably a little soon to draft a guy who could lose his job quickly and get dumped onto the ABC waiver wire followed by a bright-blue skein of obscene imprecations.
503<BR> 504<B>Nomar Garciaparra</b>, 1B/?? (#190): Sorry, but grabbing Nomar this late to cover both Helton and the Big Hurt in case of injury can only be compared emotionally to a really, really satisfying early-morning crap. Bound to draw into my starting lineup at some point, and still has the talent to hit .320. Seriously, how can twins not be a good omen??<BR> 505<B>Kevin Kouzmanoff</b>, 3B (#195): Although at this point I just needed to keep piling up further outfielders for the committee and start looking at sleeper pitchers for roster depth, with this kid falling so low and me still not having a backup for Rolen--well, sometimes the "best player available" light just switches on. I didn't do what you'd call due diligence, but he has three things going for him: the '06 minor-league numbers are pure stat-porn, the team just traded an elite prospect to make room for him, and the pick made everybody else in my league furious. Há hà!<BR> 506<B>Dave Roberts</b>, OF (#205): The committee welcomes aboard a World Series hero. A top-30 outfielder in our scoring system last year, and will get even more ABs hitting in the leadoff slot this year. He seems like an odd guy to think of as a "safe, reliable" #3/#4 outfielder, since he squandered his twenties in Jacksonville and Buffalo, but that's the basic
506idea.<BR> 507<B>Bengie Molina</b>, C (#214): Sometimes, the "best Molina available" light switches on too. With Martinez becoming a part-time catcher and getting a break from the wear-and-tear, I wasn't too worried about drafting a fantasy backup, especially since there were some nice backstops available on the waiver wire all last year--so much so that I had a hard time trading Paul Lo Duca when I started getting into trouble (he finished up at .318) and Michael Barrett never even found his way onto anybody's roster (he hit .307).<BR> 508<B>Pedro Martinez</b>, SP (#219): A controversial choice. Yes, half a season is a long time to burn a roster slot. And yeah, a lot of guys never come back from a torn labrum. And yes, in interviews Pedro always seems about five minutes away from going nuts and quitting to become an ostrich farmer or fruit-beer importer or something. But he was pretty effective last year--more so than the won-lost record--throwing 86-mile-an-hour fastballs in complete agony. He'll always be effective if he can stand upright and reach the plate on fewer than three bounces. And deep down you know he is eager to pitch--not just pitch, but dominate. Right? <I>Right??</i><BR> 509<B>Paul Byrd</b>, SP (#238): .500 pitcher + <A HREF="http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Baseball/MLB/2007/03/03/3691252-ap.html">new splitter</a> = sleeper pick I'm thrilled to pieces with.<BR> 510<B>Ricky Nolasco</b>, SP/RP (#243): Frankly he's probably not worth an ashtray full of nickels (though he did have a W-L record of 41-17 in the minors), but he has a firm rotation job in Florida to start the year and is dual-eligible. The kind of phoned-in pick that the roster structure of our league necessitates, annoyingly.<BR> 511<B>Juan Uribe</b>, SS (#262): He's lost weight, he's 27, and he's um, facing possible trial for attempted murder? If Mike Young has his usual Mike Young season, there's about a 1% chance I'll ever need Uribe. I don't know that athletes should be devalued in fantasy just because they're facing "personal problems": more often than not they just seem to react by bearing down harder in the day job. Does anybody else think we are in the middle of a longterm trend toward big-league shortstops outhitting second basemen?<BR> 512<B>Jamie Shields</b>, SP (#267): 2007 is probably not his breakout year, or the Rays', but you have to like the peripheral stats. This year's Ian Snell. (Yes, you know you had a rough '06 when you're saying things like "this year's Ian Snell.")<BR> 513<B>Eric Byrnes</b>, OF (#286): Probably won't hit 26 HR again, but he's not really any worse than the other members of the OF committee, and went 25/28 on the basepaths last year. He could end up as my #2 OF--I couldn't really tell you why the other owners were taking guys like Xavier Nady or David DeJesus ahead of him.<BR> 514<B>Orlando Hernandez</b>, SP (#291): I had him on my roster for a while in '06 and I hated to bring him back, but I needed pitching depth and he's got a double-start week for an elite team in the very first scoring period of the season. He'll probably throw a three-hitter in one of the starts and get touched up for 7 ER in the other, but as long as I come out ahead I can live with him spending most of the season stashed away in my "bullpen." Earns bonus karma points for anticommunism (but the Oilers tried that this year with Petr Nedved, and how'd that work out?).<BR> 515<B>Kelly Johnson</b>, 2B (#310): A man only <A HREF="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pecota/">PECOTA</a> and <A HREF="http://www.protrade.com/content/DisplayArticle.html?sp=Scef720d2-d9bd-11db-876b-b733f6e5f598">the Braves</a> like, and he is shifting the wrong way along the defensive spectrum. On the other hand, PECOTA and the Braves put together arguably constitute a majority against the rest of the world, and if he holds the job he'll hit leadoff. Could be late-spring trade-bait. No idea why he fell so far--he should really be <I>somebody</i>'s no. 2 second baseman in a 12-team fantasy league, and after my experience with Kent/Castillo in '06, the pivot is the position I am happiest about being three-deep at.<P> 516 517I'm setting the over-under on my finish this year at 5th out of 12. The ABC is a tough league (no bass players), but now that I understand the nuances of scoring and lineup composition a little better, if I finish lower than 8th again I'll really have to reevaluate my own self-perception as an educated baseball fan. Feedback is wel
517come.<P> 518 519<CENTER>- 12:53 am, March 29 520<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#bpgl">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 521<P><HR> 522 523 524My blogroll was once one of the major attractions of this site, but I had allowed it to develop barnacles and become near-useless over the years. It has now been subjected to <B>a staggeringly major upgrade</b>, nuking the dead links and adding <I>dozens of life-altering sites I visit every day</i>. If you click any five links at random you are bound to find at least one or two sites that are utterly fascinating. -1:50 am, March 25<HR> 525 526 527<B><I><A NAME="mbfx"> 528MBA final exam, ColbyCosh.com style 529</A></i></B><P> 530 531Our text comes from <I>Canadian Transportation and Logistics Magazine:<P> 532 533Ron Carter understands the relationship between seafood and time better than most people. After all, the director of logistics at Clearwater Seafoods in Bedford, Nova Scotia oversees time-sensitive shipments of everything from lobster to clams and crabs. And with Clearwater exporting $253 million of seafood in 2005 (representing 80% of company sales), his employer obviously understands the value of logistics. Goods need to make a seamless transition from a fleet of 21 vessels, through the supply chain, and into the refrigerators found in grocery stores, restaurants and kitchens around the world.<P> 534 535...[Last year] border security presented a particular challenge to the company's overnight lobster shipments. Officials had suddenly banned the gel packs traditionally used to chill the seafood, after would-be terrorists were found to be designing bombs with liquids. But the Clearwater team came up with the solution...<P></i> 536 537...which <A HREF="http://www.ctl.ca/issues/ISarticle.asp?id=184670&story_id=10200143951&issue=02012007&PC=">you can find here.</a> No peeking--we operate on the honour system here.<P> 538 539<CENTER>- 8:40 pm, March 24 540<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#mbfx">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 541<P><HR> 542 543 544<B><I><A NAME="mmli"> 545Miss me? 546</A></i></B><P> 547 548Listen, if I should happen to check out/hide out/burn out from weblogging from time to time--amazing how people react when you take a month off <I>every five years or so</i>--don't let that stop you from following my work in the <I>National Post</i>. You shouldn't have much trouble spotting traces from my purple pen amongst the unsigned editorials, and my signed column appears every Friday. <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=ef8f1b0d-d619-42c3-8a7b-cf20dfdfb483">Here's last week's piece</a>, which could have been headlined "A numerate man looks at the lotto"; <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=6a687cfa-21d3-48d0-be0e-b2b8857d934b">here's this week's</a>, which contains the most unequivocal cash-on-the-barrel prediction that you are likely to see in any English-language newspaper this calendar year.<P> 549 550Here's some stuff I've read and liked but spent my sweet goddamn time sharing with you. Nyah.<P> 551 552<A HREF="http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_strauss/20070223.html">Stephen Strauss had a terrific article on the CBC website</a> about how the epidemic of repetitive-stress injury that was supposed to have swallowed our economy never happened, and how the whole business of workplace ergonomics doesn't add up to a hill of beans scientifically. One of the quarter-baked book ideas floating around in my head is a book full of healthcare-related stuff everybody knows that almost certainly isn't true and has no reproducible warrant, like "echinacea helps colds" or "stretching before exertion helps prevent injury."<P> 553 554I was moved by <A HREF="http://www.danwei.org/guest_contributor/new_years_past_other_spring_fe_1.php">this Chinese New Year-themed pair of oral testimonies</a> from the worst year of the Great Leap Forward. It seems any amount of suffering can be forgiven if one has a sense it is being shared.<P> 555 556Have you ever heard of <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ezo">the Republic of Ezo?</a> Could you find it on a map?<P> 557 558I invite first-hand reports on <A HREF="http://dethroner.com/2007/03/02/beer-friday-guinness-seeing-red/">how this stuff tastes</a>.<P> 559 560Even I forget sometimes that Mark Steyn is an <A HREF="http://www.newcriterion.com/archives/25/03/the-old-devil">extremely, extremely outstanding literary critic</a>.<P> 561 562God bless the <A HREF="http://100yearsagotoday.blogspot.com/">creator of this site</a>
562. What fun. The vagaries of history have left the period from 1900 to the First World War arguably more foreign to us than many earlier eras. Hey, it's not like we have any reason to be interested in a period characterized by terrorism, the hegemony of a dominant world empire, rapid change in the media environment, sensational criminal trials, adventurism and excess among a coterie of gigarich businessmen, crackpot warnings from publicity-seeking scientists, and controversies over the purity of sporting competition and the salaries of athletes.<P> 563 564<CENTER>- 12:33 am, March 24 565<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#mmli">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 566<P><HR> 567 568 569 570<B><I><A NAME="rvrr"> 571Recently visited: a roundup for Sunday reading 572</A></i></B><P> 573 574The environmental movement will never forgive Bjorn Lomborg for being right, but as the <I>Christian Science Monitor</i> reported this week, his argument that adaptation to climate change may be more sensible that radical reversals in emissions levels <A HREF="http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0213/p03s02-wogi.html">is finding more and more advocates</a>. I believe it's inevitable that environmentalists will gradually become more enthusiastic about Lomborgian adaptationism as they clue in that there's just as much money in it for them and a great deal more political potential; moreover, as the latest IPCC report showed, the steady improvement of climate models has a tendency to shrink the error bars in various measures of calamity and rule out exotic worst-case scenarios, making it harder every year to sell the public on rewinding the economy to the Stone Age. The next stage of the debate will be over whether adaptation should, in general, be allowed to happen at its own pace and guided locally or whether it should be an expensive planned global-governance project. Let me add that if you're in Canadian politics it makes all kind of sense to get ahead of this process, not behind. Or we could just keep on bickering over the Kyoto Protocol, whatevs. [Related reading: <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/archives/story.html?id=3ee8c1d0-ac9b-4eef-9d5e-831a73f764fa">a <I>National Post</i> editorial on the new Virgin Earth Prize</a>.]<P> 575 576It appears that Edmonton is going to be the setting for the next painfully predictable cycle of optimism and disappointment over a <A HREF="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070116134001.htm">miracle cure for cancer</a>. That's not to say I would be anything less than thrilled if my <I>alma mater</i> became the place where they finally got the son of a bitch licked, and the research is certainly worth funding. <A HREF="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/01/in_which_my_words_will_be_misinterpreted.php">But the caution and skepticism of surgeryblogger Orac</a> seem wisest: he's an ex-student of the Dr. Michelakis of the 1990's, Judah Folkman, so he's been there/done that/got the T-shirt.<P> 577 578The I-only-understood-60%-of-it-but-was-still-fascinated weblog entry of the month comes from the Freedom to Tinker weblog, whose authors have envisioned <A HREF="http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1104">a highly plausible game-theoretic scenario</a> on the future war between next-generation DVDs and format-crackers.<P> 579 580I recently spent a half-hour or so <A HREF="http://www.nightphotographer.com/gallery_frameset.htm">perusing some fascinating galleries</a> that show northern Alberta and Saskatchewan in, literally, a different light than you're used to. NightPhotographer.com is the creation of Edmonton's <A HREF="http://www.nightphotographer.com/index.htm">Larrie Thomson</a>.<P> 581 582I've always wondered just how ridiculous the planned obsolescence of publicly-funded sports facilities can get: <A HREF="http://english.people.com.cn/200702/13/eng20070213_349632.html">last Saturday China provided the definitive answer</a> when it blew up an 18-year-old 65,000-seat soccer stadium in Shenyang. In Edmonton, the public is being buttered up to contribute to the replacement of a hockey arena that's barely 30 years old; in Toronto the Rogers Centre, considered an engineering marvel when it opened in 1989, is now routinely discussed as though it were an obsolete embarrassment. Voters should be aware that whatever replaces these facilities is likely to be <I>much less durable</i>, not more so.<P> 583 584Boxcover and glamour photographer James diGiorgio operates the crack cocaine of weblogs at PrettyGirlShooter.blogspot.com. Where else are you going to find an entry that legitimately comb
584ines <A HREF="http://prettygirlshooter.blogspot.com/2007/02/im-back-in-saddle.html">lingerie pictures of Tera Patrick* with a touching story about a successful son talking with his sick mother about his vocation for the first time?</a><P> 585 586<I>*Individual entry rated PG-13; site rated NC-17</i><P> 587 588<CENTER>- 12:23 am, February 18 589<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#rvrr">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 590<P><HR> 591 592 593<A NAME="rhtc"> 594<IMG SRC="../images/nps.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 595 596<B>Porn on the bus?</b> For perhaps the first time in recorded history, a Telus customer--yours truly--comes to the defence of the phone giant and soon-to-be network smut pedlar in today's <I>Post</i>. <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=b006281d-bd78-4756-a6cf-d8aad4fed1a6&p=1">Read the column here</a>.<P> 597 598<CENTER>- 5:33 am, February 16 599<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#rhtc">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 600<P><HR> 601 602 603 604 605<A NAME="sasv"> 606<IMG SRC="../images/nps.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 607 608I have <A HREF="http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/02/15/don-t-shoot-the-coach.aspx">a guest post about sports and social violence</a> up this morning at the <I>Post</i>'s Full Comment weblog. I'll be dropping by there every so often but I'll try to be careful to link those visits from here. Fans who have been seething for years over my lack of a commenting function will be pleased to notice that FC does in fact have one. I'd consider it a favour if you'd vent your spleen, if only in the spirit of <B>beta-testing</b>.<P> 609 610<CENTER>- 12:45 am, February 15 611<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#sasv">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 612<P><HR> 613 614 615 616 617Even those few economically educated people who support minimum wage laws realize that it doesn't help very many people very much when minimum wages are increased. But there are always a few goofballs around who are willing to argue that increasing the minimum wage has a "symbolic value." Bryan Caplan has a question for them: <A HREF="http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2007/01/the_symbolic_va.html">What about the symbolic value of <B>getting rid of it completely</b>?</a> -12:43 am, February 15<HR> 618 619 620<B><I><A NAME="ains"> 621Appropriate and inappropriate 622</A></i></B><P> 623 624Thanks to everybody who wrote in to <A HREF="http://www.kellyjanetorrance.com/archives/2007_02.html#000555">remind</a> me I have a weblog. There's no special explanation for the two-week break, though it's true I am probably working harder right now than I have since I was an undergraduate. My recent signed columns for the <I>Post</i>, in case you haven't been keeping up, include one on <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=379b2683-d99b-4d1d-b90b-f8b0454e0bf8">Merck's miracle drug for cervical cancer</a>, an <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=f7d12a03-a00e-44cf-b527-f04a80f9e95c">attempt to correct the record about Anna Nicole Smith</a>, and a <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=655ddf3d-ede9-4a48-be43-097dca4d79c7">primer on the discounting debate</a> surrounding global warming.<P> 625 626If you only read one of those, you should probably make it the latter. I was hoping for more feedback than I got: the point in question is an important one that's fairly subtle, and almost certainly too difficult for any of the politicians who are promoting the Stern Review to understand. It seems to me undeniable that if you're creating an economic model and incorporating a social rate of pure time preference chosen according to an ethical first principle--i.e., according to the value you think people <I>should</i> place on the future--then none of the figures you arrive at have anything to do with true social costs or benefits as such. Don't you have to use some "actual" discount rate that has a basis in empirical observation to generate real figures? Stern has responded to William Nordhaus and other critics [<A HREF="http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/5F6/8A/Response_to_critiques.pdf">PDF</a>] but the response merely reiterates the argument in the original report:<P> 627 628<blockquote> 629The debate on discounting illustrates how important it is to understand the different <B>ethical assumptions</b> that drive economic modelling. ...we take the view that it is <B>not appropriate</b> to assume away the importance of major and irreversible impacts that will affect future generations simply because they come after us. Therefore, we use a low rate of 'pure time preference'. [Emphasis mine]</blockquote><P> 630 631It's simply wrong, as I see it, for Stern to describe the time-preference rate his model has <I>imposed</i>
631 on society as an "assumption" about the true state of affairs. He's not even making a wild guess as to the true social rate of time preference (itself an eel-slippery construct); he's simply asserting that time has a fixed inherent value. This is exactly as if someone tried to calculate the costs of climate change on the basis that snow in Edmonton, Alberta has a fixed inherent economic value of $30 per cubic-foot-day, and then batted down the immediate objections--"In what market would or could that good fetch that price?"--by saying "It is not ethically appropriate to assume away the importance of snow simply because it is in Edmonton."<P> 632 633<CENTER>- 3:42 am, February 13 634<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#ains">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 635<P><HR> 636 637 638<B><I><A NAME="dmlu"> 639He seeks them here, he seeks them there 640</A></i></B><P> 641 642<IMG SRC="http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:VWNQq4bMNXO1dM:http://www.victoriana.ws/images/7/l/russel_lupin.jpg" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 643Absolutely everything I knew about lupins before last week came from <A HREF="http://www.jumpstation.ca/recroom/comedy/python/dennis.html">the Dennis Moore sketch</a>. Now, suddenly, <A HREF="http://www.agcanada.com/custompages/stories_story.aspx?mid=51&id=1078">they're being touted as a potential key to the future of the Alberta agricultural economy</a>! (It should be noted, however, that a different crop is touted as a potential key to the future of the Alberta agricultural economy about once every two weeks.) Can't wait to get my first look at a whole field full of 'em.<P> 644 645<CENTER>- 10:15 pm, January 29 646<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#dmlu">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 647<P><HR> 648 649 650Trivia baffler: <A HREF="http://www.therestisnoise.com/2007/01/the_death_of_th.html">Which category of record album enjoyed sales growth of <B>23%</b> in 2006</a>? -10:12 pm, January 29<HR> 651 652 653I wanted to write a column criticizing the Bureau of Atomic Scientists' <B>Doomsday Clock</b> from a design perspective, but I thought the topic was a little esoteric. Fortunately <A HREF="http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2007/01/melting_the_clock.html">no subject is too esoteric for Anders Sandberg</a>. -10:09 pm, January 29<HR> 654 655 656Absolutely <A HREF="http://www.sawyerhome.net/whatilearned.html">the last word on <B>9/11</b> conspiracy theories</a>. (Someone may already have forwarded you this.) -10:07 pm, January 29<HR> 657 658 659<B>[email protected]</b>: <A HREF="http://richarddawkins.net/article,571,In-defense-of-atheism,Colby-Cosh-Canadacom">The converted seem to have enjoyed the sermon</a>, if this comment thread on Dawkins' official site is any indication. -10:05 pm, January 29<HR> 660 661 662<A NAME="npru"> 663<IMG SRC="../images/nps.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 664 665<I>Tomorrow's news today--literally!</i> The <I>National Post</i> is ramping up a new weblog, <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/fullcomment/index.html"><B>Full Comment</b></a>, that will feature a mix of exclusive just-in-time content from <I>Post</i> contributors, pointers to outstanding stuff in other publications, and <I>Post</i> columns and editorials, sometimes <B>the very day they're filed</b>. Dubious? <A HREF="http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/01/25/in-defense-of-atheism.aspx">Check out my column about the <I>nouveau</i> militant atheists</a>, filed mere hours ago and scheduled to run in Friday's <I>Post</i>. I just checked my watch and it turns out <I>we're living in the 21st century</i>.<P> 666 667[UPDATE: January 26: if you're showing up on Friday you'd better <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=bb574c98-cb56-4291-baf1-c98716dd0436">check out the new column here</a> in its natural webitat. It looks like the mighty torrents of traffic from my outbound link might have done some damage to the fragile, scaffolding-festooned Full Comment page... come to think of it, I'm not sure I ever linked to last week's column on the iPhone, <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=687e9517-77d6-4696-abef-cb436094da7e">which you can still catch over here</a>.]<P> 668 669<CENTER>- 5:14 pm, January 25 670<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#npru">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 671<P><HR> 672 673 674 675 676The <I>IEEE Spectrum</i> says <A HREF="http://spectrum.ieee.org/jan07/4820">the world consumes one <B>cubic mile</b> of oil per year</a>. Here's <A HREF="http://spectrum.ieee.org/jan07/4820/ncmo01">a classy infographic displaying the equivalents</a> in other energy sources. -5:03 pm, January 25<HR> 677 678 679I'm sure that at some point in the past I must have agreed to do something humiliating or biologically impossible on the day <A HREF="http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Copps_Sheila/2007/01/24/3437870.html">Sheila Copps actually wrote an interesting newspaper column</a>. If you remember what it was, please keep it to yourself. -3:00 pm, January 24<HR> 680 681 682 683<B>Astonishing facts I didn't know yesterday dept.</b>: the first apparatus ever to implement a <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscope">gyroscope</a>
683 was <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault%27s_pendulum">Foucault's pendulum</a> (the original--<I>Foucault's</i> Foucault's pendulum, so to speak), wherein it was used to permit the bob to complete a full 360° in a day despite being at the latitude of Paris. -11:32 am, January 24<HR> 684 685 686<B><I><A NAME="esva"> 687Of course, if it ever snows in Vancouver, all bets are off 688</A></i></B><P> 689 690If you read any news items about the dramatic collapse of the roof at B.C. Place Stadium (now <A HREF="http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/01/23/bc-bc-place.html">restored to its former glory, sort of</a>), you'll have seen some mention of NDP North-Delta MLA Guy Gentner's prophetic questioning in the Legislative Assembly. <A HREF="http://www.leg.bc.ca/hansard/38th2nd/h60501p.htm#4250">Here's the tale of the tape from last May</a>, when Gentner received a firm assurance from sports minister Olga Ilich that the roof should last "should last up to the Olympics and beyond." Ilich told Gentner that "The guaranteed life [of the roof] was 25 years, but that doesn't mean that it's going to fall apart in the 25th year." She was, of course, quite correct: the stadium doesn't turn 24 until this summer.<P> 691 692<CENTER>- 8:21 am, January 24 693<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#esva">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 694<P><HR> 695 696 697 698<IMG SRC="../images/aonmp.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 699<A HREF="http://www.lloyds.com/NR/rdonlyres/002430BB-AE13-4A06-9A03-0C641C25AE05/0/2007mapPDF.pdf"><B>Aon</b>'s map of worldwide political risk levels for 2007</a> is the kind of thing you might find on a millionaire's office wall. (A billionaire would presumably just carry it in his head at all times.) As a bonus here's a meta-analysis of the map from <A HREF="http://www.lloyds.com/News_Centre/Features_from_Lloyds/Preparing_for_political_risk.htm">Lloyd's of London</a>. -7:34 am, January 24<HR> 700 701 702<B><I><A NAME="iwmr"> 703Thank God! It was math's fault all along! 704</A></i></B><P> 705 706I know I'm using a cliché but there's just no other way to put this: <A HREF="http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=21&t=001692">Best rabble.ca thread ever.</a> (þ: <A HREF="http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/">Chu-Carroll</a>)<P> 707 708<CENTER>- 3:47 pm, January 22 709<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#iwmr">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 710<P><HR> 711 712 713<B><I><A NAME="topm">
714From the world press, 1/20/07 715</A></i></B><P> 716<IMG SRC="../images/mappa.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 717 718The prime minister <A HREF="http://www.praguepost.com/articles/2007/01/17/public-is-tolerant-of-pms-adultery">impregnated his mistress and left his wife</a>, you say? No biggie, reply blasé <B>Czechs</b><BR> 719Sweden's <A HREF="http://www.thelocal.se/6104/">giga-rich <B>Wallenberg</b> family, a house of heroes and villains</a>, steps briefly into the public spotlight after a century of shyness<BR> 720An <A HREF="http://www.lapress.org/article.asp?IssCode=&lanCode=1&artCode=4940">Illinois-educated "Christian humanist of the left" takes power in <B>Ecuador</b></a> and becomes Latin America's latest national-socialist<BR> 721The World Bank says <A HREF="http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=9666&formato=HTML"><B>remittances</b> are now bigger sources of income for some Euro countries</a> than foreign investment<BR> 722<B>Toyota</b>'s <A HREF="http://www.kommersant.com/p734791/Toyota_low-cost_car/">building a $6,000 car for the Russian market</a>--so why can't they build me one?<BR> 723<B>HK</b> to mainland China: bring us your tired, your poor... <A HREF="http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/17/news/hong.php">but as for the pregnant women, they're definitely not welcome</a><BR> 724<B>Zim</b> watch: as paper money loses value, <A HREF="http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57099&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa,%20&SelectCountry=Zimbabwe">starving slaves of Mugabe desperately turn to mass illegal mining</a><BR> 725What's life like for the hyperintelligent? <A HREF="http://www.hs.fi/english/article/For+love+of+the+Gaussian+curve/1135224349312">Ask <B>Finland</b>, the country with the largest proportion of Mensa members</a><BR> 726<B>Jamaica</b>'s Attorney-General: <A HREF="http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070118/lead/lead3.html">we have "no intention whatever" of decriminalizing buggery</a><BR> 727With inflation at 9%, <A HREF="http://www.mmegi.bw/2007/January/Wednesday17/4897983911347.html">the Bank of <B>Botswana</b> is having trouble keeping the lowest-denomination coins</a> in circulation<BR> 728A <A HREF="http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/nst/Friday/National/20070119080237/Article/index_html">popular <B>Malaysian</b> cure for drug addiction</a> combines Islam, saunas, and herbs in one big pot (a literal one, judging by the illustration)<BR> 729Prague's 6th district will <A HREF="http://www.praguepost.com/articles/2007/01/17/prague-to-get-a-reagan-memorial.php">build a memorial to "a key figure in Czech history"</a>--Ronald <B>Reagan</b><BR> 730Meanwhile, <A HREF="http://www.praguepost.com/articles/2007/01/17/pastry-earns-ec-protected-status.php">a Moravian <B>cookie</b> shaped like a human ear</a> becomes the CR's first EU-wide <I>appellation controllée</i> for food exports<BR> 731An anti-<B>hazing</b> group discovers that <A HREF="http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=20074">a Russian draftee was kicked so hard in the guts</a> that his small intestine had to be removed<BR> 732 733<CENTER>- 3:33 am, January 20 734<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#topm">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 735<P><HR> 736 737 738<B><I><A NAME="sngm"> 739Secrets of the NHL general managers, chapter five 740</A></i></B><P> 741 742A special tip from the Oilers' Kevin Lowe: don't be afraid to use the old <A HREF="http://battleofalberta.blogspot.com/2007/01/delicious-sir-can-i-have-another.html">"it's only his second full year in the league"</a> trick when defending a young player who's taken a step backward. Road-tested, granddad-approved!<P> 743 744<CENTER>- 3:52 am, January 17 745<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#sngm">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 746<P><HR> 747 748<B><I><A NAME="dipn"> 749Dear Internet 750</A></i></B><P> 751 752It would be kind of useful if weblogs could get together on a single standard for the meaning of "previous" and "next" in links between pages, <B>and better still if webloggers would just stop using those words.</b> On any given weblog, the "next" entry or page might be the next oldest one <I>or</i> the next newest: as things stand right now, you're pretty much taking a 50/50 chance when you click, and if you're reading many pages within a single site, you can end up going around in frustrating circles. What would be wrong with just using "older"/"newer" or "earlier"/"later"? Tell me Jakob Nielsen has already toasted about ten thousand people to a crisp over this.<P> 753 754<CENTER>- 3:49 am, January 17 755<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#dipn">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 756<P><HR> 757 758Maybe it's not especially funny that a Chinese woman should try to put a <B>Taoist curse</b> on one of her colleagues by slipping a magic letter under his door. But what if <A HREF="http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200612.brief.htm#103">it happened at the "National Yunlin University of Science and Technology"</a>? -9:20 am, January 15<HR> 759 760 761<B>Béarla only, mate</b>: What happens when <A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1983434,00.html">an Irishman tries to get around in Ireland speaking nothing but the Irish language</a>? Manchán Magan tried it. Surprisingly (or not), he seems to have gotten more abuse for his stubbornness in Dublin than he did on the Shankill Road... -9:14 am, January 15<HR> 762 763 764 765<B><I><A NAME="fbbg"> 766Fire bad. Bread good. 767</A></i></B><P> 768
769Did Stephane Dion really tell an Edmonton audience <A HREF="http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/01/12/3321783.html">"All these workers living too fast for the easy money in the north--itÂ’s not good for the economy"?</a> I have an answer to this, but I'm afraid it can't be delivered until I work out exactly how to send a kick up the dirtbox with a steel-toed boot by means of TCP/IP. Then again, maybe the person I should be kicking is myself: I argued after the election that the Liberals should look seriously at Dion <I>on the grounds of moral seriousness</i>.<P> 770 771I believe, though perhaps I am wrong, that you could get 95 out of 100 Canadians to arrange the following items on a list of "things that are good for the economy" in an order different from Stephane Dion's:<P> 772 773The Liberal Party of Canada<BR> 774The Kyoto Protocol<BR> 775A French passport<BR> 776Doctorates in sociology<BR> 777Oil and gas workers in Northern Alberta<P> 778 779But the offensiveness of Dion's comment, if it has been rendered accurately, should not be allowed to distract us from what's really going on: I suspect that what actually underlies it is a bold redefinition of the concept of "the economy."<P> 780 781Too often this concept is narrowly understood as equating with the inferential quantitative measures we use to get a grip on it, but "the economy" is not the gross domestic product, any more than the map is the territory. Why would Dion suggest that it is not good for the economy to have a lot of people working hard in producing an export commodity at a time when it offers very high return on investment? On the narrow view of "economy" this is good <I>by definition</i>. The Leader of the Opposition probably means to incorporate the psychological cohesion of the country, the welfare of the worst-off in boom areas, the integrity of the non-human environment, and God knows what else into his notion of "economy." I suppose, anyhow, that this is what he would say in his defence (though even this wouldn't account for an attack on the lifestyles and work habits of several hundred thousand people singled out for abuse <I>because</i> they sought productive work).<P> 782 783But one problem is that once you endow some word freely with a purely private meaning, you can no longer claim to be engaging in language or persuasion as such. You reduce yourself to the level of a beast who is only capable of expressing approval or disapproval--purring or growling--and the habit of bestial words tends to end in beastly deeds. The other big problem is that a man who uses subjective criteria in an impulsive way to decide what is "good for the economy" is hard to trust with the management of one.<P> 784 785<CENTER>- 9:32 am, January 14 786<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#fbbg">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 787<P><HR> 788 789 790 791 792<B><I><A NAME="yeni"> 793Weekend YouTubeology: when music meets comedy 794</A></i></B><P> 795 796Somehow these clips, one from Season 2 of <I>Extras</i> (þ: <A HREF="http://www.maximumfun.org/blog/">TSOYA</a>) and the other a 1976 Neil Innes performance from <I>Rutland Weekend Television</i> (þ: <A HREF="http://blog.wfmu.org/">WFMU</a>), just seem to fit together quite nicely.<P> 797 798<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iQG_UOuqlM0"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iQG_UOuqlM0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><BR> 799 800<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lplGAiqgPwQ"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lplGAiqgPwQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><P> 801 802<CENTER>- 1:02 am, January 13 803<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#yeni">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 804<P><HR> 805 806 807 808<A NAME="aipi"> 809<IMG SRC="../images/nps.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 810 811<B>Here today, tomorrow next week</b>: I've been miserably slow in linking to my <I>Post</i> column from last Friday <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=736673da-3f2b-4025-8c1a-dce0c04eaee5">about the future of the American infantry</a>, but despite my pusillanimity it quickly found a large international audience thanks to <A HREF="http://aldaily.com/">Denis Dutton</a>
811. The correspondence has been fascinating and I'll try to remember to post some of it on the weekend. Today's column, which appeared on the <I>Post</i>'s editorial page proper and thus ended up limbo on the <I>Post</i> website, is about <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=3a22e765-0cc5-4d68-b5e4-871f412d0e0d&p=1">the sudden emergence of an anti-hysteria front in climate-science circles</a> and (not <I>again</i>!) the religious nature of environmentalism.<P> 812 813<CENTER>- 10:40 am, January 12 814<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#aipi">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 815<P><HR> 816 817 818 819 820I am not surprised to see that <A HREF="http://forums.macleans.ca/advansis/?mod=for&act=dip&pid=21994&tid=21994&eid=22&so=1&ps=0&sb=1">Andrew Potter correctly located one of the George Orwell essays</a> that seemed to become almost creepily relevant upon <B>Saddam Hussein's hanging</b>. <A HREF="http://www.george-orwell.org/Revenge_is_Sour/0.html">Here is the other</a>. -6:41 pm, January 11<HR> 821 822 823 824"God just keeps loving me so I <B>just canÂ’t stop telling people about Jesus</b>." Er, I suppose <A HREF="http://www.ichthus.org.uk/Publisher/Article.aspx?id=57178">we shouldn't hold our breaths for that Elastica reunion</a>, then... -2:37 am, January 11<HR> 825 826 827<B><I><A NAME="wabn"> 828Weird angles on slightly faded news stories dept. 829</A></i></B><P> 830 831<IMG SRC="http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:X7AZHymKxiCqJM:http://www.aftonbladet.se/sport/0005/11/tikkanen.jpg" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 832 833The late Gerald Ford, probably the most outstanding athlete to occupy the American presidency, was a business acquaintance of Peter Pocklington, the owner of the '80s Edmonton Oilers, and spent time with the members of those teams on many occasions. When Ford died last month <A HREF="http://blog.dallasstars.com/archives/2006/12/president_ford.html">Daryl Reaugh recalled</a> how travel problems related to Ford's golf tournament led to his last-ever start in net for the Oilers. The team would probably have won one or two fewer Stanley Cups <A HREF="http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/blues/story/827A6D492B47654F8625725400217EA6?OpenDocument">if Esa Tikkanen had gotten himself ventilated by the Secret Service</a> in 1986.<P> 834 835<CENTER>- 2:32 am, January 11 836<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#wabn">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 837<P><HR> 838 839 840<B><I><A NAME="wkna"> 841In praise of Wikipedia, part </i>n 842</A></B><P> 843 844I hope we have finally moved beyond the unproductive phase in which Wikipedia is tested <I>ad nauseam</i> for accuracy against its traditional counterparts. It's done well in most of those tests, but the attention given to them is distracting. One of the really interesting things about Wikipedia is that you can turn to it--and know in advance that you can turn to it--for <I>some</i> kind of answer to questions that other reference books can't squeeze in. Like last week, when I found myself wondering "What's the <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_unclimbed_mountain">highest unclimbed mountain</a>?" and knew exactly where to go.<P> 845 846<CENTER>- 2:23 am, January 11 847<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#wkna">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 848<P><HR> 849 850 851<B><I><A NAME="rtmi"> 852Reason #312 not to get sent to prison 853</A></i></B><P> 854 855From a <A HREF="http://www.abbynews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=38&cat=23&id=806782&more=">Jan. 6 item</a> in the <I>Abbotsford News</i>:<P> 856 857<blockquote> 858Things at the Matsqui Institution will likely be back to normal today after a five-day lockdown was sparked by the discovery of illicit home brews, cell phones and weapons. Inmates had been confined to their cells since Jan. 1 while staff conducted a thorough search of the institution, but the sweep was expected to end Friday evening, said assistant warden Randie Scott. ...The prisonersÂ’ home brew operations are relatively simple, involving the fermentation of a liquid with sugar and a growth medium such as yeast, according to Scott. <B>The most recent batch of homemade alcohol was brewed with ketchup</b>, but fruit and potatoes have also been used.</blockquote><P> 859 860You know, I'm not some kind of sloppy liberal when it comes to prisons, but when you find prisoners doing stuff like this, I think maybe it's time to soften up a little and hand out a few Molsons on extra-special occasions. Clearly both the inmates and the staff deserve credit for keeping the place drug-free, because nobody on this planet would resort to drinking <I>fermented ketchup</i> if he had access to absolutely anything else that would alter his consciousness even slightly (including, I think, Listerine and Lysol).<P> 861 862<CENTER>- 8:57 pm, January 8 863<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#rtmi">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 864<P><HR> 865 866 867<B><I><A NAME="bfpk"> 868Battlefield photographer 869</A></i></B><P> 870 871<blockquote> 872Nintendo's operative background theory, and this sounded way more self-serving about 3 million units ago, is that the graphics-obsessed video gaming community is a shrinking, inbred niche surrounded by a much larger and more varied group of "people who like things that are fun". There are crazy reports of people's moms and grandparents spontaneously asserting Wii fandom that sound like something out of early 1980s advertising. Obviously it's too early to credit Nintendo with pulling off a Ludological Reformation as opposed to a Christmas toy fad, but to be on the safe side we should possibly stop complaining that the production on this Cobain fellow's records seems to be of curiously low fidelity.</blockquote><P> 873 874To those of you who recognize the style of that paragraph, I hardly need to explain that <A HREF="http://www.101-280.com/archives/000613.html">Evan Kirchhoff is back</a> with an overview of the Christmas console wars.<P> 875 876<CENTER>- 5:38 pm, January 8 877<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#bfpk">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 878<P><HR> 879 880 881<B><I><A NAME="tbla"> 882The thin blue line 883</A></i></B><P> 884 885Can anybody supply a remotely acceptable explanation for <A HREF="http://hnn.us/articles/33409.html#Day3">the way Felipe Fernandez-Armesto was treated</a> by the Atlanta police</a> on January 6? One hopes it will be of some general interest to newspaper editors that a best-selling historian who is 56 years old (and about as physically imposing as the Taco Bell chihuahua) was challenged on an American street by an out-of-uniform cop, knocked down when he asked to see a badge, and imprisoned with felony suspects for eight hours because he jaywalked unwittingly between two adjacent hotels.<P> 886 887<CENTER>- 12:42 pm, January 7 888<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#tbla">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 889<P><HR> 890 891 892<B><I><A NAME="ytlw"> 893Weekend YouTubeology 894</A></i></B><P> 895 896<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BLjNjSpZxzg"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BLjNjSpZxzg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><BR> 897 898What's most impressive about <I>The Last Waltz</i> 30 years later is that no one in the lineup really stands out as an embarrassment. Sure, Neil Diamond looks a little out of place (especially since he looks like somebody's agent in that suit), but his credibility stands higher now than it has at any time since. Just consider: to recreate <I>The Last Waltz</i> in 2007, U2 would have to retire--they're the only group still relatively close to its prime that has the necessary prestige. And if U2 put on <I>The Last Waltz</i>, it wouldn't be Clapton and Ringo and Van Morrison up there on the stage singing Dylan songs. It'd be Robbie Williams, the Coldplay dude, and Desmond Tutu.<P> 899 900To cleanse your palate of that foul foretaste of the future, here's a cheerier product of the Dylan Industry: the Byrds rocking out at the Playboy mansion. It is always New Year's Eve <I>chez</i> Hef.<P> 901 902<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1dQhgRqjPo4"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1dQhgRqjPo4" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object> 903 904<CENTER>- 3:55 pm, January 2 905<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#ytlw">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 906<P><HR> 907 908 909<B><I><A NAME="mfit"> 910The most fascinating, inexplicable, or tasteless movie titles of 2006 911</A></i></B><P> 912 913I haven't seen any of these, but all are apparently real and all are rated at least 6.0/10 by the users of the IMDB.<P> 914 915<I> 916<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0818118/">Merry Christmas: I Got You Herpes</a><BR> 917<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0800081/">I Trust You To Kill Me</a><BR> 918<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0857356/">Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face</a><BR> 919<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0821953/">All The French Are Whores</a><BR> 920<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0795376/">Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds</a><BR> 921<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0829421/">The Connecticut Poop Movie</a><BR> 922<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0489707/">Forgiving Dr. Mengele</a><BR> 923<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0488953/">Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!</a><BR> 924<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0850664/">Die and Let Live</a><BR> 925<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0780489/">The Bread Squeezer</a><BR> 926<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0833991/">Severed Will of the Seppuku Warrior</a><BR> 927<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0391229/">I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With</a><P></i> 928 929SPECIAL "DID YOU EVEN TRY" CITATION:<I><BR> 930<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0425210/">Lucky Number Slevin</a><BR> 931<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0454921/">The Pursuit of Happyness</a><P></i> 932 933CERTIFICATE OF DISTINCTIVE MERIT:<I><BR> 934<A HREF="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0835470/">Bicentennial Nigger</i></a><P> 935 936<CENTER>- 3:41 pm, December 30 937<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#mfit">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 938<P><HR> 939 940 941<A NAME="niaf"> 942<IMG SRC="../images/nps.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 943 944<B>Not if, but when</b>: in early 2003, when I first speculated here on the possibility of an American Foreign Legion, the idea was still exotic enough to attract a fair amount of attention and strike American readers as counterintuitive. Since then a few concrete plans have been put forward by military experts, the seriousness of U.S. politicians about enforcing an immigration policy and making citizenship meaningful has grown, the Iraq debacle has replaced the "two-war doctrine" with doubts about whether America can enforce its will in even one place at a time, and the general idea of recruiting noncitizens for the American armed forces has worked its way up the chain of command. <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=736673da-3f2b-4025-8c1a-dce0c04eaee5&p=1">I argue in this morning's <I>National Post</i> that the signs are all pointing in the same direction</a>; the legitimate moral qualms and security concerns about a foreign legion are just not strong enough to resist historical and economic law. (The column is free for non-subscribers to view, so click away.)<P> 945 946<CENTER>- 8:23 am, December 29 947<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#niaf">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 948<P><HR> 949 950 951 952<B>He was delicious</b>: It's not surprising that Gerald Ford should have become the longest-lived American president. His entry in the remarkable <A HREF="http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/g38.htm">Dr. Zebra's Medical History of American Presidents</a> is almost absurdly brief... -3:48 am, December 27<HR> 953 954 955<B>Scary thought</b>: Sidney Crosby, the NHL's scoring leader, was eligible to play in the just-commenced World Under-20 Hockey Championships. Admit it: you would have loved to see what he could do n
955ow against a team like Germany. -3:41 am, December 27<HR> 956 957 958<A NAME="dasc"> 959<IMG SRC="../images/nps.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 960 961<B>Playing devil's advocate against St. Carl</b>: that's the business of <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=3acc7162-4c31-41f2-b10d-9f866ef92fdf&p=1">my latest Friday morning column for the <I>National Post</i></a>, written to observe the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's death. Amidst an orgy of enthusiasm for a man whose life is supposed (largely by the young) to symbolize enlightenment and skepticism, I plead for revision. If we cannot do without saints in a post-religious age, there are surely better ones we might choose. (Actual <I>Post</i> readers can also find a bonus cameo from me in the e-mail battle on page A18.)<P> 962 963<CENTER>- 1:18 pm, December 22 964<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#dasc">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 965<P><HR> 966 967 968 969 970<B><I><A NAME="osmf"> 971Odds and sods 972</A></i></B><P> 973 974<LI> This was <A HREF="http://bizzlepizzle.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!90F75D2F8E8CA28D!561.entry">my favourite response</a> to the Elizabeth May column I wrote last week. It's like a tiny perfect Christmas present for a newspaper columnist to be told he has made someone actually reflect on an ethical or political question. Have you ever heard that the proverb that a columnist's job is to "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted"? It sounds awfully nice, but in practice it translates to "embarrass your enemies and suck up to your friends," leaving no hope of persuasion by means of logic. The majority of my fellow-toilers, I'm afraid, follow this directive all too enthusiastically. Maybe we change people's minds so rarely because we don't even try.<P> 975 976<LI> As long as I'm kissing my own ass here, let me mention that this <A HREF="http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=2134">short piece I contributed to the <I>Western Standard</i> in November</a> [registration required] might be the most important thing I wrote in 2006. It's about a market-friendly reform to Canada-U.S. trade that (a) no one of note had hitherto written about in the popular press and (b) would be unquestionably, certifiably, measurably good for business, for Canada's air quality, and for the earth's climate. And I think I deserve extra points for basically forecasting the fate of Rona Ambrose:<P> 977 978<blockquote> 979...a conservative politician just can't win when it comes to the environment. If he makes no new policy, he can expect his opponents to beat on him like a pinata. If he takes any step at all short of nationalizing the entire economy and ordering everyone back to subsistence farming, he'll be nitpicked to death. Instead of following conventional eco-left policy prescriptions and trying to meet unrealistic expectations that will promptly be changed if met, the Conservatives should be seeking novel, counterintuitive programs that help both the environment and the economy without expanding government.</blockquote><P> 980 981I also wrote:<P> 982 983<blockquote> 984But no one possesses a convenient long list of such ideas.</blockquote><P> 985 986Which prompted the underappreciated Peter Holle to <A HREF="http://www.fcpp.org/main/publication_detail.php?PubID=1601">assemble just such a list</a>.<P> 987 988<LI> Was Belinda the dumber one in the Stronach-MacKay relationship? <I>Think carefully before you answer!</i> A week or so ago I was researching impaired-driving law for an editorial I ended up not writing, and I found <A HREF="http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/committee/361/juri/evidence/ev1039179/juriev109-e.htm#T1650">some intriguing minutes from a 1999 hearing of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights</a>. The topic: methods of blood-alcohol measurement and their history. We yield the floor to Peter MacKay:<P> 989 990<blockquote> 991My question is this. DNA is being used more and more in crime prevention and in solving crime. Do you ever see a day where DNA might enter into the equation of impaired driving? Can they detect drugs or alcohol by virtue of DNA? It's something I've always wondered.</blockquote><P> 992 993I've been sitting on this item for a while, wondering if I was overinterpreting it and whether it's a fair thing to bring up. I was raised to believe there is no such thing as a stupid question, and I suppose there are a lot of people who don't really know what the hell DNA is. But honestly, how many of them are former Crown prosecutors with two university degrees?<P> 994 995<LI> Speaking of which: seeing this and sundry other news items has recently given me a fantastic money-making idea--publishing a totally independent university guide ($$$!) based entirely on a system of demerit points. As I envision it, every time a public figure said or did something dumb it would be held against the institutions that educated him. For example, my own screwups--like, say, referring to Jeremy Clarkson as "Jeffrey" three or four times in an editorial about the <I>Top Gear</i> TV show--would be charged to the account of the University of Alberta.<P> 996 997There's only one problem with the concept: <A HREF="http://recursed.blogspot.com/2006/12/my-university-sponsors-healing-prayer.html">how do you handle it when someone bravely spills the beans on his own school</a>? Does it all cancel out?<P> 998 999<CENTER>- 1:22 am, December 22 1000<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#osmf">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1001<P><HR> 1002 1003 1004<B><I><A NAME="scvd"> 1005Creative vampirism 1006</A></i></B><P> 1007 1008If you need another reason to hate <I>Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip</i>
1008, or network sitcoms in general, <A HREF="http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Dave+Foley/">have a look at this recent SuicideGirls interview with Dave Foley</a>. Foley reveals that Aaron Sorkin accidentally blew up plans for another Kids in the Hall reunion tour when his SNL-<I>roman-á-clef</i> got shredded by the critics and he threw a dumpster full of money at Mark McKinney to make the show-within-a-show funnier.<P> 1009 1010Obviously not many of us are likely to get the benefit of the Kids' live woodshedding, but the more time they spend together, the more likely it is that they'll come up with another movie concept they all like. For the record, the oldest Kid, Scott Thompson, is now 47 years old--the exact age at which Graham Chapman died.<P> 1011 1012<CENTER>- 2:25 pm, December 17 1013<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#scvd">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1014<P><HR> 1015 1016 1017<A NAME="nrma"> 1018<IMG SRC="../images/nps.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 1019 1020<B>"Nobody in their right mind is for abortions."</b> If you think you know which Canadian party leader made this inflammatory comment and others along the same lines last month, think again--and <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=5545cfbe-648a-42d0-8c52-48221ba043ed">read my column in today's <I>National Post</i></a>. For more background you can check out the <A HREF="http://politicsblog.ctv.ca/blog/_archives/2006/12/11/2566201.html">weblog entry by David Akin</a> that broke the story.<P> 1021 1022<CENTER>- 10:31 am, December 15 1023<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#nrma">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1024<P><HR> 1025 1026 1027 1028 1029I don't know how to feel about the Edmonton Eskimos <A HREF="http://www.esks.com/default.asp?V_DOC_ID=2061">signing a player named "Stamps"</a>. This has to be kind of unprecedented, doesn't it?--the New York Yankees never had a player named Joey Dodgers or Billy Red Sox or anything like that. -3:10 pm, December 14<HR> 1030 1031 1032<B><I><A NAME="gmbo"> 1033Great moments in bureaucracy 1034</A></i></B><P> 1035 1036B.C. conflict-of-interest commissioner Bert Oliver <A HREF="http://www.abbynews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=38&cat=23&id=787573&more=">made his last appearance before the province's finance committee</a> last week and did something that should secure his legend:<P> 1037 1038<blockquote> 1039Oliver appeared before the... committee Monday to say his $316,000 budget is sufficient for next year, and theyÂ’ll likely hear from his successor by the time it runs out. "As long as members conduct themselves as they have done of late, and come and talk to the commissioner before deciding to take some unwise step, <B>I canÂ’t see any need for spending more money</b> in this particular field," Oliver said after his committee appearance.</blockquote><P> 1040 1041Oliver is perhaps overconfident in the fine ethical sensibilities of B.C. politicians, a group that is about as good at not letting you down in the end as <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Howe_(baseball_player)">Steve Howe</a>. Agencies of social control, as opposed to state watchdogs, simply <I>never</i> say "Things are going great--the public is really cooperating with us like a charm." Still, how often are you going to see the head of a government department or office flatly state that "We have enough money to handle our core responsibility, and therefore we don't need any more"? It's an option that's not even in the playbook: he is supposed to say "We don't have enough," "It may appear as if we have enough, but our employees are so overworked they can't remember their children's names," or "Sure, we have enough, but our job should be more broadly defined, like it is in [insert Scandinavian country]." Well done, Mr. Oliver, thou good and faithful servant.<P> 1042 1043<CENTER>- 2:19 am, December 14 1044<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#gmbo">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1045<P><HR> 1046 1047 1048I have a further thought on the Zune, <A HREF="#zzlk">below</a>, that you should check out in the interest of fairness. -1:51 am, December 14<HR> 1049 1050<B>The government we deserve</b>: I always knew there was <A HREF="http://jesgolbez.blogspot.com/2006/12/vote-for-rory-campaign-goes-negative.html">something I didn't trust about Niklas Lidstrom</a>... -10:58 am, December 12<HR> 1051 1052 1053<B><I><A NAME="zzlk"> 1054Zomeday Zune 1055</A></i></B><P> 1056 1057"I've been playing with a Zune for a couple of weeks, and I like it. I like it a lot." You knew <I>someone</i> was bound to take the contrarian stance on Microsoft's new music player, but did you ever expect it to be <A HREF="http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,72281-0.html?tw=rss.index">Leander Kahney in his "Cult of Mac" column for Wired News</a>? Here's a brief summary of Kahney's take on the details:<P> 1058 1059<blockquote> 1060The Zune desktop software crashed right after installation and I had to restart... the sign-in procedure was long-winded and tedious... The catalog [of the subscription service] is smaller than the iTunes Store's... The earbuds aren't much good... Battery life isn't great. The big screen sucks juice dry a lot quicker than the latest iPods... The Wi-Fi is essentially useless. There's no one around to share songs with, and I expect it to be turned off permanently...<P></blockquote> 1061 1062Kahney's review is positive for pretty much one reason: he's a Mac dweeb, and the Zune actually beats the iPod on the sole criterion--design--that is relevant to Mac dweebs. He hates most everything about the performance characteristics of the device but loves its fashionable brown colour, its interface, and the "rubbery" feel of its scratch-resistant case. What's ironic is that this tells us, more clearly than any <I>negative</i> review could, that the Zune is for yuppies who want their technology to come in the form of slick fashion totems.<P> 1063 1064[UPDATE, December 14: <A HREF="http://jayromusings.blogspot.com/2006/12/selective-analysis-part-2.html">A reader</a> points out that the summary of Kahney's review is frightfully skewed--I originally had a lot more sarcasm in the entry, and having taken it out without making the cherry-picking explicit, the summary now just looks unfair. Kahney <B>does like stuff about the Zune aside from look and feel</b>; it's just that his praise for the design is the only bit that comes without major misgivings (and to me he seems to underplay a lot of practical problems and warning signs, almost to a risible degree, because he's so enamoured). Sorry for not being clearer.]<P> 1065 1066<CENTER>- 4:34 am, December 12 1067<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#zzlk">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1068<P><HR> 1069 1070 1071<B><I><A NAME="oeag"> 1072I guess the obituary of an 80-year-old is always going to contain some surprises 1073</A></i></B><P> 1074 1075<A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/08/AR2006120800492_pf.html">Who knew</a> that Amb. Jeane Kirkpatrick was, among the other achievements in a remarkable life, <A HREF="http://www.aroter.org/eng/images/nyingma/trx_portrait.htm">the maternal vessel for</a> "the Direct Mind Incarnation of DoKhyentsé Yeshé Dorje"?<P> 1076 1077<CENTER>- 7:16 am, December 11 1078<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#oeag">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1079<P><HR> 1080 1081 1082<B>Bonus YouTubery</b>: Trust me--<A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdU0V5HnEys&eurl=">this is the next big thing in viral schtick</a>. It's already spreading. Don't worry if you don't laugh out loud at first--give it about 90 seconds. (þ: <A HREF="http://ty4.blogspot.com/">"Tybalt"</a>) -4:42 am, December 11<HR> 1083 1084 1085<B><I><A NAME="ys8b"> 1086Weekend YouTubeology 1087</A></i></B><P> 1088 1089From the <A HREF="http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/12/ozzy_osbourne_b.html">WFMU weblog</a>, here's some Super-8 footage of the 1970 edition of Black Sabbath performing on a flatbed truck in the middle of an early version of the Folsom Street Parade in San Francisco. The quality of the film is poor and there's no sound, but any unedited document of the unified counterculture is precious--doubly so if it chronicles the moment of its capture by high capitalism, as this one does with the almost laughable ostentatiousness of its Warner Brothers logoes. "Straight" didn't mean then what it does now, kids. (And record companies weren't just accounting fictions--they had actual brands!)<P> 1090 1091<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gMdYGAUTvWI"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gMdYGAUTvWI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><P> 1092 1093<CENTER>- 3:11 am, December 11 1094<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#ys8b">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1095<P><HR> 1096 1097 1098 1099<B><I><A NAME="dshc"> 1100Dave Spart lives! 1101</A></i></B><P> 1102
1103Do Health Canada and Cancer Care Ontario hate tobacco? Of course they do. But when questions of cultural relativism enter the picture, it turns out <A HREF="http://www.tobaccowise.com/">there's tobacco, and then there's tobacco</a>.<P> 1104 1105<CENTER>- 4:04 am, December 10 1106<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#dshc">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1107<P><HR> 1108 1109 1110<B><I><A NAME="rlcc"> 1111Recently logged 1112</A></i></B><P> 1113 1114<LI> From Calvin College's German Propaganda Archive, <A HREF="http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/weihnacht44.htm">images from the Nazi Culture Department's Christmas book 1944</a>. Those scholars who continue to insist that Nazism was essentially a Christian phenomenon will search in vain for non-pagan symbolism here, and whatever else might be said of the Christian faith, it cannot be accused of celebrating the "eternal victory of the strong over the weak." (þ: <A HREF="http://linkfilter.net/">Linkfilter</a>)<P> 1115 1116<LI> Things getting long-overdue comeuppances recently: amateur legal terrorist <A HREF="http://www.ericumansky.com/2006/11/bye_bye_brockov.html">Erin Brockovich</a> (þ: <A HREF="http://instapundit.com/">Instapundit</a>) and temperance-fanatic group <A HREF="http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1165619410528&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154">MADD Canada</a>. The mills of the gods continue to operate in fine working order.<P> 1117 1118<LI> In case you thought Richard E. Grant was just some footlight flibbertigibbet, think again--in his spare time <A HREF="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=GCCOQK33LXLNDQFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/12/01/ngrant01.xml">he's out there battling against AIDS quackery</a>. In other skeptic-type news, <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlfMsZwr8rc&eurl=">here's a video</a> which I've often seen discussed, but never saw until now, of James Randi discrediting a "telekinetic" shaolin master on a '70s game show. It's pretty self-explanatory but <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hydrick">Wikipedia has some background</a>. (þ: <A HREF="http://www.videosift.com/">VideoSift</a>)<P> 1119 1120<LI> World chess champion Vladimir Kramnik's bizarre brainfart against Deep Fritz continues to attract international comment. Dutch novelist and chess enthusiast Tim Krabbé <A HREF="http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Etimkr/chess2/diarytxt.htm">sheds some light on the matter in item 329 of his chess diary</a>; he has found five other instances in the electronic records of competitive chess where the same unusual mating pattern was overlooked (once by both players!).<P> 1121 1122<LI> Canadian sport-stat boffin Gary Cohen deserves an equestrian statue in some public square for creating <A HREF="http://www.thebaseballcube.com/">The Baseball Cube</a>. And <A HREF="http://hockey-recap.com/">Hockey Recap</a> is impressive, though more as a toy than a weapon. But if hockey ever does find its "first statistical revolutionary," it is not going to be <A HREF="http://www.thefourthperiod.com/columnists/wyshynski061119.html">some wiseguy who dismisses plus-minus and save percentage as "worthless"</a>. The worth of plus-minus may be small, but it is not zero; <b>all</b> statistics, ALL, have to be embedded in a context. When you split the number apart into separate plus and minus components and convert them into rate stats, as a <A HREF="http://vhockey.blogspot.com/">few</a> webloggers <A HREF="http://mc79hockey.com/">are</a> already doing by means of painfully handwritten code, the data effectively gain another dimension--"high-event" vs. "low-event." <I>This</i> will be the next stat revolution in hockey when the league finally realizes it already has the data--it just needs to present them to the fan. (Ideally, in some intelligible form that encourages number-crunching, as opposed to making it a bigger pain in the ass than rectal cancer.)<P> 1123 1124As for save percentage, as far as I know it has so far defied efforts to demonstrate its uselessness. Save percentages are fairly consistent for individuals from season-to-season; they peak and decline with age as one would expect; starting goalies generally have better save percentages behind the same teams than backups; and the only shot-quality analysis I have seen leaves goalies in virtually the same rank order as unadjusted save percentage. I'm convinced but not certain that it is a statistic possessing quite high validity and meaning.<P> 1125 1126<CENTER>- 6:53 am, December 9 1127<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#rlcc">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1128<P><HR> 1129 1130 1131<B><I><A NAME="intm"> 1132It's always new to me 1133</A></i></B><P> 1134 1135Some crazed genius unearthed a perfect piece of classic TV that lives comfortably within the ten-minute YouTube limit: "Seein' Double", the sitcom-within-a-sitcom parody produced for a 1990 episode of "Newhart". <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syc01SnDsD8">Here's part one</a> and <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM9WlLhuyII">here's part two</a>
1135. Oh, man-crazy Smitty, 17 years later I still bust a gut over you.<P> 1136 1137Unfortunately there is not too much Bob Newhart material on YouTube, but in case anyone's gotten confused and now remembers "Newhart" your typical anodyne fish-out-of-water sitcom, <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TavsJhwOcsE">this 1988 clip should jog your memory</a>. And here's <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzhj_t3oL7k">Bob giving a brief comedy masterclass for Mad TV</a> in 2001.<P> 1138 1139<CENTER>- 6:07 am, December 7 1140<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#intm">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1141<P><HR> 1142 1143 1144<A NAME="mmcr"> 1145<IMG SRC="../images/nps.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 1146 1147<B>No way out</b>: In case you missed it, <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=90974693-73bb-4904-873d-a94178ba36c3">here's my column from last Friday's <I>National Post</i></a>. It's about Mark McGwire, it's free-as-in-beer to subscribers and heathens alike, and it belongs to the ever-growing "exasperatedly trying to refute idiotic things written in the <I>Toronto Star</i>" subgenre of my writing.<P> 1148 1149Attentive readers of the <I>Post</i> will have noticed the strains of an occasional Coshian guitar-lick in the unsigned editorial columns of the paper. For the past couple months I've been contributing to the work of the edtorial board, and since everybody seems more or less happy with the results, a <I>Post</i> subscription would make an outstanding gift for the Colby Cosh fan in your life. Don't lie, I know you've got one.<P> 1150 1151<CENTER>- 4:18 am, December 6 1152<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#mmcr">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1153<P><HR> 1154 1155 1156 1157 1158<B><I><A NAME="jeld"> 1159From the world press, 12/5/06 1160</A></i></B><P> 1161<IMG SRC="../images/mappa.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 1162 1163<B>Japan</b> changes its election law to allow <A HREF="http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200612040129.html">donations from leading companies like Canon and Sony</a> that are more than 50% foreign-held<BR> 1164Dodging wolves and traversing deserts, <A HREF="http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=89548&d=5&m=12&y=2006">Shahid Qurbanov makes <I>hajj</i> on foot</a> all the way from <B>Azerbaijan</b><BR> 1165Charles II in the Himalayas: <A HREF="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HL05Df03.html"><B>Nepalese</b> lawmakers are discovering that, despite their constitution</a>, they can just go ahead and indict King Gyanendra<BR> 1166The most important public-relations campaign in the world? How a few lonely <B>Pathans</b> are <A HREF="http://www.afgha.com/?q=node/1581">desperately trying to separate the identity of their people from the Taliban</a> and create a democratic future<BR> 1167Choosing up sides: <A HREF="http://allafrica.com/stories/200612040099.html">Anger heats up between Ethiopia and Eritrea</a> as the <B>Meles</b> regime accuses the breakaway republic of using Somalia's Islamic courts as its catspaw<BR> 1168Two-time world longjump champ Fiona <B>May</b> <A HREF="http://ansa.it/site/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006-12-04_10429254.html">uses the Italian edition of "Dancing With the Stars" as the springboard</a> to an acting career<BR> 1169The Sudanese <A HREF="http://allafrica.com/stories/200612010020.html">still don't want UN peacekeepers, preferring to prolong</a> the presence of the increasingly prestigious <B>African Union</b><BR> 1170<B>Saudi Arabia</b>'s labour minister <A HREF="http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=89550&d=5&m=12&y=2006">waves about the carrot and stick</a> in his halting efforts to "Saudize" the labour force<BR> 1171Road accidents in Ghana: <A HREF="http://www.accra-mail.com/mailnews.asp?id=19208">caused by <B>witchcraft</b></a>? The <I>Accra Mail</i> says no<BR> 1172Meet Anders Jacobsen, the <A HREF="http://www.aftenposten.no/english/sports/article1556612.ece">apprentice plumber who is fast becoming the hottest star</a> in <B>ski jumping</b><BR> 1173The <B>Norwegian</b> government pays out hush money to <A HREF="http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1556285.ece">students and employees who died working with benzene and radioactives</a> in an unsafe lab<BR> 1174"Very skimpy pyjamas, in fact": a young mother is tied up <A HREF="http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?from=rss_S
1174outh%20Africa&set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20061205071151730C885753">by a <B>South African</b> outlaw</a> but still manages to set the cops on him<P> 1175 1176<CENTER>- 12:41 am, December 5 1177<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#jeld">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1178<P><HR> 1179 1180 1181<B><I><A NAME="gooj"> 1182Get out of jail free 1183</A></i></B><P> 1184 1185So, uh... no one has any problem at all with <A HREF="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061130/martin_tribute_061130/20061130?hub=CTVNewsAt11">Mark Tewksbury serving as compere</a> for Paul Martin's farewell ceremonies at the federal Liberal convention? In a city whose <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/montreal/story.html?id=35705acd-6ad9-4fb8-b77f-b0309ba59e8a&k=97770">small businesses are sitting with millions in unpaid invoices</a> from a sports festival that Tewksbury more or less created? Nobody has any problems with the <A HREF="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-3118.html">sudden crumbling of years of Tewksburian promises</a> that the OutGames could not and would not lose money? No one's uncomfortable with the way the event successfully held a gun to the heads of the municipality and the province at the last minute and then <A HREF="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-2111.html">smacked the water like Greg Louganis coming up a quarter-rotation short</a>? Tewksbury is the star you're enlisting to help build <A HREF="http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&pubid=968163964505&cid=1163458214181&col=968705899037&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News">credibility in Quebec</a>? For a party with rather pressing trust and fiscal responsibility issues? Fun's fun, guys, but openly mocking the voters of Canada doesn't seem like such a hot idea.<P> 1186 1187<CENTER>- 12:49 am, December 1 1188<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#gooj">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1189<P><HR> 1190 1191 1192<B>Well, obviously</b>: want to find the only Liberal in Calgary? <A HREF="http://calgarygrit.blogspot.com/2006/11/if-i-were-calgary-grit-heres-how-it.html">Just look in Edmonton</a>. -12:47 pm, December 1<HR> 1193 1194 1195<B><I><A NAME="anbg"> 1196And you, sir, are no Barry Goldwater 1197</A></i></B><P> 1198 1199Over the years I've been fairly careful, I think, about refraining from declarations of the species "If X happens, the United States of America is doomed!" But I have to admit, the eternal allure of John McCain as a presidential candidate worries me sometimes. I guess I started to feel panicky when I got David Foster Wallace's latest book of nonfiction, <I>Consider the Lobster</i>, for Christmas last year. Wallace is probably my favourite writer under the age of 80, and his 10,000-plus-word piece of <I>Rolling Stone</i> reportage on McCain's 2004 campaign, reprinted in director's-cut form within <I>Lobster</i>, is just as technically dazzling as you would expect. But Wallace, who is basically a gently liberal, vaguely unitarian-ish guy, comes as near as damn all to saying that McCain's torture at the hands of the Viet Cong makes it impossible NOT to vote for him. Eventually Wallace takes a deep breath and towels off, but if the seductive capabilities of McCain's biography work so well on <I>him</i>, who else is going to be able to resist?<P> 1200 1201All of which is by way of saying I hope a lot of Americans read <A HREF="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-welch26nov26,0,3481494.story?coll=la-opinion-center">Matt Welch's definitive <I>LAT</i> editorial</a> on the subject of McCain's political philosophy. Mixed metaphors aside (someone's been banging the drum to put boots on the ground?), it should be a reputation-maker for <A HREF="http://mattwelch.com/warblog.html">Welch</a>.<P> 1202 1203<CENTER>- 10:42 am, November 30 1204<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#anbg">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1205<P><HR> 1206 1207 1208 1209<B><I><A NAME="nwwn"> 1210The N word 1211</A></i></B><P> 1212 1213The word "nation" used to mean something like "a group of people that share a large degree of racial and cultural homogeneity, speak a common tongue, and represent a single entity for some purpose of historical or political description." Have you noticed that the opponents of the House of Commons resolution on the nationhood of <I>les Quebecois</i> are arguing more or less frankly that this word "nation" now pretty much means the opposite of what it did before? On their premises, it's precisely <I>because</i> Quebec has one dominant ethnic group that it is so very, very dangerous to flirt with calling it a nation. But they regard it as perfectly safe, if not obligatory, to call Canada a nation. The very crux of their complaint is that their right to do so is somehow threatened by the resolution. What c
1213ounts is what they <I>want</i> the word "nation" to mean. The actual truth about what is a nation and what's not makes absolutely no difference to their argument at all.<P> 1214 1215That's how you end up with <A HREF="http://weblogs.macleans.ca/paulwells/archives/week_2006_11_26-2006_12_02.asp#002849">Paul Wells saying</a> he is "saddened that the Prime Minister of Canada has managed to get this far without feeling any need to name and celebrate a Canadian nation" even though he thinks the resolution, insofar as it stated a fact, was more or less true. Wells isn't outraged over a lie; he's having feelings about someone's else feelings. It's also how you end with <A HREF="http://andrewcoyne.com/2006/11/well-on-our-way-to-belgiumhood.php">bizarre, brassy mountaintop blasts</a> like Andrew Coyne's:<P> 1216 1217<blockquote> 1218To assert a national will, national objectives, a national interest, in a polyethnic, multilingual, transcontinental country, means upholding a national idea, a transcendent nationalism of ideals, against the more earthly delights of ethnic and cultural tribalism.</blockquote><P> 1219 1220In other words, it means bellowing your new definition of the word "nation" as loudly as you can until the actual meaning gives way under your assault. The phrase "a transcendent nationalism of ideals" refers to nothing out there in the world, any more than would talk of "a transcendent nationalism of food" or "a transcendent nationalism of traffic signals." And just as reality is that which doesn't go away when you will it to, one's nationhood is precisely that which does not disappear when one's opinions change. North Koreans and South Koreans share very few discernible ideals, but they, being Koreans, recognizably belong to the same nation in the relevant sense of the word.<P> 1221 1222Or do they? I don't know anymore what the majority of Canada's intellectuals think they mean by "nation," though they're very clear on what it <I>doesn't</i> mean, and they'll set themselves on fire rather than concede that a French-Canadian might belong to any nation other than, or along with, Canada. I think I understand the true source of their anger. French Canada's claims to nationhood on genetic, historical, and cultural grounds are very strong indeed--arguably stronger than China's, for instance, and much stronger than the Ukraine's. To be an English Canadian, by contrast, is to be a stranded colonist, floating untethered on the plane of human varieties. Our ties of continuity with the past were cut in the hope that the French would cooperate and drift toward us; it is indeed terrible to contemplate the betrayal of that hope and our consequent state--so terrible, in fact, that Coyne can write that "[Quebeckers] have as much or more in common with other Canadians as they do with each other" and not even recognize that he has been driven totally round the bend by <I>horror vacui</i>.<P> 1223 1224I have to admit, that whole <A HREF="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/series/election/leaders/clark.html">"community of communities"</a> thing is looking better every minute. (And if we promise to be on our best behaviour, can we please have "Dominion of Canada" back?)<P> 1225 1226<CENTER>- 2:56 am, November 28 1227<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#nwwn">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1228<P><HR> 1229 1230 1231<B><I><A NAME="acpk"> 1232A chess problem 1233</A></i></B><P> 1234 1235<IMG SRC="../images/kram.jpg" align="bottom" border=1><BR> 1236 1237<B>White to move and mate.</b><P> 1238 1239If you solved this one, congratulations: you might just be <A HREF="http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3509">smarter than the reigning world chess champion</a>. (þ: <A HREF="http://www.apronus.com/chess/wbeditor.php">Apronus.com</a>)<P> 1240 1241<CENTER>- 8:30 pm, November 27 1242<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#acpk">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1243<P><HR> 1244 1245 1246Ancient astronauts in Alberta predicted the rise of the iPod!!! <A HREF="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/10/25/1161743788326.html">View the shocking proof here</a>. -12:13 pm, November 24<HR> 1247 1248 1249<B><I><A NAME="awsm"> 1250All the world's a stage 1251</A></i></B><P> 1252 1253Sean McArdle, property master of the New York Shakespeare Festival, tells the story of <A HREF="http://proppeople.com/index.php/?p=87#">the ultimate <I>prop juste</i></a>.<P> 1254 1255<CENTER>- 4:44 pm, November 21 1256<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#awsm">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1257<P><HR> 1258 1259 1260<B>It's Morneau in America</b>: as of today, the reigning MVPs of the NHL, NBA, and AL <A HREF="http://www.forbes.com/business/healthcare/feeds/ap/2006/11/21/ap3196080.html">are all Canadian</a>. -4:43 pm, November 21<HR> 1261 1262 1263<A NAME="bbbw"> 1264<IMG SRC="../images/nps.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 1265 1266<B>Blow, break, burn</b>: in today's <I>National Post</i> I have a column about the suddenly bleak future of Canadian wind-farm expansion. It's perhaps also worth a read by foreigners who are interested in energy issues, and <A HREF="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=7235a029-e0cb-479d-aeb6-ef19c4fc32f5">
1266as a bonus it's on the free side of the subscriber wall</a>.<P> 1267 1268<CENTER>- 6:55 am, November 21 1269<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#bbbw">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1270<P><HR> 1271 1272 1273 1274 1275<B><I><A NAME="oqac"> 1276Overdue quiz answer 1277</A></i></B><P> 1278 1279<I>Nul points</i> to the readers on <A HREF="#crt">this one</a>, though Steven Jens was on the right track with a half-assed guess. On p. 534 of his <I>Stalin</i> book Sebag-Montefiore mentions a 1945 incident:<P> 1280 1281<blockquote> 1282One evening, Beria suggested that they do some shooting in the garden. There were quails in a cage. "If we don't shoot them," said Beria, "the guards will eat them!" The leader, who was probably already drunk, staggered out and called for guns. Stalin, old, weak, and tipsy, not to mention his frail left arm, first felt "giddy" and fired his gun at the ground, only just missing Mikoyan. He then fired it in the air and managed to pepper his bodyguards, Colonels Tukov and Khrustalev, with shot. Afterwards Stalin apologized to them but blamed Beria.<P> 1283</blockquote> 1284 1285Fowling weapons in the hands of great historical figures have done an extraordinary amount of mischief. As SSM observes in a footnote, Napoleon is thought to have shot out one of Marshal André Masséna's eyes on a hunting expedition; he too seems to have tried to fob the blame off onto someone else. His nemesis Wellington, perhaps made irresponsible by a military career that saw him continually reconnoitring in the front without ever receiving more than a scratch, was a perpetual danger; he must have blasted hide off more servants, friends, and mistresses than one could count with two hands. Queen Victoria's son Arthur, Duke of Connaught (Governor-General of Canada, 1911-16), was named for Wellington and inherited his unhappy track record; in 1891 he shot his brother-in-law Christian of Schleswig-Holstein in the face, blinding him in one eye and damaging the other.<P> 1286 1287<CENTER>- 5:43 am, November 21 1288<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#oqac">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1289<P><HR> 1290 1291 1292<B><I><A NAME="hfmi"> 1293He's forgotten more than you'll ever know about human rights! 1294</A></i></B><P> 1295 1296For those who've been wondering exactly what went wrong with Michael Ignatieff's Liberal leadership campaign, I can now provide the terrifying answer: the party obviously brought home the wrong Michael Ignatieff. The guy the Liberals wanted was the stylish, erudite human rights expert from Harvard University. But the Ignatieff now in all the papers is apparently <A HREF="http://www.thehilltimes.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2006/november/20/ignatieff/&c=1">some totally different guy who's been farming for the past few decades</a>:<P> 1297 1298<blockquote> 1299One of the things I've given emphasis to throughout the campaign, and, I think, more than any other candidate, is on the need for the Liberal Party of Canada to reach out to rural Canada, to farming Canada. I've proposed a national food strategy that would link consumers, producers, distributors and processors so that rural Canada and regional Canada feels that the Liberal Party cares about them and is engaged with them. That's one thing that I would put a lot of emphasis on.</blockquote><P> 1300 1301But how do we know for sure that this agricultural wizard is a false Misha <I>in mufti</i>? Easy--because when <I>The Hill Times</i> asked him a childishly simple yes/no question about international human-rights law, he couldn't handle it.<P> 1302 1303<blockquote> 1304<I>I want to ask a few questions on human rights, because of your expertise in this area. Some American human rights organizations are pursuing in Germany a legal investigation of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for potential war crimes and human rights abuses in the Iraq war, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo Bay. Do think it is appropriate that he is tried for war crimes?</i><BR> 1305I think it's for those organizations to take those decisions. <B>It's not for me to comment on that one way or the other.</b></blockquote><P> 1306 1307If it is not for the founding director of the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy to comment on such a question, for whom in the entire world could it possibly be? No, sorry--it's simply not conceivable that the real Ignatieff, who has stood so firmly for intellectual courage and unambiguou
1307s language, would have ducked this one in such a cheap, cheesy manner.<P> 1308 1309<CENTER>- 8:01 am, November 20 1310<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#hfmi">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1311<P><HR> 1312 1313 1314<B>27 hours and counting?!?!</b> My readers more usually tackle a bleg, query, or brainteaser within 27 minutes. If no one can <A HREF="#crt">get this one</a> by Sunday afternoon I'm revealing the answer and declaring myself the winner... -6:34 am, November 18<HR> 1315 1316 1317<B><I><A NAME="yfgm"> 1318How you can tell your father was a great man 1319</A></i></B><P> 1320 1321In <A HREF="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=19727420&postID=116371934376460412">a comment thread full of condolences</a>, economist David Friedman, son of the late Milton, refers to a poignant anecdote. The story goes that once, as a young academic, he found himself in need of a statistical test that could be used to evaluate columns of data for mutual consistency. To his complete surprise, the tool he needed proved to be called "<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_test">the Friedman test</a>." On further investigation it proved to have been devised in 1937 by his own father.<P> 1322 1323Most thinkers, even ones of near-genius, would consider one such eponym to be the crowning glory of a life's achievement. Whenever that man showed up for work in the morning, people would induce awe in their friends by saying "See that guy over there? That's Friedman, <I>as in Friedman's test</i>." But for Milton Friedman it was a nugatory footnote.<P> 1324 1325It's also little remembered--outside of the Austrian-school circles that have occasionally used the knowledge to heckle their monetarist Trotsky--that Friedman had an essential role in developing income-tax withholding as a "temporary measure" for the U.S. government during the Second World War. Needless to say, he regretted it; it made him partly responsible for the growth of the leviathan he battled for the rest of his life. But it goes to show how impressive a man usually thought of as a public polemicist really was as a pure generator of ideas. Everyone who earns, saves, or spends a dollar without worrying that it's going to disappear six months from now owes Friedman a permanent, unrecoverable, bottomless debt of gratitude.<P> 1326 1327<CENTER>- 4:03 am, November 17 1328<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#yfgm">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1329<P><HR> 1330 1331<A NAME="crt"> 1332Since I've been stealing time from this weblog lately and putting it into books, here's a trivia question taken from one of them--Simon Sebag-Montefiore's <I>Stalin: At The Court of the Red Tsar</i> (a fascinating account of private life amongst the post-Bolshevik elite that suffers only from continuing lack of access to the Soviet archives that briefly opened at the start of the Yeltsin years). A no-prize goes to the first reader to write and tell me <B>what biographical oddity Stalin shares with U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney</b>. Use your head start well, Eastern time zone! -3:40 am, November 17<HR> 1333 1334 1335 1336<B><I><A NAME="sccd"> 1337Seriously 1338</A></i></B><P> 1339 1340Can anyone tell me why canned chili is always so disappointing? In theory, it's the greatest idea since calculus: I love chili just as much as I love not having to wash a frying pan and a soup pot at the end of a meal. So about once a year I forget previous bad experiences and buy the stuff, generally in order to use it with buns, toast, or tortillas. It always ends up with me feeling as though I'd just consumed a helping of moist, timidly spiced cardboard. Adding my own flavourings does not improve matters, any more than sprinkling garlic salt or chopped jalapenos on cardboard would make it significantly more pleasant to the palate. I understand that canned foods are rarely convincing imitations of homemade items, but a tin of Campbell's soup or radioactive-orange Chef Boy-ar-dee pasta will at least fill you up and get you through the afternoon. It is, recognizably, <I>food</i>, even if it does contain enough sodium to create a hazard of spontaneous combustion. Canned chil
1340i, by contrast, actively resists being coverted to energy by the body. The gastrointestinal tract seems to ask "Are you quite sure we haven't processed this meal once already?"<P> 1341 1342<CENTER>- 9:52 am, November 16 1343<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#sccd">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1344<P><HR> 1345 1346 1347<B><I><A NAME="ddts"> 1348Dick Duff. 1349</A></i></B><P> 1350 1351There: now you have <A HREF="http://www.cbc.ca/cp/hockey/061113/h111332.html">a simple two-word phrase</a> that can be used to silence anyone who doesn't think the Toronto sports media is a little self-absorbed. I'm sure Mr. Duff is a wonderful gentleman, but to induct him into the Hockey Hall of Fame is to tempt catastrophic divine recrimination. Is there literally anybody left to enshrine from amongst the '60s cereal-box heroes of our old-fart Scarberian sportswriters and the teammates of present-day executives? The Hall is already too large by a factor of three or four, not understating the matter at all, when it comes to the Original Six years. But while the rest of us agonize over whether Dino Ciccarelli or Butch Goring might be qualified enough, the voters are busy welcoming Dick Duff into the pantheon of immortality. Cognitive dissonance? The hell you say.<P> 1352 1353In case it's not clear how ridiculous things have gotten, have a look at <A HREF="http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/leagues/seasons/teams/0000381965.html">a typical Maple Leafs roster from the JFK-Beatles era</a>. Quite the high-powered lineup, no? With Duff, that team featured <I>11 future Hall of Famers</i> and counting. The 1927 Yankees don't have this degree of representation in the Baseball Hall of Fame--yet somehow that group of Buds conspired to finish fourth in a six-team league and expire in the first round of the playoffs. <I>And yet</i>, believe it or not, the big Hall issue surrounding the team is "Hey, how come they <A HREF="http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2001/08/29/brewer010829.html">haven't put</a> <A HREF="http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/677/">Carl Brewer</a> in the Hall yet?"<P> 1354 1355Six months after that injustice is rectified, the first "You know, Bob Baun <I>did</i> score the most famous goal in hockey history..." column is scheduled to hit the press, and at that point Eddie Shack might as well get his funeral suit out of mothballs.<P> 1356 1357<CENTER>- 7:37 am, November 14 1358<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#ddts">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1359<P><HR> 1360 1361 1362<B><I><A NAME="ieor"> 1363From the world press, 11/9/06 1364</A></i></B><P> 1365<IMG SRC="../images/mappa.gif" align="left" hspace=6 border=0> 1366 1367An <B>Indonesian</b> <A HREF="http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20061109.@02&irec=1">goes on trial for beheading three Christian schoolgirls</a> as an end-of-Ramadan "gift to Muslims"<BR> 1368Doh dept.: what's going to happen when <A HREF="http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/11/2c572f6a-4ab1-4986-9832-eabb726f3652.html"><B>Kurdish</b> regional and Iraqi national oil laws</a> collide?<BR> 1369Zidane shows up in <B>Bangladesh</b> to help <A HREF="http://www.bangladesh-web.com/view.php?hidDate=2006-11-09&hidType=TOP&hidRecord=0000000000000000135803">new Nobelist Yunus and France's Danone open a factory</a> that will make yogurt for poor kids<BR> 1370Concerns about Arab terrorism and ultra-Orthodox counterdemonstrations <A HREF="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378356781&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">drive <B>Jerusalem</b>'s gay-pride parade off of the streets</a> and into a more easily policed stadium setting<BR> 1371Rome in <B>Sweden</b>? <A HREF="http://www.thelocal.se/5450/20061108/?PHPSESSID=257761d4b429a0066c61b2e43d1bd279">An archeological dig near Gothenburg surprises</a> by yielding Latinate ceramics<BR> 1372Swedish <B>astronaut</b> Christer Fuglesang will <A HREF="http://www.thelocal.se/5461/20061109/?PHPSESSID=257761d4b429a0066c61b2e43d1bd279">take elk jerky to the ISS</a><BR> 1373"Happy slapping" might have started as a media hoax, but <A HREF="http://www.jp.dk/english_news/artikel:aid=4071182/">in <B>Denmark</b> it has become a brutal reality</a><BR> 1374Yushchenko wants to <A HREF="http://www.kyivpost.com/top/25414/">ban foreign films that aren't translated</a> into <B>Ukrainian</b><BR>
1375Say it ain't so: <A HREF="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/11/09/003.html"><b>Borat</b> gets banned in Russia</a><BR> 1376Final <A HREF="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a6Prppg5HwrM&refer=news">total cost to world financial markets</a> of the '01 <B>Argentine</b> default: $140B<BR> 1377Democrat victory in the US is <A HREF="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/11/09/001.html">bad news for Russia's accession</a> to the <B>WTO</b><BR> 1378<A HREF="http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=289352&area=/insight/insight__africa/">Lynch law spreads in the <B>Mozambican</b> capital</a> as the cops lose legitimacy<BR> 1379Markus <B>Wolf</b>, <A HREF="http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/09/news/obits.php">East Germany's elusive, legendary spymaster</a>, dies at 83<BR> 1380Here's your <A HREF="http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Kekri+-+ancient+celebration+to+mark+end+of+harvest+season/1135222832346">guide to Kekri</a>, the <B>Finnish</b> pastoral Halloween<BR> 1381 1382<CENTER>- 11:30 am, November 9 1383<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#ieor">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1384<P><HR> 1385 1386 1387<B><I><A NAME="wkca"> 1388Welcome to Anglistan 1389</A></i></B><P> 1390 1391You may have noticed that the blockbusting success of the Borat movie has led to an outburst of cultural learnings about the real Kazakhstan; the Central Asian crazyocracy has now found so many defenders willing to testify to its status as a counterintuitively urbane multicultural paradise that Sasha Baron-Cohen is surely eligible for a key to the city of Astana by now. (It so happens that Kazakhstan is a fairly common destination for Alberta oilpatch liaisons, making this one place in North America where the former Soviet republic wasn't really a suitable <I>tabula rasa</i> for SBC's satire.) Steve Sailer, for one, has <A HREF="http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/11/coolest-thing-about-real-kazakhs.html">joined in the fun</a>:<P> 1392 1393<blockquote> 1394The coolest thing about real Kazakhs: while lots of people hunt with falcons, Kazakhs also hunt with huge golden eagles.</blockquote><P> 1395 1396Funnily enough, there is another little-known cultural backwater where hunting with golden eagles has suddenly become popular. It seems that when Tony Blair's Labour government banned fox hunting, they left the tiniest little loophole open, as <A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1941043,00.html">Stephen Moss rose early to report for the <I>Guardian</i></a>...<P> 1397 1398<blockquote> 1399There it is in the first line of the act: "A person commits an offence if he hunts a wild mammal with a dog." Couldn't be clearer. Except there are a further five words in that sentence: "... unless his hunting is exempt." Those five words--and the list of exemptions in schedule one of the act--have been the salvation of hunting. One exemption in particular has been manna to the hunters: "Flushing a wild mammal from cover is exempt hunting if undertaken for the purpose of enabling a bird of prey to hunt the wild mammal." And so hunts have begun using packs of hounds in combination with birds of prey.<P> 1400 1401Today the Cottesmore is out with its golden eagle, Anna (they did think about calling it Notil, as in Notil-eagle, but pulled back). It is perched on the arm of its handler, Vernon Moore, and is the most important participant in the day's hunting. Without the bird of prey, it would not be legal to flush out a fox using a pack of hounds. All that would be permissible would be the use of a pair of hounds to flush out a fox to be shot. Some hunts are using the latter exemption, but it is the presence of a bird of prey that permits the hounds to work as a pack of 30 or 40--the essence of hunting, in the view of connoisseurs.<P> 1402 1403"The exemptions in the act allow us to do an awful lot," admits Mayo, "and the mood is much more optimistic now than it was. For so long we had the ban hanging over us, and then the worst that could ever happen happened. Now we're over that huge hump. We've survived two seasons, and for the first time in years there is a real prospect of my grandchildren being able to hunt. Meltdown didn't happen."<P> 1404 1405The Cottesmore has a great deal to thank Anna for, yet the eagle has only ever killed one fox. Hunting a fox with a bird of prey is bloody hard, especially in the presence of a pack of 40 hounds, 70 people on horseback and large numbers of c
1405ar and foot followers. If the hounds and the bird get to the fox simultaneously, mayhem is likely to ensue; or the bird might mistake a small dog for the fox and carry off Miss Ponsonby-Smythe's Jack Russell; or a bird of prey of lesser stature than a golden eagle might get mauled by a fox.<P></blockquote> 1406 1407<CENTER>- 4:03 am, November 6 1408<FONT SIZE="-1"><A HREF="#wkca">(link)</a></FONT></CENTER> 1409<P><HR> 1410 1411 1412 1413 1414 1415 1416<B>RECENTLY TRUNCATED:</B><BR> 1417 1418 1419 1420 1421 1422 1423 1424<A NAME="ahbi">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#ahbi">The rise of the meta-nerd</a><BR> 1425<A NAME="tpas">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#tpas">As the cars get expensive, the parts get cheaper</a><BR> 1426<A NAME="gufo">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#gufo">An economist's view of God</a><BR> 1427<A NAME="sffn">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#sffn">The death of the five-goal game</a><BR> 1428<A NAME="sfib">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#sfib">Bertuzzi's back gives out in a new town</a><BR> 1429<A NAME="ceru">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#ceru">Burying the Edmonton Eskimos' season</a><BR> 1430<A NAME="mdec">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#mdec">Photos from the inaugural BoA/CiO street-hockey classic</a><BR> 1431<A NAME="tamm">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#tamm"><B>This Community Tolerates Prostitution</a><BR></b> 1432<A NAME="ssjd">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#ssjd"><I>Judge Dredd</i>, the lost episodes</a><BR> 1433<A NAME="fmet">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#fmet">The Oilers' new Norwegian</a><BR> 1434<A NAME="tcma">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#tcma">YouTube: the athlete's worst nightmare</a><BR> 1435<A NAME="wmwt">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#wmwt">I tell you three times--update your drivers</a><BR> 1436<A NAME="awfc">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#awfc">An evening with Chester Brown</a><BR> 1437<A NAME="kjsn">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#kjsn"><I>Ms.</i> tries (not hard enough) to mainstream abortion</a><BR> 1438<A NAME="mbei">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#mbei"> 1439 1440Swimmer's ear for a non-swimmer</a><BR> 1441<A NAME="tigk">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#tigk">The <I>Globe</i> goes to the "University of Edmonton"</a><BR> 1442<A NAME="ancb">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#ancb">Reviewing the new super-Coke</a><BR> 1443<A NAME="ptca">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#ptca"><B>Two views of a concert</b></a><BR> 1444<A NAME="nhsg">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#nhsg">R.I.P., Kokudo Bunnies</a><BR> 1445<A NAME="fsie">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#fsie">Hamsterballs: <I>Top Gear</i>'s co-host runs off the track</a><BR> 1446<A NAME="idao">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#idao">The smith and the wolf</a><BR> 1447<A NAME="csnt">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#csnt">At last, unification for the chess championship</a><BR> 1448<A NAME="wybb">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#wybb">YouTube: classic SCTV sketches</a><BR> 1449<A NAME="skni">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#skni">Does the owner of the Isles kiss cows?</a><BR> 1450<A NAME="bbjf">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#bbjf">Hooray for the <I>Blank</i> decision</a><BR> 1451<A NAME="accc">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#accc">The exterior inner lives of Americans</a><BR> 1452<A NAME="brnl">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#brnl">Liberal nastygrams vs. freedom of satire</a><BR> 1453<A NAME="patc">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#patc">YouTube: the Who plays a neglected classic</a><BR> 1454<A NAME="mbnj">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#mbnj">
1454Reuters mangles some aerodynamics</a><BR> 1455<A NAME="wocg">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#wocg"><B>All out of energy: enviro-propaganda from the '70s</a><BR></b> 1456<A NAME="wqq">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#wqq">The tall-famous-people quiz</a> [<A NAME="wqac">Answer</a> <A HREF="archives.html#wqac">here</a>]<BR> 1457<A NAME="aaqd">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#aaqd">Liquids on an airplane: the last word</a><BR> 1458<A NAME="sdtb">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#sdtb">Beware of the BUKAKE-mobile</a><BR> 1459<A NAME="fnpc">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#fnpc"><B>Fidel as Superman: Sasha Trudeau's obnoxious <I>Star</i> column</a><BR></b> 1460<A NAME="wewc">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#wewc"><B>Liquids on an airplane: where's the credible threat model?</a><BR></b> 1461<A NAME="nthh">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#nthh">The <I>NYT</i> messes up a health story</a><BR> 1462<A NAME="twfa">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#twfa">A look back at an MLB fantasy season</a><BR> 1463<A NAME="ddhb">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#ddhb">The real source of the new Sabres logo</a><BR> 1464<A NAME="ssab">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#ssab">From "degenerate artist" to Hitler's sculptor</a><BR> 1465<A NAME="crso">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#crso">A child's guide to magazine detection</a><BR> 1466<A NAME="mecf">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#mecf">The shame of St. Albert</a><BR> 1467<A NAME="wcgo">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#wcgo">Hmm, funny how Castro got sick the second they found oil off Cuba's coast</a><BR> 1468<A NAME="dima">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#dima">The hidden first act of a death-penalty reformer's life</a><BR> 1469<A NAME="bpep">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#bpep">Pakistan's last Christian cricketer</a><BR> 1470<A NAME="fbzi">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#fbzi">It wasn't a headbutt, it was a <I>cabezazo</i></a><BR> 1471<A NAME="mpqm">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#mpqm">Zidane as herald of Muslim rage?</a><BR> 1472<A NAME="lmks">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#lmks">From red paper clip to Kipling, Sask.</a><BR> 1473<A NAME="ssde">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#ssde">Stephen Harper: the new JFK? Really??</a><BR> 1474<A NAME="gmdc">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#gmdc">The Canadian Alliance didn't die, it just went to Mexico</a><BR> 1475<A NAME="smkd">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#smkd">The "other" Montreal</a><BR> 1476<A NAME="wtiy">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#wtiy"><B>Investigating the Roloson trade</a></b><BR> 1477<A NAME="csph">·</a> <A HREF="archives.html#csph"><B>YouTube bytes '71: Can, <I>Vanishing Point</i>, Billy Preston</a></b><BR> 1478 1479 1480 1481<A NAME="pico"><HR></a> 1482 1483<!-- Begin PicoSearch Query Box --> 1484<P><FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="http://www.picosearch.com/cgi-bin/ts.pl"> 1485<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="index" VALUE="228262"> 1486<TABLE BGCOLOR="WHITE" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 BORDER=0><TR><TD> 1487<TABLE BGCOLOR="WHITE" CELLSPACING=2 CELLPADDING=0 BORDER=0> 1488<TR><TD><A HREF="http://www.picosearch.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?wherefrom=picobox&type=all" TARGET="_blank"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="http://www.picosearch.com/picosmall.gif" ALT="PicoSearch"></A></TD> 1489<TD><INPUT TYPE="TEXT" NAME="query" VALUE="" SIZE="20"></TD> 1490<TD><nobr><INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT" VALUE="Search" name="SEARCH"></nobr></TD></TR> 1491<TR><TD></TD><TD ALIGN=RIGHT><SELECT NAME="opt"><OPTION SELECTED VALUE="ANY">Find ANY word <OPTION VALUE="ALL">Find ALL words <OPTION VALUE="EXACT">Find EXACT phrase </SELECT></TD><TD ALIGN=LEFT><FONT SIZE=-2> <A HREF="http://www.picosearch.com/cgi-bin/ts.pl?index=228262&help=help">Help</A></FONT></TD></TR> 1492<tr><td></td><td align=right><font size=-2><a href="http://www.picosearch.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?wherefrom=picobox&type=all" target=_blank>Site Search by PicoSearch</a></font></td><td> </td></tr> 1493</TABLE></TD></TR></TABLE></FORM> 1494<!-- End PicoSearch Query Box --> 1495 1496 1497<HR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR> <FONT SIZE="-2">This site and its original content are ©2002-2004 Colby Cosh. The author supports traditionally acknowledged doctrines regarding the reader's fair use of this material.<P></font> </td></table> </body> </html>
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