Playing with the new laptop

Well, let's see how well this works... just set up my new laptop to access my blogger account directly... save having to switch between my Google accounts, e-mail vs. blogging.

Carry on as you were...

Bhutto Dies

Though I'm no psychic or prophet, I could have told you this was coming. Of course, there are those who are going to try and somehow pin this in Mushareff.

There are just some people that you can't reason, or negotiate, with. Islamic terrorists are amongst that group.

Today, I rest my case. My condolences to her family, who are no strangers to such tragedy.

My politically incorrect post

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Praise be to our Loving Heavenly Father, who loved us so much that He gave His own Son, to die in our place and take on Himself the penalty of our sin.

Praise be to the Lord Jesus Christ, who chose to leave the Glorious splendor of Heaven to live for 33 years in this sin-sick world, for the sole purpose of saving our rebellious and sinful souls.

Hallelijah, Christ was born!

"Jesus is the Reason for the Season"

U of W rocks!

At least their CS department does! They've got some sweeeeeeeet internet pipes! And with all the students back home for Christmas, no one's online to clog things up for me!

I was trying to download Xubuntu, a Linux distro to play around with over Christmas. Anyway, getting the 500+MB iso file was going to take over 2-3 hours from the main site, so I said forget that... I did a google search for an alternate download mirror. Ended up finding one, hosted by the University of Waterloo's Computer Club servers.

Lo and behold, the download time from there? ELEVEN FREAKING MINUTES!!! I've got to be the only one hitting their systems right now, cause that's stinking fast!

I'll let you know how the Linux experiment goes. Unfortunately, I won't be able to test it on my "sweet new laptop" I ordered from Future Shop... looks like I bought some "vaporware". Future Shop informed me via e-mail last night that the laptops never came, and they won't be getting them from the manufacturer, Hewlett-Packard. Merry Christmas indeed.

On a positive note, however, they didn't just leave it at, "Tough luck buddy". Included in the e-mail was, now get this, an eCertificate for $100... yes, that's one hundred dollars, towards my next purchase... and the voucher is valid from Dec. 24 until March 2008.

Folks... THAT'S how you do customer service. Nice move guys. Looks like I'm going Boxing Day shopping for laptops. Kinda have to get it then in order to get it included in my 2007 tax write offs for my new business. Here's hoping they have a good deal!

FCM removes apology from website?

Excuse me? What exactly is going on here? The FCM issued an apology about a month ago to Ms. Kovach over her removal as President... and all of a sudden, IT'S GONE... with all traces of it removed from their website?!?!?

Take a look for yourself at their press release section... IT'S COMPLETELY GONE. Okay, this is NOT cool... what exactly, or, maybe I should ask, WHO, are they trying to protect? It was right there, just before the one from Nov. 20 called "FCM Report Says Infrastructure “Near Collapse”".

Now, =POOF=... it's as if it never even existed. Fortunatly, I still have a FULL copy of the text, and there are a few reports that refer to it.

This is the SECOND TIME an article related to this story has gone missing... WHAT GIVES?!?!?

Former FCM President Kovach to run for Guelph nomination

Alternate Post Title: "Dion gets lumps of coal in stocking for Christmas"

Breaking news, and it's not good news for Dion... former FCM President Gloria Kovach has announced her intention to run for the Conservative nomination in Guelph. More to follow as details become available.

Now, you may be looking at this and wondering, how on earth could this bad for Dion? Well, it puts Ms. Kovach in the spotlight once again... which means that people will be asking questions about Ms. Kovach and her past.

Her past, which includes being the former President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Which also includes the as of yet unanswered questions as to why she was removed from her post. Any ideas on that, Mr. Dion?

To the trolls, I'll answer your comments before you even make them... the FCM's press release in November exonorated Ms. Kovach... "The Board reached this decision for reasons totally unrelated to either Gloria Kovach’s conduct or performance as President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities or as Chair of its National Board of Directors. The Federation acknowledges that Gloria Kovach carried out her duties in a responsible manner consistent with her commitment to municipal government." Translation... her removal was politically influenced. The only question that remains, is interference from whom.

Here's the link to the original post on this issue, and here's one on the near riot that occured at the FCM's annual meeting in Calgary this past June over this issue.

UPDATE: WHAT THE?!?!? The FCM has pulled the appolgy it gave to Ms. Kovach from their website?!?!? Take a look at their press release section for yourself... IT'S GONE. Okay, this is NOT cool...

CBC acknowledges "inappropriate" actions

To all the nay-sayers who say this is a non-story... even the bosses at the CBC disagree with you.

Aaron Wudrick has received an email from a VP at the CBC... I could comment, but I'll let you read it for yourself...

"I wanted to let you know that CBC news chiefs have looked at the allegations made yesterday.

They feel that the reporter's actions in pursuing the story were inappropriate and against CBC/Radio-Canada's Journalistic Standards.

They are continuing to investigate the particulars and will follow the disciplinary processes outlined in the CBC's collective agreement.

I imagine that the CBC Ombudsman will be responding to complaints and investigating what happened as well.

They want to make sure this doesn't happen in future."

Now that the allegations have been acknowledged by the brass, some of the heat can be lifted from the CBC as a whole... a good move on their part. (Of course, I still think a majority of their staff view the CPC as the enemy, and want them out of office, but that's a story for another day)

However, the acknowledgement by the CBC brass makes things a little more difficult for Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez. Remember all his protests that "I wrote the questions all by myself"? Well, the bosses at the CBC are implying that they feel he got some inappropriate help. So who's telling the whole truth in this matter? Janke, as usual, has lots more to read about.

Bottom line is, the Liberals got caught on this one, plain and simple. They attempted to smear the Tories through the back door by going at Mulroney on the spectrum allocation... and it backfired. It backfired and blew up in their faces, and now there's going to be fallout to deal with. I like how Janke put it... "Will the Liberals be forced to defend itself against allegations that it manufactures the news Canadians are seeing?"

Hey Mr. Dion? Instead of your team trying to score cheap political points, why don't you order them to get down to the business of "making Parliament work"?

Oh, and while we're on the subject of getting down to business, how about we skip this whole inquiry fiasco? It seems that most Canadians don't have an appitite for it, and don't think it will be worth the millions of dollars we're going to spend on an it.

It looks like you've lost in the court of public opinion on this one, too.

Merry Christmas!

Liberal/CBC-gate now officially under investigation

After an official complaint from the Conservative Party, the CBC Ombudsman has launched an internal investigation into the allegations of CBC/Liberal collusion by former Liberal Cabinet Minister Jean Lapierre.

It's sad to watch the Libloggers try to spin this... one of them even had the gall to make the statement, "It is obviously a "diversion" tactic from the PMO." Ammm, yea, that's right... Lapierre's doing the bidding of the PMO these days. Riiiiight...

It's also interesting to see some in the media rallying to the Liberals in an attempt to cover for them... with stuff like, "This sort of thing happens all the time." On that point, I'll agree with them... it often does seem like the media is a little too cosy with the Liberal Party of Canada.

Thankfully, this story has seen the light of day. Maybe, hope beyond all hope, this may actually start an honest and genuine investigation of these claims. I appreciate what the media does, keeping an eye on what's going on, and digging into the stories on behalf of the people of this country. But when our publicly funded broadcaster has a continual hate on for the governing party, that's unacceptable.

Being tough, asking the hard questions, I'm all for that... but continually and unrelentingly looking for stories in an effort to embarass one party? Come on. Just do your job guys... and gals, of course.

CBC needs to respond to charges of collusion

While I'm not one to publicize who's visiting my wee blog, or to post their tracking information, with the allegations of CBC and Liberal collusion that are floating out there, I felt it was important to this story to go ahead and post this...

They can't feign ignorance on this one. Essentially, I'm going to take this as a formal acknowledgement on the part of the CBC of these allegations.

Now, we're just waiting for the formal explaination.

UPDATE: The CBC has launched an internal investigation after a formal complaint to the CBC Ombudsman by the Conservative Party.

It's a real shame that it took a formal complaint to get this going.

Liberal/CBC-gate?

This is an interesting allegation... and from a former Liberal Cabinet Minister no less...

"According to [Jean] Lapierre Liberal Members of Parliament asked former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney questions written by journalists at the CBC regarding any involvement in the spectrum auction for cellular and wireless devices.

"I knew all about those questions. They were written by the CBC and provided to the Liberal Members of Parliament and the questions that Pablo Rodriguez asked were written by the CBC and I can't believe that but last night, influential Member of Parliament came to me and told me those are the questions that the CBC wants us to ask tomorrow." (CTV Newsnet, December 13, 2007)"

What? The CBC working in collusion with the Liberal Party of Canada? Take a look for yourself...


Nah, couldn't be true... could it?

Let's just put it this way... it would not shock me in the least.

Mike Duffy put it this way... "I find this astounding."

h/t to Stephen Taylor via Mike Duffy Live

UPDATE: Another member of the Blogging Tories just leaked the Liberal Party's new soon to be released logo...

Watching Mulroney's Testimony

I'm watching the replay of the Ethics Committee on CPAC. I must say, what a partisan circus. The NDP's Pat Martin's performance was particularly disgusting. The basis of all his questions were based on false allegations, and he refused to even allow Mr. Mulroney to address and correct the false premises upon which his statements and questions were based. He just kept plowing ahead, demanding answers from the former Prime Minister on questions that were based on false supositions.

What gives? The NDP had (HAD, past tense) earned a lot of respect from me in recent months, but Pat Martin's complete farce today may have just blown all that respect away. Humm... "Leadership. Fairness." Neither of those things were on display by the NDP today, Mr. Martin.

Asking honest and legitmate questions, based on the information we already have in the public realm, that's something I completely support. Even the line of questioning from the Liberals was more respectable than that of the NDP... even though the Liberals also based many of their questions on false premises. But when they did, at least they let Mr. Mulroney speak and attempt to correct the record.

Of course, I also saw the Liberals try to make a farce out of this. It was interesting to watch the Liberals attempt to prevent him from correcting the record... they allowed Schreiber to ramble on and toss out little tidbits, but they attempted to limit the time he was given for his answers.

Man, if this is a pre-cursor to the inquiry, it's gonna be a long winded and money wasting fiasco.

For the record, I'm no fan of Mulroney... I don't think he was a particuarly great Prime Minister, and I think he was a major factor in why the right was split for so long. But, I think the guy's entitled to getting a fair shake... I guess the Opposition doesn't think so.

Major Healthcare Vendor to port apps to Linux

Buddy of mine sent this to me this morning... and it's HUGE news.

McKesson Provider Technologies, a MAJOR vendor of clinical systems and applications, is starting to move their apps to Linux based solutions, in order to offer lower cost solutions to it's customers.

The McKesson group of companies is one of the biggest healthcare organizations in the world... you've likely been a recipiant of McKesson's services in the past. Ever get your prescriptions at Shoppers? Guess who supplies them? Though they're not a huge player in the clinical systems in Canada, there are a number of large and high-profile organizations that use McKesson based solutions. Full disclousure, I'm actually a former McKesson employee... a Hospital I used to work for had outsourced their IT department to McKesson.

By porting their apps to Linux, they're actually moving the open source movement forward by a huge step... they're legitimizing Linux in one of the most critical areas in our society, the Healthcare sector. Basically, if they feel that Linux is finally ready to run mission-critical apps that run our hospitals... well, that's just HUGE.

And it's going to keep driving down the costs of IT solutions in general, which is good news for everyone.

Canadian Alex Trebek has a heart attack

Get well soon, Mr. Jeopardy.

Warren stands up for Baird

As far a Liberals go, I find that Warren Kinsella is one of the best judges of character they have... he's right about people far more often than he is wrong. (unless, of course, you're talking about Mr. McGuinty... but like I said, he can be wrong from time to time)

Anyway, he's thrown in his two cents on the allegations being made that The Hounourable John Baird had anything whatsoever to do with Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brian's current situation. It's Warren's opinion, having dealt with John for years, that the allegations are false.

Word of advice to you Liberals out there reading this... you might want to pay heed to your "Liberal-in-Exile"'s opinion on this one...

On the way to Ottawa Tuesday morning after giving a speech to Ontario firefighters.

Before I do, I wanted to say - as a one-time federal Liberal candidate and staffer - that I simply do not believe these allegations being made against John Baird. At all.

I know John, and know him to be a partisan and a fervent conservative. I also believe he is fundamentally wrong on Kyoto. But he's no crook, and he doesn't deserve this kind of treatment. At all.

My opinion, worth what you pay for it.

Okay... so I caved

TECHIE POST... if you're not one, give this post a pass... unless you're looking for a late-night sleep aid.

After ranting and raving against it for the last two weeks, I went and did an about-face today... I bought a laptop... with Vista.

Okay, before the hecklers start in with "FLIP-FLOPPER!!!", let point out a few things which finally tipped the scales...

1) I bought it for "research"... after all my ranting the other week, I ended up doing some more support calls for another doctor's office... my name seems to have gotten around to the local medical community as a decent IT guy, so I've been getting calls lately. Anyway, to make a long story short, one of them has a laptop with Vista... and I don't have a clue about Vista, so I can't help him out too much. Since I'm going to start getting asked to support systems with it, I figure I should figure it out myself.

2) Future Shop had a deal I couldn't refuse... $599 for an HP 15.4" laptop with an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual Core TL-60 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD (only 5400RPM), an NVIDIA graphics chipset and a nice bunch of other goodies. Considering that I was looking at a 1.8Ghz Dell with only a 80GB HDD and 1GB of RAM with XP Home for only $50 less, it seemed to be a good value for money.

3) I have a good line on another really cheap used laptop, a P3, with XP on it that I can use in case my security scanning software doesn't work on Vista.

4) I spent some time talking with another local Tory techie, and he was telling me how he's been using Vista for a year now... and has been able to work through most of the glitches and now is happy with its performance. This system meets the criteria of one that ought to run Vista pretty decently.

5) For all the Linux fans reading this, I've been playing with a really nice mini-distro, NimbleX... also thinking about dual-booting this thing with Ubuntu.

So, having said all that, hopefully I've managed to molify some of those who are going to roast me. As for the rest of you... roast away in the comments!

Techie Post: Fragmented Drive

This one's a post for all you techie types... this has got to be the most fragmented hard drive I've ever seen! Ever seen one this bad?

China is freaked out at Bali conference

Environmentalists are apparently "pleased" by China's sudden show of support for the Kyoto Protocol, after the Chineese delegation "blasted" Canada for our position that everyone has to be involved in any post-Kyoto agreements.

The quote from the Globe & Mail says, "China, in unusually harsh language, warned that Japan's proposal could “sabotage” the entire Kyoto process." Amm, DUH! Hello?!?! Of course they're going to be seen throwing their weight behind Kyoto at a time like this... that's because they're completely freaked out by the notion of any new regieme that would also require them to reduce their emissions. Why can't the environmental lobby see this? Why are they so supportive of China's right to continue to increase their GHG output?

Could it be because they also know full well that Kyoto is not really about reducing GHG, but about wealth re-distrubtion and moving industry from the West to the Third World? (not that that's entirely a bad thing, mind you...)

Why does the environmental lobby continually seek to protect two of the worst GHG offenders in the world, China and India? I've NEVER been given a good answer to that question.

This new position being staked out by Canada and Japan is a severe threat to China... so naturally, they're putting on a real good show of support for Kyoto now... ONLY because it's in their best interests, allowing them to continue with their ways.

One Liberal MPP I agree with

Just saw this on Global News... backbench Liberal MPP David Orazietti is planning on introducing a Private Members bill to ban smoking in cars in Ontario.

Dude, you got my vote. I agree with you... we should be harshly charging individuals who feel that it is their right to smoke and sentence their children to an early death.

Schreiber Affair about to blow up in Liberals face?

Oops... it seems that former Liberal Cabinet Minister André Ouellet lobbied hard on behalf of Mr. Schreiber's little arms deal.

Oops is right... because you know that Mr. Ouellet is going to be under a very narrow microscope for the next few weeks, and the media is going to be looking for any sort of link whatsoever. And if they find one?

Let's just say I would not want to be in Mr. Dion's shoes if they do, because his plans for a February election could very quickly turn into a Febrary 2009 election... with a new Liberal leader.

On the note of past scandals and polls, we have these numbers from Decima... 36% vs. 28%, and that was during the height of the Schriber nonsence of the last few weeks. Now... imagine, for a moment, if you will, the numbers we might see next week if a tie to the previous Liberal government is discovered...

"HV F8TH" - MTO says "Offensive"... 20 years later

A friend of mine sent me this. I mean, come on you guys at the MTO... a guy has the license plate "HV F8TH" for 20 years, and goes to get the rusted old plates replaced... only to be told that it does not meet the Ministry's current guidelines to be considered "acceptable". Another guy I know has the plate "3 in 1", in reference to the Trinity... I wonder if he'll also be denied. Or what about all those people who have some reference to a passage in the Bible?

People are allowed to have plates openly proclaiming their various activities that some may deem offensive, like one in my area that says "BE NUDE"... which I find completely offensive... but I've never filed a complaint. He can have that, but people aren't allowed to make any reference whatsoever to something near and dear to them... their faith? I'm not talking about overtly offensive plates, I understand the need for some basic screening... I wouldn't think a plate saying "UGO2HELL" or "URASINNR" would be acceptable either. But taking away these innocuous plates a guy has had for 20 years? Come on...

If this guys license plate was so "offensive", why did you wait 20 years to do something about it? Have there been any complaints?

HV F8TH

Are you offended by this title? Seems the Ministry of Transportation thinks it's pretty offensive:

Russell Henry has had the (license) plate "HV F8TH" - "Have Faith" - for 20 years, and when he applied to replace his old, rusting plates, the Ministry of Transportation denied his request. "It does not meet the ministry's current criteria since this configuration could be considered by some members of the public to connotate religion," the ministry's letter indicated.

Minister of Transportation = Jim Bradley - click here. Members of all faith groups (Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Hindu) should write and express their thoughts on this matter to the Minister.

I think I'll drop the Minister a line on this really dumb one.

UPDATE: This Ministry will now allow Mr. Henry to renew his plates, along with "REV JO", a minister who also had her plate renewal rejected. (and I don't buy their "REV is the initials of an alcoholic drink, so it was rejected on that basis" denial, due to the fact that "HV F8TH" can't be explained away that way)

Ratio of Women in IT

Was at a Microsoft event today in TO, for their Unified Communication Server. Very cool system... integration of office phone, instant messaging, e-mail, voicemail, and video/web conferencing. Lots of potential...

Anyway, once again, I observed an interesting ratio of men vs. women in the IT sector. At pretty much every event I've ever been to, the ratio is typically somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 to 1. On a good day, it's still somewhere around 10 to 1. Why is that? I saw plenty of women in my program in college... maybe most of them haven't climbed the ladder yet? (most of the guys there, admittedly, were in the 30-50 age bracket)

The ratio in my workplace? 2 to 0.

Interestingly enough, companies like Telus (whom I used to work for) have a much better ratio... I'd say it was somewhere near 50%, which is a remarkable feat considering how few women you typically see at major IT events.

Just some interesting observations. Comments and other similar or contrary observations are welcomed.

Google Fights

Warren says he likes this "Google Fight", which pits him against "Norman's Spectator".

Personally, I like this one better. ;-)

(Full disclosure: of course there are millions of us... and just one Warren)

Then, you have this one... but of course we all knew what the results of that upcoming battle will be.

Chander dropped from Alberta PC

Stelmach has officially rejected the candidacy of Craig Chandler, a hard right PC candidate who moved from Ontario to Alberta in an effort to get himself elected.

My two cents on this thing... we, the grassroots of the various conservative leaning parties in this country, NEED TO GIVE OUR COLLECTIVE HEADS A SHAKE. What is it with us and electoral death-wishes? Why on earth do we keep on nominating people who can't get elected?

Here's the irony... the guy supports a lot of things that I'd support... Focus on the Family, he's committed to more traditional family values, etc. Maybe in Alberta, he'd have a chance at winning, but seriously, he strikes me as way too loose of a cannon to take the risk.

I'm find this more and more in consevative circles... many of us have our pet issues, and we make all of our decisions based on those one or two issues. Then you get a candidate who knows how to push those one or two buttons, or who knows how to woo the appropriate local special interest group to ram through a nomination, and then presto, you've got a hopelessly unelectable candidate, who then goes out to the electoral slaughterhouse when the writ drops... and takes the tens of thousands of dollars you've raised with them into oblivion, just a footnote in the Elections Canada history books.

Good move by Priemer Stelmach... a pre-emptive strike. They'll likely lose the riding anyway, but better to lose one riding than to take the province-wide hit when the candidate invariably does the dumb thing you've been dreading.

On that note, my kudos to Randy Hiller on his recent election... he didn't do anything seriously dumb during the entire writ that hurt Mr. Tory... as if he needed any help on that front! (Could you imagine if he HAD done something dumb? Yikes)

Anyway, that's my rant. Take it for what it's worth.

Is Dion leading Quebec women to the slaughter?

The electoral slaughterhouse, that is... Steve Janke has done some analysis, and pointed out that Mr. Dion has painted himself into yet another corner.

In order to fulfill his committment of running 1/3 female candidates in the next election, he's likely going to have to appoint at least 25 more women in the province of Quebec. Now, according to all the polls, Mr. Dion's Liberals are set to take a beating in Quebec in the next election. Therefore, these 25 yet unnamed women, whomever they may be, must know that they're going to be asked to fly a Kamakhazi mission for the Liberal Party of Canada.

I think Steve sums it up well... "Some might wonder, perhaps publicly, if Stephane Dion was using women as cannon fodder in Quebec.

If allegations like that arise, Stephane Dion will also be remembered as the federal leader who did the most to hurt the level of participation of women in elected office."

Stephane Dion... the man who's leading dozens of Quebec women to the electoral slaughterhouse.

Stephane Dion... yea, he's not much of a leader.

Comparison and Contrast

It's interesting how the Schriber affair is playing out, eh? Stop and think about it for a moment... this isn't about the Liberals showing Canadians how good they are... it's about Liberals saying "Look at the Conservatives! They're just as bad as we are!" Wow... umm, that's real inspiring guys. Talk about gutter politics.

So then, let's take everyone down memory lane and a real look at this issue for a moment...

Schiber Affair: $300,000 wound up on one individuals pockets (as to the legality of it, that's still before the courts... but let's just assume for a moment that it was somehow illegal)

Sponsorship: $1.14 million of traceable money illegally and ADMITTEDLY wound up in Liberal Party coffers... how much more in brown envelopes, we'll never know for sure


Schriber Affair: $300,000 of someone else's money was allegedly taken

Sponsorship: An ADMITTED $1.14 million of OUR MONEY ended up, not allegedly but admittedly, in Liberal Party coffers... and very likely a whole lot more than that

So, to sum this up... this whole thing is about $300,000 of Mr. Schriber's money, whereas Sponsorship was about AT LEAST $1.14 million of OUR money... got it?

Another thing to remember... this committee is spending our money, YOUR MONEY, trying to figure out where exactly Mr. Schriber's money went, and when it went. How many MILLIONS worth of time is going to be spent via the committee, and how many MILLIONS MORE will the subsequent Inquiry cost us?

Yep... once again, the Liberal Party of Canada has succeeded in costing the taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars for their own political and partisan purposes.

And they're not even in Government at the moment... could you imagine the mess they'd be making if they were back in the drivers seat of our finances?

Yikes... no thanks.