Happy Groundhog Day! Can someone tell me why the Conservatives are showing anti-Dion ads? Was an election called without my noticing?

I won't comment on Biden's foot in mouth but having read the linked article, I would like to propose a bogosphere wide banning of the following phraseology: If a ________________ had said something like that, we'd have a national outpouring of ____________ over the residual ignorance and _________ insensitivity in _______________.

Re: groundhog day and winter. I believe the worst that is supposed to happen is six more weeks of winter BUT:
a) if there was only six more weeks, anyone in the north would be grateful. I have seen too many April and May snow storms.
b) we have a lot to be grateful for, anyway, winterwise, because we have hardly had any. This is where we insert a link to that most recent scientific report of scorching global warming and Venusians.

Se: super bowl--my party hosts have a bizarre and nasty stomach bug, and I think I should make other plans.

I think "bogosphere" is the best Spoonerism I have seen for a while.

I may have even booked Monday off. What does that say about me? I think I actually want to watch the game.

Who are you and what have you done with Alan?

"I think "bogosphere" is the best Spoonerism I have seen for a while." Gawd! that could even work both ways: "Conan wallowed in the murky sphere o' bogs for 40 days and 40 nights."

I am most concerned about this Boston thing. Was it literally a panic over projected images of dot-matrix images? Wow - the Times of India has the story.

...or were they like Lite-Brites?

Sphogobere would be a Spoonerism.

Lite brites, definately, and the guys sure did get some attention, sorta free, maybe a prsion stint to go with it. A person wonders about Boston's reaction compared to other cities who also had the gizmos?

The groundhog has spoken, and predicts an early spring, but the climatologist interviewed on ABC radio news says the el Nino effect has collapsed, and we now face winter. It would be depressing if he was talking back on Dec. 2, but on Feb. 2 we know we shall we swimming in the pond in only a couple of months.

Does not the confusion of "blog" and "bog" count? I suppose not. So is Hans just a screw-up or is there another nicer Victorian adjective for what he did? It is the opposite of Bowdlerization.

"Freudian slip", perhaps, is the closest I can think of, though that implies revealing something about oneself than just something funny.

How about "malapropism"?

That really doesn't cover the range of personal issues your error implies are present.

Re: "What generation gap? Space Invaders was 28 years ago. Who in the work force who does not recognize this sort of character?"

I am often amazed when speaking to persons near my own age who seem intelligent enough, of items of current or even past pop culture or video games or books etc and they have no clue what I am speaking of. I am not however surprised that an american subway worker is bereft of knowledge of the diference betwixt a cartoon character and a real like human terrorist threat.

Smell something a bit off? Must be Bin Laden.. Hear a siren? Grab the gas mask.. ugh. People in North America have lived their cozy little protected lives so long that they have no ability to rationally deal with anythoug out of the ordinary and fly off the handle whenever they perceive a threat without stopping to qualify the level of such.

And spring better darn well show up before we move on March Break or I'm going to start burning plastic bags and bottles all year round to do my part for project Eliminate Winter.

The kids, they don't know Monty Python. I asked some just this afternoon for confirmation, and the answer was a resounding "Huh?". Conclusion: all is lost.

WCG, happily, through the miracle of youTube much of Monty Python is available. My 3 and 6 year olds are being indoctrinated which will, of course, mean they will be entirely scorned should they ever be forced to go to school. As we homeschool this should not be a problem.

I have been suggesting that Harper and the CPC's conversion reeks. It is rare to see someone get dumber in office but Harper's embrace of Kyotology demonstrates it can be done.

55" screens: I seem to recall that there is some rule under the Copyright Act/Liquor Control Regulations/Canada "No Fun" Act which defines "public performance" with reference to screen size. (Tarantino would probably know being an entertainment lawyer and all.)

I have never, ever got the point of podcasting...Imagine having to listen to me in real time rather than just skipping past the boring bits. Skipping past the boring bits is the greatest gift of the 'net.

WRT Biden - I think we all have to acknowledge that Tiger is the greatest Asian golf player of his generation and an all round clean guy.

I think there is a use of "clean" in US political parlance that is not in Canada, it the "clean record" or "a clean sheet". Would we say someone came clean to the issue? There is a legal reason for the use that goes back to the Court of Equity and on back to the medieval - the doctrine of clean hands - which I refer to semi-regularly in my explanations that my judicious and generally genial moderating of comments here here is not based on some need to be a 1948 shooshing librarian but on that cornerstone of the free, the hard rule of hard law that our nation and the law of all free and democratic nations is founded upon.<p>That being said, the use of "dirty" by the racist and the facist is a sullying that we cannot ignore. I prefer to use it to refer to weather like today - precipitation and temperatures around zero C.

"People in North America have lived their cozy little protected lives so long that they have no ability to rationally deal with anythoug out of the ordinary and fly off the handle whenever they perceive a threat without stopping to qualify the level of such."
Oh really.
Then what about this gorthos? http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADE750311

Basically, more North Americans have suffered and died from terrorism than anyone else. You might want to check the facts(and we're talking pre-9/11 with that link up there) before you make such a claim, mon ami.

Cancer. Get ahold of your hate. It leads to the Dark Side, it does. Such angry and hateful comments about your fellow humyns.

I'm wondering if we should start considering to revoke your bleeding heart liberal card. YOu aren't playing your alignment, gorthos. Get back into character.

Ry! I do a whole week on sports and you do not pop up...now this!!!

BTW, I have been reading Marshall court decisions all week. I think I understand you better now.

Plus, I think we can agree this is not really true:<blockquote class="smalltext">...more North Americans have suffered and died from terrorism than anyone else...</blockquote>That only works if we define terror as acts against North Americans. Just in the 21st century, those in Darfur and the Congo might beg to differ.

I suspect that if you did the comparison between Muslims in the Middle East dying at the hands of terrorists vs North Americans you would find about a 100 to 1 ratio. Or you might look at Kashmir where the dead number between 30-80,000.

North Americans, at the moment, are fairly removed from direct terrorist threat.

But that would require you to call civil warriors and insurgents terrorists. The language cannot bear such bleeding from concept to concept. A terrorist is a Red Brigader, a flier of planes into buildings or an exploder of them over the Irish Sea. Sectarian militias are not terrorists even though they are terrible and do cause terror. Terrorists act through creating terror primarily.

Hey, RY.. I always play a chaotic neutral half elf..
Chaotic Neutral

Chaotic Neutral

Chaotic Neutral is freedom from both society's restrictions and a do-gooder's zeal.

Chaotic neutral characters follow their whims. They are individualists first and last. They value their own liberty but do not strive to protect the freedom of others. They avoid authority, resent restrictions, and challenge traditions. Chaotic neutral characters don't intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, they would have to be motivated either by good (a desire to help people) or by evil (a desire to hurt people).

Chaotic neutral characters may be unpredictable, but their behavior is not totally random - they are not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it. However, they do act on momentary whims, and are known to be unreliable. As some would say, "the only reliable thing about them is that they cannot be relied upon!"

A wandering rogue who lives both by work for hire and petty theft, an eccentric mage who experiments with dangerous magic just to view the results, and a con-artist or hustler who plays all sides against the middle to further his own aims are all examples of chaotic neutral characters.

I rather think that the Al Qaeda folks and the Taliban are using terror tactics. Though the Zerb might quibble.

The Muslims trying to take Kashmir are using traditional terror tactics.

My test is whether they are shooting at combatants or just blowing stuff up. The boys in Iraq , while they are happy to use IEDs against Americans, seem perfectly happy to blow stuff up. Ergo they are terrorists.

Well, Al. I've been kinda angry lately. Really angry. So I've stayed away. Better that way for all, no? I've been lurking, but not commenting. I've written at JoA's but he rides me to make sure I don't go batso. He's got Rulez. You have 'group project'. I couldn't play nice so I didn't play. And I'm not sure 'm playing nice now.

No, I'm deadly serious about that 'N. Americans' thing. From 1968 to present, which is how long the CIA center and now MITP have been keeping records, more N. Americans have been the target of terrorism than anyone else. We aren't just silly, cowering rabitts over-reacting to every little thing.

OKC was something that looked odd and nobody really thought enough of to check on. Has nothing to do with recent Moslem troubles. Now, did Beantown go way overboard? Yeah, they did. But they responded adequately initially. Guys like Bill Lind have been predicting that simple gang bangers will start using IED type attacks---which they learned about in the military(lots of background to cover, but there've been articles written in the last 2 years about gangbangers and neonazis in the military. Not to mention the COTS(cheap off the shelf) operating style of terrorists in Europe.). The initial response was fine. The rest?

But the statement of 'N. Americans....' is so wrong. Not when you look at the data. Basically, I see this is a truly hateful remark unsupported by much except 'I hate them blasted (X) and they're being stupid.' That get's hard to put up with after a while. It so isn't who you are gorthos. At least not how I have seen you. Snide? Si. Quick to poke fun? Siiiiii. But mean? It doesn't fit you.

"Marshall court decisions all week" (does the weird dog head twist thing) Huh? I don't understand.

Too bad about your big screen friend gr. I'm not making vegan pumpkin cheesecake for the SB party, but I will make it in honor of you. Al gets the Polish sandwiches done in his name---it's meat. Who wants to be the 7 layer dip and the Buffalo wings?

(I'm such and ass. Just shoot me now. I'm soooo unfunny.)

Well, not to go so far off topic that Alan bans me, ry, one can take it further. Terrorism is technically attacks on persons designed to create a sense of terror to attain a political goal. i.e. Angry northern Sask. Ruralite Liberation Army Members blow up buses of civilians In TO until the public loudly insist their government withdraw troops from Moosejaw. Using this definition, sure, rebels in Iraq are using terrorism as a tool. Then again, the US pre-planned, televised love and broadcast globally "Shock and Awe", the Israeli's "accidentally" blowing up a few Lebanese weddings here andthere etc all class as terrorism in my books.

On the other hand, if a military force of rebels uses all means available to fight against who they see as oppressors intheir sovereign nation, is it terrorism or just using all means possible to free your nation which in your mind being dominated by foreigners an propped up by collaborators. If this is not the case, then the French Resistance practiced terrorism during WWII as did every single resistance movement in Europe fighting the Germans that killed their countryment that they saw as joining the dark side.

And for the record, to me, terrorism is a last ditch act that would never convince me to change sides or insist my govt. back down. I cannot for the life of me remember it working.

Not to sound ungrateful ry, but can I have some vegan nachos too? I'll bring the beers.
Look ry, you and I are old friends, but I gotta say, even though you have my Adam Vintieri which is a very formidable weapon, your Colts are totally unworthy. Sure, Manning and every other part of that team, from coaching to special teams, is about perfect, PLUS with Vinitieri you have luck and cool under pressure, and experience too.
But I hope my Bears kick some Colt A$$ tomorrow night, and I think it might be a great game, although you have a right to CROW and DANCE if the Colts do win.

I'm cheering for the Colts, so given my record this season, the Bears are a lock.

CN for my characters all the way.

I take back seat to no-one in warmonging, but sorry Boston went _way_ over the top on this one. Compounding now with the "punishment of the innocent" phase.

Yeah, Harper's environment policy reeks.

But the base will give him a pass on this, I think. And this is sensible:

<i>"I think realistically the only way you can get absolute reductions is through the application of new technology over time.

"I don't think realistically we can tell Canadians, 'Stop driving your car, stop going to work, stop heating your house in the winter.'"</i>

I sense a new favourite word here.

And new technology means a boom in tech industry which makes for good jobs. The pro-business non-ideological conservatives should be diving in head first.

Although I don't think that's a horrible idea (spending money on tech to do carbon sequestering or whatever), especially if its likely that other countries will be buying this stuff in the future.

Cautionary tale: Teledon. I knew the guys that came up with it, way back when, and they basically said it was ruined by government money. Why? because people built things that the government gave grants for, not for things that people needed.

Hey, I miss Telidon. Better than the net. Practically one to many broadcasting. No pesky blogs or porn. Our sainted government could control the whole thing. (/irony)

Good posts on GW Jay.

"You may be obliged to wage war but not to use poisoned arrows.' Some dead philosopher guy that R. Heilein quoted in 'Time Enough for Love'.

There are differences, gorthos. Even the UN recongizes, enshrined in law even in the 2 add'l protocols to the Geneva Conventions, differences between legal conduct in war and illegal. Guerilla war is LEGAL. Terrorism is not. Guerilla war relies as much on a sense of dread and forboding to win as terrorism. BUt it's how it is conducted(mostly who and what it targets) that differentiates the two.

I don't think we want to go down the 'is Iraq a legally initiated war' pathway. No point now. The lady's preggers and delivered the bastard child. But the conduct? It's pretty clear how it's been done. Within the framework of int'l law for the most part with glaring lapses like Abu Ghraib and Haditha. Some groups on the polyglot resistance side behaving legally, if annoyingly, and others just being vile bastards who deseve to hang if ever caught.

That's the difference. Even conventional war is about changing the oppositions mind thru terror and fear. But that doesn't make it terrorism(and if Curtis LeMay was to conduct his bombing campaigns today he'd be a war criminal. As would Harris(LeMay's counterpart in the RAF)). The point of all war is a political change of some sort. 'You will start doing/stop doing (X), and we'll kill enough/destroy enough 'til you change your mind.' That's use of fear to achieve goals alright. But even the UN recognizes there's a difference between specifically targeting non-governmnetal civillians and parts of the state apperatus. The former is forbiden. You cannot specifically target civilians. Necessity may clear you of war crime allegations if you do kill civilians inadvertently(the hated 'collateral damage'.). Ex: Someone has a mortar that's firing on a base camp of US forces(legal target). It's firing from a courtyard ringed by houses(gray area). The US cannot bring in a B-52 and level the area to get the mortar by carpet bombing the city block. It cannot even use a whole artillery battery(8+ guns) to get the mortar by leveling the courtyard and surrounding houses. It can use helicopter borne missiles, jdam and laser guided bombs(500lb, pretty hefty), a tank, and the least number that can be accurately trained on the courtyard. Civilians will die with greater than 50% certainty. The means that kills the least is the most legal because one is allowed to protect oneself.
ANother legal example: A Grenada Barracks like suicide bombing.(It was legal, for the most part. Would've been totally legal had the drivers worn something like a headband or armband that distinguished them from civilians in the process. BUt it's close. It was more geurilla warfare than terrorism.)Minimal civilian casualties even though the schwerpunkt of the whole affair was the American public back in CONUS('Reagan, get those boys out of there you damn fool!')
counter examples: Firing unguided, and unguidable, rockets into Israeli cities. Driving a truckbomb into a crowded market square intentionally to kill as many civillians as possible.
Legal: kidnapping/capturing Israeil soldier(it's an act of war).
Illegal: kidnapping and killing Isaeil civillians.
Both inspire fear and terror aimed at effecting political change. We distinguish between one and the other to keep the death toll down. With no rules, or selectively applied rules, well, fuck the rules becomes the norm for both sides.

There's fighting legally and unconventionally to win, and then there's using poisoned arrows. Terrorism is simply a specific type of war crime. Haditha, now that the facts are known, was a war crime. The perpetrators are going to suffer for it. Big time.

Law in this regard has to do with ensuring how the war is conducted on the ground more than dictating who should win.

Geurillas can and do win. Mao. The Spanish against Napolean. The American's in the Revolutionary War. Castro in Cuba(he's a dick and I hate him, but he did it, for the most part, legal.) The Sandanistas and the Contras? They're gray(not black). They did some of it right, and some of it blacker than a witches sphincter at midnight.

Terrorism has never worked. The IRA has never freed N. Ireland. BAsque land is still part of Spain. Timothy McVeigh didn't cause a collapse of the US gov't and the Weather Underground did nothing of consequence except killing an innocent man and burning down a computer lab. But Geurilla war, legal war, does work.

Beleive me gorthos, I'd rather it be that I was just some chucklehead who simply studied war like it was some long dead event or language of little real value(like an SCA thing). But just as in physics where every characteristic(usually called operators) has a macro-scale/Newtonian counterpart there exists an arrangement with the use of violence. You are entitled to tackle the crazed fool running down the street brandishing a knife. The state is also empowered to use violence---within a set of rules. I wish it were different. But simply saying, 'War bad we no do.' doesn't make a better world or make the evil and vileness go away, mon ami. That leads to things like Rawanda, Kosovo, and the current deal in the Sudan going unrestrained(it's a failing that the collective we haven't done anything about Sudan and nothing of substance(despite a brave and moral Canadian officer's efforts) in Rawanda). I want to be the oddball, but the world doesn't let the subject slide into irrelevance.

Guerilla warfare IS legal. Non-state actors, if they act within certain guidelines, ARE legal---even moral and just sometimes. Not all violence is wrong, both moral and legally. But terrorism is a war crime. Those who do it are just as horrible as LeMay(who escaped punishment) or Hideki Tojo(who hung until he was dead). Many of the groups in Iraq aren't terrorists---as they are targeting US/MNF personell and assets along with elements of the state which makes them rebels(legal combatants with rights under law). Some are terrorists. I DO make that distinction, hard as it is sometimes.

Just because the talking heads on TV or in their daily punditry don't make that distinction it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. War is never good, but some are worse than others based on how they are conducted.
Rebels, provided they don't do certain proscribed things, are legal combatants and the only real measure of goodness or badness is their ideology(are they fighting to impose a dictatorship as opposed to fighting against one for instance). I know that the word terrorism has been bandied about and people try to play the infowar game of tarring all their opponents with it. It's stupid how it has been bandied about and stupider to declare all your enemies to be terrorists. Rebels have rights. Terrorists have nearly none right along with other serious war criminals---Tojo's trial for instance would'nt pass civilian court requirements.

No, what I'm talking about is REAL terrorism and not just branding all opponents to be terrorists simply because they are my opponents w/ 'terrorist' being the fashionable thing to hate. More N. American's(and their property) in the last 40 years have been the targets of terrorist acts than anyone else. Period. End of story. We, and I'll include Canadian's here because you're often confused for 'Muricans by non-NAMers, have suffered from terrorism and aren't just silly rabbits who heard, or thought they heard, a loud dog bark and have gone to ground. Think about how McVeigh did his(inocuous truck), and he was whitebread as they come(there's still some operating US groups that amount to terrorists---groups like the Aryan Nation or the KKK whenever they do anything other than sit in their basements bitching or passing out leaflefts---- or the ELF and ALF(who send me and The Wife nasty letters and have tried to blow up at least one worksite while I was there---Richmond, CA.). The Spain and Tube bombings used rather mundane cover as well---normal looking backpacks. Boston was a reasoned response up to a point. And that point was when a bomb squad lit one of those boxes off and found it to be nothing at all(and it didn't help that the jackasses who did this refused to explain what was going on to officialdom). This is, actually, how you want the state to respond to potential terrorist acts. It's reasonable. It's the state doing its job. It did get out of control at somepoint---and I blame both the city gov't and the ad firm equally for the over reaction. Oklahoma City wouldn't have happened if a citizen thought enough the goings on to be odd and called the police who came to check it out---the state/citizen relationship working to perfection(with false alarms by cranks and unresponsive gov't being failures). There ARE other things other than crazed, heretical, Moslem terrorists in the world even if they are getting all the press right now.

Which is why I say you gave into hate, which is sooo not your colour, gorthos. 'THose damn rural overlord types had a hissy fit' is not what happened. You took an event and twisted it to take a cheap shot on 'stuuuped and unworldly N. Americans who know collectively dick about terrorism'. When in fact, we know lots about terrorism having been the most targeted group historicaly.

SB party update. only two guests showed up(meatworld. I invited 7 who who showed. Jerks). One fell asleep after eating some 7-layer dip and corn chips, 2 deviled eggs, two pieces of tuna sushi, a piece of pumpkin cheesecake(made in honor of gr), 6 buffalo wings(made in honor of Al, since we didn't actually do the brats, not enough people) around halftime. I still have waaaay too much food leftover.
The Colts won. Yay. Grossman didn't play great and doesn't deserve all the shit being heaped on him right now. He didn't play bad but he didn't make enough of the downfield throws his team needed him to. He didn't lose them the game even if one of his two INT was run back. The Bears' vaunted D gave up too many 3rd down conversions. They only gave up one big passing play(Manning to Wayne for a TD---with Manning's INT forcing the Bears to play cover two) and forced the Colts to grind out drives with 4 yard runs being mroe the norm than 15 yard passes or runs, but the D didn't get the stops it needed when it needed them. The Bears just couldn't get it together. I don't know if the Colts D had a design that disrupted stuff or if it was the weather, but I know the Colts Off handled whatever the Bears D tried to do schematically to grind out drives---which won them the game.

I don't think Manning should've been MVP. I think that should've gone to either Rhodes or Addai, maybe even both. Their play decided the game. Manning definitely had a major effect generaling the team down the field with audibles, but Rhodes and Addai are the ones who won the game. You don't give the MVP to the Offensive Co-ordinator so why give it to Manning since that's the type of impact he had on the game?

Oh, and just in case anyone thinks I simply swim in an echo-chamber before floating on over here to yammer: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/nonterrorist_em.html, I don't.

Totally smacks down the Boston authorities. Still disagree a bit. It wasn't that bad. It got out of hand, but the initial response, once someone called in, was okay. After that? It got really, really, weird.

No, you are quite right and make the terrorist / rebel distinction well. I do not know if I can agree on the N. American argument as I do not think you have illustrated it well enough but you have taken me to where it is a viable point for sure.