So by now I expect you all have given to the NCPR membership drive. I listen to the station in the car, at work and as my wake-up call. I own a banjo and a mandolin because of the show "String Fever" that plays bluegrass. What other station responds to requests for ska? You'd be more like me if you listened too. And isn't that what it's all about? Give to NCPR and get yourself pickin'.
- Apparently 55-70% of Canadians really can't be bothered with anything anymore:
The Angus Reid Strategies poll, exclusive to the Star, found 42 per cent were dissatisfied with the Conservative government's proposals on the environment, while 28 per cent said they were satisfied. The remainder had no opinion. When asked about the Tories' proposal to stay in Afghanistan until 2011, 40 per cent said they were dissatisfied and 29 per cent said they were satisfied. And while 33 per cent were not happy with the government's plans for federal-provincial relations – which include restricting federal spending in areas of provincial jurisdiction – the poll found 30 per cent were satisfied.
You know, if I were the guy who stands a very good chance of being Canada's only repeat PM never to get a majority, I'd admit to myself that the polls are not going to get better and just go nutty, moving the secret plans for 2009 ahead...just to see. It's not like things on the other side could get worse...could they? - Friday. The day before the fall trip to Syracuse. Another opportunity to figure out how the heck to get from the part of town with the hotels to the part of town with the bit with Clark's. Sadly, and like Glasgow oddly enough, Syracuse is chopped up by superhighways, interstates that you may notice in this photo. There appears to be a plan to make a better pedestrian route. The current way feels sorta like one of the darker scenes from Blade Runner right now. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how many Buffalonians travel the couple of hours east to take in the game. Last time we went, Wyoming was represented by a couple of guys with goofy bison hats.
- Science now has proven I am not a boomer.
- I mentioned in June that Major League Baseball was trying to claim copyright over players' names and stats. They lost (or rather the companies that bought the rights from MLB) lost:
Last year the company won a decision by U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Medler, who held that Missouri state law on players' publicity rights was trumped by a general national policy favoring the full and free exchange of ideas. The appeals court agreed, in an opinion by Judge Morris Arnold, saying the First Amendment right to free speech supersedes state law protecting celebrities' right to control their likenesses - the "right of publicity."
- I really hope that the end result is not that magic is phony.
- There is a good article in the New Yorker that John G. pointed me to which sets out the recent history of edgy pop music based on the premise that Arcade Fire is kinda dull. A good read but no mention of the impending fourth wave of ska.
Comments
David Janes - October 19, 2007 9:06 am
The Arcade Fire is kinda dull? Shhhh .... the emperor is really just wearing finely woven gold clothing.
"earning from"
Matthew Fletcher - October 19, 2007 10:04 am
"Canada's only repeat prime minister never to get a majority."
You are overlooking Lester Pearson, who was PM with two minority governments from 1963-1968.
sean liddle - October 19, 2007 10:06 am
"Board Editorial"... this prompts me to blather you know..
1. Boomers are insane twits who obviously have no redeeming social qualities outside of work and constantly desire someone to pat them on the back and say "wow you work hard", hence their desire to do so until they die.. ugh.. My wife and I actually have calculated many times over how much we need to make in short order to be able to pay off everything and pay for kids schooling etc., so that we could retire as early as possible...
2. Dion... can I just say "ugh" and be done with it?
3. Justin and Sophie had a baby this week yet the guy took the time to facebook message me two nights before. He's the next guy to win a majority.. I tell ya..
4. Arcade fire is tediously boring.
5. If you want some extra cool banjo plucking tunes with depressing love song lyrics to back em, get Magnetic Fields "69 Love Songs Volume 1".
w00t
sean liddle - October 19, 2007 10:08 am
Hit refresh and captcha was "Workers Allan".. sure there is an extra L but still, prophetic?
Gordo - October 19, 2007 11:23 am
Nothing to contribute other than my capchja: "juries Manhattan"
Alan - October 19, 2007 11:24 am
Funny - mine was "wearing thin".
Jay Currie - October 19, 2007 7:01 pm
I fear that the Captcha is indeed wearing thin.
At the moment Harper does not need an election. He can govern as if he has a majority while watching the Liberals implode and the Bloc and NDP fade to irrelevance. Does this get him a majority when the time comes? Maybe. It depends on how he governs and how the economy holds up in the face of the declining American dollar.
As my Captcha says (rather like one of those 8 Balls): "economy someone". Now that Kyoto is a dead letter and the great middle class hysteria shows signs of abating in the face of the cost and ineffectiveness of carbon reduction, Harper's job is to deliver more money into people's pockets while a shot at improving services. With a 14 billion dollar surplus this should not prove impossible.
On other bullets, I can't imagine not working but then I'm a boomer. Probably the biggest difference between boomers and their parents is that they contrive to do work which they like doing. I know I do. Which does foreclose doing less of it or hiring people to do some of it and that sort of thing; but I have no great urge to hang up my keyboard in fourteen years and dodder off to the golf course. (This may have something to do with really, really, really hating golf and being terrible at it.) Now a racing sailboat with my boys as crew? That I would take Fridays off for.
(I took too long to post this and was rewarded by "Anne commercial" which could anything from a promotion of a CBC mini series to a young lady of doubtful morals and a straight cash price.)
ry - October 20, 2007 12:26 am
Arcade Fire. You know, wh my car radio worked and I could listen to the Dan Patrick show I'd hear the lead in and think to myself, 'Wow, that's a pretty epic sounding beginning. These guys must be cool.' Never heard anything else. But it's a great intro.
Working. Older boomers need to get the hell out of the way. Do you know how hard it is for the rest of us to break into anything? You're screwing us tweeners over something aweful. Shut up and retire already, auld phogues.
Al needs to listen to his Blondie a little more closely. "Nobody walks in LA." Might as well be Syracuse, too. We loves our cars down here.
And finally a captcha I can actually read!
sean liddle - October 20, 2007 8:20 am
Mayhap there is more to it. Maybe boomers because of all those years attending concerts wearing loincloths and not shaving then trading in the getup for white suits and hanging at the discos all night are painfully guilt producing so they are trying to make up for it by being workaholics now? :)
Just to clarify, I do not hate the idea of doing work, I am just not defined by it. What I do is simply what I do to make money to pay for my weekend beer, balsa wood model planes, pricey running shoes and occasional hobbies. Perhaps if I had gone to school to do something I was interested in rather than "what makes the bucks" I'd be different..
Naw..
sean liddle - October 20, 2007 10:30 am
NCPR
Funny, I enjoy the station but cannot get it here in teh sticks probably because of the huge mountain of granite between me and new york.. HOWEVER, I have just discovered that I get two or three NPR stations via satellite dish... Odd though, they are from the middle US and the West Coast. Sort of like how on Expressvu I can get CHEX tv from Peterboro but not CKWS in Kingston.. ugh
Jay Currie - October 22, 2007 12:26 am
"Working. Older boomers need to get the hell out of the way. Do you know how hard it is for the rest of us to break into anything? You're screwing us tweeners over something aweful. Shut up and retire already, auld phogues."
I feel your pain. For years all the good jobs went to guys born in 48-55 so we prime boomers never got a look in. Somehow we survived.
Actually the people who are going to be in serious demand are my young boys: there is already a labour shortage here in Victoria. When my guys, in about ten years, start looking there are going to be a lot of jobs (always assuming that our friends in government - aging boomers to a man - don't bugger the economy up.)