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I just found out that I missed this playing at the Fox Theatre on Dec. 6th. I was in China, so I wouldn't have caught if I had known -- but still -- damn! damn! damn! I would have wanted to see this. in reference to: "The Matter of Everything is a feature documentary that explores quantum reality and the interconnectedness of nature from the quantum to the universe. Challenging us to see beyond our everyday sense of experience, the film reveals what we are, a billionth of a billionth of the human scale. At that level, physicists at Fermilab, one of the world’s largest particle accelerators, describe a world more unified than ever imagined." - THE MATTER OF EVERYTHING » SYNOPSIS ( view on Google Sidewiki )

The Economist writes about how much of today's Britain can be explained through the lens its imperial past. Today, Britain still yearns for the glory of that imperial past. It wants to be more than just a little insignificant spec off the coast of continental Europe. That is why Britain plays Boy Wonder to America's Batman; it's why much of the world is still hostile towards it. It is also very telling about its attitude to immigrants from the former colonies. Interesting perspective. in reference to: "Though notionally welcomed by a 1948 act, colonial immigrants caused alarm when they actually turned up, and from 1962 their entry rights were drastically curtailed. Danny Sriskandarajah of the Royal Commonwealth Society describes the experience as a story of evolving disappointments. Instead of fraternity and fairness there was racism—sometimes overt, more often and insidiously the supercilious tolerance that the empire cultivated. Many immigrants were marooned at t

I just made my 9th loan on Kiva -- with no additional funding supplied by myself. It was made from the money repaid to me by borrowers from around the world. My 9th loan, of $25, was made to a woman in the Philippines, who's raising funds to grow her farm business -- and make a better life for herself. I love the concept behind Kiva. The money I loan goes directly to the people looking for a helping hand to get themselves out of poverty and make a better life for themselves. Just this week, Kiva loans of $2.7MM was made -- that amounted to a loan made every 9 seconds. How's that for making a difference? in reference to: Kiva - Loans that change lives ( view on Google Sidewiki )

My "What would David Suzuki do?" t-shirt came from Me to We Style . Other than being cool and wearing Suzuki 's mug plastered on my chest, I'm also wearing a t-shirt that boasts, - Sweatshop free manufacturing - Eco friendly fabrics - 50% of the profits to Free the Children - You buy a tee and we will plant a tree "Our mission at Me to We Style is to empower consumers to make purchasing decisions that lead to a better life for people around the world. By manufacturing our clothing in Canadian factories that pay adult workers a fair wage, we ensure that parents make enough to care for themselves and their children. By using organic cotton, we ensure that toxic chemicals aren't harming people, animals or the earth we share. And by donating 50 per cent of our profits to Free The Children, we ensure that a better life is created for children and their families in rural and impoverished areas across the globe." Totally cool. Thanks Miss V, for the present.

While the science itself is interesting -- and cool, in that the long left-for-dead Voyager spacecrafts continue to aid in scientific discoveries -- the real reason I'm writing this short post is because the Local Interstellar Cloud is also called the "Local Fluff." Currently, our solar system, moving through the Milky Way, is running into this interstellar cloud of mostly hydrogen and helium. in reference to: "Astronomers call the cloud we're running into now the Local Interstellar Cloud or "Local Fluff" for short. It's about 30 light years wide and contains a wispy mixture of hydrogen and helium atoms at a temperature of 6000 C. The existential mystery of the Fluff has to do with its surroundings. About 10 million years ago, a cluster of supernovas exploded nearby, creating a giant bubble of million-degree gas. The Fluff is completely surrounded by this high-pressure supernova exhaust and should be crushed or dispersed by it." - Voyager make

OK, it's not quite a bullet -- nor does it break the sound barrier, but boy would l love to ride this train! I've ridden the high speed train from the Pudong airport into Shanghai, but that was a short ride compared to this. Being able to travel from Guangzhou to Wuhan in 3 hours (less than half the previous time) would be a blast. You would be able to actually take day-trips. China's investment in their infrastructure continues to amaze me with their blistering speed. in reference to: "By comparison, the average for high-speed trains in Japan was 243 kilometres per hour while in France it was 277 kilometres per hour, said Xu Fangliang, general engineer in charge of designing the link, according to Xinhua." - AFP: China unveils 'world's fastest train link' ( view on Google Sidewiki )

Nothing in this world is free -- especially freedom -- and that goes for those of us living in the free world . "... serves as an uncensorable and untraceable depository for the truth, able to publish documents that the courts may prevent newspapers and broadcasters from being able to touch." — In praise of... Wikileaks - The Guardian, October 20, 2009. Wikileaks , in case you don't know, is a non-profit organization, whose purpose is to out those who would steal our freedoms and subjugate us. The organization provides a platform for whistle-blowers everywhere, to get the truth out. Wikileaks isn't loved by most governments around the world. You'd first guess that places like China and Iran don't like Wikileaks. And that would be true. However, you may be surprised to learn that governments from the US, Canada, Australia, England and other first world democracies, also don't like Wikileaks. Why? Wikileaks shine light into the dark corners of these

"Will sustainability change the competitive landscape and reshape the opportunities and threats that companies face? Will sustainability have a material impact on your company? What should you and your company do about it?" Good read. in reference to: MIT Sloan Business of Sustainbility - Front Cover ( view on Google Sidewiki )

"In September 2008, the global financial crisis hit Asia like a tidal wave, flooding in from the U.S. and Europe. Within weeks, Asian GDP growth rates began to tumble: China’s annual growth rate dropped from 13 percent in 2007 to about 9 percent in 2008, India’s slipped from 9 percent to below 6 percent, and Singapore’s plunged from 8 percent to less than 4 percent. Underlying these stark statistics were significant declines in exports. In March 2008, China and India had boasted year-over-year export growth rates of more than 30 percent; nine months later, both were well into negative territory. Foreign direct investment in these countries, and in Korea, Japan, and the nations of Southeast Asia, fell significantly as well." in reference to: Capturing the Asian Opportunity ( view on Google Sidewiki )

Business perspective ... scary, since most businesses don't think beyond the next publishing of earnings. in reference to: "Growing competition for scarce water resources is a growing business risk, a major economic threat, and a challenge for the sustainability of communities and the ecosystems upon which they rely. It is an issue that has serious implications for the stability of countries in which businesses operate, and for industries whose value chains are exposed to water scarcity." - Charting our water future | water | resources | climate change | Water ( view on Google Sidewiki )

China 2009 Map your trip with EveryTrail It was a helluva lot of traveling. Some photos will be shared later.

You can find hope in the most unlikely of places -- and the unlikelier the place and story is, the more it gives me hope for the rest of us and the miseries we witness and inflict on each other. Staff Benda Bilili (Show What's Hidden) is a musical group of street kids from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The live around what passes for a zoo in Kinshasa, scraping out a living by performing with their home made instruments -- homemade guitars, single-stringed harp made of wire stretched over a tin can, and a drum which is a plastic chair beaten by flip-flops. The band members are all disabled, having suffered from polio as kids. Listen to them below. The band won the 2009 Artist Award at Womex and are now off on a European tour. How cool is that? For more, check out their MySpace page .

When he was just 14-years-old, William Kamkwamba from Malawi, dropped out of school because his family could no longer afford to send him to school. With just a science text book, Kamkwamba decided to build a windmill, for electricity, to power his home and pump water. The people of his village thought he was crazy. But from parts salvaged from junk, a windmill emerged. That has since been replaced by another Kamkwamba built. Now 22-years-old, Kamkwamba is attending university on a scholarship, and plans to go back home and bring electricity to his entire country. Simply amazing. So, what you done today?

Google's Project 10 100 started over a year ago with a call for ideas to change the world, that will reach as many people as possible. Now the 154,000 ideas that were submitted, have been aggregated to 16, and the voting will run until Oct. 8, 2009, to select the best 5 ideas for Google's $10M seed money, and backing to implement. What a cool idea! Thanks DH, for the link.

Source: Uppsala Conflict Data Program (Date of retrieval: 09/09/21) Wish I could say " happy peace day " ... but there's anything peaceful about this day.

The UN refugee agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), has a stated purpose to lead, coordinate and safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees worldwide. It exists to ensure "everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country." And by UNHCR's own count, business is unfortunately quite good, and has only been getting better since the agency was established at the end of 1950. UNHCR today lists 31 million people to be in some state of concern around the world -- directly assisting 4.5 out of 11 million refugees, and advocating for the rest. It's an admirable job, with Africa, the Middle East and Asia, getting most of the attention. Wherever there is trouble, you'll probably find the UNHCR logo fluttering in the parched, smoky and quite possibly, violent winds. Critics of UNHCR however hardly see th

I finally got around to logging into my Kiva account tonight, and re-loaned $75 that was sitting in my account for a little while. It's amazing to know that I'm my own little development bank for those in developing countries, and that $75 has already made the rounds and a difference in lives far-far away.

Iceland Vacation at EveryTrail Note: I'll keep updating this post as frequently as possible through our Icelandic adventure. When we're back, I'll post more photos -- but for now, check out a few pics by zooming up and clicking the map markers. August 13 The flight out was nothing to write home about -- there was a bawling kid behind us that kept jolting us alert from our already awake state on a regular basis. We landed, got through security again -- yes, Icelandic security checks you after you get off the plane, since North American aviation security doesn't conform to the exacting standards of the EEC . So they took away a bottle of water we had purchased at Pearson, dumped the water, then allowed us to have the bottle. Today we spent all day in Reykjavík, walking, since we are car-less until tomorrow morning -- when we hop into the car and blow this popsicle stand. Actually, the weather was pretty nice today. We arrived in drizzle, but after our morning

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so. War does not determine who is right - only who is left. The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country. Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free. More quotes from Bertrand Russell , here .

Many thanks to both Linda and Tessie for composing a great breakfast, recently! Breakfast highlight was Linda's totally awesome Irish bread, topped with Tessie's Truly Terrific Strawberry jam -- which is being rationed in our household.

Napanee Summer Vacation - day 5 at EveryTrail The last day of my pre-vacation, and it's the return home. We took the slow route from Napanee to Cobourg, then hopped on the highway to boot it home faster. Zoom in on the map and click to see some photos.

Sandbanks Provincial Park Summer Vacation - day 4 at EveryTrail This morning, we went to Sandbanks Provincial Park. It was my first time there. Totally amazing, the sand dunes. And that was really all we explored of the park. There is so much more to see and experience. Zoom in on the map above or the EveryTrail link to see some photos. Note: the GPS data seems to be screwed for the photos. Not sure what happened, but for the first time, none of the photos are located properly on the map. Updated: July 28, 2009 I've re-uploaded the photos, and they are now correctly placed on the map.

Napanee (Kingston) Family Vacation - July 26 at EveryTrail Another day, spent mostly in Kingston. Zoom in on the map to see the pics. I had to drive back to Oshawa to hit the GO station, but made it back in time for the "sunset cruise."

Napanee Family Vacation - Jul 25, 2009 at EveryTrail It was quite the vacationing day today, with the highlight for me being the 2009 Tattoo at Fort Henry. It opened with a CF-18 flyby, then followed by the rain pouring down on the performers. Quite spectacular, even if it ended early. Earlier in the day, we visited the International Hockey Hall of Fame, dropped by Gananoque and spent some time in Kingston. It was a busy day. 48 of the hundreds of photos from today has been uploaded to the map above.

Napanee Family Vacation at EveryTrail Map created by EveryTrail: GPS Community Day one of the family vacation ... or as I prefer to have it known, my pre-vacation for my two weeks away in August. I picked up a GPS recorder, Sony's GPS-CS3, and used it to record where I've been. I turned on the recorder after we arrived in Cobourg in the late morning. There wasn't a whole lot of picture taking happening, but photos are embedded in the map. You need to zoom in. This is beta testing for next month. So far, it seems to be working, and wasn't too hard to get the hang of.

"Honour" ... honour is such the wrong choice of word for murder. Maybe it wasn't murder. Maybe the car did manage to miss every obstacle, leave no skid marks behind and plunge into the Rideau Canal to kill the three girls and their aunt . And maybe Canada does need the death penalty to deal harshly with such honour crimes. The girls were 19, 17 and 13 years old. They had all of their lives ahead of them. Now they have nothing. This shit pisses me off to no end. The three murderers need more punishment than Canada is going to give. Canada needs to make a bigger effort at cultural integration of those from higher risked countries immigrating here. More of this happening around the country in new immigrant families, where the old world rules still rule the house. It has got to stop. Read more .

The Y chromosome is rapidly losing genes , and could eventually disappear completely -- in a few millennia. For the scientific illiterate and other creationist types, the Y chromosome is what makes men, men -- in the genetic sense of the word. Men, currently, are still an active participant in the propagation of the species. If the Y chromosome disappears, we will have some serious problems keeping the species going. Of course, with enough genetic engineering, the ladies should be able to continue just fine, without us guys. Alas, the disappearance of males is not likely -- at least not due to the continued deterioration of the Y chromosome. There are many other forces arrayed against the males of our species -- mostly chemical in nature. If the Y chromosome was to disappear, most likely a new pair of sex chromosomes will rise to replace the X and Y. At that point of course, the human species may have ended, only to be replaced by another.

China Miéville continues to amaze me with his imagination. I had only recently completed the Iron Council , and didn't know which book to take off my shelf to read next. Iron Council left me on such a fantastic high, I didn't want to risk coming down fast with a disappointment. So for a couple of weeks, I didn't pick up a book. Then unintended trip to the local used bookstore by my work a couple of weeks ago, presented me with a new Miéville book: The City and the City . I started reading it that same day, on the way home, and I couldn't put it down. While I don't have much time for pleasure reading, I stole time and even pulled a couple of late nights on Friday and Saturday to find out where Miéville was taking me. I'll refrain from delving too much into the premise of the book, because I think part of the pleasure was the journey Miéville takes the reader on. If you'd like a well written review, head over to The Mumpsimus . I will tell you howeve

Liberty in the Age of Terror: A Defence of Civil Society and Enlightenment Values , by A.C. Grayling. I haven't read the book, but it's certainly of interest, although, like such books, it will already be speaking to the converted. Like so many things, I wonder if we're not continuing the polarization of ideas and positions. Grayling takes on the British government's invasion of civil rights and the public's acquiescing of the intrusion. And besides, even now many supposedly sensible people lazily believe that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. If a few Koran- toting chaps with beards and funny names get banged up in Guantánamo or have to put up with a "control order" to stay in Britain, so what? It is this complacency that Mr Grayling, with passion and elegance, takes on. He describes the if-you-have-nothing-to-hide argument as "one of the most seductive betrayals of liberty" imaginable. The assumption behind it is

I am truly a product of Hollywood in-breeding. When two celebrities mate, someone like me is the result. George Lucas ruined my life. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. Remember the white dress I wore all through that film? George came up to me the first day of filming, took one look at the dress and said: 'You can't wear a bra under that dress.' 'OK, I'll bite,' I said. 'Why?' And he said: 'Because ... there's no underwear in space.' He said it with such conviction. Like he had been to space and looked around and he didn't see any bras or panties anywhere. He explained. 'You go into space and you become weightless. Then your body expands but your bra doesn't, so you get strangled by your own underwear.' Among George's many possessions, he owns my likeness, so that every time I look in the mirror I have to send him a couple of bucks. That's partly why he's so rich. Funny stuff, that Carrie Fisher writes

"I'm tired of the media, which spent years making fun of him, suddenly acting as if losing him is the greatest loss we've ever had to bear. And I'm so tired of the false sanctimony of those who will tell me that they are genuinely grieving." MJ is dead ... the only people who give a shit are those that will profit from his death, and those thinking up ways to profit from his death. Since I won't profit from his death, I don't give a shit. How about you?

Well, this is neat. Without much lifting of the finger, the blog has now been audio enabled. Under each post title, you should find a little Odiogo button that will open a little podcast player and read the post to you. If this sort of thing turns you on, you can subscribe to the podcast of the blog and take it on the road in your very own mp3 player. Totally cool!

The Daily Galaxy has a post on a Stephen Hawking lecture, in which the physicist postulates that humans are entering a new phase of "self design evolution" -- in which we purposely affect change on our genetic code to some , hopefully, useful end. (I will refrain from making any intelligent design jokes at this point.) It is an interesting idea, but Hawking downplays the role of the traditional Darwinian evolution in his next phase of evolution. I'm actually surprised at that, because, while it's true that evolution does take a damn long time, it should be noted that our evolutionary history to modern humans was a result of two factors -- random mutations & natural selection; and, reproduction. Reproduction prior to modern humans was limited to smaller populations. So, if the rate of random mutations has stayed the same, the reproduction rate of our species has increased exponentially since the industrial revolution. A result from this should more changes

I've posted about this before ... and reading on Wired has me stirred all over again. Water is essential to human life, and every human born of this planet should be guaranteed enough water to live. It's just as important, or more important than freedom and free speech -- rights that we hold dear in the West and wouldn't debate for a minute, our inalienable access to those rights. Yet, why are we so fucking ignorant when it comes to a right that is fundamental to human life? Why then have we allowed water privatization schemes to continue? The United States and Canada are especially guilty of running interference to UN declarations that would strengthen international recognition for this right. Countries around the world continue to horde drinking water for various industrial uses rather than ensuring their population's access to life. It will only take the deaths of millions and the danger of a revolution before we wake and do something about this.

Happy Canada Day! Song and video produced by, Julia Bentley & Andrew Gunadie.

Psychology Of The Winner View more presentations from Salim Bueno .

Drunkenomics - The Story of Bar Stool Economics View more presentations from slides2407 .

If you watch TV (I don't), especially the comedians that have been giving us the news during the Bush years, you'll note something different since Bush was replaced. There is no Court Jester in Chief. I irregularly catch Jon Stewart and Bill Maher online, and they've been, well, pretty nice so far to the new president. As the Economist reports , it may just be too hard to make fun of a guy you like ... or, like his other super-human abilities, Obama also has the power to deflect witty barbs. Not so at the Onion of course, where everyone is open for lampooning. Taking the suggestion from the Economist, I went over to the Onion and searched for articles on Obama. Here's a sampling of the titles: Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny's Obama To Hold Job Performance Review With Every American Worker Unusually Level-Headed, Charismatic Lichen Species Named

Businesses are pouring over the detritus of your online life in hopes of finding meaning in your silly one-liners to each other. The end goal -- to sell you more -- to target you for advertising -- to entice you to part with cash. What they haven't realized yet it seems, is that targeting you with online ads just doesn't work. How many of us actually see the ads on websites? Even the intrusive ones. The real question here however, is are you OK with what is being done with your personal interactions with your friends? You're no longer being captured by CCTV cameras anymore. Now, every keystroke is being monitored. Read more at BusinessWeek .

I'm Canadian, and I got 9 out of 12 questions in this very American quiz from Pew Research . I did better than 59% of the general public -- which I assume, is mostly American. The only questions I got wrong were on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, US national unemployment rate, and how many Americans were killed in Iraq. The latter of these two are decidedly American questions -- I should have gotten the first correct. Oh well. But I still did better than most Americans. In this quiz, males did better than females; educated did better than the uneducated; and the older did better than the younger. I think the general public is scary. This is just more proof. Average number of questions answered correctly.

When you think you've seen it all ... there comes RunPee.com ... a site that tells you when it's safe to make a bathroom run during a movie, cause really, you're not going to miss much when run to pee.

Racism in our own fucking backyard. Who'd think it? White bullies in Keswick love to show their ignorance, by calling Asians, "Chinese," pushing Asian anglers into the water in a sport locally known as "nipper tipping" and beating up on Asian kids who happen to be A+ students and black belt martial artists. Yes, a bully fucked with the wrong 15-year-old Korean when he pushed him and punched him in the face. He did count on a left handed (weaker hand) punch in return that broke his nose. Now the school has suspended both students and has threatened to expel the Korean student. WTF? Just before you think all Keswick residents are racists, take note of this little tidbit. In response to 15-year-old's suspension for fighting back, 400 hundred of his peers walked out of Keswick High School on Monday in protest. Hopefully the York Region school's administration will take a moment to reflect on the Ten Tenets of Character they have posted on the schoo

Could the cure for HIV be lurking where we least expect it? A group of scientists think so. In a recent paper published in PLoS Biology , they contend that junk genes , that have been lurking inactive in the human DNA for millions of years, may hold the cure. They managed to reawaken one promising gene, and have demonstrated that it could potentially provide humans with immunity to HIV, by blocking the virus from penetrating cell walls. This is not as farfetched as it may seem. As remarked in the paper, there are "nonhuman primates also produce theta-defensins-18 residue cyclic peptides that act as HIV-1 entry inhibitor." This is totally cool!

View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map This map was created by niman to track the swine flu outbreak.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now twice the size of France. I've posted previously on this floating monument to humanity's total disregard for the planet. Located in the Pacific Ocean, the garbage patch is an accumulation of debris , that is held together by ocean currents. It is a large, floating mass, about 10 metres deep, of just garbage. Today, that garbage is almost 90% plastic. While the garbage patch must have existed for a long time, it is only in recent history that its composition changed from biodegradable material to mostly plastic. Estimates suggest that the navies and commercial shipping fleets of the world dump about 639,000 plastic containers overboard each day -- yet, surprisingly, 80% of the garbage patch doesn't come boats, but originates from land. The wind blows plastic rubbish out of littered streets and landfills, and lorries and trains on their way to landfills. It gets into rivers, streams and storm drains and then rides the tides and c

The CRTC wants to hear your voice on the topic of ISP's Internet Traffic Management. In case you don't know, ISPs today monitor your online activities. They know where you go, what you do, how long you do it -- and in case where you're interacting with someone else, they also know who you're doing it to. All great stuff to know if you were living in a dictatorship -- or you were a criminal -- but if you're a freedom loving, law abiding citizen -- well, you're being monitored, so mind where you go and what you do, as one of the goons at Rogers or Bell, is being a voyeur. If you like the internet, and the content that's readily at your fingertips, you'll probably be shocked to know that the ISPs want the ability to degrade your service, if they think you're having just a little too much fun. Translation: that YouTube video you're watching just became very jerky, unless you stay up after midnight to watch it. Rogers and Bell are already thrott

Google Labs has done it again -- this time, with Similar Images -- capability that puts a Similar Images link below relevant thumbnails in Google's image search results. By clicking the Similar Images link, Google then provides a fairly accurate refinement of your image search. Totally cool!

The coppers may have gotten to the pirates, but Google plans on freeing your torrents . Take that MPAA and RIAA! Now if only there was something worth pirating from Hollywood. On a related note, I read that some bad souls have launched Operation Public Pirate. It's UK-based, as the culprits have decided to target the music industry by pirating all the number one UK singles from 1952-2007. They've prepared a torrent with all of the songs, and are asking public pirates to download the music, buy a big spindle of DVDs, then burn the music on all the DVDs, and leave them in public places for people to take -- for free.

That's it, Amazon will no longer be getting any of my money. I will no longer use the online shop for anything until it changes a policy that now considers books with homosexual characters -- or positively deal with homosexuality -- as adult books , no different from pornography. It becomes another form of censorship, when an international bookseller purposely skews data or feed its clients ignorance, instead of keeping them informed. I conducted a non-scientific analysis of Amazon's treatment of homosexuality, by comparing how Amazon UK, Canada and the US treats homosexuality. The findings: Amazon UK Search term: homosexuality Results: Can Homosexuality be Healed? by Francis MacNutt - 1-star rating; A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality by Joseph Nicolosi and Linda Nicolosi - 1-star rating; A Natural History of Homosexuality by Dr. Francis Mark Mondimore MD - 4.5-star rating; The Greeks And Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality In Ancient Greece

Politico reports that the Obama-Bankers meeting recently held at the White House, was anything but a friendly meeting. As the bankers rolled out their excuses, Obama apparently interrupted with this line: Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn't buying that. My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks. It's nice when government represents the interests of their electorate.

Reverend Mark Stringer cried. He's obviously not a man of god, because if he was, he'd raise an army to hunt down gays and lesbians in Iowa. Stringer cried however, because the Supreme Court in Iowa just made it OK for gays and lesbians to legally marry in the state. Previously, Stringer had officiated the only same-sex marriage in the state, in 2007, when there was a short legal limbo on permitting same sex marriages. The only way to officially stop the state is to amend its constitution -- an opportunity that won't present itself until 2012. "We are firmly convinced that the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective," the court said in an opinion written by Justice Mark Cady. "The legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification." The

Saudi Arabia does it again. Earlier this month, the troglodytes of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice , sentenced a 75-year-old widow to 40 lashes, for mingling with two young men, who were not immediate relatives. Khamisa Sawadi had asked one of the men, a nephew, to drop off some bread for her. He and his friend dropped by her place with the bread. They were arrested after delivering the bread. According to the verdict, " Because she said she doesn't have a husband and because she is not a Saudi, conviction of the defendants of illegal mingling has been confirmed. " What a bunch of dumb fucks .

According to Jackie Andrade of the University of Plymouth's School of Psychology, doodling is good for you -- especially if you're trying to concentrate on some boring speech. In a study Andrade conducted, those that were allowed to doodled, remembered more -- with doodling being credited for engaging enough of the brain to keep the mind from daydreaming off to better places than the boring task at hand. I'm bringing my sketchbook to all meetings from now on!

Last week, the German police raided Wikileaks related buildings, after the site exposed secret government censorship lists for a bunch of countries, including Thailand, UAE, Australia and Germany. The plans put Australia and Germany in good company -- like China and Saudi Arabia -- who restrict the freedoms of their people. If all the sites that were censored were those belonging to child molesters, no one would raise an eyebrow. But they're not. You have to wonder about the secret lists as well. Why secret? If the sites are to be blocked to protect the public, then why isn't the public being notified? Why isn't the criteria for blocking sites made public? Why are legitimate and perfectly legal sites also on the list? What legal basis is there for censorship, in free and open democracies? Most troubling is the fact that in order to censor sites, the government must intercept internet communication -- which allows it to record the surfing habits of its citizens.

The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year. According to the government appointed chairman of AIG, the bonuses are needed to keep executives around. Umm ... maybe the losers that caused AIG to arrive at the brink shouldn't be bonused so they can be retained. WTF is wrong with these people? Not that AIG has any choice in the matter. The bonuses don't seem to be tied to performance and the firm is contractually obligated to pay them. Although, I'd like to see the executives fight for those bonuses in court. AIG should just refuse to payout siting the unusual circumstances they're currently in.

Pi Day and Pi Approximation Day are two holidays held to celebrate the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14, 3.14 being the first three digits of pi. It can also be celebrated on March 4 (when 14% of the month of March has elapsed). Pi Approximation Day is observed on July 22, due to π being roughly equal to 22/7. Pi Minute is also sometimes celebrated on March 14 at 1:59 p.m. If π is truncated to seven decimal places, it becomes 3.1415926, making March 14 at 1:59:26 p.m., Pi Second (or sometimes March 14, 1592 at 6:53:58 a.m.).

I'm belatedly marking International Women's Day (IWD). Work has just been way too busy in the past few weeks, and I've been negligent with the blog. I did make a post internally at work, and marked the day with my team, but I'm only now getting around to posting something here. Women and men united to end violence against women and girls. In commenting to peers about IWD, I was surprise how many knew of the day -- and what the recognition of the day meant. Folks from some cultures recognized the day as something that was celebrated back in the old country like Mother's Day is celebrated in Canada. Those unfortunate to be enlightened carried the burdensome knowledge of how much further we need to go to bring equality and freedom to half of our species. They recognized the day and as a whole, were not in a celebratory mood. This post by no means intends to do justice to the insurmountable task before us. It's not intended for the converted. You, the con

After picking pockets of willing customers for years, Starbucks now finds itself threading troubled waters. Let's face it, there is a glut of Starbucks. Just by my workplace, there are about 5 Starbucks retail outlets within a 5-minute walk. Same-store sales are dropping, and HQ is culling low performers to contain the damage of over abundance. Now with a recession and people being more cost conscious -- $4 for every coffee adds up pretty quickly for wallets running low on caffeine. What to do? Go instant. Yes, Starbucks has created an instant coffee, named Via , and like everything else Starbucks, it will be more expensive than other instant coffees. Surprisingly, Starbucks has decided not to give it a pretentious, multi-syllable name. They're putting a good spin on marketing it -- it's the holy grail of coffee, apparently -- but I'm just not buying it -- especially if it tastes like Starbucks coffee. I can't stand the stuff.

pa-tri-ot-ism [pey-tree-uh-tiz-uhm or, especially Brit., pa-] –noun devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty. Canadians who attend NHL games (and some watching at home) unabashedly display patriotism. It comes with the warbling of the national anthem -- anticipating the ceremonial dropping of the puck to start a game. The same can't be said about other sports games -- and can't be found with such predictability outside of armed forces ceremonies. I therefore invite the following for consideration: Every Canadian should attend one NHL game every year -- and a hockey game a month, for at least one year, should be a prerequisite for citizenship. It's probably OK to cheer for American teams too ... since wherever hockey is played, Canada is present.

First came fire ... and then, as the camera shifts to the soon to be late-village idiot, you're left wondering -- just what was going through that mind -- and food is put on the fire, for the first time, and cooking is accidentally discovered by humanity. The first chef is ridiculed by grunts, then the local thug tries a sample of the burnt carcass, and soon, everybody gets queued at the McDonalds drive-thru. What happened? Richard Wrangham of Harvard believes there's more to cooking than evolutionary history would have you believe. Wrangham points out that there is no way homo sapiens could survive on just raw food. Raw food just doesn't give up calories as easily as cooked food -- and raw food makes the digestive system expend more energy to get at those calories. Cooking on the other hand breaks complex molecules down, allowing the digestive system to make easy work of them -- and cooking also softens food, allowing the body to get to the calories with less effort

This post is part of the freecomputers project . freecomputer20090226 I've been putting off working on this machine for a while, simply because it's so old. It's a Compaq Prolinea 4/66. Yes, it's a 486. It was donated by Narender, via FreecycleTO , and comes with modest hardware. I got some additional RAM from Norm this past week, and that helped somewhat. The CD drive that was in the machine was dead, so it was replaced. Still, there wasn't much to work with. The machine had WfW 3.11 loaded, which was a shocker seeing it. I booted it up just out of curiosity, and was floored. I hadn't seen WfW, since, well ... was it the mid-90s? Ancient times in the technology world. I tried right clicking on the File Manager before realizing how futile that was. It was a novelty to see the old OS, but it didn't last long. I loaded Damn Small Linux (DSL) onto the machine, and it performs fairly well. The unfortunate thing is the NIC, which is an old SMC IS

NASA is looking to name the International Space Station's (ISS) Node 3 , a new connecting module and its cupola (that sounds rude), in the tradition set by the naming of Node 1 -- Unity -- and Node 2 -- Harmony . Plans are for Endeavour to deliver Node 3 to the ISS in December, but ahead of the launch schedule, NASA is running a contest to pick the name. It all seems simple, boring and straight forward. Enter the clowns. The user vanillagamer submitted the post to reddit (and similar submissions were made on digg, with all of this possibly originating on 4chan), giving instructions to vote on the NASA naming site, with the suggestion that Battletoad be entered as the suggested name. Apparently, NASA doesn't find it the least bit humorous, and is blocking the name from being counted. The comments on the reddit submission are hilarious however, and the submission has even made it to reddit's front page. speaker219 : It looks like they're blocking out votes for B