Happy Birthday Joan COOK

This happened a few weeks ago (Oct 6) but it marks the coincidence of 3 Senators having been mentioned to me in a matter of one week. That is remarkable.

Joan COOK was 75 years old on Oct 6. Hence, she will be retiring from her place in the Senate. She has been a representative of Newfoundland and Labrador since March 6, 1998 and was appointed by Jean CHRETIEN.

Dennis PATTERSON (Nunavut) is a former Premier of the Northwest Territories and one of the new crop of Senators appointed by PM Harper in August. Patterson was mentioned by a friend as having been the reason Nunavut is "going green" (or at least more green). They have had a housing boom up there with the new government, and he has had requests for control systems for diesel genset/PV/Wind system's. That is unique.

The other Senator I found was Elaine MCCOY. I was surprised to see her listed as a Progressive Conservative! (even though she was appointed by Paul MARTIN). I am very interested to see how she has voted in the past. As we have such a concentration of Liberal Senators up here in Edmonton (BANKS, TARDIFF and MITCHELL) I have not had cause to find the other ladies (MCCOY and FAIRBAIRN) . She may find herself "courted" more often now.

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Woody GUTHRIE - America's Folk Ballad Hero

Woody GUTHRIE (1912-1967) was an unusual character, but he was a remarkable folk-hero for many emerging folk singers in the 1960's. Famous folk singer Pete SEEGER and Bob DLYAN among them. DYLAN made a special effort to immortalize his works and was clearly drawn to GUTHRIE's evocative ballads and perhaps bohemian, if not erratic, personality. Woody (named after soon to-be Democrat President, Woodrow WILSON) was eventually diagnosed with Huntington's Corea, but others felt he exhibited some serious symptoms of schizophrenia and alcoholism.

His enduring legacy has to be his many folk songs about America in the 1930's and 1940's - especially the traumatic era that involved the Dust-bowl and late Depression era, 1934-40. Woody was also a keen social observer and itinerant entertainer through the 1950's and developed what would be known as "Hillbilly" style. His association with many Communist elements in LA and California caused him a certain amount of official notoriety. Yet, among his most revered songs must be "This Land is Your Land" written as a counterpoint to Irving BERLIN's "God Bless America" that Woody believed was jingoistic and unreal.

"This Land is Your Land" - by Woody Guthrie

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.

I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
While all around me a voice was sounding
Saying this land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting,
This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

[There were at 2 other stanza's dropped from the traditional arrangement, likely as they were too controversial at the time. Woody wrote "This Land" in 1940 but it was not published until 1951 - which would have overlapped the period of political hysteria raised by Senator McCarthy's "Committee on Un-American Activities" and Woody was suspected of Communist sympathy. Here are copies of FBI records on Woody.]

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?

Or this variant:

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

For Canada, this was our change

This land is your land, This land is my land,

From Bonavista, to Vancouver Island

From the Arctic Circle to the Great Lakes waters,

This land was made for you and me.

Google Flu Trends

Ok, this is pretty cool. Live "Flu trends" derived from real-time data by Google scientists. The have been developing these time series tracking data for awhile on a number of different statistics - most recently Retail Sales in the US.

I think that has been working well too.

Ephemera and the web

On Oct 26, 2009 - Yahoo's Geocities free website service will shutdown. Slaw.ca had a post about how ephemeral and questionable information on the web has been in the past, but morns the loss of that early idealistic period. I just think of the $3.5 bn that it cost Yahoo to buy the service got vaporized over 10 years.

But alot of people took to using this free useful service, and for many it was an entry in the internet. I dare say that it led to the popularity of web-search services like Google as I remember the frustration in trying to find anything useful with Yahoo's search as impossible.

I myself think that this "ephemeral" nature of the web is one of the biggest opportunities. How can we keep track of this exploding information birth and and death? I have found that The Wayback Machine has been one of the most useful services out there. It scours the web archiving well known and traveled sites before the disappear. Sometimes they will be the only place you can find that old web-page you forgot to keep years ago.

However it is this "disappearance of data" that has led me to archive the old ECMAS.org website before it is disconnected. For those who are interested, you can find the 2001 data here (others in process). Here is list of Articles (2001) It is too bad that quite a bit is missing but I am hopeful that others will be able to fill in the blanks as they become aware of this minor project to recover the information.

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

George Santayana (1863-1952)

WRA gets more members

WRA announced that membership has passed 11,000 by the cut off for ballots for the leadership.

I hope alot of those people are going to vote for Danielle SMITH, here is an editorial about her in Calgary Herald by Nigel HANNAFORD last week and her piece in Calgary Sun today. Here is Mark's rather sour reply.

Danielle will be in Edmonton this Thurs Oct 8 @730 pm at the Four Points Sheraton, 7320 Argyll Rd. Edmonton AB - everyone is welcome. [Otherwise we will see everyone for the Leadership Nomination on Sat Oct 17, Holiday Inn 4520-76 Ave Edmonton AB]

Should the RCMP be regionalized?

Today the Dzienkanski Inquiry was given the final submission of lawyer Walter Kosteckyj, representing Dziekanski's mother, Zofia Cisowski. He urged the inquiry commissioner, Thomas Braidwood, to recommend that the RCMP's use-of-force training model to be scrapped.

Two weeks ago the B.C Police Chief Association asked for Independent Reviews of Police Complaints similar to Alberta’s SIRT (Serious Incident Response Team).

Two months ago, a Crown Prosecutor resigned from the Braidwood Inquiry because she failed to realize she has "exculpatory" evidence in her possession since April 2009 that contradicted a senior RCMP officer's sworn evidence to the inquiry. His email claims the 4 officers at the scene had planned to taser Mr. Dzienkanski before arriving at the situation at the Vancouver Airport.

In his sumation, Lawyer Walter Kosteckyj suggests that more than anything the employees at the Vancouver Airport have been taught to ignore passenger questions (a typical bureaucratic passive-aggressive mannerism) and that a single odse of common-sense anywhere in the tragic farce that led to Mr. Dzienkanski would have gone a long way to saving his life.

Post Zaccardelli , can there be any doubt that the RCMP has ceased to accountable and effective to the many citizens who need their services.

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Green Oil (and Ham)

A former columnist for The Edmonton Journal, Satya DAS has just finished a investigation that explores the challenges and implications of Alberta’s development of the oil sands, which is among the world’s single biggest hydrocarbon deposit. Green Oil says the oil sands can lead the transition to a clean-energy future. This will be welcome news to the Oil Industry who have become desperate for something to counteract the Stelmach Government's fumbled PR Battle on Oil and left them vulnerable to attack from the Obama Democrats. I understand that Ezra LEVANT is also attacking the subject.

Don MARTIN added this 2 part article last week about the Oil Industry. In "Our Oil, U.S Need" on Sept 26 he made this point.

The United States imports 60% of its daily fuel requirements. President Barack Obama has vowed to wean his country off Middle East oil within 10 years. The U.S.'s other nearby secondary suppliers are either hostile (Venezuela) or their production is dwindling so quickly that they could be a net importer of oil within five years (Mexico). For every five barrels of oil America consumes a day, one comes from Canada. One barrel of every 20 now consumed in the United States is pumped straight out of the oilsands, a number that could triple inside of 15 years.

Then I saw this admonishment from the U.S Energy Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu;

“The American public…just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act,” Dr. Chu said.

The administration aims to teach them—literally. The Environmental Protection Agency is focusing on real children. Partnering with the Parent Teacher Organization, the agency earlier this month launched a cross-country tour of 6,000 schools to teach students about climate change and energy efficiency.

This kind of propaganda is not likely to put the Alberta Oilsands in a good light.

Nonverbal Communication = Paralanguage

I found this presentation that describes the other 70% of communication we convey NOT by mere words - and I found it fascinating.

Nonverbal Communication

View more presentations from aidenyeh.

Is Michael Ignatieff already a lame duck? So soon?!

An excellent analysis from Steve Janke regarding the recent dustup in Quebec surrounding the power-play between Coderre and Cauchon. Here are some of the key points.

• A lame duck is an elected official who is reaching the end of his run of office. He has little power, and others have no incentive to cooperate with him. Usually, the lame duck knows he's a lame duck, and so avoid potentially humiliating showdowns that he knows he can't win. On the other hand, if he doesn't realize he's a lame duck, he'll walk right into a fight and not realize he's already lost...

• But the trouble in Outremont points to labelling Ignatieff as a lame duck. Ignatieff's Quebec lieutenant Denis Coderre is blocking any attempt by former Liberal justice minister Martin Cauchon to run in Outremont. Cauchon represented that riding for over a decade, and the Liberals are desperate to take the riding back from the NDP in the next election. Instead of Cauchon, Coderre has picked his favourite, politically untested business woman Nathalie le Prohon, to go up against veteran Thomas Mulcair of the NDP. Coderre has already decided to have Michael Ignatieff appoint her to the role of candidate, no nomination contest required.Unseemly, perhaps, but the shocking thing is that we all know about this. Not a single person in this drama has shown the slightest bit of respect for Michael Ignatieff.
  

• Michael Ignatieff made the decision to do what Denis Coderre told him to do, but no one cares. And they're all complaining bitterly...in public!Does anyone care what Michael Ignatieff can do to them as punishment for speaking out in public against a firm decision he has made? Apparently not. To have no fear of contradicting the leader, after he has made his final decision on a subject, is a defining property of a lame duck.

UPDATE!

Former Liberal justice minister Martin Cauchon will get the chance to make a political comeback in his old riding after all.

Party insiders say Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has decided to allow an open nomination contest in the prized Montreal riding of Outremont.

Globe & Mail, Friday Sept 25/09

I swear, sometimes I think Michael Ignatieff is his own worst enemy.

Michelle is gona be pissed

This was pretty funny.