I just uploaded some starter pics to a new photo set on my Flickr site entitled Life In Macro. If you like them, check back from time to time as I continue to add images from this perspective. I also added a link to my Flickr sets on the left panel under the blog title and my e-mail address for ease of linkage.
Today, as an insult, I was accused of being jealous of Shakespeare.
Working in government means that over time people greet the announcement of ministerial spending with a degree of cynicism. Whether it's because of previous experience with funding being pulled after it's been committed, the short-sightedness of a funding plan, or some other snafu, people tend to react with less than whole-hearted joy when these press releases occur."A move is underway to make Jesus Christ the honorary king of Poland"Yes, you read that correctly. Apparently this is to be expected because the citizens are hardcore Roman Catholic. Not only that, but this is the country that made Mary (mother of Jesus) its honorary queen because they believed she helped them win a battle with Sweden(!).
"And they are not obliged to follow those occupations, if they prefer leisure to emolument."
-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
My co-worker was on the phone with a courier company arranging for a pick-up and I only heard her side of the conversation.
Ottawa has decided against supporting Canadian space companies' and the European Space Agency's (ESA) request to allow Canada's space industry to contribute in building the ExoMars rover. The decision was a big surprise to everybody, especially considering that the request was not contingent on any additional funding."Industry Minister Maxime Bernier told the companies the government hadn't made up its mind about the future of Canada's space role and didn't want to go forward with the project."Also of interest is the fact that the U.S. was promoting this deal and has also signed off on having Canadian companies design robotics components for its moon mission slated for 2020.
"In the 1988 federal election the Bloc Quebecois did not exist. Gilles Duceppe was elected in a by-election two years later as an independent, not as a Bloc candidate. Despite having no seats in Parliament, no official recognition from the Speaker and only 75 candidates out of 295 ridings, the Bloc Quebecois was included in both the French and English debates. The Bloc has never fielded a candidate outside Quebec but continues to participate in debates in both official languages.
In the 1988 general election, the Reform Party ran 72 candidates, received 276,000 votes and won no seats. By the time of the 1993 election, the Reform Party’s only sitting member was Deborah Grey following her win in a 1989 by-election. Reform did not have Official Party status and did not win a seat in the 1988 election but Preston Manning participated in the 1993 leaders’ debate, based on the 11,154 votes Deborah Grey received in a 1989 by-election with a 47 per cent turnout. In 1993, the party ran only 207 candidates.
In 2004 and 2006, the Green Party ran a full slate of 308 candidates and won 583,000 and 664,000 votes respectively, over double the Reform Party’s performance in 1988.
In 1979, the Social Credit Party was excluded from the debate despite the fact that it had 11 seats in Parliament at the time of dissolution. And in 1997, both the NDP and Progressive Conservatives were included in the debate despite not having Official Party status.
In 1993, 1997 and 2000 five leaders participated in the televised debates. This was reduced to four following the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives in 2003. Fair play, democratic equity and precedent demands that a fifth spot now be opened for a new national leader to join the debate. Five parties received over 2 per cent of the vote in 2004 and 2006 and all five should appear in the next leaders’ debate."
"A recent study shows the chasm between rich and poor is growing. Last year, those in the top fifth of wealth distribution had a median net worth of about $551,000 while for families in the bottom fifth, the value of their assets never exceeded the value of their debts. Where do you place yourself on the 'wealth' scale?"The possible answers are "Top 20%", "Top 40%", "Right in the middle", "Bottom 40%", and "Bottom 20%".
"Of the total household wealth in Canada in 2005, the top 20 per cent possessed 75 per cent of it."This article focuses more on the cost of housing as a factor in the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Canada.
"Most of those (95 per cent) in the top 20 per cent bracket owned a home, and the median value of that home grew by $75,000 between 1999 and 2005. Only six per cent of those in the lowest wealth group owned a home."
"Statistics Canada said the median net worth of the poorest group has stagnated over the past two decades. 'The value of their assets never exceeded the value of their debts during the 1984 to 2005 period.'"
I think I've said it often enough, but I'll say it again; we live in world comprised primarily of uninformed idiots and the masses can not generally be trusted to decide most matters of public interest."I have never injured anybody with a mordant poem; my verse contains charges against nobody. Ingenuous, I have shunned wit steeped in venom - not a letter of mine is dipped in poisonous jest."
-Ovid
Harper and his cabinet minsters have been quietly liaising with U.S. officials since before June. The ministers have been consulting them regarding their drug policy with an eye to developing a version of it for Canada. Right. Because it's widely acknowledged that the American style War On Drugs is the model of success? Oh right, that's a load of crap. The American War On Drugs is laughable and at best only marginally successful - and even then, only in spite of itself. This plan of course runs totally counter to the extremely successful programs being run in Europe where the drug problem is categorized more as a health issue than a criminal or 'moral' problem. Not only that, but the European model favours a harm reduction approach whereas the U.S. and Federal Conservatives' style is more along the lines of being an asshole and seeing how far that gets you.
We've had a rough winter so far in Vancouver. We've had flooding, a weeks long boil water advisory, downed power lines, a crippling snow storm, downed power lines, and now last night, more downed power lines.
Sadly, having just $2,200 in wealth (household wealth was defined as the value of physical and financial assets minus debts) is all you'd need to be placed in the top half of the world's wealth distribution - but only the bottom 49% of that top half. The newest figures show that this distribution sees 1% of the total world population holding 40% of the planet's wealth. Meanwhile, "the bottom half of the world makes do with barely one per cent" of the world's wealth. "The authors note that "many people in high-income countries — somewhat paradoxically — are among the poorest people in the world in terms of household wealth" because they have large debts."This means that those who have at least $2,200 in household wealth and can be considered 'middle class' are only a tiny portion of the total world population. Scarier still is that the 50% of the population below that has to make to with splitting only 1% of the wealth.
I don't even know where to start on this story. Saint John's finest targeted a man (LeBlanc) who was taking pictures of a protest and three officers pinned him to the ground. He was arrested, charged with obstruction of justice, and police later testified that he was resisting arrest (a favorite catch-all accusation preferred by law enforcement personnel). The good news, for the victim, is that there is video evidence showing that he was peacefully snapping photos before being tackled out of the blue by police for no apparent reason. "The video speaks for itself. It's very strong evidence, that video," [Judge] McCarroll said. "He's taking pictures. The next thing is, you know, he's down on the ground with three officers on him."The versions of the story told by the police are contradictory and inconsistent, and I didn't even get into how they set him up via his blog and then tried to deny any knowledge of knowing who he was before seeing him at the protest.
Police had testified earlier in the week that LeBlanc resisted during his arrest, but McCarroll held up a picture of the police walking LeBlanc peacefully across the lobby of the conference centre. "This doesn't look to me like someone who is resisting arrest."
So get this; O.J. Simpson has a two-part television special airing during the November sweeps where he "is to speak in "hypothetical terms" about how he would have committed the 1994 killing of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman "if he were the one responsible."" It's titled If I Did It, Here's How It Happened. The special coincides with the release of O.J's new book, If I Did It. I wonder if it will be categorized under Fiction or Non-Fiction?"I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project," said Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman.
We had a wicked storm come through the South Coast yesterday that kicked up 100 km/h winds, knocked out power, and contaminated our three water reservoirs with dirt and mud (article). 125,000 people are still without power (down from the 200,000 from last night) and the whole Greater Vancouver Area was just placed under a boil water advisory. We're talking, all residents, businesses, the works, have to boil water before using it in any way - except for showers...just don't gulp down any water while you're in there.
In July of this year, local filmmaker Yun Lam Li embarked on a three-year documentary project entitled "The Reincarnation of W", to examine how changes to Woodward's affect people living in the area. Li says he wants to record people's predictions of Woodward's future now and compare them to the actual outcomes in 2009 when construction of the building is finished. The first chapter of his documentary is available on his website.
It was only 5:30 p.m. but it was dark. I was driving home from the office in the pouring rain, my windshield wipers on full speed to keep the shiny road surface visible. At a red light, looking at the wet scene around me, I got that warm nostalgic feeling as I suddenly thought, "It feels like Christmas."
Everyone in my office is invited to a surprise bridal shower for one of our co-workers, Joyce. The invitation also says that "Joyce and Jenn are registered at Pottery Barn & Restoration Hardware". If you are going to a lesbian bridal shower, are both engaged people going to be there?
At a bar in Waterloo, Ontario.
I've become one of those people who take pictures of everything. I don't reserve my camera just for special events, I also constantly snap shots of the every day. When a gathering does occur I relentlessly take photos of the festivities and as a result end up with lots of great moments caught for posterity - which means that I have been named the Official Photographer of the DMB tours I attend. Not by the band of course, but by my friends who also travel to lots of shows.
We've made it to L.A.! I've got a few minutes before we run out to the show, so I'm taking the first chance I've had all weekend to post a little something. Vegas was amazing of course, love that city! I doubled up my investment on both the roulette table and the slots, the show was incredible, and we partied hard Vegas style. Road tripped to the beach the next morning and our motel was a block from the Pacific. Those two days in Santa Barbara went fast, lots of partying, lots of Halloween madness, and two more great shows. We ended up being a group of about 18 people in SB, and this morning 9 of us continued on to L.A. I rode with three others in a Mustang convertible under the California sun - love it. I have second row seat tonight, so it should be a fantastic way to end out this year of Dave Matthews madness. Lots of pictures to come, for now, just a taste.
As usual, down to the wire, I'm not packed, I'm freaking out, going to miss my flight, have to get a post in before I go.
I just found out that today is Take Back Your Time Day. 'A project of Cornell University's Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy and an alliance of academics called the Simplicity Forum, the group promotes Oct. 24 as a day to find a work-life balance and begin healing what it calls the "epidemic of overwork, overscheduling and time famine."' (article)So I thought, hey, maybe I can take part in relaxing... until I realized that the 24th was today. I've been at my day job since 7:30 this morning. After work I'm running across town to another office to work on a contract job I'm doing for another Federal department. I'll need to squeeze in a quick trim with my stylist (luckily in the same building) before driving through three towns to get to school. I won't get out of class until after 10 p.m. tonight when I can finally think about getting home. There's certainly no time for dinner or any relaxation, because by the time I get back home, it'll be long past my sleep time. So thanks Take Back Your Time Day, but I regret that I won't be able to do any of your suggested activities like "visit elderly relatives, cancel an appointment, plant a tree, meditate or go for a long walk."
And I wish we never parted,"Don't eat potatoes after using them for a battery."
"Hey, have you seen Talladega Nights yet?"
Whenever I have interviews with the RCMP, and they start talking about their members, I have to suppress a giggle because my instinct is that they're talking about penises, not police officers. 
I'm in Charlottesville, Virginia and loving it! This place is amazing; the landscape, the architecture, the people, the wine, the music, and everything in between makes C-Ville one great town. I left Vancouver early Wednesday afternoon and America West flew me to Phoenix, then Las Vegas, through Philadelphia, and then into Charlottesville late Thursday morning.
It was pure exhaustion. Not to be defeated by a brain numbing lack of sleep, after meeting the "Inn Keeper" of this hostel/bed & breakfast (Alexander House) and a couple of the guests, I cleaned up and started driving. I explored the countryside and discovered endless curvy roads through plains and wooded hills that made me wish I was riding a motorcycle.
I visited a couple of the local wineries and ended up at Blenheim Vineyards, which is Dave Matthews' vineyard.
Next I cruised some more, with the rental car sun roof open so that I could enjoy the brilliant day that it was, and made my way to The Best of What's Around organic farm, which is Dave Matthews' farm.
The farm store was closed for the summer and a sign was posted saying that their produce could be purchased at the Scottsville Farmer's Market on Thursdays. Lucky for me it was Thursday, so I went down to Scottsville and checked out the little Farmer's Market.
While I was in town I went to a local cafe and had a coffee and deep fried mozzarella sticks at one of their sidewalk tables. Along with a cigarette. Ah, so health conscious! I swung by the Monticello visitor's centre, decided not to go in, and instead drove downtown. I headed for the top of the parkade that I walked up to four years ago and took an almost identical series of pictures. Except these ones were on a digital rather than disposable camera, and done at 4:30 in the afternoon, instead of the crack of dawn. These pictures are mostly of the Pink Warehouse, where Dave Matthews Band played their first gig 15 years ago on the roof.
to catch John D'earth and his amazing band jazz up the joint. Dawn Thompson sang on some songs as well, and they were all phenomenal. Incidentally, Miller's is where Dave Matthews used to bartend (notice a theme here?), and is where he met the first members of the band and convinced them to play with him. Miller's is also a local institution, where John D'earth has played Thursday nights "for like, 20 years!" said the t-shirt vendor.
And now I've made it back to the hostel. I've been given a lock key and helmet to use the hostel bicycle. Mare, the inn keeper, has been so wonderful and generous, but I don't think I really want to ride the bicycle. Now I have to, or her feelings will be hurt. Jeez. Where the hell am I going to ride to? Up that hill or the other one? This does not jive with my coffee, fried food, and cigarette regimen. Tomorrow the influx of DMB fans from all over North America and probably beyond will begin in earnest. I hope I can find some of the folks I've met over the summer, but even if I don't, I've already had a fantastic trip - and it's only been one day.
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