Feb. 29 - A very interesting post at Belmont Club about Canadian intervention in Haiti and points out the biggest problem in countries like Haiti that prevents true reform is thuggery:

Any American involvement should come with strict conditions. The foremost should be an insistence on an active pacification strategy by UN and especially Canadian forces. Experience in the Global War on Terror and in fighting narco-terrorists in Latin America suggests that civil society can never emerge unless the backbone of thuggery is broken. In the context of Haiti this means an aggressive pursuit of warlords, looters and criminal elements that have reduced that country to a shambles. The Canadians should forthwith embark on an intensive intelligence operation to discover the most dangerous elements threatening orderly society and issue their equivalent of a Most Wanted Deck of Cards. Thereafter, the Canadians must simultaneously hunt these men down while rebuilding the Haitian police and judiciary. Only by employing these methods will Haiti and Haitians have any chance of regaining normal life.

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Feb. 28 - I'd been working on a post about the unrecognized danger of relying on Supreme Court rulings focusing on their 1883 decision which overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which had forbidden segregation in public institutions and effectively reversed the gains made by African-Americans after the Civil War. It took over 70 years (during which Jim Crow laws became entrenched in those states that had them) and numerous court challenges before the Supreme Court finally reversed itself and the US was able to begin to honour its committment to freedom for all its citizens.

I trust the electorate and their ultimate control over legislators more than 9 men and women who are unelected and prey to the ultimate corruption: admiration for their own enlightened selves.

But I got derailed by the NY Times article about the Oil for Food Program (post below) which is about a clearer kind of corruption.

I have to work tomorrow but will try to get it finished and up Monday. Bill Whittle has promised a new post by the end of the weekend so don't forget to check his site.

I could come up with a lot of excuses as to why I can't finish it tonight. I am tired and not finding it easy to write, but the other reason is really geeky: I need to watch the Witchblade episode I taped last night so I can tape the midnight showing of Justice League on YTV. I'd like to think it's because I have eclectic tastes.

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Feb. 27 - Yes, I have to go to work even after I've been called in on my days off.

I'm going to assume that everyone in Toronto is planning all kinds of activities that include the glorious weather we're experiencing!

Take care.

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Feb. 26 - I got derailed from posting Tuesday after an emergency at my workplace. The details are so freaking routine because inept co-workers are everywhere but, like anyone else, I simply wish they were elsewhere.

In short, I don't care what McAfee says, you don't open attachments without scanning them no matter how much you "trust or know" the sender. Worms get into your address book so naturally you're going to get one from someone you know. Trojans and true viruses are devastating, and giggling after you've brought the whole system down may not be grounds for a firing squad but I'm willing to re-examine the issue.

Furthermore, the fact is that I routinely back up my work, but that doesn't mean that no one else has to bother to do so. Certainly I am gratified that my back-ups gave us a reference point, and I try to be the kind of team player who will cheerfully pitch in to reconstruct weeks of work, but doing a back-up is not difficult or time-consuming.

We can back-up our work while we are fixing our hair, freshening our lipstick, making plans with our friends and in truth doing little more than getting ready to bolt as soon as the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 5. It's amazing how little supervision the computers require during back-ups these days.

I swear, some day I'm going to haul out my old computer and let them struggle with DOS. I'm going to grin like a maniac when my co-workers encounter Abort, Retry or Fail? and the only confirmation that the computer has performed the task they requested is a return to the C prompt.

Well, maybe that's too harsh. Dialogue boxes give us the security of telling us what we could logically assume if we actually used, you know, logic, and it would be cruel to remove that basic need for validation and positive reinforcement. People are so needy these days.

If I was a techie-type I would love to rig up a computer with sparks and smoke like they had on Star Trek: TOS just to watch the ensuing hysterics. But maybe I should make sure I already have a signed letter of reference before I did something like that. Bosses are notorious for frowning on innocent jokes that send everyone to the Resource Centre for counselling.

This post is dedicated to The Essay about whom I have thought with gratitude these past two days for already posting about back-ups and weird co-worker issues and gave me reason smile at the most inappropriate times.

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Feb. 21 - I'm running late, but wanted to pass a suggestion that people follow the link at Andrew Coyne's website and read his column.

Also, Iranian bloggers have continued to post as they await the results of yesterday's election.

Take care, I'll be checking in after dinner.

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Feb. 21 - Bob is paying some attention to a neighbour in trouble, Haiti, and analyzing why nobody is talking about it. Good read.

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Feb. 20 - I'm off to work, so don't forget to check Andrew Coyne for the latest news on Adscam (and don't forget to use "Adscam" in your post - google is up and running with it.)

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Feb. 19 - According to Russian Col.-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, the Russian military has successful tested a hypersonic missile that would be able to move too quickly and evasively to be stopped by a missile defense shield.

After assuring the world that they did not intend to use the missile against the US, the Russians said that the missile expired after the test, probably meaning that it burnt up in the atmosphere.

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Feb. 18 - Love Immortalized. Just go. You won't be disappointed.

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Feb. 18 - I've long meant to blog roll a fellow Torontonian, The Transplanted Texan (you should already know about me and my template issues) and now there's another point of convergence: an Ontarian who lives in Texas who wisely takes it One Day at a Time.

Texas is kind of like Manitoba: sometimes a southern state, and sometimes a western state. I like Texans any which way.

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Feb. 17 - Only Trudeaupia could have made this connection!

Hmm. A new arrangement was was recently signed between Liberia and the US which allows the US to board Liberian ships.

This has got to be fodder for some conspiracy theories.

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Feb. 17 - From a rough transcript of a panel discussion which included Norweigen Friends of America founder Fredrik K.R. Norman:

Knut Olsen: Is Bush worth dying for?

Fredrik K.R. Norman: Hopefully we won't have to die because of Bush. Hopefully, we also won't have to die because of Osama bin Laden, terrorists and tyrants -- and that's what the Americans are trying to save us from.

Knut Olsen: But is he worth fighting for?

Fredrik K.R. Norman: We should fight for ourselves and our own interests, and they are the same as American interests: liberty, democracy and human rights. This, we shall fight for, hopefully together with our allies.

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Feb. 15 - I'm off to work now. It's sunny outside, which means it's bitterly cold, but I keep telling myself it's colder just about everywhere else in Canada (even if doing so doesn't help a darned bit.)

Later . . .

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Feb. 15 - Anyone with an aging pet will sympathize (and maybe cry) over this post by Ith on her beloved cat (My Old Kangle).

We're here for you, Ith.

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Feb. 13 - I'm floudering here. I need to come up with a Filthy Lie about Evil Glenn's Movie Remake for The Alliance and my mind is blank.

There was a commercial recently which I only noticed because it featured the theme song (whistled) to the old TV show Lassie. I looked at the TV and it showed a collie walking with a blonde kid and I inadvertantly said aloud "That's not Timmy" which made everyone fall over laughing (they only know the expression "rescue Timmy from the well" but never realized there really was a Timmy. Hell, I remember when Jeff was Lassie's master!)

Ahem, getting back to the assignment, maybe my problem is that I really like dogs - real dogs, that is, not those ankle biting, yapping things who are only pretend dogs but real dogs like Rin-Tin-Tin, Bullet and Lassie. I should include London of The Littlest Hobo but he was more of the Touched By An Angel type (although he probably would go get help to rescue a kid in a well in a pinch.)

The most horrible thing I can think of, however, and the lie that would keep me up at night would be a re-make of the cartoon and sequel to the movie Scooby-Doo with the horrible, dreadful, show-killing Scrappy-Doo in it.

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Feb. 6 - I'm sorry about my absence yesterday, a minor crisis and major changes at work (don't the two always go hand in hand?) means my schedule will be somewhat erratic until Monday.

Check out the blogroll, there are some fine people there including some gems that have kept me sane!

Take care, and enjoy the weekend. (I know I won't! It really crimps my psyche when I can't post regularly, but sometimes you have to go above and beyond to keep that paycheque rolling in. Damned bills.)

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Feb. 3 - I wasn't going to post anything on the silly furor over the Super Bowl half-time show but I can't resist Chuck's take.

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Feb. 1 - Time to vote in The Truth Laid Bear: The New Weblog Showcase.

I'm voting for Ivy's discussion about Paired Things because the conversation about the poem could have taken place in my living room with my Mark who is wonderful but exasperatingly practical and because she was able to convey that beautifully. Good writing!

Next is Rasslin' Republicans' post (blogspotted, so Ctrl+F "constitutional amendment") on the much-discussed Constitutional Amendment to protect marriage because he makes some valid points in an unusual way, and although he touches on conservative concerns reaches the conclusion that marriage is not a governmental matter. I'm more inclined to allow each state to decide rather than remove any legal status for marriage and/or civil unions altogether, but the federal govenment most definitely has no jurisdiction in this matter so a constitutional amendment is wrong for constitutional reasons.

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Feb. 1 - Looks as though I'm the only person in the blogosphere who hasn't made a prediction for the Super Bowl, so here goes:

Pats will win 28-13.

Global TV will not show the same commercial over and over and over. They will show the same two commercials over and over and over . . .

The "surprise" guest during half-time will either be President Bush or Muhammed Ali.

If my predicted score is wrong and it looks to be a blow-out, I won't watch the 2nd half. Please let it be a game game!

I have laid no money on any of the above, which indicates how confident I am.

UPDATE: I was wrong on nearly every one of my predictions BUT I got my wish! It was indeed a game game.

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Feb. 1 - Michael Howard, leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, demands that 'isolated' Blair calls inquiry into intelligence on WMD.

That's the reaction not only in the UK but in the USA as well, but is it so in France and the UN? As it appears that everyone was fooled and the fooling was furthered by relying on reports from those fooled, I'm not sure inquiries country by country will actually lead to answers in how we had all been so fooled about the existence of stockpiles of WMD (and please remember, Kay's testimony before the recent Sentate Intelligence Committee concerned stockpiles as Kay's earlier report on WMD programs before a House committee made clear that those had not been abandoned) by the regime.

The NY Times covered many of the questions by committee members and noted the partisan nature of those questions, but even the Times article did not refer to Sen. Clinton's question as to whether continued inspections by the UN team would have produced the same results as Kay's, to which he adamantly responded No, because the people Kay's team interviewed would not have volunteeered the information so long as Saddam was in power and able to intimidate them because of his known fondness for shredding.

In many ways, the intelligence lapses before the war might finally put to rest the attitude that the USA is omnipotent, an attitude Americans don't share but others irrationally believe. Disagree? Then explain why anyone would be astonished that an incomplete set of dots combined with Saddam's refusal to cooperate with the UN teams resulted in an inaccurate assessment.

It's not a simple matter of 2 + 2 = 4, it's more a matter of 2 + x = y, and intelligence experts are expected to accurately ascertain the values of both x and y. People like me get to say "there's not enough information" and beg off, but the intelligence agencies in the world can either a) contract out to Wolfram & Hart and ask their psychics for help (gratuitous Angel reference) or b) they can take their best guess based on past experience with Saddam and Iraq's known weapons programs and stockpiles at the time of the 1991 ceasefire agreement.

There are two dangers in such intelligence lapses, of course: that we may inaccurately assess a threat to be more than it is or less than it is. As more information emerges about North Korea's aborted missile sale to Saddam, Pakistan's role in selling nuclear weaponry expertise, how advanced Iran's nuclear weaponry program is, and Libya's involvement in a weapon's program that circumvented detection by UN inspections, there is also a question as to whether their belief that Saddam had such weapons was a factor in their pursuit of WMD programs which would also justify one of the reasons for war: that Saddam posed a threat to his neighbours.

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