My blog would be incomplete without mentioning that my niece and friend, Fatema, is getting married tomorrow.This is only my second brush with the Chicken Death. Seven years ago I enjoyed a wonderful meal (Quarter-chicken-dinner (white meat) with fries....and that gravy....yum yum!) on a summer afternoon in a park. And the very next day...as you used to say, "nausea, nausea, puke, puke."
I must have shit myself at least 16-17 times in a matter of a few hours. And while I sat (or should I say shat) I also puked into a bucket. My knees were sore from resting my elbows while I sat on my seat and held my head in my hands and my back and stomach muscles were so tight I had to have a narcotic at North York General Hospital to relieve the pain. Which, by the way, I happened to have gotten to in an ambulance.
Fucking Swiss Chalet!
By the way, the Festive Special is on again and they are offering Lindt chocolates instead of Toblerone. I believe Lindt is Swiss for stool softener.
Then again, unseasonable weather shouldn't always be chalked up to climate change. Maybe it was just an unusually warm November; after all, when you blame every quirk of weather on carbon emissions, the argument loses is punch over time. Scientists get pissed when people hysterically shout "Katrina! Katrina! Global warming!", and then don't do a damn thing.
Still. It's a lot like having an aging relative who may or may not be entering a state of dementia. When your doddering old Aunt Jessie forgets to pick up the pickle loaf at the store, maybe it just slipped her mind. Maybe it's just her eccentric personality (it was always eccentric, remember?). But, it's hard not to interpret every previously innocuous quirk of behavior -- every too-temperate fall day -- as ominous signs of imminent Alzheimer's.
Now imagine that once dementia DOES kick in for Aunt Jessie, she's going to trigger regional wars, cause massive famines, and permanently destroy entire ecosystems. Easy there, Aunt Jessie!
Also, go read this: Crazy Aunt Purl. Her tag line is, "The true-life diary of a thirty-something, newly divorced, displaced Southern obsessive-compulsive knitter who has four cats. (Because nothing is sexier than a divorced woman with four cats)." Å published author too!
My dad recently replaced his old Mac with a new "all in one" 2.4 ghz iMac, with a 20 inch flat screen. Drool, drool.
Am I just idly curious or just idle? Is the constant need to read an indication that I am, perhaps, avoiding something in my life? I do know that I would like nothing more than to spend my days sitting in a library getting to know a subject - any subject - thoroughly. Ahh, research and synthesis. Hunting and gathering.Patriotism may indeed be, as Dr. Johnson said, “the last refuge of a scoundrel,” but it’s also the tyrant’s first resort. People afraid of outsiders are easily manipulated. The warrior caste, supposedly society’s protectors, often become protection racketeers. In times of war or crisis, power is easily stolen from the many by the few on a promise of security. The more elusive or imaginary the foe, the better for manufacturing consent. The inquisition did a roaring trade against the Devil. And the twentieth century’s struggle between capitalism and communism had all the hallmarks of the old religious wars. Was defending either system really worth the risk of blowing up the world?
Now we are losing hard-won freedoms on the pretext of a worldwide “war on terror,” as if terrorism were something new.
I am currently reading "A Short History of Progress," by Ronald Wright.In A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright argues that our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we have participated in but seldom controlled. Only by understanding the patterns of triumph and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we recognize the experiment's inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.
I first noticed Fouad Ajami during the Iranian Revolution. (Wikipedia also carries an extensive article on Ajami). He was a mainstay on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather at the time.
Ajami is eloquent, sharp, incisive and learned. His opinion cannot be ignored, but lately I have come to have my doubts about the Lebanese-born American university professor. He is a staunch supporter of the Bush presidency and its hawkish agenda. To get a taste of his lyrical writing style read his tribute to Bernard Lewis in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal.
Now I come upon an article on the Foreign Affairs web-site entitled, "The Falseness of Anti-Americanism." You may have to register to view this article for free or you can go to the"wired new york" web-site for a copy of the same article.
This article highlights for me the ridiculous lengths to which Ajami seems to go to interpret almost all American actions as benign. Is it any wonder that he is the darling of the Bush administration. "Condoleezza Rice has been known to summon him to the White House for advice." "(Wikipedia)"
Like him or not I just can't help reading his stuff. Judge for yourself.
Ajami's treatment of anti-Americanism is strikingly dismissive; he sees it as a kind of pathology, the perverse irrationalism of a perverse people who cannot recognize that the foreigner has offered a real gift. Anti-Americanism is a complex phenomenon, but it does not rise out of nothing, and it surely merits a more searching treatment than it receives here.
And not craving it!
The swarm of cameras following Monica Lewinsky on her progress through a Washington airport or a New York restaurant wouldn't have surprised the Roman mob familiar with the expensive claques traipsing after the magnificence of the Emperor Nero, their eager and well-fed sycophancy presumably equivalent to the breathless enthusiasms of Barbara Walters.
Khartoum - which had announced with much fanfare a unilateral ceasefire when talks opened on October 27 - launched the very next day what may be a final solution to its Darfur problem: the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and journalists in the region are all reporting Khartoum’s assaults on camps for displaced persons, including violent relocation of civilians to insecure areas
....
But the real reason for the failure in Sirte is that neither the UN nor the AU is willing to confront Khartoum with meaningful consequences for its serial violation of UN resolutions and its continuing obstruction of humanitarian aid and the deployment of the hybrid UN/AU peace support operation authorized by the security council in July. Nor has Khartoum paid a price for its systematic reneging on the north/south comprehensive peace agreement of January 2005.
I'm one of those guys who wouldn't survive a day in basic training; I'm just not built for the physical brutality and the Cro-Magnon mentality necessary to get through something like that. Nevertheless, one of the things I love to read about is the on-the-ground, first hand accounts of the vagaries of people in extremis. And war, Vietnam, WW II and the invasion of Iraq are just that: people in extremis, systems running amok and most of all, survival of the fittest and the pathos of the not so fit.
If only I could hire a guy named Jeeves to help me clean out and organize the damn garage!
Yosemite Sam is the nickname given by DXers to a mysterious station that first surfaced on December 19, 2004. It transmits on several shortwave frequencies in dual side band: 3700 kHz, 4300 kHz, 6500 kHz, and 10500 kHz.
What a difference a sad event in someone's life makes.

Isn't it amazing that George Carlin, whose wife recently died, could write something so very eloquent...and so very appropriate.
A Message by George Carlin:
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion , big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...
Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.
Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.
Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.
Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partn er and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.
Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
If you don't send this to at least 8 people....Who cares?
George Carlin
Floating around the Internet these days, posted and e-mailed back and forth, are a number of writings attributed to me, and I want people to know they're not mine. Don't blame me.
Some are essay-length, some are just short lists of one and two-line jokes, but if they're flyin' around the Internet, they're probably not mine. Occasionally, a couple of jokes on a long list might have come from me, but not often. And because most of this stuff is really lame, it's embarrassing to see my name on it.
And that's the problem. I want people to know that I take care with my writing, and try to keep my standards high. But most of this "humor" on the Internet is just plain stupid. I guess hard-core fans who follow my stuff closely would be able to spot the fake stuff, because the tone of voice is so different. But a casual fan has no way of knowing, and it bothers me that some people might believe I'd actually be capable of writing some of this stuff.
"PARADOX OF OUR TIME"
One of the more embarrassing items making the internet/e-mail rounds is a sappy load of shit called "The Paradox of Our Time." The main problem I have with it is that as true as some of the expressed sentiments may be, who really gives a shit? Certainly not me.
"In 1975, Angola was tumbling into pandemonium; everyone who could was packing crates, desperate to abandon the beleaguered colony. With his trademark bravura, Ryszard Kapuscinski went the other way, begging his was from Lisbon and comfort to Luanda—once famed as Africa's Rio de Janeiro—and chaos.
On Sept. 24, Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University where the school's head, Lee Bollinger introduced the visitor: 'The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -- if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. `Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' '' -- from 1984 by George Orwell
''I'm here to tell you we're going to stay the course.'' -- George W. Bush, Nov. 28, 2003
``. . . We've got to stay the course, and we will stay the course . . .'' -- George W. Bush, April 5, 2004
''The United States of America will stay the course . . .'' -- George W. Bush, Nov. 21, 2004
''We will stay the course; we will complete the job in Iraq.'' -- George W. Bush, Aug. 4, 2005
''We will stay the course; we will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed.'' -- George W. Bush, Aug. 31, 2006
``Listen, we've never been stay the course . . .'' -- George W. Bush, Oct. 22, 2006
Ahem.
''Orwellian'' is a word you toss out to prove you stayed awake in freshman English. Often, it is used to evoke a world in which all people are always under surveillance, as was the case in the totalitarian state George Orwell depicted in 1984, his 1949 masterpiece. But as you know if you read the book, surveillance wasn't the most chilling aspect of the world Orwell foresaw.
No, the thing about that world that made your skin creep on your bones was the shameless intellectual dishonesty of its leaders, the brazen way they savaged objective truth and dared anyone to call them on it. Nobody did. The people simply accepted what they were told.
In the world Orwell invented, words had no objective meaning beyond that assigned to them by the Party, whose slogans, not incidentally, were, ''War is Peace,'' ''Freedom is Slavery'' and ''Ignorance is Strength.'' In that world, there was no past -- or rather, the past was what the leaders said it was, and it was a waste of time to check for yourself, because all books, newspapers and other records were constantly being updated to reflect whatever the new reality was.
Thus, ''Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia.'' Much as we now learn that the Bush administration's policy toward Iraq has ''never been stay the course.'' And never mind that the president and his henchmen have spent three years pounding that phrase like nails into the public consciousness.
''Stay the course'' doesn't work anymore, not with most of the nation united against the war, so the White House announced last week that the phrase would no longer be used. That's their prerogative. But it's quite a leap from won't be used to never has been used.
So did we dream these last three years? Is ''stay the course'' just something we mumbled in our collective sleep as we twisted in our collective sheets? Or do we learn something here about the administration's level of respect for our collective intelligence?
It is not, by now, surprising that the president and his surrogates rewrite the past. We've seen that before, after all. Seen it with John Kerry the war hero ''traitor,'' with John Murtha the Marine ''coward.'' Saw it with WMD, which, it turned out, were not the reason we invaded Iraq. (Where'd we ever get that idea?) What's painful, though, is that we see it so quietly, see it, as the citizens of 1984 did, with apparent acceptance.
The truth is being stolen right before our eyes. Yet there are no mass demonstrations at the executive mansion. There are not a million headlines saying, ``Wait Just A Bleeping Minute!''
''We've never been stay the course,'' he says. Oh, we say.
To which I can only add that war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. And Orwell was off by only 22 years.
"Writing his first novel from the point of view of an autistic 15-year-old, Mark Haddon takes the reader into the chaos of autism and creates a character of such empathy that many readers will begin to feel for the first time what it is like to live a life in which there are no filters to eliminate or order the millions of pieces of information that come to us through our senses every instant of the day."
Ban told a news conference that he was "very much concerned" at the recurrence of violence in Darfur.
In a statement Monday (September 17, 2007), Ban said he was "alarmed" that the reported attacks took place after the Sudanese government said in a joint communique during his recent visit that it was committed to a ceasefire in the run-up to the new negotiations.
"You can anticipate being let down by everyone on whom you depend for support, be that troops, funding, logistics or political engagement....Only by shining a spotlight on those failures in every possible way can you mobilise the attention necessary to get the action you need. Bear in mind that whoever fails you will, in the end, be the most active in blaming you for whatever goes wrong."
Craig has spent his career vilifying homosexuals. I wonder why.
An embarrassing 1996 study (thanks, Toronto Star) suggests there may be a reason for this. The study, which measured men's sexual arousal, showed that homophobic males were aroused by explicit homosexual images, while non-homophobic men were not. Which suggests that men who are unhappy with their own homosexual urges go into a full-throttle flaps-down denial by persecuting men who are like them.
If you’ve spent a lot of physical time and psychic energy trying to overcome your weight problem. If you have been on the diet roller-coaster than this site could be for you. The company, appropriately named Journeylite, applies a concrete solution to what can become a psychologically and physically draining.
A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, "Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like." The Lord led the holy man to two doors. 
Gleaned from Dung Corps PR material written by Sgt. Pratap Singh Tatiwala:
I am still waiting to hear from HR regarding the position I interviewed for. They still have to do another interview (scheduled for next week)and will let me know sometime next week if I passed the audition.
Hey kids! Here's my latest get rich scheme…wait! Before you go running off…please know that this scheme does not involve any day surgery, nor do you have to donate any specimen or bodily fluids in a transparent container. Nope. All you have to do is blog. That’s right, just blog.
Water is an essential resource for life on this planet. Unfortunately, half the world has not enough of it and things are about to get worse.
Hey, Kids! I really think I nailed the interview today. It just remains to be seen what the competition is like on the job posting. Thanks to all of you for your support and handy tid-bits of information regarding the LHINs and general encouragement. 
Yah, so I apply to this job posting for a coordinator (supervisor) type job. Ostensibly, I would be doing the following: community engagement, capacity and team building, primary health care relationship development, outreach and liaise with community stakeholders.
