test blog #10

If anyone has any info for "BS" from the US, she would be most appreciative. Email copied with her permission. ...we both have massive student loan debt to pay off. Our main concern is that my boyfriend owes much more than I do and his deferment period will end around the time that we expect to move to Toronto. He has also exhausted the income sensitive repayment period that is allowed on his loans. It's a long story, but he basically consolidated his undergrad and graduate school loans at a time when the interest rate was exceptionally high, so now the amount that he owes is more than double the original loan amount and we're worried that he won't be able to make the regular payments. It's going to be a tough situation, since neither of us make a lot of money and then there's the exchange rate to consider. We're not flakes and don't want to come off that way, but we need to know what the reality is going to be if he can't pay off his loans and...

Getting on with a little backlog of topics I wanted to blog about... I was pleased and relieved that Stephen Harper, on behalf of the Canadian government, finally apologized to Maher Arar. But when I read the actual text of the apology, I was disappointed - and annoyed. "On behalf of the government of Canada, I wish to apologize to you, Monia Mazigh and your family for any role Canadian officials may have played in the terrible ordeal that all of you experienced in 2002 and 2003. Although these events occurred under the last government, please rest assured that this government will do everything in its power to ensure that the issues raised by Commissioner O'Connor are addressed. I trust, having arrived at a negotiated settlement, we have ensured that fair compensation will be paid to you and your family. I sincerely hope that these words and actions will assist you and your family in your efforts to begin a new and hopeful chapter in your lives." "...for any role ...

Did you see this? New excavations near Stonehenge have uncovered hearths, timbers and other remains of what archaeologists say was probably the village of workers who erected the monoliths on Salisbury Plain in England. The archaeologists announced yesterday that the 4,600-year-old ruins appear to form the largest Neolithic village ever found in Britain. The houses at the site known as Durrington Walls were constructed in the same period that Stonehenge, less than two miles away, was built as a religious center, presumably for worshipers of the sun and for their ancestors. Mike Parker Pearson, a leader of the excavations from the University of Sheffield, said the discoveries last summer supported the emerging recognition that the ring of standing stones and earthworks at Stonehenge was part of a much larger religious complex. In a telephone conference conducted by the National Geographic Society, Dr. Parker Pearson said a circle of ditches and earthen banks at Durrington Walls enclosed...

Everyone is sleeping - Allan in bed, Cody on her mat next to the bed, and Tala in her crate in the middle of the bedroom. But I must have had too much coffee yesterday, 'cause I'm wide awake. What better time to get caught up than 3:15 a.m. Yesterday was exhausting, but very joyous. I had an early-morning appointment, then we hit the road. Cody was in the back seat, of course. We were very fortunate with the weather - since we were driving into western New York State, serious snow country, it could have been an issue, but we only saw some flurries, and mostly it was clear. It's about three hours from our place to Churchville, New York. We met the trainer at the Husky Rescue house, and let Cody and Tala run around in the backyard together. Cody was wary, as she always is with dogs she doesn't know. But it gave them a chance to smell each other and for Cody to feel a tiny bit more comfortable. The trainer, who has also been Tala's foster mom for three months, demonstr...

...try logging in first. Sign in to Blogger before you try to post anything. It seems to alleviate a lot of annoyances, such as invisible word verifications.

We're off to Rochester to pick up Tala ! Her foster mom tells me Tala is bouncing off the walls. She was recently spayed, then had a post-operative infection, and hasn't been able to run around and play in a week. We might be in a for a shock - it's been a long time since we've had a hyperactive puppy around here. We can't wait!

And so the saga concludes. After all this back here , I realized one more thing ( here ). No choice was perfect, but at this point I saw that Blogger was now the choice with the least negatives. However... Blogger, as usual, has announced a new feature that they aren't really ready for, and don't fully support. If you are trying to use New Blogger with your own domain name, the instructions are here . But they don't work. First I had the usual tremendously frustrating experience trying to get good information from the Blogger Help Group. Some of the volunteers are patient and persistent, but, as they themselves admit, they're only guessing, learning as much from your experience as anything else. I got some blatantly wrong information - at one point someone told me I could either publish to www.wmtc.ca or wmtc.ca but not both! - plus there's a huge lag time between call and response. Eventually I gave up. I then worked with tech support from my DNS server, et voila!...

This blog is driving me insane. Insane, I tell you. If you're reading this, then hopefully everything is updated and I can soon upload the new design. This is not the new design. This is a plain white template with a few tweaks. If I had to look at the old design one more day, I would go even more insane. Insanier. I've got several posts in the works, but I'll give you a break while you catch up on previously invisible posts.

Joni Mitchell will be inducted in the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame today. Although this Hall of Fame is only four years old, I'd say this honour is way overdue. Joni Mitchell is my idol. That doesn't mean I love all her music, although I do love a surprising amount of it, considering what a long and varied career she's had. I've listened to Mitchell since I was 11 years old, when my older sister fell in love with Blue . Often when Mitchell would try something new, I wouldn't understand it or care for it at first, only to find that in years to come, it became a staple of my collection. But my love for Joni Mitchell - bordering on hero worship, I'll admit - centres on much more than her songwriting or musical talents, prodigious though they are. As I grew into young adulthood listening to and reading about her, Joni Mitchell became a model to me, as a woman and an artist. Her insistence on living her life on her own terms, and on creating what she wanted, wi...

Thank you, Thomas Walkom. U.S. security trumps freedom by Thomas Walkom Ottawa's decision to compensate Canadian Maher Arar for its role in his unlawful imprisonment and torture contains a warning and a lesson. The warning is that Canada and the U.S. are on fundamentally different paths when it comes to matters of terrorism and human rights. The lesson is that until Ottawa gets more aggressive with our friends in the war on terror, a Canadian passport won't mean much. First the warning. The U.S. has chosen to subordinate the principles of individual freedom to what it sees as its security needs. It jails people indefinitely without charge, utilizes interrogation methods that the United Nations describes as torture, wages illegal wars and commits the very crimes against humanity it once helped to prosecute. For America's friends, this is heartbreaking to watch. At first, the Canadian government tried to skate by this new troubling reality. It refused to give unqualified supp...

Allan changed into warm clothes, and we went straight to breakfast. After a lot of good food, we bundled up again. This week, every time I stepped outside, I remembered how much I love the cold, and love winter. I have no tolerance for heat and humidity. In the summer, I'm ready to collapse five minutes after walking outside. But winter! As long as I'm dressed for it, I love the bracing cold air, and how alive it makes me feel. We were just as excited about our plans for that morning as we were about the Ice Hotel: dog sledding! We had booked the longest trip that was available through the Auberge, 90 minutes. There was only one other couple on our trip, plus a guide with a team at the front, and one at the back - four teams total. Once the sleds come out, all the dogs in the kennel go crazy, barking and jumping, hoping it's their turn to go. The sleds have to be anchored in, or the dogs would take off and never be seen again. While they're being harnessed and readied,...

We had a relaxing drive through eastern Ontario, then north to Quebec. We haven't seen much of Ontario before. The farmland looks beautiful in winter. It looks just like my native New York State, which makes sense, since it's pretty much the same land mass. Because we work late on Sunday nights, we couldn't get a very early start on Monday, so we decided not to make the whole drive in one day. We made it past Montreal, then stopped north of the city in a town called Berthiersville, because we saw a sign for a motel right off the highway. We had a comfy night and an early start the next day. We've been in Montreal many times, but we've never driven elsewhere in the province of Quebec. Looking at the map, we were amazed at how much of Quebec is national park or wilderness area. (We will definitely make a trip to see the Old City of Quebec, as well as to Ottawa.) We passed frozen streams, rivers and lakes, and saw a long line of ice fishing shanties stretched out on on...

Tomorrow is the big March on Washington to demand an end to the war on Iraq. If you can go, please do. You'll be glad you did. If you can't attend, find out what you can do to support the peace movement.

We're back! I have three quick things to say, and I'll blog more either tomorrow, if work permits, or Saturday if it does not. 1. It was fabulous. I love winter, I love Quebec, we loved the Ice Hotel and the whole experience. 2. We've learned that Rogers will have the rights to the MLB Extra Innings package. We are beside ourselves with joy. I noticed there are many comments in that thread, including several from Scott M, so I'm guessing you all knew this before we did. (Allan came home to an email from another Canadian Sox fan.) I'll read and reply to comments tomorrow. We'll also continue to fight the fight for everyone else affected by this craziness. 3. In the car on the way to Quebec, I realized the main reason that WordPress software won't work for me: in that scenario, I could only blog from my own computer. No good. I blog from work at least three times a week, and I need the ability to blog while travelling. Being able to blog only from home is an a...

We're off to Quebec and the Ice Hotel ! Back on Thursday. Love to all.

I am pro-choice because I am a human being. I am pro-choice because I deserve control over my body. I am pro-choice because without reproductive freedom, women are slaves. I am pro-choice because I know the difference between a baby and a blob of cells. I am pro-choice because no government has the right of absolute control. The government's rights stop where my body begins. Celebrate Roe: Celebrate Freedom.

I love this video! Many thanks to James for sending it to me. Watch and enjoy. Envious?? Who, me???

Tell the world why you're pro-choice.

When this blog was first getting off the ground, and especially after the 2004 "election," it was beseiged by angry wingnuts. One of the things they seemed to enjoy was displaying their utter ignorance of Canada. I don't mean the usual ignorance of geography or weather. Memorable lines included "Enjoy being taxed to death!", "If you live in Montreal, don't expect your children to learn English," and "I hope you're never sick, because you'll die waiting to see a doctor." Hey, it's all back there in the archives somewhere. As the man said, you could look it up. One Mensa candidate claimed that we best not say anything bad about the Queen: "they" would knock on our door in the middle of the night and drag us away. I thought of that when I read this story, sent to me by you-know-who . An elderly man who wrote in a letter to the editor about Saddam Hussein's execution that "they hanged the wrong man" got a v...

I feel like I've been put through the wringer trying to figure out what to do about this blog. Now there's yet another variable in the mix, and it kind of forces my hand. The story thus far: 1. I got my own URL, and decided to redesign the site. 2. I thought I should first upgrade to Blogger Beta before redesigning, so I waited (and waited) for Beta to accommodate non-blogspot addresses. 3. Blogger's upgrade finally accommodated non-blogspot addresses, and at the same time came out of Beta. 4. I upgraded, and learned that non-blogspot addresses don't get any of the cool new features of the upgrade! In addition, I can't update on the fly. I'm still watching the dreaded spinner of death . 5. After some investigation, I decide to bring my blog to WordPress. All the neat features that are new to Blogger have been standard on WordPress all along, plus many others that really fun. Through domain mapping, I can use my own URL. In addition, they have actual support - re...

Here we are counting days until pitchers and catchers report, only to learn that we probably won't be able to watch the Red Sox - or any other out-of-town team - on TV this year. Because once again, Major League Baseball is screwing over the fans. From the New York Times via Joy of Sox : Major League Baseball is close to announcing a deal that will place its Extra Innings package of out-of-market games exclusively on DirecTV, which will also become the only carrier of a long-planned 24-hour baseball channel. Extra Innings has been available to 75 million cable households and the two satellite services, DirecTV and the Dish Network. But the new agreement will take it off cable and Dish because DirecTV has agreed to pay $700 million over seven years, according to three executives briefed on the details of the contract but not authorized to speak about them publicly. InDemand, which has distributed Extra Innings to the cable television industry since 2002, made an estimated $70 mill...

The Star's Thomas Walkom grinds the Deep Integration gears. He's right. This really pisses me off. Canada still lets U.S. laws apply here Royal Bank case this week just the latest example Thomas Walkom Here's what I don't understand. I don't understand why companies that operate in Canada are allowed to flout Canadian laws. I don't get why, when Canadian laws interfere with U.S. ones, the latter take precedence. Here. In Canada. I understand why the federal government lets this happen. It doesn't like to rock the boat when it comes to dealing with Washington. But I really don't understand why more Canadians aren't outraged that their own government is so cavalier about the centrepiece of any country's claim to independence – its right to legislate in its own territory. The problem is ongoing. The latest example came to light just this week after the Royal Bank refused to let a Canadian citizen open a U.S.-dollar bank account in one of its Montr...

Last week, the US military court that will try Lt. Ehren Watada ruled that no arguments about the illegality of the war on Iraq will be admitted at the court martial. Nearly two weeks after hearing arguments in the January 4 pre-trial phase of Lt. Ehren Watada's court martial for refusing to deploy to Iraq, and explaining his refusal to the press, military circuit judge Lt. Col. John M. Head today issued brief, tersely worded rulings January 16, 2007. In summation, "The defense motion for a hearing on the "“Nuremburg defense" is DENIED. The government motion to prevent the defense from presenting evidence on the legality of the war is GRANTED." The defense motion to dismiss the four political speech charges was also "DENIED." In response, a group of activists have organized a citizen's war tribunal. The Citizens' Hearing will function as a tribunal to put the Iraq War on trial, in response to the Army putting Lt. Watada on trial as the first ...

This is such a bizarre Canadian coincidence that I have to pull it out of comments and give it a post of its own. In comments here, friend of wmtc Impudent Strumpet had a really creative idea of what to do with one of these spy coins. ( Alleged spy coins, that is.) I don't know what to think about it as a spy theory, but I think it would make for a brilliant piece of art. Put a transmitter in a coin, track the coin's journey through the economy, set up a website with streaming where you can listen to what the coin "hears"... ImpStrump's idea reminded me of a movie that I saw in 6th grade - and never forgot. When you were in grade school, did you see a movie about a miniature wooden kayak with a little carved in it? A boy puts it in a stream, or maybe in some snow melt on a mountain...? Anyone know what I'm talking about? . . . . Here's what I remember. Someone carves a little man in a canoe or kayak, and sets it in a stream or maybe some snow melt. T...

This is so bizarre, I hesitated to blog about it, thinking it might be a hoax. There appears to be some validity to it - but I still have no idea what to make of it. From an AP Story, via Lawyers, Guns and Money , sent to me by fellow political expatriate Diamond Jim . In a U.S. government warning high on the creepiness scale, the Defense Department cautioned its American contractors over what it described as a new espionage threat: Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden inside. The government said the mysterious coins were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada. Intelligence and technology experts said such transmitters, if they exist, could be used to surreptitiously track the movements of people carrying the spy coins. The U.S. report doesn't suggest who might be tracking American defense contractors or why. It...

This seems like the complete wrong direction. The U.S. wants Canada to dramatically expand its oil exports from the Alberta oilsands, a move that could have major implications on the environment. U.S.and Canadian oil executives and government officials met for a two-day oil summit in Houston in January 2006 and made plans for a "fivefold expansion" in oilsands production in a relatively "short time span," according to minutes of the meeting obtained by the CBC's French-language network, Radio-Canada. The meeting was organized by Natural Resources Canada and the U.S. Department of Energy. Canada is already the top exporter of oil to the American market, exporting the equivalent of one million barrels a day — the exact amount that the oilsands industry in Alberta currently produces. A fivefold increase would mean the exportation of five million barrels a day, which would supply a quarter of current American consumption and add up to almost half of all U.S. imports...

I'm rethinking my absolute opposition to the death penalty. I'm pretty sure that anyone walking around with one of these should be shot. Preferably on sight.

Allan's plan to foil Zip's bad service worked. I deleted all but the top five movies in our ZipList (keeping a list of the titles, of course), and they finally sent my #1: "An Inconvenient Truth". I just got the email saying it's been shipped. Yes, believe it or not, I haven't seen "An Inconvenient Truth" yet, because I was waiting for the DVD, then waiting for Zip. Unfortunately, we'll be working when it comes, then we're away next week . But it will be here waiting for us. This doesn't solve the problem with Zip, but at least we'll get the movies we want before baseball season starts.

Did you know that unpiloted surveillance aircraft will soon be patrolling the Canadian-US border? Now doesn't that make you feel safer? The United States government is poised to begin flying unmanned surveillance aircraft along the Canadian border, using Grand Forks as the takeoff point for the robot-controlled flights. Before September, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an arm of the federal Department of Homeland Security, will start sending propeller-driven drones called Predators into American airspace. At first one drone, with more to follow, will span much of the 8,900-kilometre frontier Canada and the U.S. share between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Never before has the U.S. kept such a close watch over its northern boundary. The move is a response to growing American fears that the entry of even one potential terrorist through Canada could have serious consequences, said Scott Baker. He took over last Friday as Chief Patrol Agent of Customs and Border Protection in Gr...

Want to learn something about the state of the US media brain trust? This is some seriously eye-opening stuff. Read about war profiteers Thomas Friedman , Peter Beinart , Fareed Zakaria and Jeffrey Goldberg : punditry gone awry. Since among this group, I loathe him the most, I will feature an excerpt about Tommy F of the New York Times : GETTING RICH BY BEING WRONG: Tom Friedman Pre-war position: Re-reading Friedman's columns from the six months or so prior to the invasion of Iraq can induce vertigo. Unlike many of his hawkish colleagues, he grokked all the vital details of the situation. He understood that there were alternatives to war ("Bottom line: Iraq is a war of choice"). He understood that the WMD casus belli was for the most part a convenient line (cautioning that it was merely the "stated reason" for the war, and early on calling out Bush and Blair for "hyping" the evidence). He took a shine to the idea of regime change, but seemed clear-si...

On the CBC website, there's a good overview feature about depression . One statistic that I question is that women are twice as likely to suffer from depression as men. Perhaps. But perhaps men are under-diagnosed, because it is less socially acceptable for men to seek help for depression. Also, depression often manifests itself differently in men than in women. Where women are more likely to feel sadness and grief, depression in men is often characterized by anger and irritability. Those symptoms may be less recognized as depression, and thought of more as personality traits. I detest the characterization of anti-depressant medications as "happy pills" that are over-prescribed to anyone who feels a little down. For any over-prescribing that's out there (and what drug doesn't have some of that?), there are so many more people whose lives could be greatly improved by anti-depressants, but who feel they must "tough it out". I've seen such positive, lif...

Mississauga is such a nice place to live, in so many ways. Visually and esthetically, it's not much to look at. And I wouldn't want to try to live out here without a car. But if you want to live in the suburbs, Mississauga has so much to recommend it. It's affordable, thanks to Mayor Hazel McCallion's plan of attracting corporate headquarters and keeping taxes low. I'm told that in the eastern suburbs, such as Ajax and Whitby, homeowners pay three times the taxes as Mississauga homeowners do for comparable properties. Mississauga is debt-free - and always has been. Mississauga is extremely diverse, even for the already diverse GTA. According to Wikipedia , more than 45% of the population speaks a language other than English; more than 46% were not born in Canada. Take a stroll down our beautiful section of Waterfront Trail or shop in any mall, and you'll see large numbers of Chinese and South Asian people, and hear Polish, Portuguese, Italian, and other Europ...