October 2005 Archives

... I just dropped in to make sure that Pandagon is still on the blogroll.

Yup. As it should be.

With the first Gomery shoe about to fall there will be intense interest in the extent to which the revelations effect voter intention. If the report is critical of Paul Martin, the opposition will most likely attempt to force a fall election although Martin has already put roadblocks in their way.

SES Research isn't the biggest or best known polling outfit in the country but they are one of the few who usually make details of their polling readily available. Thanks to Nik Nanos for making my life easier.

Via email from SES this morning:

In the lead up to the November 1st Gomery Report, SES Research is doing a special double national poll. To follow is our first wave of research (prior to Gomery - 1,000 Canadians completed last Thursday night). Post Gomery November 1st Report we will do another national survey with another group of 1,000 Canadians. This will give us a dead accurate read on the true impact of the Report. We will probably go back into the field for part two of the project about ten days out so that the situation can settle prior to our follow-up poll.

Numbers in the extended.

Addressing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, Condoleeza Rice "refused to rule out" the use of force against Syria but said the United States was still on a "diplomatic course."

That was the story that got the attention in most of the media sources. Then there's this op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

As I suspected six months ago, U.S. military and Bush administration civilian officials confirmed last week that U.S. forces have invaded Syria and engaged in combat with Syrian forces.

An unknown number of Syrians are acknowledged to have been killed; the number of Americans -- if any -- who have died in Syria so far has not yet been revealed by the U.S. sources, who by the way insist on remaining faceless and nameless.

Who do we believe? The American Secretary of State or an associate editor with a Pittsburgh newspaper quoting anonymous sources? My money's on the latter and not just because it's the Bush administration. I'm old enough to have seen this play out before.

Damn.

That report on Rice's comments included this:

Rice declined to say whether the president would present any plans to Congress before launching military action against Syria, saying she did not want to circumscribe his powers.

Another report on Rice's comments adds this:

Asked whether the U.S. would have troops in Iraq in five years or 10 years, Rice said: "`I think that even to try and speculate on how many years from now there will be a certain number of American forces is not appropriate.''

Damn.

Since I touted Pandemic Flu Awareness Week and then managed to be AWOL for the whole thing, I thought I'd pin this up.

Canada not immune if flu mutates

There would be no way to keep the bird flu out of Canada if it mutates into a strain that transmits easily to humans, Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh predicted Sunday.

"I think that it would be next to impossible to prevent this from spreading if it does mutate, if it does become easily transmissible from human to human, or birds to humans," Dosanjh said.

The health minister did not estimate the potential number of deaths in Canada.
...
Dosanjh also challenged scientific reports that question the effectiveness of the antiviral pill Tamiflu, which Canada and other countries are stockpiling to combat a possible flu pandemic.

"That's really not true," Dosanjh said. "We know about the studies . . . but the best evidence shows there is some resistance, on some individuals it may not work, but this is by far the best available antiviral drug we have."

The journal Nature will publish a study this week showing that a bird flu virus that infected a Vietnamese girl is resistant to Tamiflu.

Dosanjh, speaking on CTV's Question Period, cited World Health Organization studies showing Tamiflu is the best antiviral drug on the market.

Canada has stocked up to 16 million doses of the pill -- enough to treat seniors and other vulnerable groups, Dosanjh said.

The minister's TV interview came a day after tests confirmed the presence of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in three dead ducks in Romania, marking the first time the virus has been found in mainland Europe.
...
He added that Canada is well prepared for a pandemic compared to other countries and that the United States is seeking Canada's advice on how to craft a plan.

Among other things, the federal government is getting in touch with businesses across the country to make sure they are prepared in the event of a pandemic, Dosanjh said.

We're now running Movable Type 3.2. There are a bunch of new features to explore -- which I haven't done yet -- but the basics seem to be working. I can post. And comments are working again so feel free.

If you bump into anything strange, there's an email link at the top right.

Since we seem to have some incompatibility with the new server, I'm going to tackle that Movable Type upgrade I've been putting off for so long. Posting may be light -- as in nonexistent -- for a bit.

Please don't try and comment. It causes Perl to do a core dump and eats up all our disk space.

Who knows? If I can pull this off I may even start posting about politics again.

[Note: This was actually posted by mahigan but it was lost in a move to a new server. Apologies to those whose comments were lost. I was a little slow off the mark on this one. - pogge]

This showed up in one of those endlessly forwarded things people keep sending me. I normally wouldn't post it but it seemed to explain a lot of things.

On the first day, God created the dog and said: "Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years."
The dog said: "That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?"

So God agreed.

On the second day, God created the monkey and said: "Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span."
The monkey said: "Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the Dog did?"

And God agreed.

On the third day, God created the cow and said: "You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years."
The cow said: "That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?"

And God agreed again.

On the fourth day, God created man and said: "Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you twenty years."
But man said: "Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?"

"Okay," said God, "You asked for it."

So that is why the first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you.

Judging by all the noise lately, a lot of us must be working on the last ten years.

Scott Tribe is virtually foaming at the mouth because the Right Whiners in the Canadian blogosphere are foregoing Robert McClelland's Canadian Blog Awards to throw a party of their own. Chill out folks.

For the record, I appreciate Robert's efforts. He has done as much as anyone else in the country to promote Canadian blogging. That is inarguable regardless of how you feel about his style or politics.

I was nominated for a Canadian Blog Award last year. While I didn't take it that seriously, it was nice to know that a few people appreciate what I do and it did help boost site traffic. However, when the smoke clears, win or lose, blog awards or no blog awards, the sun will still rise in the east.

The decision by the Canadian Right Whiners to throw their own party should be taken for exactly what it is - an acknowledgement on their part that they are as intellectually bankrupt as their American brethren. Golly gee whiz gosh. A bunch of pseudo libertarians have decided to have a private group dry hump over at Small Dead Assholes. Why on earth would any of the rest of us give a damn?

The Republican Lite Brigade has nothing of value to offer. All they have done now is admit publicly what we already knew.

Move on. There is still much work to be done and the hour is getting late. And we all have more useful and productive things to do than concern ourselves with what the Whiners are doing.