Mom, lookit the piggies!
2005-10-15— Posted by: allegra
Awake
2005-10-15— Posted by: allegra
I try to write satire, but reality is always three steps ahead of me. Paddy Chayefsky ran “Network” for a bunch of college students recently. When nobody laughed, he realized that they weren’t seeing it as satire. This is the kind of news that makes old farts like me… I’m 47 next month …. desperate for something cheerful on the horizon. Lucky for me there is. My cousin Darcy had a baby, which made my family bigger, and I have friends and relatives who really love me, despite the fact that I’m just plain crabby.
Hung out with Mike and Tori last night, watching movies and eating pizza. Very much like the Friday Night Veg-in of my youth.
When I was a child/teen, and my father bought the first videotape machine that any of us had ever seen, my mother and her two best buddies from work and me and Jeff and my dad and any house guests we had, like Leo or Ron, would sit around and watch a movie on Friday night, because we were all so beat from work or school that week that we weren’t up for anything more dramatic. I was weaned away from live TV in the process. I haven’t really watched much live tv since I left home.
Katie was up all night. Paul came out at 7 and told her to go to bed, which she did. She was resolutely uncommunicative when we got home from Mike’s last night.
You have to love Vancouver though… Mike’s closest fast food joint is the wonderful Uncle Fatih’s Pizza. (Pronounced Fatty’s, for extra ethnic points.)
Pic is railroad car graffitti collected by Katie this past summer.
Shiny
2005-10-14— Posted by: allegra
Stolen from http://thierry.dandrimont.free.fr. Eyepopping images.
Meditating and interviewing
2005-10-14— Posted by: allegra
Went to small group ministry last night at Tom and Peggy’s and the group meditation was awesome, as always. The meditation was about groundedness and my prodrome FINALLY lifted although that could be my new glasses, too.
Katie spent the night at Jessica’s but that’s okay because she doesn’t have school on Fridays anyway. Her school isn’t affected by the strike.
Keith has another day working temp at Lordco, but he has really bad allergies, and he’s not enjoying the dust. I am thinking it would be a kindness to get him a decent air filter.
Tam-Tam is coming to Vancouver in December, yipppppeeeee! I just about burst with happiness when she emailed me this morning.
Yet more interviews at work today and also into next week. I am helping hire a new person and I am finding it exhausting, although Patricia and I have formed the World’s Most Effective Good Cop Bad Cop Interviewing Tag Team. I’d share some clangers from a couple of interviews but that would not be fair to the poor applicants; they sure made us snort and chortle afterwards, though.
Gotta go help Paul with the trash, it’s that day again.
If anybody remembers the Johnny Cash tune “One Piece at a Time” about the car that an auto worker stole and assembled…. this is that car. Apparently it has bits from a very large number of American vehicles in it. I find it rather spooky looking, so here it is in time for Halloween.
Happy Ramadan
2005-10-13— Posted by: allegra
I shamelessly stole this image from Mr. Damon’s blog (nmazca.com). You have to admit that this pic from Doha, Qatar is something else. Does it…. remind you of anything? I mean, now that you can get Happy Ramadan lights and hanging decorations? PS I don’t think Ghazi Kanaan committed suicide the other day.
enough sleep
2005-10-13— Posted by: allegra
The internet which bringeth all things, washed up “Cats in Sinks” recently, and now, Gosh! this….http://beedogs.com/index_files/page0015.htm. Yup, dogs in bee costumes, including their first scandal. Go to the link to find out what on earth would scandalize a person who specializes in pictures of dogs in Bee Costumes. Shoot, that reminds me, I gotta put together a costume for Halloween with Mike and Tori.
Cousin Gerald sent me a pic purporting to be of a mesocyclone in Alberta, but Fark.com yesterday had a link to the Oklahoma Storm Chaser dude who ACTUALLY took the picture. Okay, so the stolen pic is from http://www.extremeinstability.com/storms.htm and guess what? He’s no longer hissy that people are stealing his stuff, he’s just shaking his head. There’s some funny stories in there, and some Extremely Fine Photographs of Major Weather Instability.
Got reading glasses yesterday. HOLY COW. I really wish I’d done it earlier. Between that and getting my bite adjusted I am throwing off this three week long prodrome and feeling a lot more human, chipper, etc. Okay, less like cutting my throat with a dull spoon, but you know what I mean.
It’s 6:15, time to get the hell off the computer and get dressed and find some customers to abuse.
space shot
2005-10-12— Posted by: allegra
When I was a kid I read lots of books about Weird Phenomena like Heuvelman’s On the Track of Unknown Animals and spooky crap that passed itself off as journalizm but was really trash. One of the things that fascinated me in one of those books was the radiating oceanic light that sometimes surrounds ships in the Indian Ocean. Then somebody took a pic from space….. This is so cool, for me, that the hair stood up on my arms when I saw this. I’m still working on what happened to the Andrea Doria, though.
Tethys
2005-10-12— Posted by: allegra
Tethys
2005-10-12— Posted by: allegra
enough sleep
2005-10-12— Posted by: allegra
At this point I’m convinced that all I’m doing on a day to day basis is trying to find a more comfy handbasket to ride to hell in. Currently my handbasket is quite comfy. Hope yours is too. But don’t go to copvcia ifn you want to stay cheerful. And now is the time to sell your airconditioner and buy a woodstove, haw haw haw.
enough sleep
2005-10-11— Posted by: allegra
It’s a foggy, creepy, axe murdering Burnaby morning.
Whenever I wake up smelling skunk, I think Pokey got sprayed, but he didn’t so that’s good. He’s killing things in the house again, this time a robin. What a mess!
Finally did all my laundry (including towels, yeesh), now I just have a wee bit of mending and ironing.
The things I want to do in space
2005-10-11— Posted by: allegra
I actually invented a microgravity bed for two, hint hint, but I never got around to patenting it. Second on my list is popping a water balloon. Herewith, pic, screen captured from a NASA film.
Sunset
2005-10-10— Posted by: allegra
Leo took this picture out his back window in Kanata. Doesn’t look much like a cityscape, does it? Happy Thanksgiving everybody…. the sky is still free.
gone from the face of the earth
2005-10-10— Posted by: allegra
Pictured is the armature for the wererabbit from the Wallace and Gromit film. It was destroyed in a fire, which completely gutted Nick Park’s studio, with all the sets and props, for all the Wallace and Gromit films. As a cultural loss it is a great tragedy.
Worse, however, is the news that India and Pakistan will not be cooperating or coordinating relief efforts. The death toll for the Kashmir quake is now well over 20,000 and 40,000 people may well be dead. May a merciful Providence soften the hearts and suffuse the heads of the dolts who have decided to put a line on a map before the welfare of the people they are supposed to be governing.
An earthquake kit here in BC seems more necessary than ever… but I must say, I think we’ll probably be using it in dealing with a global pandemic rather than for an earthquake. Or maybe we’re just heading for a more geologically active part of earth’s history; we are certainly living in frightening times.
The endowment effect
2005-10-10— Posted by: allegra
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1816574,00.html
Science news I can use…. a rational explanation for clutter.
family news roundup
2005-10-09— Posted by: allegra
Glenn said something entirely remarkable yesterday. He said, “If I’ve told a story three times, I’m bored with it… why should I inflict it on other people if I’m bored with it myself?”
This is so contrary to my understanding and appreciation of the world that I could feel my cognition slowing to a crawl. Family stories – any kind of stories – if they are any good – are supposed to be repeated. Sometimes the circumstances under which they can be told are special.
I am put in mind of the story Wade Davis told. (I saw him live, don’t miss him if you get a chance.) He was a teenager, and a parks employee in the ass end of nowhere in BC. He had already gone on his own to south America when he was fifteen, so he was not unused to fending for himself and dealing with all different kinds of people. Wade had asked one of the local elders to tell him the creation myth of his people. The elder demurred. Wade was mystified, but not put out. Later on he was involved in a moose cull and was left a large portion of the carcase; he was perfectly happy to eat parts of it but it was a bit much for one, so he offered it to the elder. The elder received it with thanks, and then as they walked together, marked out their journey with the creation story. A small portion of it took many hours.
So I see that under some circumstances it is not appropriate to tell a story. Definitely, being bored with it is one. But one of the joys of family life – and I mean this most sincerely – is how, when you’re with a group of people who have never heard your spouse’s Amazing True Story of the two pilots with harelips you can look at your spouse and say, “Tell them the story,” and people settle in, and at the end of it shake their heads in sympathy or laugh uproariously. (The moral is, don’t assume that people are making fun of you…) The story may be old, but the reaction of the audience is not.
Jim and Carly are here; her team kicked ass in the tournament yesterday, and she got exposed to Firefly: another willing wictim.
Woke up with a spider on my shoulder this morning. Let out the standard high pitched scream and flicked into unconsciousness against the closet mirrors.
Katie still unconscious.
Paul is being dropped off at Harry’s by Jim, so I am not having to stir, which is lovely.
Keith and John off to Richmond for V-Con; there’s a Joss Whedon-verse thing happening and then a swordplay demo, so Keith is all wildeyed about going. Filking broke up at two last night according to John, which is scandalous by IFS (International Filking Standards).
Tom L. got t-boned yesterday. He’s sore but not otherwise damaged. Car is drivable but the passenger door no move.
I just made chocolate chip cookies.
Cooked early Thanksgiving dinner for Keith, Kate, Glenn, me, Jim and Carly – Paul came home in time because he was called into work early. Then we ate until we all became quite sessile (Bird, stuffing, corn, squash, smashed potatoes, homemade gravy, pumpkin pie, whipped cream, vats of foaming beer, and Jim brought wasabi cheese and smoked salmon for starters). Jim did the dishes, may he be praised and adored; all I had to do was clean up after the dead bird.
I hope that you all have a very wonderful Thanksgiving; I am in to work tomorrow as it is simply astonishing how much there is to do. Patricia is going in as well so I’m bringing entree and she’s bringing dessert and I’m thinking – okay, I’ll leave the beer at home, but Dang, it was a tempting notion to haul Al K Hall into work. Makes the afternoon so much more shiny.
John last night was given – GIVEN – a 12 string guitar to be his “Beach Guitar”. Coming to a Wreck near you.
Carly and Jim will be off to the next tournament game for 1 pm and I will be left with an empty house – but for Katie – and will likely be reduced to getting my ass kicked at cribbage again. That girl is deadly and inexorable!
Hat of hair
2005-10-08— Posted by: allegra
Darain Housen is sporting a hat made of hair. He is from St Thomas WI. Norman Grindley took the picture.
Once upon a time I had a black husband. He divorced me after I took up with Paul. I don’t normally talk about him, but I can’t look at this picture without thinking about the time that I tried combing out my ex’s hair. He wore his hair in a kind of Contents Under Pressure style afro. I tried to comb it out one time, starting with the edges. I combed all the way around and then he got a call and had to abruptly go to a union organizing meeting (the drivers for Purolator at that time were trying to organize, in Toronto). When he looked in the mirror he screamed, and I don’t blame him. There is NOTHING more transgressive than a black man wearing a hairstyle that is identical to a 1940’s German helmet. I mean EYEdentical. Like, I wish I had a picture, but Phil was not having any. “I can’t go out in public looking like this!” to which I heart-heavily concurred; he stuffed his hair under the world’s ugliest toque and went to the meeting, where he was teased unmercifully because Phil NEVER wore hats of any description.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I love nappy hair. I know it’s hard work keeping it looking good, but if I woke up tomorrow with nappy hair, I’d actually be happy about it. I’d prob’ly play with it endlessly, and it would certainly keep my daughter busy; she just loves fixing hair.
Isn’t it funny how nobody is happy with their hair (except Keith, and he’s not like the others, and you have to admit he has a really amazing head of luxurious brown curls.) And John… he just gets me to shave his head once in a while. And Paul… because I cut his hair. I love cutting his hair, it’s very satisfying, and I only ever really screwed up once – right before a Company Christmas Party. Keith said, “Hey forehead boy!” when he saw Paul afterwards.
Have a good hair day, y’all.
Huhn?
2005-10-08— Posted by: allegra
This guy was fishing in Wales when the weight came up and slammed through the corner of his eye. His mates noticed the weight sticking out and took him to hospital. The docs spent five hours removing it. Can you believe it? One micron further and he likely would have lost the eye. If you’re going to be clumsy, be lucky! (Part of my ongoing series of WTF skull xrays).
I heart heart Pam
2005-10-07— Posted by: allegra
Heading back to church
2005-10-06— Posted by: allegra
Apparently Pope Benedict is instituting some reforms that only LOOK radical if you aren’t German. After buying Dortmunder Bier last night, this appeared like an act of Providence in my mail box this morning. Thanks Sandy!!!
Icon
2005-10-06— Posted by: allegra
Did anybody notice that when you open my site now there’s a little icon which shows my widdy eyeballs staring at you at the top? There’s a really cool utility at HTMLkit that allows you to do this. Me happy.
I went to the optometrist today and emerged $517 dollars poorer. But at least I know I don’t need frikkin bifocals for another two years. Thank God. Paul cooked breaded pan fried sole, corn on the cob and brussels sprouts for dinner, and it was good.
Dave the Plumber, may he be blessed and adored throughout the Lower Mainland for his many gifts, received money and a heartfelt gift from Paul for installing a sewer cleanout (the gift, which Dave Really Liked, was a really skookum flashlight from Lee Valley Tools). At the end of the installation he said, “Don’t bother digging it out, just buy a snake and clean it out when it backs up and tell the women in your house not to flush elephants (read, feminine protection) down the toilet.” I suspect it wasn’t elephants but clothing lint and kitchen waste which precipitated our last disaster, as neither of the women living in this house are that gauche, AND we’re using renewable hygiene products. Downstairs will shortly be hip deep in silica gel and drying out thoroughly. I cannot express how relieved I am about this; we were looking at an expense of between 5 and 10 K to get everything dug up and if necessary reattached to the city drains, so being told by a professional Don’t Spend the Money put Paul into the best mood he’s had in a very long time.
Work’s gross, chunk-style and sideways, but a family meal and being a passenger in a car Keith was driving and dicking around with HTMLkit, and picking up Dortmunder beer (such a deal! 12.60 for 6 half liter cans of imported beer INCLUDING a glass mug so hefty you could deck a bouncer with it) as WELL as discovering that I’m not living in Bifocal Acres yet, mellowed ME out considerably. Paul read his former flying partner Per’s name in a COPA magazine article so he’s having a great evening. I gotta go to bed, I’m bagged.
Hot housing market in Vancouver
2005-10-05— Posted by: allegra
The housing market is slackening in the US – sales are off pretty much everywhere – but here in Vancouver, you can’t get a detached shack for less than a quarter mil. Paul says the market is going to be wild until the Olympics in 2010 but I have to wonder.
Christmas singalong at church?
2005-10-04— Posted by: allegra
http://www.cthulhulives.org/Solstice/index.html
Here comes Yog Suggoth, indeed. There are CHORAL ARRANGEMENTS for these songs on the website.
ewwww
2005-10-04— Posted by: allegra
Glad there’s no picture. But it’s about moose, and I’ve been told, More Moose; My Public Demands more moose.
Paint the town white
2005-10-04— Posted by: allegra
Pallet of white paint meets gravity. Interesting image, isn’t it? Happened in downtown Oslo.
wyrd tales
2005-10-04— Posted by: allegra
Ady Feeney, still smarting from the time Colin Cousins and a bunch of his mates ‘redecorated’ Ady’s pub in Southampton UK, extracted a clever revenge. All I can say, it’s a good use for a Vauxhall Astra, whether the damned thing is running or not. Pic stolen cheerfully from the Sun Online, the UK’s premium source of extremely funny pictures of animals, people and things. Also gleaned from the Sun Online; the Canadian Folk Band the Wyrd Sisters is suing JK Rowling for copyright infringement, because a band frequently mentioned in the Harry Potter books is called, how strange, the Weird Sisters. How this can be anything except the world’s most venal publicity stunt is difficult for me to fathom… The spelling is different, and guess what!!! Weird Sisters is a Shakespeare reference and Shakespeare is NOT COPYWRITED. Give me a flocking break, dears. Why don’t they sue the filk band with the same name, could it be the filk band has no MONEY? Can such things BE?
OOO OOO pr0n for my mom
2005-10-04— Posted by: allegra
http://worldbeardchampionships.com/
Go nuts, ma, your Dream Boy is in there someplace…..
Breakfast of liberals
2005-10-03— Posted by: allegra
Commentary
2005-10-03— Posted by: allegra
Dr. Filk had this to say…
These percolated to the top of my cerebral swamp in response to your blog today (on immigration, see earlier)
1) Cheating Your Way In
Note that the official, legal, non-cheating way into Canada is seriously ferkokt. Every recent year Parliament AKA the Martin mob have set immigration “quotas”, and each year the number of actual, breathing immigrants entering the country has been well below quota, largely because people cannot get through the Kafkaesque process, which is miserably badly administerd and expensive, insecure, inconsistent and slow. It also dosn’t allow for anywhere near the number of relative-in-Canada sponsored entries that folks already here want.
So what’s a person who may be dying (no metaphor meant) to gain entry to asafe, liveable country to do? They may or may not have relatives here. If so they will be sheltered on arrival, and either way they know there’s not much enforcement once you get past the border. You don’t have to be a felon or potential bad neighbor to “cheat” your way in. Of course enforcement, like making it impossible for illegals to work legally, will make sure that a proportion of them will seek a living by other means. People being sucked down society’s plug-hole are likely to behave in unpleasant ways. Do you want us to have more enforcement, like immigration cops busting desperate illegals in the homes of their famillies, most of whom will likely be legal residents whose only crime is harboring a fugitive who is also a relative? That’s not the kind of country I want to live in.
2) The Bogeyman
The fellow who was a semi-official thug in another country is most likely here all legal and kosher. The government in his home country probably certified him as a sterling citizen, either because he’s an embarrassment or a liability at home and they’ll be glad to see his back, or because he’s STILL ON DUTY.
Don’t expect Canadian officials to investigate such. They don’t have the inclination or the resources.
I suggest making the whole process more public. During the period after you’re landed and before you’re a citizen any other resident should be able to challenge the immigrant’s status and present evidence. Who else but others from the same country would know, or care?
The converse of this case also happens: the immigrant who is in bad odor with the authorities in his home country. This can happen for a number of reasons, from legitimate to political to personal animus, and Canadian officialdom finds it the path of least effort to take it at face value.
3)Vigilantism
The !sshole redneck beating up furriners actually has a point, a half-witted, half-#ssed point but a point. The guy from just in from Honduras may not be pumping gas, though the gas bar I used to patronize near Main & Great Northern Way was staffed by a rotating crew of new Canadians from West Africa.
The new immigrant will start out with the worst, most ill-paid jobs, but as soon as he learns his way around and a little English he”ll be clutching the next rung of the ladder, the same one Joe Redneck !sshole is precariously clinging to, And, the not-so-new immigrant likely has a functional, extended family that will support him, like (name redacted) with rent-free housing.
Result, Joe A’Hole R CAN’T COMPETE. And there’s no effective enforcement, and neither W nor PM the PM are going to do anything about it because the way it is their business buddies get work done on the cheap by illegals who don’t need no stinkin benefits or safety standards, and their business buddy’s wives get their kids raised by overqualified Filipinas working for sub-minimum wages. If it’s PM’s business buddies the Filipina in question is an indentured semi-slave in the country legally under a special programme – ain’t that sweet!
Joe AHR has more of a problem with W and PM2 than they have with greaser wetbacks, but the big boys are far away and well protected and the illegals are near and vulnerable.
Allegra’s comments on the foregoing…. I like the idea of presenting evidence during the landed period. If people feel strongly enough about it, they can publicly protest. I wonder if anything like this is on the books already and not being used?
Entertaining synchronicity
2005-10-03— Posted by: allegra
When I called Sandy last night, we both had gouda cheese in our mouths. What are the odds? She’s looking for a place to board her cats for the winter so she can consider what she’ll be when she grows up. Gosh, now that I’m not sure I’m supposed to be a comedian, I have no idea what I’m supposed to be. It’s a good thing I know the chorus to Nate Bucklin’s “Preposterous”. “When I grow up I’m going to be prePOSterous! PrePOSterous is what I’m gonna be, two three four, one two KICK.”
I’ve been reading Greek philosophers
2005-10-03— Posted by: allegra
Epictetus sez:
When a raven croaks with evil omen, let not the impression carry you away, but straightway distinguish in your own mind and say, “These portents mean nothing to me, but only to my bit of a body or my bit of property or name, or my children or my wife. But for me all omens are favourable if I will, for, whatever the issue may be, it is in my power to get benefit therefrom.”
Further along, he also says,
Do you wish to win at Olympia? So do I, by the gods, for it is a fine thing. But consider the first steps in it, and the consequences, and so lay your hand to the work. You must submit to discipline, eat to order, touch no sweets, train under compulsion, at a fixed hour, in heat and cold, drink no cold water, nor wine, except by order; you must hand yourself over completely to your trainer as you would to a physician, and then when the contest comes you must risk getting hacked, and sometimes dislocate your hand, twist your ankle, swallow plenty of sand, sometimes get a flogging, and with all this, suffer defeat.
Don’t ask her to scratch your back
2005-10-03— Posted by: allegra
A baby Aardvark from the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha NE.
Katrina body count
2005-10-03— Posted by: allegra
It’s complicated. It’s also a tragedy for families needing closure. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bodies2oct02,0,5171979.story?coll=la-home-nation
For all you jugglers
2005-10-03— Posted by: allegra
This picture, which was taken by Martin Waugh and stolen from his Liquid Sculpture site, was entitled “The Amazing Juggling Nipple” and is in the … yeah, “Pournography” section. It’s amazing how something can be beautiful and sensuous and just plain creepy, all at the same time. It’s water, possibly with some gelatin added.
Terasen Q&A
2005-10-02— Posted by: allegra
I feel much better now; everybody go back to sleep.
http://www.terasengas.com/_AboutTerasenGas/KinderMorganandTerasen/Customer_QA.htm
They don’t expect any jobs to be lost. The Head Office of the merged company will be in Houston. They don’t mention anything about the environment or safety, just that the bill you get will look the same and your rates won’t go up. And if you read the Kinder Morgan documents on the site, all they talk about is securing the energy requirements of the US. Mission Accomplished, Baybee.
I am still going to make a submission, but folks, this is a done deal. The sale will go through. Look at the verbs that all the principals are using to describe the sale…. it has already happened. Even though the Terasen shareholders have not approved it, and won’t until October 30th.
enough sleep
2005-10-02— Posted by: allegra
Connect the dots
2005-10-02— Posted by: allegra
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/01/georgia.killings.ap/index.html
Then consider the following: http://www.alipac.us/
Which is the cleaned up, PC version of http://www.aryan-nations.org/
The Aryan Nations website is worth seeing, if only for one of the funniest typos I have seen lately. (Their ‘religious’ leader is referred to as a Chaplin… Adolf Heinkel anybody?) Also, could somebody who reads Arabic translate the line of Arabic at the top of the website? You kin always tell them cheap assed racists, they don’t spell check. If you can’t stand the idea of having a record on your computer that you visited a racist website, stay away from both of the websites after the CNN story on the migrant worker killings in Georgia.
Just so you know; there is a substantial and growing portion of the “white” (I prefer “pink” – it’s more accurate) voting population in the US that doesn’t hate George W. Bush for anything except his immigration stand. Why, alipac.us will paint Hillary Clinton, Satan’s favorite lesbian! in a warm golden light if she gets up on her hind legs and says US immigation laws should be more vigorously enforced. And frankly, after talking to a LOT of people who migrated legally to Canada, they would really like it if we started enforcing the immigration laws in the Great White North, too. There’s nothing like walking through Metrotown and coming face to face with a Hizbollah thug who used to terrorize your neighborhood to make a legal immigrant want tighter restrictions on entry into Canada. As my Muslim buddy at work has frequently said, it’s NOT about race or creed. It’s whether you meet the criteria to get into Canada in the first place; and then, once you’re here, whether you will assimilate to the point you support the legal and cultural framework of the country; whether you will be a good neighbour, educate your children, and refrain from sending money overseas to support civil wars and drug smuggling and genocide. He fully supports the notion that people caught doing something illegal before they get their citizenship should be stuck on a plane within hours of being convicted, and given the right to appeal the conviction and the deportation from overseas. (But what about the people wrongfully convicted on tainted testimony? that’s a poser. Justice ain’t simple. I still want to stick them on a plane, though. If life is game, gotta have enforceable rules.)
And after citizenship is granted? Revoking citizenship is a serious thing. How about you have to leave your passport with the cops for five years until you’ve demonstrated you can stay out of trouble? The cops would hate it. I kinda like the idea. Mind you, with all the scams in the Canadian consulates going on, I mean, you can BUY a passport that was issued by the Canadian government for something like 10K US, maybe handing over your passport wouldn’t be much a deterrant for a world class scumbag anyway. Just a cost of doing business, folks.
To loop back to connecting the dots. Immigration laws in the US are not being enforced. Migrants, legal or illegal, especially Spanish speaking migrants, are subject to harassment to the point of injury and death by folks who were too stupid, diseased, mentally unstable or drug addled to get into the American military, which these days (holy cow, read the Vanity Fair article on military recruiting from a couple of months ago) is going some. And the people they are beating to death are doing work that these white guys wouldn’t do anyway!!!!! That’s the part that blows me away. If the illegal immigrants were pumping gas, that would be one thing. But they’re working suckering tobacco, the meanest job in farming, or up on rickety ladders picking peaches, or working 14 hours a day as domestics. None of these guys would dirty their hands with these jobs, so why the animosity??? The political and social climate in some parts of the US is allowing the perps to get away with it, for the time being; but for every good ol boy who gets caught because he was stupid enough to keep his forensically interesting baseball bat in the trunk of his plate expired vehicle, there will be bunches more. Like dragon’s teeth. The morons keep marching. And, if you scrape off what I’m saying to what I’m saying underneath, there’s a very big inconsistency that I am wrestling with. If countries shouldn’t exist, why should an economic or political migrant bother me? And the answer is very simple, and very selfish. I prefer good neighbors to bad ones. If they cheat their way in….
Note on spelling. After due consideration, I generally drop the u in ‘our’ words. This is in part an effort to standardize my outbound emails to American customers in my work environment and in part because I believe that written English is in drastic need of radical reform; I’m only chewing at one end of it. Although, I must admit, when I hear Katie said “supposably” for “supposedly” it’s hard to believe that Shakespeare is in my living room gaily improving English.
Rabid gun fans rejoice
2005-10-02— Posted by: allegra
Here’s another sign our government is run by wretched incompetents with the gumption of a gunnysack full of lupins.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051001.wfakegun1001/BNStory/National/
Link forwarded by Sandy.
The whole hole
2005-10-01— Posted by: allegra
I would be remiss if I did not catalogue Paul’s labors over the last few days. Here’s the Hellacious Hole of Horror. (We had to expose the sewer pipe to put in a cleanout as otherwise you can’t get a snake out to the street.)
How many signs of the Apocalypse….
2005-10-01— Posted by: allegra
Can you fit in one blog…?
Pic was taken leaving Brooklyn, September 15, credit AP, and thanks to Cousin Gerald again for providing the actual pic as I looked everywhere on the net and couldn’t find it until he emailed it to me.
Burt Bacharach is dropping an album into the public consciousness on November 1st. Phat beats on three tracks are supplied by Dr. Dre. Now, normally, anybody who knows who Burt Bacharach is won’t know who the hell Dr. Dre is and vice versa. AND to complete the trifecta of weirdness, Elvis Costello also sings on the album; Rufus Wainwright is the lilac maraschino on top. It’s kinda indescribable how I feel about this; I am a very big fan of Burt Bacharach as he is a complete master of the ‘tunes people can hum’ school of songwriting. My dear old dad will never forgive him for “Do You Know the Way to San Jose”, though, as one of his coworkers sang the first line over and over and over again until the notorious D.O.D. almost snapped a chain and throttled him, so his music has a dark side, I admit. But I think I’m going to buy the album, because Burt Bacharach doing a collaborative album that is entirely protest songs about George W. Bush is too good to miss out on.
Off to visit Glenda as soon as I press send on this.
Paul is finally asleep downstairs; the green tea at supper and Serenity on top of it made him too wired to sleep when he came home.
Walked around downtown New Westminster and the leaves falling off the trees lining Columbia were an amazing visual; also the fluffy cu’s mushrooming up (and occasionally spitting on us) were very pretty.
Looking forward to seeing Colin H tomorrow. Have to figure out where the best brunch is.
I am working on my presentation to the regulatory authorities about Kinder Morgan’s proposed acquisition of Terasen Gas. Read Kinder Morgan’s press release on the subject if you want to lose your lunch. Also, a great Google search dodge from Lifehacker yesterday… add “Database” to a search and you’ll be amazed how different your search results are.
Did you know Kinder Morgan nearly killed a couple of thousand people in a pipeline breach? These are the folks we’re inviting into the pipeline business in Canada. Did you know that both of the founders are cronies of and big donors to George W. Bush? Feeling better already, aren’t you? Deep and heavy sigh.
Give me a hand
2005-10-01— Posted by: allegra
Hand belongs to a nice little boy in India named Devender Harne. He has a galloping case of polydactyly, and it doesn’t bother him.
Colin H is in town. We think of him often, and I’m not allowed to say why. We will be brunching with him Sunday.
Glenda did go home from hospital for a while but she’s back in, and I’m going to go see her tomorrow.
Just got in from Serenity. It’s a wonderful movie, I am so happy. Go see it; it’s genre bending and loads of fun.
