knitnut.net: My book: Tabula Rasa

Last November, I participated – for the second time – in National Novel Writing Month.

Just like the year before, I waited till the last minute to take the next step, which was cleaning it up a bit and sending it over to GC for formatting. He whipped it into shape in a couple of hours, […]

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Peace, order and good government, eh?: Mostly competent government

On December 1 of this year, the federal government will implement new regulations governing the processing of refugee claims. In response to the huge backlog of claims — much of which was caused by the government’s failure to fill vacancies on the Immigration and Refugee Board in a timely way — the new regulations impose a time limit for the processing of new claims. Sounds good on the surface, right? The immigration reporter at the Toronto Star took a closer look: Ottawa’s plan to fast-track the refugee system could be a "gift" for bogus asylum seekers in the backlog because they will be on the backburner — and not fall under new regulations — when new refugee reform takes effect in December. … "The Immigration and Refugee Board will have a significant number of ‘legacy’ cases in the inventory when the Balanced Refugee Reform Act comes into force," said the board’s recently published 2011/12 planning report. "The IRB will not have the resources to resolve these cases." Critics said it is irresponsible for the government to implement a new system without a transition plan such as the "semi-amnesty" program implemented to remove a backlog before the launch of the refugee…

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For News International, Looks Like What Goes Around Comes Around

Indeed. Looks like the hackers have been hacked into themselves, Monday night.  It is kinda poetic. LulzSec, a hacktivist group, who claimed responsibility for some high profile cyber attacks like having taken the CIA website off line and compromising user accounts from Sony Pictures, have hacked into News International last night.  You can read more . . . → Read More: For News International, Looks Like What Goes Around Comes Around

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daveberta.ca - Alberta politics blog: where the votes were in the 2006 alberta pc leadership vote, where the mla support is in 2011.

As Jim Dinning learned six years ago, having the support of MLAs in a leadership contest does not assure victory. The long-time front-runner in the 2006 Progressive Conservative leadership contest counted the support of over forty sitting MLAs, but on the final ballot vote, it was a low-key cabinet minister named Ed Stelmach with the […]

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