Online news is filled with stories about the rape chant from Saint Mary’s University and while there’s been backlash about it now somehow the students at that university have been putting up with the chant since at least 2009. Then there’s the story about Stacey Rambold being sentenced to just
Continue readingTag: history
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Grasslands National Park Animals
-Road Killed Rattle Snake There are not a lot of rattlesnakes around the park, especially the East Block of the park where Wood Mountain is. Nick, who is with Brenda showing off the snake skin, almost stepped on one by accident last week and it didn’t even try to bite
Continue readingwmtc: dear war criminals: don’t lecture us about morals as you prepare to bomb civilians
Let me be clear. The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. – Secretary of State John Kerry The slaughter of innocent civilians is a moral obscenity? I’m betting the people of Iraq and Afghanistan* agree. Or
Continue readingwmtc: fifty years later, king and his most famous speech are transformed into patriotic mush
Today, Americans will march on Washington in commemoration of the most famous March on Washington: August 28, 1963, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his now-famous “I Have A Dream” speech. The meaning of that speech, like the man who delivered it, has been purposefully misremembered, and so, is
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Friday Night Hardware Hacking
Last night I fixed a Vista laptop (It wouldn’t finish booting into Windows normally because I’d installed another hard drive, and ran ClamAV which possibly changed a file it was depending on after I removed the other hard drive. I ran startup repair, and then the system restore option, and
Continue readingwmtc: help fund "let them stay", the book
Some of you may remember when wmtc was obsessed with the War Resisters Support Campaign, a fact that was noticed in some very interesting places. (Hi CIC! Are you still reading?) I joined the Campaign in 2007, then in 2009, I began school for my Master of Information degree. I managed
Continue readingEclectic Lip: The Innovator’s Dilemma, Toyota edition
This car — yes, this car — has impeded Toyota’s electric efforts My post on how The Innovator’s Dilemma explains why Toyota lags in electric vehicles — and how Kleiber’s Law explains there’s nothing for them to worry about (yet), is now up on GreenCarReports. While the Tesla stats were
Continue readingEclectic Lip: The witless wisdom of Shai Agassi
Dunning-Kruger effect graphed by AddAttack on DeviantArt. LinkedIn has an “opinion leader” piece from Shai Agassi, founder of bankrupt car-battery-switcher Better Place, telling carmakers how they need to respond to Tesla’s success. Who better to give them advice than a guy who raised $850 million for an ignorant, impractical, impossible
Continue readingwmtc: free bradley manning, and all war resisters
My thoughts on the Bradley Manning verdict at Socialist.ca: here.
Continue readingwmtc: discoveries make me happy
I am always astonished to see stories such as these. A tree-dwelling animal with a teddy-bear-like face and rust-coloured fur has become the newest mammal species discovered by scientists. The olinguito, the smallest known member of the raccoon family, lives in the cloud forests high in the Andes Mountains of
Continue readingwmtc: a witchunt and its backlash: interest in "a people’s history" surges, thanks to censorship attempts
Once upon a time in the state of Indiana… Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, one of the country’s most widely read history books, died on January 27, 2010. Shortly after, then-Governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels got on his computer and fired off an email
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Paul McCartney Rocks Regina
*Goosebumps* I got goosebumps up the back of my head when he played Hey Jude. Crash. A music legend played in the Queen City for the first time, and seemed to love it. The crowd sure did. What perfect weather, and a perfect night! A quick cheering poll identified most
Continue readingEclectic Lip: Software updates are flu shots
A nice metaphor for software updates. Flu shots attempt to immunize people from the influenza virus, by exposing their immune systems to small doses of weakened or dead virus molecules. The idea is that this gives the immune system a “practise run” with a less-dangerous version of the influenza virus
Continue readingwmtc: more roku joy: post your pbs and nfb recommendations here
Roku has added an app for PBS! This means we watch music clips from Austin City Limits, and in the winter we’ll binge on American Experience history documentaries and American Masters biographies. These documentaries are consistently worth watching, and often truly excellent. On American Masters, we’ve recently seen “There But
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: clarence darrow, attorney for the damned, by john a. farrell
I last wrote about Clarence Darrow in early 2012, after reading a piece by one of my favourite New Yorker writers, Jill Lepore. Two new biographies of Darrow had been published, and Lepore wrote a tribute to the great defender, and mused on the state of North American labour movement.
Continue readingEclectic Lip: The surveillance state is an autoimmune disorder
Autoimmune disorders (Wikipedia prefers autoimmune diseases) occur when the body’s defenses — antibodies — no longer distinguish between healthy tissue and harmful cells. Instead of focusing on the dangerous antigens, they attack the body itself. Type 1 diabetes is an example, where the patient’s immune system attacks the insulin-producing regions
Continue readingwmtc: a people’s history of british columbia, and a chance to preserve it for the future
Here’s a chance to preserve Canadian history – the real history, not the government-approved kind – and to preserve art and creativity and alternative media, all at the same time. Please consider giving $7.00 – or any amount – and sharing this excellent campaign with your friends and on social
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: two youth novels
There is so much truly excellent youth fiction out these days, and it’s not all vampires and zombies. Here are two wonderful teen novels in two totally different veins. There Is No Dog, Meg Rossoff, 2011 Like many excellent novels, Meg Rosoff’s There Is No Dog defies easy classification. It’s
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Hungry Aboriginal kids used in nutritional experiments: AFN reacts
The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) says the revelation that Canadian officials used malnourished Aboriginal populations in nutritional experiments has “sent a shockwave through First Nations in Canada and should be no less shocking to all Canadians and beyond.” The post Hungry Aboriginal kids used in nutritional experiments: AFN reacts
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: In Canada, hungry aboriginal kids, adults used as nutritional experiment subjects
In Canada, hungry aboriginal kids and adults were used as unwitting subjects of nutritional experiments by Canadian government bureaucrats during and after World War II, The Canadian Press reported Tuesday. The post In Canada, hungry aboriginal kids, adults used as nutritional experiment subjects appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue reading