RIM Layoffs in Waterloo? Deafening Silence
If you go to Google News and type RIM layoffs and sort by date, you’ll see a whole bunch of articles about the recent layoffs in Halifax: exact number (95),…
Yappa
The Bizarre, Surreal Persecution of Julian Assange
Earlier today, Britain said it might revoke Ecuador’s diplomatic status and stage an assault on the embassy to get Julian Assange out. (link) This is over an extradition request by…
Dylan, Assehole
In January 1974 I saw Bob Dylan perform at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. It was Dylan’s first tour in eight years – the first since I was eight –…
* * * New Blog * * *
I’m not giving up on Yappa Ding Ding but I have started a work blog, Focus on Readers. It’s a work in progress and as with all new ventures, I…
Priorities
In the US, the FBI monitors orders of grow lights over the internet so they can arrest poor schmucks who have a couple of pot plants in their dorm room,…
More than you want to know about…. mustard. Part 2
So here we have Canada with its waving fields of yellow, just screaming out for a homegrown condiment industry. “What kind of mustard do you want?” waitresses should ask all…
Quite unexpectedly
I was reading about Syria today, how it’s teetering at the abyss of becoming a failed state – failed like Somalia, a place with no government, a chaos of pirates…
More than you want to know about… mustard
Canada is the world’s largest producer of mustard seed, and grows about one-third of total world production. The only other major producer is Nepal (who knew!), but Nepal’s production seems…
Eric Davis FTW
The upcoming (as yet undated) by-election in Kitchener-Waterloo could change our minority provincial government into a Liberal majority. As a Liberal and an ardent supporter of Premier McGuinty, I think…
Make room for aaaAAAaaa…
There’s no way this could be as drawn out as the Hail to the Chief episode, and it could never get as annoying as the Pennsylvania Polka episode, and in…
Rant: Mount Everest
I recently read Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and then spent a couple of days on the internet looking up information about Mount Everest and the people who attempt to…
RIM and Waterloo
I don’t have any argument today, just a report of some things I’ve read. I have been trying to find information on Waterloo’s vulnerability to the problems at RIM. The…
Waterloo’s Reputation Takes a Beating
Waterloo could use a boost from a good PR firm. RIM is being discussed in major media outlets around the world, and nobody seems to have anything good to say…
Henry V (review)
A pivotal moment in Shakespeare’s Henry V is when Henry tells his army to kill their prisoners. Shakespeare has taken Henry through a long epic of personal change. In Henry…
Mechanics of Dysfunction
When I read about towns in the US that are incorporating and privatizing (such as in the New York Times this week), my first reaction is horror at this latest…
Some scattered thoughts about Alan Turing
It is Alan Turing’s 100th birthday today, June 23. Earlier this week I went to a documentary about Turing at Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing and then did some reading.…
Liberal Leaders: Guaranteed Support?
Nothing succeeds like success, and nothing fails like failure. We Liberals have blown through four leaders in recent years (I count Bob Rae among the four because he has been…
A Sad Regret that Rae Said No
Of all our options for permanent leader, Bob Rae is the most competent, experienced, principled, classy, witty, formidable, erudite and knowledgeable. We would have been very lucky to have him…
Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury had a profound effect on me: my interests, sensibilities, sense of awe, dreams, desires, ideal writing style, values, phobias. When I was a kid I devoured his books:…