At least I hope it's all good news.

Yesterday or the day before, I spoke of an apparent ban on books, magazines and newspapers by Transport Canada.

Seems they've since backed off. (The link ties to the updated edition of the original posting at the National Post's literary weblog, the Afterword.)

Next item is what I trust to be better news for a continuity hound like myself amongst the comics fandom: Who's Who in the DCU is back as of May. And Bob Greenberger's part of the team on that.

So...a hopeful start to this day.

I do not normally truck with the content of the National Post, but in this instance, I might well make an exception for the sake of our dignity as humans and my own petty career ambitions as both writer and illustrator.

Read on and react as you will.

Summerside, PEI - a town I visited two summers ago - has got a wind farm going now.

Looks promising, judging by this CBC News item!

One more gift of the Season to the world at large...

Bob Thirsk is back on the ground after setting what I believe a national record.

Details here:

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/12/01/thirsk-space.html

Yep, I'm passing along words and stuff from Denis McGrath again. In this instance, a Writers Guild of Canada video. Probably won't be seen on the TV networks and cable channels anytime soon, given the content...

Planning to be at the Parade from City Hall to McNabb Park today! Should be fun!

Read and react, people:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/fletcher-assigned-to-push-funding-cut-for-parties-54488632.html

I mentioned somewhere that I felt ashamed of showing up late for the ceremony today at the Peacekeepers' Monument. Granted that the event as such is only one year old, but the work was and still is important. 82,000 people from however many nations, including 65 from mine, are doing it in various parts of the world as I type these words. It matters.

I should also have expected the ceremony to start at somewhen between 10:30 and 11:00 AM, given our history of commemorating such things. Planning accordingly would certainly have helped. But I digress.

I've read stories of ongoing derision of peacekeeping over the last few years as the work of wimps. I've also read - today - of people who accuse those who have respect for peacekeeping of basing that respect in some kind of stupid naivete. (Calling Mr. Granatstein...)

I don't think either of those camps really has it right.

It takes a special kind of self-discipline for this work. As special in its way as anything else any nation's soldiers, sailors, aircrew and police can be honourably called upon to do. I believe I know for a certainty that I don't have that self-discipline. I could, perhaps, find out the hard way years from now that I am wrong in such self-criticism. But right now, at this point, I doubt it.

That people sometimes kill and die performing this service? This is understood. I wish that it weren't so, but it still happens, despite the ongoing efforts of many around the world to put an end to it. The wars that are fought these days, I am told, take fewer lives less often than they once did, so I am inclined to suspect that the peacekeepers and the diplomats backing them are having some measure of success at their work.

So Peacekeepers Day has a certain amount of earned respect for itself by virtue of the reasons for its creation. Which leaves me thinking of myself as less than respectful today to those who deserve better.

Much better.

Did you know that August 9th was National Peacekeepers Day in Canada?


http://www.flickr.com/photos/dwight_ew/sets/72157621989525086/

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/07/17/thirsk-payette-space-history-canada.html

Shutting up now and listening to the music.

FINALLY!

Congratulations to all involved!

Things like this item. Thanks to kradical's friendlist for this one.

I wonder how much of this particular practice is going on in Canada?

Yes, I'm being circumspect for a reason.

D. Simon Jackson touches on part of my reasoning in a column for cbcnews.ca.

The more I think about it, the more tempted I am by the idea of drafting, rather than electing voluntary candidates. Don't even let them volunteer as candidates for parties, either.

Am I wrong? Am I right?

This dates me more than I want to admit.

I got a history/memory refresher courtesy of insidethecbc.com a while ago, with a selection of YouTubed "opening titles" sequences used by The National, CBC's main late-night newscast program from over the decades.

This one in particular whacked me over the head with the "Do you remember when...?" vibe:



I cannot yet recall the name of the typeface they used. I've seen the name, probably in some Letraset catalogue or Corel font library booklet. But cannot yet remember it.

Help?

If that link/embed doesn't work, let me know, okay?

But for CBC, I'd almost forgotten...

http://archives.cbc.ca/on_this_day/06/28/

Requiescat in pacem, Terrence. Your Marathon continues.

duncanmac pointed out a meeting scheduled for this upcoming Wednesday night, June 10th, at the Ottawa Public Library's main branch. Expected to show up are Michael Geist of the U of Ottawa law faculty, MP Charlie Angus, and Rocky Gaudreault of Teksavvy.

Considering the recent efforts by the several of the four major Canadian ISPs to rein in their customers' desires and needs to suit their own purposes, I'd recommend checking out the announced plans for the meeting and - if you can spare a moment - showing up to hear the speakers out.

Don Newman just announced his retirement plans.

The article goes into what detail it can about the background of the decision. I'm sure there's other resources elsewhere covering his career as a whole in better detail than I can here.

I just hope that Politics continues, with as solid a lead newshand as Newman has been over these years so far.

That crap like this continues in this day and age...when we're still in Afghanistan to help the Afghani people secure all of their human rights(among other genuine reasons and hidden rationales)...dammit. This is the kind of crap that makes us look like hypocrites.

Complete hypocrites.

This cannot stand.

Go read this.

Then start digging through the links therein.

Update: The motion discussed at the top of that link passed by a ten-vote margin, if memory serves. So there's that much out of the way. I fully expect Canada's Not-So-New Government to ignore it simply because it was an Opposition-sponsored motion, and they don't like the content of it anyway. But the vote is on the record now, at least, and there's no "memory-holing" of it to be done.

Meantime, I'd suggest you keep on looking in on publicbroadcasting.ca anyway.