Java/JSP vs. Python and the 21st Century

I fully approve of this trend (source article):

Pretty soon, all the surburban housewives will be getting pictures of their minivans tattooed on their hindquarters. Probably for at least a few of them, with the tedious popularity of tattoos, it will be the only empty "canvas" left on their bodies.

When my daughter reaches university age, I want tattoos to be fully associated as something "old people do".

I guess we can retire Champaign Socialist in favor of Cocaine Socialist.

If I had a million dollars,
I'd buy me some blow.
If I had a million dollars,
And some fangirls to ... (etc)

Text

I am never ever going to vote for John Tory, nor as far as I can tell are any of my conservative neighbors, friends or family. While John Tory is leader we are not going to donate money to your party. If John Tory leads the party during the next election, we are not going to allow you to put Progressive Conservative signs on our front lawns.

And the next time that fool opens his mouth about the LCBO, perhaps it should be discuss privatization rather than plastic bags.

As I understand it, Obama and I have a lot in common: we both spent twenty years of our lives sleeping through church.

American's knowledge of religion shallow?

Stephen Prothero, author of the recently published Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- And Doesn't, agrees that the Good Samaritan story is germane to the immigration debate because it is all about how Jesus said we should treat strangers.

"First of all, how many Americans actually know the Good Samaritan story? I'm not sure many do," said Prof. Prothero, chairman of Boston University's religion department. "Second, should we be basing policy on biblical passages? If we're going to, how can we have any reasonable conversation if we don't know the story?"

An awesome little project, via Danny:

1. The first article title on the Wikipedia Random Articles page is the name of your band.
2. The last four words of the very last quotation on the Random Quotations page is the title of your album.
3. The third picture in Flickr's Interesting Photos From The Last 7 Days will be your album cover.
4. Use your graphics programme of choice to throw them together, and post the result.

Making the most of the first snow of 2008 by going skating with Trinity-Anne (unfortunately, at the poor ice Nathan Phillips Square) and then sliding at Hogg's Hollow.

We were watching Futurama -- Bender's Big Score -- this morning and Trinity-Anne asked me "Is there really an Al Gore?". Answer: "Nobody knows, Trinity, nobody knows".

My brother made a lengthy reply (that's the only kind he does, I'm afraid) to my post on Catholic education rights in Ontario. Youcan go read it in it's entirety, I shan't quibble on legal points, that's for sure. However, he misreads my intentionre: protection of Catholic rights.

I'm not overly fearful for Catholic rights in Ontario, Canada, or elsewhere nearby. What I do like is all the weird stuff inour system: funny wigs, QCs, "God" in the constitution, a free pig and two comely lasses of virtue true for the police chiefs, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, etc.. It's good to givethe Svends, Jacks and Justins frequent reminders -- preferably up the side of the head -- that none-of Mike Pearson, FidelCastro or Tommy Douglas were Fathers of Confederation.

I prefer cities laid out like St.John's to that of Toronto also.

The Canadian Criminal code 718.2:

A court that imposes a sentence shall also take into consideration the following principles:

(a) a sentence should be increased or reduced to account for any relevant aggravating or mitigating circumstances relating to the offence or the offender, and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing,

(i) evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or any other similar factor,

If you'd like to read more about the rationale behind hate law provisions in the Criminal Code, here's a lengthy (50 page) PDF. On page 10 of particular interest:

The main distinguishing feature with hate crimes is that such offences include a specific motivating factor not found in other crimes.

Now, some mean spirited citizens have suggested that these provisions are mainly about "sticking it to whitey", but certainly there's few cases more clearly falling in to the definitions and rationales above that Aqsa Parvez's murder -- "honor killing" -- (allegedly) by her father for refusing to wear the strict public symbols of Islam.

If this not a factor in sentencing, then this case should be Exhibit A why this provision needs to be struck from the Criminal Code.

Heh: "...Lessing’s words should be taken somewhat in context: the ditherings of an ignorant old women..."

I just read on Gateway Pundit that the media had fallen for another "insurgents slaughter many"-type story, likely fed to them by an AQI propagandist / stringer. I was currious about what CBC had said about this story but when I click on the link .... Curious. Probably just a server error.

Robert on Latimer:

My own view is that the Court arrived at the right decision when it held that Mr. Latimer's conviction and sentence had to be upheld. In Canada we have not even come to a societal consensus on the issue of assisting a person of full mind commit suicide (see the Sue Rodriguez case). The issues around a parental killing of child who is disabled and unable to communicate her wishes on an informed basis are hopelessly more thorny. The fact of the matter is that it is impossible to genuinely appreciate the true significance of the genuinely held belief "I must kill her because I can not bear to watch her suffer any more" -- who is truly being shown mercy when that sentiment is acted upon? Is it mercy for the suffering child or is it mercy for the suffering caregiver? Moreover, there is a strong sense of ownership over a child that is being asserted in such cases -- "This is my child so I can decide whether she lives or dies."

This, however, does not make the Parole Board's decision right. Our society has sent a clear message about Mr. Latimer: he murdered his daughter contrary to the law and was given the full sentence mandated by the law. Now he is going through the process that every criminal in Canada is entitled to go through to ease their re-introduction to society.

Wow, I'll let others worry more about the "one laptop per terrorist supporter" issues and say, WTF? They city's spending almost $11,000,000 / year to give computers and high-speed Internet to 3000 families? That's about $3500 / family! Who are they buying these things from, Dash Domi? Why not just give half to the schools and half to the local libraries to put computers for everyone?

Now, this sounds more like a "social justice" program -- i.e. Bucks for Buzz and his Boys -- than it does a meaningful attempt to help anyone, but I've got a better deal for the city and the disadvantaged: outsource it to me and I'll save the city lots of money and double the number of disadvantaged kids getting computers.

• For $22.95 / month I can get Rogers Ultralight Internet.
• For $450 I can get Dell Inspiron 531 with plenty of everything and a 17" LCD Monitor

The logistics are fairly simple. Dell will ship directly to their apartment and I'll handle the Rogers billing from here. I'll assume I can get Rogers and Dell to eat GST & PST given the size of the order we're making, plus the potential for a tax write off for everyone. Rogers and Dell will also handle tech support directly, which is a reasonable part of becoming computer literate. The city will provide the names and addresses who to ship to. I'll need 5 people at say $50,000 / each to handle paperwork and logistics. One person will be dedicated to Googling names to weed out friends-of-terrorists. Let's also posit that I'll maintain another 6000 Internet accounts for people who have already got their computers.

So here's the budget:

• Internet connection: $1.65 million (6000 @ 22.95/month * 12 months)
• Legacy internet: $1.65 million (6000 @ 22.95/month * 12 months)
• Computers: $2.7 million (6000 @ $450 / each)
• Employees: $250,000 (5 @ $50,000)
• Offices: $150,000
  
• Subtotal: $6.4 million
• Management fee: 1.28 million (20%)
  
• Grand total: $7.68 million
• Savings to City of Toronto: $3.08 million

That'll buy Dave Miller a lot of food carts. I'm available on my cell during normal working hours.

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