From Cork to Toronto

Phew! For a while the separatists had me worried that they might have a clue. For the most part, Duceppe's federal campaign was worryingly professional. The hairnet consigned to history, ethnic candidates attempting to reverse the image of the nationalists as " pur laine ", sensible on religion . Fortunately, we can rely on some within the separatist cohort to rage against Canada in a way that reminds Quebecers and other canadians of what life would be like "en Québec libre". The Quebec Sovereignty Council, a tax exempt organisation funded by the Parti and the Bloc, has published a teachers manual for sovereigntist educational activities . The provincial Liberal government has declared that it will not be taught - as indeed do the opposition Péquistes and the teachers unions - but it is clear based on the reaction of current and former Quebecers that both the main school system and the services for new immigrants contain people who deliver education not merely...

A Florida school, during a holocaust day, stuck yellow stars on certain pupils . They made the "Jews" go to the back of lunch queues and prevented them from using water fountains. All I can say is: I wonder how they chose the "Jews". I doubt they picked from the popular kids, more likely the kids already having a hard time. Please tell me someone's keeping these teachers away from shoe polish next Black History Month or MLK day. Hat-tip to The Green Knight for this one.

It's tax season here. The end of year is Dec 31 (pension year end is Feb 28) so people are getting down to it. However, the Tory Federal Budget is on the way and the talk is that Jim Flaherty will be keeping the campaign promise of rolling back the Liberal income tax cut in favour of GST cuts and childcare allowances. Flaherty should learn from Toronto and Ontario, both of whom have encountered money they didn't expect and are showing an unwillingness to reduce unpopular planned TTC hikes in the case of Toronto or reducing the province's deficit in the case of Ontario. Ontario is stashing money for the subway from York to nowhere rather than reducing the regressive health tax. If there really is $1.6 billion beyond previous revenue estimates for 2005 and $3 billion this year, it would be utter foolishness to roll back the Liberal cut unless the Tories see themselves going to the country before July 1st, when the clawback is expected to begin. Any strategist who thin...

The City of Toronto is debating the City Budget, live on the local cable channel. Jane Pitfield says the $200m the province gave the city for "transit funding" (sounds better than "bailout") should defer the TTC price hike - where oh where are the transit lefties? Where is the braying of Moscoe defending his riders? Nope, Hizzoner says no fare hold, no property tax freeze - not with the province's money or last year's $80m surplus. Instead we must replenish "reserve funds". I hear about those every year, the hidden piggy banks Toronto raids. Personally I can't understand how there are several of these funds, instead of one overarching one as the Feds seem to use for contingency. Watching 45 minutes of the debate was painful. Toronto Councillors, most of them with years, even decades in post, are dreadful public speakers in a chamber whose standing orders are ridiculous (and which invariably involves hours of debating points of order over n...

In the Blog O'Sphere, blankpaige and Omaniblog have posted on the plan to sell part of the Government stake in Aer Lingus. The Irish Independent (rego req.) also published a recent sceptical article (a letter to the editor identifies it as by Martina Devlin). Damien Kiberd takes a different view in the Sunday Times which I share. To wrap Aer Lingus in the national flag and pretend the aviation market will be thwarted is to guarantee its end. The example of bankrupted airlines like Sabena and Swissair, the continuing basket-case status of Olympic and Alitalia and the dubious policies at South African should be loud warnings to those like me who actually wish to see Aer Lingus succeed while remaining an Irish airline. What are the factors which have hindered Aer Lingus to date? 1. Government regulation means that investment in Aer Lingus will only occur when the national finances permit it. Private airlines like Ryanair can raise finance whenever they have a commercial need ...

What the hell is going on in the peabrains at Queen's Park? The transit community consensus appears to be that the 670 million Ontario is putting in a "trust fund" will be conditional on the Spadina extension going beyond the planned terminus at Steeles Avenue to Highway 7 since no mechanism to draw down the funds for a "partial" extension has been declared. Now, Vaughan may have big plans for a city centre effort in that area, but surely this is overkill when the rest of the city (where there are passengers already) needs additional transit provision - Kipling extension to Square One/Mississauga boundary, Sheppard extension to Downsview and Scarborough, the SRT replacement project and the provision of modern LRT in downtown and along Eglinton. Vaughan has only just got into the high end bus transit market and now feels they are ready for a subway? Furthermore, will this now be held up pending an Environmental Assessment when the one for the Downsview-Steele...

A Toronto taxi driver was killed by street racers, and some people felt his family should be brought to Canada . I suppose that would be nice for them but this is a city of immigrants and I have no doubt that illegals killed on building sites leave desperate family situations back in the homes they left too, but they can't be used to berate the morals of the yoof of today and their video games. Speaking of illegal brickies, they're looking for an amnesty when the developers who exploited them cry that the city can't survive without them (strange how that doesn't seem to be the way it works in Fort McMurray, Newfound... er... Alberta where they seem to be able to fill the jobs with Canadian residents.) An Afghan man runs a Canadian checkpoint in Kandahar and is shot - his widow wants 30 grand in US dollars (amazing how the lucre of the great Satan is acceptable everywhere) and maybe Canadian residency too. The Peacemaker hostages are rescued and they and their mates...

The Register has an amusing tale from Oklahoma today, where a City Manager with "22 years in computer systems engineering and operation" can't figure out what an Apache start page is and why he might be looking at it. He ( Jerry A. Taylor of the City of Tuttle) then emails the operating system vendor and threatens them with G-men. I especially love his bureaucratic counting, "Second notice!" "Third correspondence to this location" especially when the quotes are taken from the third and fifth emails respectively. I also like the "safety vest fluorescent" colour scheme from the website he was so keen to resurrect . The problem was eventually traced to a crash and rebuild at the City's webhost. Here's the full exchange of emails from CentOS' forum. One can only presume his "22 years" were counted as dog years or something.

Reviewing the statcounter log, I offer a welcome to those from Ontario Power Generation ( ty1.ontariopowergeneration.com ) and Constellation Energy ( person1.constellation.com ) who took an interest in this and those US visitors who found this via Google Finance . Since the first two were reading via IE 6.0, I presume they read it and didn't just Firefox Prefetch it .

The British House of Lords delivered their judgement today in R (on the application of Begum (by her litigation friend, Rahman)) (Respondent) v. Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School (Appellants). Shabina Begum , a pupil at Denbigh High School in Luton, a state maintained school with 79% Muslim enrolment, was contesting the school's right to enforce its dress code. The school, whose Head is a Bangladeshi woman of Muslim belief and which had several Muslim governors, had devised a dress code in consultation with local Islamic leaders for which the suggested dress for female muslim students which would conform with Islamic norms was the s(h)alwar kameez(e) , a long tunic and trousers, together with an optional headscarf of specified type. Her father was deceased and her mother spoke no English at the time. On the first day of the autumn term (3 Sept 02) she attended the school wearing jilbab and accompanied by her brother and a friend who has not been identified in t...

Professor June Entman at the University of Memphis has banned laptops from her class . Bloody right say I. This is not the same as the nutbars in Lakehead University who banned wifi , if people want to communicate in class they can just pass notes like we did, not IM and whatnot. Plus the little swine are probably streaming it for those with hangovers who want to catch it later. The guy who's all "well I don't have good class notes" just wants to run Naturally Speaking to transcribe them. Boo hoo - it's not enough to transcribe, you have to interpret and extend them which you're more likely to do if you're involved in the act.

The title's an anagram for "anagrams in transit" which has been in the news lately . It's also a pretty good description of the frequently broken escalators in the Toronto system. After a London Underground map was anagrammed , a similar map was done for Toronto and now one for Ottawa . All the transit authorities in question experienced sense-of-humour failures and released the legal hounds with their "cease and desist" notices. The TTC says anagram maps could confuse visitors - this would be plausible if they didn't use puzzles as promotions in their vehicles last year. The slavish adherence to whatever their marketers of the moment are push them close them off from suggestions from the public, as happened with the Spacing buttons - 50,000 of which have been sold, the revenue from which could have gone in part to the TTC if they were willing to participate. TTC's lack of outreach to the public is the reason NIMBYs have any traction, like the...

This seems like a bit of an obvious statement, but I've been reading /. for a long time (my email still has a "forgotten password request" from 2001 so at least six years I suppose) and I always thought it preceded blogging as a term, which was why I said so on Sicilian Notes . Richard then noted that it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck etc. so I thought about it awhile and did some googling. I find Slashdot has received a bloggie this year and the wikipedia entry says it "resembles a blog in many ways" so I am happy to retract. Still seems weird though.

The problem Peter Tabuns has is that he doesn't want a portlands power plant at all. However, since the NDP declined to evict Hizzoner ( as was Hargrove ), Miller still having his NDP party card makes it tricky for Tabuns to fully disown him since our Mayor has gone and backed the "Toronto Waterfront Clean Energy Centre" joint venture between city-owned Toronto Hydro and US firm Constellation Energy Group over the rival "Portlands Energy Centre". However, a few new snags have arisen - the lease on the Hearn (currently to a film studio) does not permit power generation . the Ontario Clean Air Alliance (which includes Toronto Hydro as a member, ironically) says the current Hearn plan, a simple cycle non-co-gen station is less efficient on a pollution per watt basis than the PEC combined cycle bid. It does mention that with steam for district heating (co-generation) the TWCEC would be more efficient than the PEC, but that implies the PEC would not be able to d...

Hope everyone at home and abroad enjoys the day. Seriously though, is there any other country in the world where the Prime Minister would spend every National Day in another country ? Two years ago Bertie did come up to Ottawa after his Washington trip (the usual bowing and scraping to Shrub) but that was in connection with Ireland's EU presidency.

Joe Cordiano, Liberal MPP for the York South-Weston riding has replaced Greg Sorbara as political minister for Greater Toronto. With the upcoming Liberal budget and leaks of funding for the Spadina line, the appointment of a nearby MPP may be significant - it is also interesting that Cordiano's constituency also includes Weston through which the intended Blue 22 service to Toronto Pearson may run. Personally I would have preferred to see GO Transit given that route, with a stop at Bloor to access the subway rather than non-stop to Union.

Vues d'ici has an interesting post on the EU conditions for Montenegro's secession referendum from Serbia, and whether the 55% in favour the EU are demanding would have consequences for a future Quebec secession referendum. Not sure I agree with the conclusions, but thought-provoking all the same.

Reading to the end of an interesting post on the status of gays in Iran relating to Western refugee applications on Maman Poulet, my eye was drawn to the next post down which referred to Annie Proulx's column in the Guardian relating to the Academy Awards. Sadly Suzy did not treat us to her opinion of Ms. Proulx's view of the experience. First - I haven't seen either movie yet so I hope I can be objective in respect of the column. I found the Guardian article ridiculous. The Oscars are a cliquish contest, just like they say about the Golden Globes and every other award show. Funnily enough the one that claims to be most democratic ( People's Choice ) no-one much cares about, while Annie wants us to choose the Independent Spirit Awards which no-one's much heard about - and they gave Lost in Translation best picture, a movie which everyone I know who saw it and myself considers a pile of manure. The column would have been more plausible if submitted before the...

Prime Minister Harper (still get a shudder typing that) has been rallying the troops in Kandahar . Canada has 2,200 personnel ( including a barber ) in Kandahar province, which is kinda like South Armagh but more mountainy (real ones, not what we call mountains in Ireland). Harper's rhetoric is still Republican-esque so he uses lame Bush catchphrases which is pretty dumb as it just gives people an excuse to ignore the message and, well, shoot the messenger. The usual stuff "God bless Canada", "we won't cut and run", etc. etc. It is pretty impressive though that (a) he flew in on a Herc - which I suppose is less risky than a Sea King but not by much and (b) he overnighted with the troops. Bet the travelling handlers just loved the accomodations. The point of the title is following on from a comment I left on talk talk talk , which was that the guy who should have been with him is Paul Martin, Prime Minister when the troops were committed to the operatio...

Council has withdrawn its $400k grant to Caribana's current organisers , the Caribbean Cultural Committee, in favour of the Mas Band Association who organised it in 2002. If the Province and feds follow suit that will be another $500k. CCC own the rights to the name so it will have to be under a different title. This is due to Caribana being warned to have an audit ready by end of February or there would be no city money. CCC had missed four deadlines by the end of February and the city has now pulled the plug, but magically an audit has appeared which may lead to a police investigation . As far back as 2001 the CCC had problems with their audits . Councillor Joe Mihevc, liaison to Caribana for eight years , is now being called a racist . Plus ça change... The CCC are crying " over our dead bodies will someone else organise Caribana " - given the number of violent deaths in the Toronto Caribbean community you'd think they wouldn't remind us. This is the loc...

Would the Independent Group please make up its mind? Either it wants to treat someone like a socialite (Indo May 2004, rego req.) or as a layabout who can't be bothered commuting like her ESB colleagues (Sindo this morning). Questions about the use of garda drivers over the years have been numerous (including their adherence or lack thereof to speed limits) and previous reports had suggested civilianising the cabinet ministerial drivers and "courtesy" drivers such as those for ex-Taoisigh and retaining police drivers only for security needs - there was also controversy about provision of a driver for the State Pathologist. While the swiftboating (albeit belatedly) of Mary McAleese is ongoing, now her daughter will pay for it. One hopes the other abusers of Garda drivers will be similarly outed, as one officer is quoted in the Sindo article: "These guards are doing menial tasks that could, in most cases, be done by civilians. And there is no accountability. If ...

The inaugural Irish Blog Awards were held in Dublin last night. By all accounts a great night was had and some ideas were thrown around for ways that bloggers can share their knowledge with others to help them to get started. Well done all concerned.

In 2001 I was sitting in a bar near Portoroz, Slovenia watching cable news when the first attempt to arrest Milosevic was going on. That eventually went nowhere but shortly afterward the deed was done. In the bar at the time were several Yugoslav (Serb) students, some of whom were active against Milosevic in local movements, all of whom wondering what the future would bring. The attitude of the diehard Milosevic sympathisers is understandable if misguided - if he had gone to Russia I doubt he would ever return. It sickens me to be honest when some are deemed too old/sick to stand trial when they reached that old age walking over the bones of those they murdered. As the BBC obit points out , until the Dayton accords Milosevic was still untouchable, swanning around the world signing peace accords while sizing up his next target. Is it too much to hope that rather than obsessing over Milosevic's supposed martyrdom, Serbia can move forward towards an open society, as Croatia did wi...

Emma posted recently on the fight between two Montreal families over an empty Tim Hortons cup. The cup was thrown away and a girl picked it out of the rubbish in her primary school and couldn't roll the rim up. She asked her older friend to help and lo and behold the prize hidden under the rim was not the usual free doughnut or free coffee but a Toyota RAV4. According to Mitsou Gelinas who interviewed them (Windows Media) the families were happy to divide the prize and go to Disneyland but when the claim form only had space for one prizewinner they decided to think about it overnight. The father of one then decided he didn't want to share and the mother of the other emailed Mitsou, since obviously the best way to resolve these types of disputes is to involve a talk show host, right? She did have one insightful point - it will end up in court and the lawyers will get the car! Now apparently a guy who claims he threw it away has retained a lawyer (Real Player) - surprisi...

The New York Times (usual rego required) reports that the cemetary where Rosa Parks is buried is jacking up the price of nearby crypts . Nice. I suspect the people whose vanity leads them to purchase the crypts just to be seen to be close to the civil rights legend will not be receiving the same reception at the Pearly Gates as their neighbour. The same article notes the original Memphis crypt of Elvis (prior to his removal to Graceland) is available. Personally I'm hoping that flashfreezing is an option wherever I am by the time I go.

The Supreme Court of the United States recently decided Rumsfeld vs Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc. A coalition of American law schools whose policies denied the US military equal access to career facilities at those schools under non-discrimination policies were fighting the Solomon Amendment . This statute ( 10 U.S.C. § 983 ) allowed the US government to withhold federal funding to those institutions who refused the military access equal to any other employer receiving the most favourable treatment. The non-discrimination policies related to the treatment of homosexuals in the military, including the "don't ask, don't tell" policy which was instituted under President Clinton. I noticed the judgement first at Mental Meanderings in a post headed " Can't stop them now " which referenced SCOTUSblog's coverage . Somewhat irritated, in comments I pointed out to Fiona that Chief Justice Roberts had said quite the opposite - The Solom...

Apparently the Fluorescent Orange Peril's Peter Tabuns is " standing up " for Toronto-Danforth. Only a few weeks ago the wicked Harperites were campaigning on that same slogan. "Swiftboating" was not yet in the lexicon when Marilyn Churley associated Greenpeace founder and Liberal candidate Bob Hunter with paedophilia because of a book Hunter had written about child prostitution in South East Asia which he claimed was in the "gonzo journalist" tradition - if only James Frey had thought of that . Now during the current by-election to replace Churley, while the NDP haven't stuck Ben Chin with anything similar yet, they do seem to be trying to get something ( see also here ) from Chin's less than clear bio. (Apparently the Tories care too - maybe they should worry more about the really small number of lawn signs in the riding - I've only seen one so far, at Donlands and O'Connor). Chin had mentioned in separate bios being the son of ...

The Provincial Liberals want to build a new subway extension, coincidentally pushing into York Region where they recently claimed seats from the Tories. Rick Ducharme, General Manager of the TTC doesn't want it right now . Transit advocates like Steve Munro don't want it. Scarberians are wondering how they got left behind when the SRT's days are numbered (another fiasco mandated by the Province btw) and the Sheppard line isn't long enough to be of help to them or anyone else. But the government of Ontario is apparently flush with cash and wants to spend it so they can "announce" the elimination of the deficit in 2007. Greg Sorbara, a big supporter of the project while Ontario Finance Minister before resigning in the face of an RCMP probe of his business dealings, is alleged to have leaked the Province's intention to commit funding to the Mayor of Vaughan - he denies this . Here's what I wonder about though: these capital programmes are usually trip...

Various bloggers have posted on World Book Day although it wasn't today until I noticed the Sicilian Notes post on the subject - obviously not paying attention since many others mentioned too! Both Nicole and I are "bookish" and some painful decisions had to be made when I moved to Canada - and even after that a good two or three shelves of books remain back home to be transported in the luggage of various family members when space permits. Some tastes we share (J.K Rowling, Roddy Doyle, John B. Keane) some we don't (she reads Frank McCourt, I read P.J. O'Rourke). We started our relationship buying each other books - she bought Scott Russell's Ice Time for me, I bought Aaron Sorkin's West Wing Script Book for her. We had a lot of time apart to read them in the beginning. Like Fiona I expect eventually I'll end up owning a library with attached living quarters. Vibes and Scribes just north of Patrick's Bridge in Cork was a frequent stop for ...

Okay, apparently it was 2,400 . You'd think there would be a bigger turnout given 40 million Irish-Americans and all. You'd also think they'd have waited a week for Bertie to show up so if the answer was no a few could be crammed into the Air Corps Gulfstream. Yes, it's d'illegal emigrants again. RTE has some stories on this but I can't watch the RealPlayer clips as their website is being stupid.

Fortunately, I had been warned , so I didn't do anything daft like kick the computer (the CPU is at floor level) I was listening to the Dunphy podcast (look, I know there was that thing with John Waters but there's nothing else podcast wise! RTE used to lead in internet stuff but now they're lagging desperately) and hearing him kick off a debate between a planetologist and a guy who thinks the moon landings were faked. Surely there's more people believe in creationism than believe that??? Google believes they landed , so it's true. Cop on Eamon.

I was fortunate enough to win an iPod shuffle at the Christmas bash and decided to install iTunes 6 to make it work. I had installed a previous version before podcast support and used iPodder to fix that but podcasting was new and not very interesting and I gave up on it. Version 6 brought integral podcasting and the iTunes Store gave access to a lot of new podcasts. Happy days, right? What really bugs me is that Apple seem to like annoying its Windows users - every so often iTunes advises you to update to the latest version, like today's notice to update to 6.0.4. Like Google Earth, these updates require downloading the entire installer rather than a smaller incremental update as Mozilla, Adobe and Lotus provide for their products. This is very bloody annoying - since Google employ most of the Firefox team these days (or so it seems) perhaps someone there can introduce them to incremental patches. However, while my "patch" was downloading from Apple I came across thi...

The role of imams in the Islamic communities in Western countries is often brought up in media discussion of the war on terror and general Islamic-nonIslamic interface issues. This is especially so in the UK where much media coverage has centred on "radical mosques". This morning I found an account of how other Western imams practice their ministry. The New York Times (rego required) has an article on a Brooklyn imam , Sheik Reda Shata, who was brought up in a remote area of Egypt and how he adjusted to life studying in Cairo, then serving as an imam in Germany and now New York. The questions his parishoners pose are often ones he had never anticipated answering before living in the West, such as the morality of oral sex, mortgages, or serving pork or alcohol as an employee, not least because in Middle Eastern society there is no discussion of the imam's decisions but Western Muslims often question his pronouncements. One comment of his struck me in particular: "...

Mark Durkan, always desperate to have the SDLP mentioned in a vain attempt to slow the Sinn Fein juggernaut, pops up in this RTE story . He suggest a forum as an alternative to marching, however there are several problems with this. Let's start with the trivial one: marching is better for your health than sitting down listening to barristerial flatulence - although the injuries to security forces and the raised blood pressure of residents does counteract this. That said, if he had said "tribunal" rather than "march" I doubt many could disagree. The slightest thing, either in Ireland and Canada and people (and their learned friends) are demanding tribunals. Whether it be the current Ipperwash tribunal here in Ontario or the various planning inquiries in Ireland, people want their cake and eat it, demanding tribunals to "get to the truth" but raging when the results of such tribunals by their nature rarely are usable in criminal trials.

In recent days, two Canadian soldiers died after their LAV III armoured vehicle rolled-over after a collision near Kandahar, Afghanistan. Their deaths are a tragedy for their families and their colleagues. Speed is a defence to ambush but it brings its own dangers. However, the attack on Lieutenant Trevor Greene is as tragic for the future of Afghanistan as the manner of the attack was lurid. Greene, an infantry reservist on a six month tour, was not working for Joint Task Force 2 or any other anti-AlQaeda unit. A writer and former naval officer, his post in Afghanistan was with Canadian Forces Civil Military Co-ordination (CIMIC) where he had meetings (called shura ) with local elders in areas devoid of running water, education, medicine or roads. It was at one of these meetings, 70 kilometers north of Kandahar that he was attacked by a man who stepped out of the crowd carrying an axe, who struck Greene in the head - on which he was not wearing a helmet in a sign of openness ...

The registration of ie7.com has been well covered in the blogosphere, highlighting the ongoing efforts by the Firefox community to keep their momentum in the fight to provide a true alternative to IE. Of my latest 100 browser agents registered, 58 have been IE6, 37 have been Firefox/Netscape/Mozilla, 4 Safari and one unknown. No Opera but some Opera users report as IE to get around websites which reject non-approved browsers so it's possible there's some in there. I've added buttons to get Firefox 1.5 and Thunderbird 1.5 to the sidebar - 21 of the 35 Firefox hits are from versions 1.0.7 or earlier. The automatic update feature in Firefox 1.5 makes it a worthwhile upgrade for home users and the 1.5 installer can also be modified for corporate/silent install needs. I also note that Firefox 2.0 (due later this year) may have the "close tab" button on the active tab rather than off to the right which moves Firefox nearer my work mail client (Lotus Notes 6.5.5) in ea...

Slashdot notes an article in USA Today which refers to easy ways to spoof caller ID using internet telephony. No doubt when the ISPs step up their network throttling of Skype et al to promote their own VOIP services, the Republican congressman referred to in the article whose office caller ID was spoofed in the act of making abusive calls to his constituents will be front and centre. Caller ID is also used to verify credit cards apparently. No doubt the RIAA and the MPAA will be handing out "Skype for stalkers, BitTorrent for pirates" buttons.

No, this isn't about the Dublin riots , or the CVS replacement . It's not about my small but not yet quashed suspicion that John Ferguson Jr. is a secret Montreal Canadiens sleeper agent programmed by his dad. It's about the steaming pile of excrement known as American Idol. There were many protestations from "her indoors" during the version for grown-ups ( Rock Star:INXS ) that she'd never watch the teenybopper crap produced by the same people that bring you Faux News , yet here we are again and American Idol's on telly, Paula Abdul's still a pandering fool and Randy Jackson still can't speak English. The least I can do is promote the efforts of those who would subvert it .