From Cork to Toronto

The New York Times have an article on " How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads " by Daniel Cassidy regarding how many American slang words appear to originate either phonetically or via translation from Irish. (Hat-tip Slugger ) The word “gimmick” seemed to come from “camag,” meaning trick or deceit, or a hook or crooked stick. Could “scam” have derived from the expression “’S cam é,” meaning a trick or a deception? Similarly, “slum” seemed similar to an expression meaning “It is poverty.” “Dork” resembled “dorc,” which Mr. Cassidy’s dictionary called “a small lumpish person.” As for “twerp,” the Irish word for dwarf is “duirb.” I think a few of those listed in the NYT are a stretch but still aren't as bad as "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" where Gus explains the Greek roots of the word "kimono".

The answer to every question in the overcoddled state of Iowa seems to be someone else's money, and because of America's simply bizarre method of selecting its First Citizen, what Iowa wants it all too often gets. The last season of the West Wing described buttering up Iowans by promising subsidy as "taking the pledge". First they wanted subsidies to build ethanol plants, and despite increasing evidence that not only is corn a poor feedstock and ethanol a poor biofuel but making ethanol from corn is a greenhouse gas polluting process , they got the money. Now too many distilleries have been built, the price of ethanol is plummeting because of poor distribution and the corn farmers answer is, you've guessed it - " mo' money! "

Michelle Madigan, Associate Producer at NBC Dateline , was outed at the hacker conference Defcon having lied about her position as a member of the press, instead registering as an ordinary attendee. Signing for a press badge entails a code of conduct - i.e. don't try and entrap 13 years olds who are making claims they aren't close to being capable of, and don't endanger the identities of federal agents with ties to the security community. Hidden cameras are a no-no, but it is suspected she was utilising a pin-hole device. What she and Dateline forgot is that unlike your common or garden paedophile, that show's bread and butter, hackers are wary types and intrusion detection is their stock-in-trade. Some reports indicate Defcon were tipped off by their own source within Dateline. After being offered a press badge four times , Madigan was outed and chose to flee the conference despite an offer to remain - with a badge. Plainly upfront journalism isn't the kind...

I may safely assert that the insurgents are very few in comparison with the whole of the people Vice-Admiral Lord Howe , 1775.  I read with interest this review of General Sir Michael Rose's book " Washington's War " in the Spectator over the weekend, which highlighted perceived similarities between the conduct of the British campaign against the Americans with the coalition of willing's tactics in Iraq. Rose called for the impeachment of Tony Blair in January 2006 over the Iraq war and rejected the view that NATO bombing directly caused political breakthroughs in the former Yugoslavia in 1995 and 1999. The review mentioned a Newsnight interview by Jeremy Paxman between Rose and former Bush legal adviser David Rifkin who put it that only "lack of stamina and lack of political will" stood in the way of victory in Iraq. Paxman: There are going to be a lot of people in this country General, who are very distressed that a senior distinguished military o...

Via Slashdot , an interesting ZDNet blog post which points to a Google staffer's a marketing pitch to the health care industry to counteract, through advertising, the possible impact that Michael Moore's Sicko will have on their business. While legislators, litigators, and patient groups are growing excited, others among us are growing anxious. And why wouldn’t they? Moore attacks health insurers, health providers, and pharmaceutical companies by connecting them to isolated and emotional stories of the system at its worst. Moore’s film portrays the industry as money and marketing driven, and fails to show healthcare’s interest in patient well-being and care. I'm not sure it's Evil, exactly (as in Don't Be Evil ) but I'm not sure it's "not Evil", either.

A good week for Porter, a bad one for Air Canada. Its Jazz subsidiary was denied summary judgement in their attempt to regain access to Toronto City Centre and must issue a formal statement of claim within 30 days and submit to discovery processes (which would disclose Jazz' strategy towards the Island Airport). Failure to do so would mean they would be exposed to costs - Porter claim to have spend $1m so far. This was followed by the US Department of Transportation decision to allow Porter to operate to the US . This was opposed by Air Canada and some US airlines but DOT decided that what the Port Authority did to Air Canada was not their concern, and all that mattered was their relationship with American carriers - noting that TPA came to an agreement with US Airways, irrespective that US did not take up the service. Porter is expected to begin service to Newark in Q4 2007 or Q1 2008 but are expected to serve other US destinations. CEO Robert Deluce had recently announced p...

I meant to blog about this when I saw it on Torontoist a few days ago but am catching up now.  A Blue Jays fan waves a Maple Leaf at Dodger Stadium and gets hassled .   Various Canadian expats get stroppy with the rent-a-goon.   Apparently being cosy with the Governator , bolthole for their soldiers and the largest source of their oil imports still gets the Canadian flag classified as "a sign or a banner", as a Dodger VP (one of a hundred, no doubt) tries to justify it.  A couple of fans were chucked out and a few others left in solidarity. Apparently the US flag is also banned - a clear case of justifying a stupid policy with a stupider (and puzzling given the mawkish wrapping in the flag American sports teams do so frequently).   I'm all for restrictions at certain times and places - like Belfast Giants hockey team banning flags and especially Celtic and Rangers jerseys,  but this was very irritating when Canada puts up a bunch of securocratic crap from the US - no f...

During his recent trip to Canada, the Governator met with Stephen Harper (the Kyotoevader), Dalton McGuinty, who broke his pledge to close coal-fired power in Ontario, and Gordon Campbell, whose province is planning new coal plants despite objections from his neighbours in the state of Washington. Yet while in Toronto he did not meet with our Mayor , David Miller, the greenest broom wielder in Canada. I for one would love to know why. Could it be that word has got around about Hizzoner's deserted presentation in New York , in contrast to Ken Livingstone 's packed house? While Schwarzenegger promotes his Hydrogen Highway, Miller is promoting the idea of plug-in cars , which is a curious idea from a Mayor who believes we don't need new power plants or power lines. Even restricting use to off peak will require specialised infrastructure to ensure people don't plug in their cars in day time because they really really really need to make that trip to Walmart. Like the h...

As Environment Minister Baird muses aloud about how those pesky Liberals like Stephane Dion subsidised the tarsands and he can't figure out why, the U.S. House of Representatives votes 264-163, including 36 Republicans voting with the majority Democrats, to repeal US$14bn of oil subsidies and other financial benefits . (NYT, rego required) Garth Turner fires back at Baird, pointing out some interesting issues: Dion was not involved in the programme Baird mentioned the programme began when oil was at $21/bbl, not $50 as it has been recently tarsands get more financial benefits than conventional oil and gas - in fact the same incentives as renewables Turner goes on : what we don’t need is an environment minister who has started his mandate lying about who did what, when, instead of what he’s going to do, now. Indeed. However, it would have been good to see the Martin government think aloud about these subsidies when they had the chance. From when Martin took power in December 2003...

Over the next year the United States Fish and Wildlife Service will be considering a proposal to designated polar bears as endangered . At first glance this seems a no-brainer, given that polar bears have been suffering a multi-whammy: a decline in their sea ice breeding areas, a decline in their foodstocks, the release of manmade toxins normally stored in fat due to their lower food intake and their objectification by Coca-Cola every Christmas. The Nunavut territorial government doesn't think this is a good idea , according to the CBC. My first thought that this is a Inuit traditional rights issue, like the hunters in B.C. allowed to use hunting rifles at night because night hunting is a tradition of First Nations. But the USFWS doesn't have jurisdiction over Canada anyway. No, this is about US fatcats coming north for "sport" hunting - $20,000 for a guarantee to shoot a polar bear - for extra you can shoot an elk and have the meat shipped to your home. Acco...

The FDA has approved cloned meat for unlabelled sale to the public . US food can now, it seems, be any combo from genetically modified, cloned, growth promoted and antibiotic-laden. Sadly with NAFTA and the flow of livestock across the border some of that food will probably end up on Canadian tables. So it's okay to eat this stuff but not clone stem cells? All of a sudden Soylent Green is looking appetising.

Especially now that he's going to be a grand-dad. ( New York Times - rego required )

It's difficult to credit the actions of the UCPD cops who resorted to Tasering a student (youtube.com) who, against regulations, was in the college library without student ID and was reluctant to leave. The student should not have refused to leave but I doubt the announced review will allow what appears to be current UCPD practice to go unreproved. It is even more difficult to credit Kathy Shaidle who considers herself a Catholic rebroadcasting this intolerant cackle of glee : Let's see more of this… Police taser UCLA student for behaving like a jackass. My God, this cannot happen often enough. Do you have any idea how happy it makes me to watch a black cop taser a college student who is being a huge, whiny baby and screaming "This is an abuse of power!" (No, it's the violence inherent in the system.) And just when you think this story can't get better, there's a hilarious video. Screams of anguish never sounded so beautiful. What makes this even b...

Seen at Dunner's blog . Not content with self-portrayal as barbarians on camera at Abu Ghraib , these soldiers have added video, making Iraqi kids run in an attempt to get a proffered water bottle. One poor kid ran for ages and then when the idiot grunt tossed the bottle some kids standing nearby got it anyway. Let freedom ring, huh?

Not content with having their harvest festival at a stupid time of year, the Americans have... oh let's just let Barbara Mair tell her story from today's Star letters page : In August 2006, my nephew left his wife and 5-year-old daughter for a 6-month tour of duty in Afghanistan. He, like so many other Canadian military personnel, did this for love of his country and to fight for freedom that too many of us take for granted. On Oct. 9, 2006, our family sat down to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We talked about Afghanistan and wondered if those stationed there would be able to enjoy a similar meal. Later we found out that because the food service at the Kandahar base is run by the American military, they did not observe our Canadian holiday. Being the passive Canadian family, we thought Thanksgiving would be observed on the American holiday, Nov. 23 and didn't voice our disappointment at the time. Can you imagine the shock and disappointment that our troops felt yester...

So said Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in her opinion calling a halt to the warrantless, FISAless tapping of phones by US intelligence (sic) agencies. Slate has what seems a good article here , noting its follow-on to Hamdan vs Rumsfeld . Let's hope a similar, thorough examination of signing statements is not far behind. Taylor quotes Justice Black: The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad. And the Constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who make laws which the President is to execute. The first section of the first article says that 'All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States' Taylor ends by quoting Justice Warren: Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart. . . . It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the ...

According to Adam Cohen in the New York Times (rego required or use Bugmenot) seminars on the Rehnquist Court are avoiding discussion of perhaps its most historic case . Cohen argues that Bush vs Gore was right in law but wrong in remedy, and that Democratic petitioners attempting to use Bush vs Gore to ensure electoral fairness are winning in lower courts but being reversed when the cases are heard en banc at the District Courts of Appeal. There are several problems with trying to airbrush Bush v. Gore from the law. It undermines the courts’ legitimacy when they depart sharply from the rules of precedent, and it gives support to those who have said that Bush v. Gore was not a legal decision but a raw assertion of power. The courts should also stand by Bush v. Gore’s equal protection analysis for the simple reason that it was right (even if the remedy of stopping the recount was not). Elections that systematically make it less likely that some voters will get to cast a vote that is c...

As a non-lawyer, reading a dense judgement riven with partial joinings and multiple dissents such as this week's 185 page Hamdan versus Rumsfeld from the United States Supreme Court, it is difficult to make sense of the legal appropriateness of the 5-3 decision, with Justice Kennedy siding with the majority and Chief Justice Roberts abstaining due to involvement in previous Court of Appeals proceedings. I can only go with my gut instinct which is to agree with Justice Breyer's comments: Congress has not issued the Executive a “blank check.” [...] Indeed, Congress has denied the President the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary. Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation’s ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengt...

James Bow points me towards this Penn & Teller episode (on Google video) which describes the farce that is the World Trade Centre reconstruction, from the disastrous initial Libeskind design through to the hiding of the notes and photos family members left looking for their loved ones in an obscure back room. If you get the New York Times RSS feed it's no surprise that both the public interest and the families of the 9/11 victims are being shafted by Silverstein and the politicians but P&T tie it together very nicely. It's about half an hour long and the language is quite pungent in places so probably Not Suitable For Work. In my view the show is compelling viewing, not least for their interview with the owner of Majestic Pizza on Cortlandt Street which is going broke because of the continual delays in bringing people back to the Trade Centre area. Penn and Teller may not be making a WTC out of Majestic's pizza as they suggest at one point, but I hope they at ...

These days, we generally rely on the Legislature or the Courts or Human Rights Commissions to deliver equality. As I noted in my post on Ruth Kelly, sometimes we can't rely on the institutions of the State. In Cleveland, Ohio, a new film documents how citizens decided to go out and get it for themselves . (Seen at The Cylinder )