Sunday, April 22, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
As well, I'm reading Wuthering Heights. It's a work in progress. I'm on page 94 of 367. Wish me luck.
I'm off to read more of this livre and listen to some Great Big Sea.
Until later,
me.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
Progress in Sudan?
The UN contingent will provide support for 7,000 struggling African Union troops there.
Sudan's apparent change of heart comes after months of international pressure to accept UN peacekeepers.
But Khartoum is yet to agree to the deployment of a much-larger AU force of 20,000 troops proposed by the UN.
The four-year Darfur conflict between rebels and pro-government Arab militia has seen more than 200,000 deaths and at least 2.4 million displaced.
Oxfam appeal
Mr Ban said the UN and the AU would "intend to move quickly to prepare for the deployment of the heavy support package" for the AU troops.
| | UN DARFUR PLAN Phase 1 - UN financial backing for AU mission Phase 2 - UN sends logistical and military support Phase 3 - UN takes joint command of hybrid force |
He was referring to the second phase of a UN plan which envisages that UN attack helicopters and armoured personnel carries would also be deployed to help the AU troops.
Earlier on Monday, Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol said that Khartoum had fully accepted the second phase of the plan.
British aid agency Oxfam has launched an appeal for humanitarian aid for the Darfur region.
Oxfam says it needs £5m ($10m) to help displaced people in the region who continue to flee from violence.
"This is the greatest concentration of human suffering in the world and an outrage that affronts the world's moral values," Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's international director said after a tour of Darfur.
The international aid agency is currently providing clean water, health and sanitation services to more than 500,000 people in Darfur and eastern Chad.
"Nearly one million people are not getting any aid at all and in some areas the aid effort is under threat due to increasing insecurity," an Oxfam statement said.
Visiting US official John Negroponte had also warned Sudan of isolation if it failed to stop harassment of humanitarian workers and rejected the deployment of UN peacekeepers in the war-torn region.
"The denial of visas and harassment of aid workers has created the impression that the government of Sudan is engaged in a deliberate campaign of intimidation," he said at the end of his tour of Sudan.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
Monday, April 09, 2007
Guess what I'm done?
Now, if only I could write happy entries about my English... Hopefully some of those to come in the not-so-distant future.
Until later,
Me.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Yet Another Thing That Makes Me Laugh
http://qcjeph.livejournal.com/68770.html
"
[jeph] it's over my head, but still funny
[Lem] Come on... Texas Chainsaw Massacre?
[Lem] true, it is a bit of a leap i suppose
[Lem] ah well :D
[jeph] that'd be more like "Alabama Hedgetrimmer Maiming" or something
[Lem] true!
[Lem] you know if the British ever made a version of it it'd basically be the Lower Early Hedgetrimmer Annoyance though.
[Lem] iti wouldn't even be maiming, it'd be irritating
[jeph] the british would've titled it something like "The Hedgeman"
[jeph] and he wouldn't actually murder people, he'd just kind of creep them out while doing their yardwork
[Lem] hahahaha
[Lem] oh man, that'd be awesome
[jeph] grinning suggestively at your children as he mows the lawn
[jeph] you realize he's raked your entire yard without blinking once
[jeph] when you go to pay him he's all "oh no, you've already made YOUR payment, hahahahahahaahahahahahah"
[Lem] and then he gets into a small beige van and drives off, leaving an evil smell of rotten eggs. is it the fuel, or is the EVIL!?
[jeph] haha
[jeph] there are children's handprints on the inside of all the windows in his van
[Lem] some of them have smilie faces drawn on them
[jeph] is that dried blood or rust on his mower?
[jeph] and then at the end of the movie, the BIG SURPRISE TWIST is that your mailman is a serial killer
[Lem] and the Hedgeman is in fact just a kind old man that takes children to the the countryside to read them poetry and draw pictures to get away from the boredom of thier beurgeois lives in suburbia.
[jeph] haha
[Lem] which, frankly, would be the biggest surprise of all."
This made me laugh. Don't mix porn and international security secrets....
SPIEGEL ONLINE - April 6, 2007, 12:45 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,476032,00.html
THE WAGES OF SIN
Porn-Swapping Japanese Sailors Leak Missile Secrets
Three sailors in Japan have been charged with spilling military secrets in a smut-swapping scandal that could reach up the navy's chain of command. The secrets involve an American ship-based missile shield.
An American Aegis-equipped cruiser fires a missile during a U.S. Navy ballistic missile flight test June 22, 2006.
A Japanese paper reported that a 33-year-old petty officer -- married to a Chinese woman -- brought home a CD-ROM containing not just pornographic images but also classified data about the Aegis missile system. Aegis is a ship-based network developed by Americans which Japan has started to use for its own regional defense.
The petty officer claims he didn't know he'd copied sensitive data along with his porn. According to the paper Yomiuri Shimbun, the files were discovered on a hard disk that police seized from the petty officer's home in January. At least two other petty officers had copied the same data, and their computers, writes the paper, "contained a large collection of obscene images."
Investigators said none of the men had clearance for the secret information, which included "calculating formulas" for the Aegis interceptor system as well as details on the number of targets it can track. The sensitivity of the data implies that senior officers, with higher clearance, were also involved in the swap. Police suspect that the original source of the top-secret files may have been a lieutenant commander who had been sent to the US to learn how to operate the system.
The Aegis system was first developed by Americans in the 1960s. The US Navy sells the technology to friendly nations, and Tokyo has stepped up its missile defense ever since North Korea fired a provocative test missile last year over the Sea of Japan. (Later North Korea also successfully tested a nuclear bomb.) But the leak is also bad for the U.S. Navy, because Aegis belongs to Washington's ambitions for a vast defense network to protect the US as well as its European allies from missile attack.American response to the breach, so far, as been tight-lipped. "I know the Japan Self-Defense Forces take operations security seriously," said General Bruce Wright, commander of US forces in Japan.
msm/afp/ap
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Oh, Quebec trip. Good times. Good times...
Until later,
Me.
PS, my Poli Sci paper is really about 70% done now, after how long? I love it when my creativity decides to be helpful and my mind wants to focus on things I have to do rather than things I can't control or do anything substantive about.
Bye again,
Me.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Captured British soldiers freed by Pres Ahmadinejad
He repeated Iran's view that the British sailors and marines "invaded" Iranian waters, but said they were being released as a "gift" to Britain.
They are expected to fly home to the UK on Thursday.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was "glad" to hear the news, which he said would come as "a profound relief" to the crew and their families.
Iranian media said the British crew members "shouted for joy" on hearing the news.
Television pictures showed the Iranian president smiling, chatting and shaking hands with the crew at the presidential palace in Tehran.
| | HAVE YOUR SAY Of course diplomacy worked, it was a diplomatic incident Colin Campbell, Stockholm, Sweden |
The Britons were wearing suits, rather than the military uniform and tracksuits they wore in previous pictures. The one female crew member, Faye Turney, wore a blue headscarf and jacket.
An unidentified crew member said: "I'd like to say that myself and my whole team are very grateful for your forgiveness. I'd like to thank yourself and the Iranian people... Thank you very much, sir."
Mr Ahmadinejad responded in Farsi: "You are welcome."
'Theatrical gesture'
Mr Ahmadinejad announced the decision to release the Britons at a news conference marking Persian New Year.
| | UK VERSION OF EVENTS 1 Crew boards merchant ship 1.7NM inside Iraqi waters 2 HMS Cornwall was south-east of this, and inside Iraqi waters 3 Iran tells UK that merchant ship was at a different point, still within Iraqi waters 4 After UK points this out, Iran provides alternative position, now within Iranian waters |
He spoke at length, attacking the West over its policy in the Middle East, and it was more than an hour before he even mentioned the captives issue.
He repeated allegations that the Britons were captured in Iranian waters, and awarded medals to the Iranian commanders responsible for detaining them.
It was all part of the build up to his extraordinary theatrical gesture, says the BBC's diplomatic correspondent James Robbins.
"We have every right to put these people on trial," Mr Ahmadinejad asserted.
"But I want to give them as a present to the British people to say they are all free."
| | The British government was not even brave enough to tell their people the truth Mahmoud Ahmadinejad |
He said they were being pardoned to mark both the Prophet Muhammad's birthday on 30 March, and the upcoming Easter holiday.
"I'm asking Mr Blair to not put these 15 personnel on trial because they admitted they came to Iranian territorial water," he added, referring to taped "confessions" made by the British sailors and marines.
Britain says the 15 were in Iraqi waters under a UN mandate when they were captured nearly two weeks ago. It says the confessions were extracted under duress.
"Unfortunately the British government was not even brave enough to tell their people the truth, that it made a mistake," Mr Ahmadinejad said.
The Iranian leader said no concessions had been made by the British government to secure the releases, but that Britain had pledged "that the incident would not be repeated".
'We respect Iran'
Prime Minister Tony Blair said Britain's approach to the crisis had been "firm but calm - not negotiating but not confronting either".
He did not thank or address the Iranian president, but said to the Iranian people: "We bear you no ill will. On the contrary, we respect Iran as an ancient civilisation, as a nation with a proud and dignified history.
| | IRANIAN VERSION OF EVENTS 1 Royal Navy crew stray 0.5km inside Iranian waters 2 Iran gives set of co-ordinates to back up their claims 3 According to seized GPS equipment, the Royal Navy crew had previously entered Iranian waters at several other points 4 Iran informs Britain of the position where the crew were seized, inside Iranian waters |
"The disagreements we have with your government we wish to resolve peacefully through dialogue. I hope - as I've always hoped - that in the future we are able to do so."
The solution to the crisis - freeing the Britons while rewarding the Iranian commanders of the operation - appears to be a face-saving compromise, says the BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran.
She says speculation is likely to continue over whether it had anything to do with developments in Iraq, where an Iranian envoy has reportedly been given access to five Iranians captured by US forces, and where a kidnapped diplomat was released on Tuesday.
Earlier on Wednesday Syria revealed that it had been mediating between Iran and the UK over the sailors and marines.
The family of one of the captives, Royal Marine Adam Sperry, hailed the announcement as "the best present imaginable".
"Whoever has been in the right or wrong, the whole thing has been a political mess, so let's just get them home," said his uncle, Ray Cooper.
Monday, April 02, 2007
An update from a story posted January 10th.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,475218,00.html
GERMAN BREEDER FURIOUS OVER CANCELLED TRIP
No More Monster Bunnies for North Korea
By David Crossland
The fate of 12 German giant rabbits delivered to North Korea is in doubt. The breeder who sent them suspects they have been eaten by top officials rather than used to set up a bunny farm. Berlin's North Korean embassy denies the allegation. One thing is sure: the country will have to find another seller.
A German rabbit breeder who sold 12 rabbits to North Korea to breed giant bunnies said he won't be exporting any more to the reclusive communist country because he suspects they have been eaten.
Karl Szmolinsky, 68, sent the spectacularly huge rabbits, which are as big as dogs, to North Korea late last year and had said in January he might deliver more to assist the country's program to alleviate food shortages through rabbit breeding.
He had been due to travel to North Korea after Easter to provide advice on setting up a breeding facility for the rabbits, which can produce around seven kilos of meat.
But his trip was cancelled at short notice. Szmolinsky said he got a call from a North Korean official last Thursday informing him that the trip was off because the government was unhappy with the way in which a local Berlin newspaper had reported about the deal.
"I think the animals aren't alive anymore. I was due to go and inspect the animals and look at the facility. North Korea won't be getting anything from me any more, they shouldn't even bother asking," Szmolinsky told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "They kept delaying the trip. I would have liked to go."
The North Korean embassy in Berlin denied that the rabbits were dead and said no one at the embassy had contacted Szmolinsky. "The rabbits aren't intended to be eaten, they are for breeding purposes," a spokesman said.
Szmolinsky, who has been breeding rabbits for 47 years, has won prizes for his bunnies. Robert, a 10.5 kilo "German gray giant" that won a prize at a rabbit show last year, was among the consignment of four males and eight females dispatched to North Korea. Robert's son, Robert II, is still safe in his hutch in the eastern German town of Eberswalde.
Szmolinsky said he suspected Robert I and his fellow bunnies had been eaten by top officials and that that was the real reason why he wasn't getting a visa. "That's an assumption, not an assertion," he added. "But they're not getting any more."
Szmolinsky had made the North Koreans a special price of €80 per rabbit instead of the usual €200 to €250. He had said in January that the 12 rabbits, capable of producing 60 babies a year, were being kept in a petting zoo in the North Korean capital Pyongyang pending his arrival.
Other buyers lining up
Szmolinsky's deal with North Korea attracted worldwide media coverage and brought him orders from around the world.
He has been in preliminary talks with potential buyers in China, Russia, Cameroon and the United States. "The Russians wanted 400 rabbits, there's no way I could deliver that many," said Szmolinsky, who produces around 90 rabbits a year. "I'm getting a delegation from China in June or July and have been told that I may be asked to go to Shanghai to provide advice."
North Korea's state-run news agency had reported in September that people were being encouraged to breed rabbits for food. The country has admitted to food shortages of a million tons, the United Nations World Food Program said last week.
In the absence of better donor support, millions were vulnerable to hunger, the UN warned. North Korea suffered a famine in the mid-1990s that killed as many as 2.5 million people, and has since suffered chronic food shortages.
It had been unclear from the start how Szmolinsky's bunnies would help given their own voracious appetite for top-quality vegetables.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
With that said, I want to talk about two main themes tonight, about my status with the Catholic Church and what I consider my home, literally and philosophically.
The Catholic Church. I started thinking about this while we drove into the University this morning for WICS. A news report was playing talking about Pope Benedict's Palm Sunday message, urging peace and understanding and trying to find God around oneself in the world. "Yes, it would be nice, to be understanding, to really understand..." I said to the reporter and the Latin postulations in the background coming from the ever-so-holy pope.
I remembered, when it was mentioned in the report, that it was two years ago today that Pope John Paul II died, which I recall hearing at my first WICS while standing out in exact same hall I stood in this morning.
I remember working in my Foods class and wondering what the new pope's name would be, after the agonizing process of waiting to hear the results of the "election". I remember the faint hope for the first African pope or Latin American pope perhaps, or the even fainter hope for a liberal candidate, such as a cardinal from the Netherlands (if I'm not mistaken).
I had been having doubts about the whole concept of Christianity and Catholicism and the Church, even though I had become a fierce defender of it against the attacks of one of my Anglican friends. My family hadn't gone to church for years because we hadn't found the right priest and time and congregation to be a part of until we somehow heard about a Youth Mass the priest at St Pius X was putting on. This man, Bogdan, was the priest for our group, the man who would whip off his robes as he sang along to the final song the youth choir sang at the end of mass, who opened the floor during his homily and asked questions about the readings and about the church and its direction and challenged us to think and was challenged with questions that he mostly would answer and some that he would divert away. He was liberal and open-minded and didn't really condemn any groups the church deemed abhorrent or wrong, he opened the church's doors to the Inn from the Cold intiative and backed it from the beginning. He was, in short, very awesome, and made me feel like a Catholic, despite poking fun at my refusal to take communion because I thought it was a silly thing and creepy to be eating Christ's body. I had memorized the invocation of the Holy Spirit to bless the gifts and all the necessary prayers and communal confessions, even if I did change them sometimes and leave out parts like "as we forgive those who trespass against us" when I was in a bad mood and such. I have taken communion twice in my life, once on one of the last Sundays Bogdan was with us, as he had been asked to transfer to a small community on an island in rural Nova Scotia (under suspected pressure from older, more hardline and traditionalist parishioners), and once by accident from someone giving out communion who refused to bless me as Bogdan usually would.
The new priest tried to open things up but he was a traditionalist with not as many people-skills or open ideas for the youth, and eventually closed down the mass we had been attending for coming up on two or three years (if memory serves).
Then, while I was listening to the gripping story of Clara Callan (written by Richard B. Wright) being read out on the radio (Between the Covers on CBC) in the spring of my grade 10 year,
not long after the new socially right-wing priest was installed, I realized that my faith in God was over. That there wasn't any left, and my isolation from the Church and in church and my fundamental disbelief in almost everything in Christianity and God were complete with same realization the main character of this book had.
Wright, Richard B., (2002). Clara Callan. R.B.W. Books Inc.
And then it came to me as I sat there at the kitchen table looking out at the trees and the snow and the sky - I no longer believed in God. I had been feeling such intimations for some time now, but today, at twenty minutes past seven, it came to me clarified and whole. God does not exist. The proposition that He does exist obviously cannot be proven, and so we must rely on what we believe to be true. Or feel to be true. Or want to be true. As they say, we must take it on faith. But for some time now, my faith has been like the branch of a tree that over the years has been weakened by wind and weather. And today it was as if that part of me, that branch, finally gave way and fell to the ground. It is a dreadfully barren feeling, but I am powerless to repel it. This I now believe. We are alone on this earth and must make our way unguided by any unseen hand. Perhaps a man called Jesus did live in Palestine two thousand years ago. Perhaps he was an inspired orator, a kind of faith healer; he may even have been a little mad. He attracted followers but also made powerful enemies who killed him. His body was placed in a tomb, but his followers carried it away in order to create a mystery and a myth surrounding him. He once walked this earth but he was not immortal. He rotted into dust as shall we all; as did Mother and Thomas; as is Father rotting now beneath the snow; as shall I one day.
While my views on religion as a whole are somewhat different and shady and shaky, I do know that I have a tremendous dislike for the Catholic Church. Without going into many details, I'll glaze this over with the institutionalized hatred crimes the Church has supported and perpetrated throughout history and around the world, and the personal effects it has had on me. No, I wasn't abused by a priest or anything like that, but I feel that the Church's general stances on certain issues are not helpful and are regressive and hateful and unnecessary.
So, that, in a nut shell, which probably isn't sufficient but will be for now, is my position on the Catholic Church.
So, my views on home. I was talking to Joseph about this while he was doing the dishes when I got home from Rhiannon's. I don't feel like I'm an Albertan, despite living most of my life here. I am and always will be a Newfoundlander and that's that. I've very proud to be a Newfoundlander, and I tell people that I'm a Newfoundlander living in Alberta. This seems trivial, but my understanding of a concept of home is not just centred around where I'm living with my family at the time but really, where I come from and where I feel at home. In this respect, I feel I have two homes: the one where I live with my family and what I consider to be each home.
I consider my grandmother's, Nan's, house in Harbour Grace (a town with a population in 2001 of 3 380 people, it's about an hour and a half to two hours drive from St. John's) the epitome of home for me in Newfoundland. For years, we would visit this community and stay with her and my grandfather and have breakfast with them and play games and help with chores and watch movies and read and talk and spend time with my mother's relatives. Despite not having been back since December 30th 1999, the last night I was in Newfoundland, I still feel this connection to this saltbox house my grandfather and great-uncles built. I refer to Newfoundland as my real home because I feel it really is. It may seem hypocritical that I don't especially want to move back there to establish myself but I do want to visit and do what I can for Newfoundland when I can. I don't want to move back because there are no jobs that I feel I would be too keen to take up, but I feel that I should try to do things for my province to help them out. I criticize the Albertan government because I've grown up here and know specifically what's going on here and don't in Newfoundland, which I regret. I wish I could be better informed about what's going on there, and my ears always prick up when it's mentioned in reports.
My home with my family is Calgary. And I really don't think I would've wanted to not grow up here. I feel like it was a good place to grow up and establish myself as a person overall and make friends and figure a lot of things out, and I'll always identify Calgary for the sentimental value of certain places essential to my childhood and development into a real person, but I am excited to get away when I get the practical chance.
I don't feel like I have a real, set home because I was divorced from my province and grew up in Ontario and mainly out West, and do want to move back towards the East, to Ottawa or Montréal eventually, after I get my first degree here probably.
Anyways, I needed to express my feelings on these matters and wanted to get them out so here they are. Thanks to Mr. Wright for putting my situation into perfect perspective at the time and still today. I'm hypocritical about selected beliefs, allowing a heaven for those who believe but not expecting anything after death is the general stance, and not believing that there is a higher power, or that if there is, I have nothing to do with it. However, I do believe in coincidence and accept that there are some things that I won't ever understand, the origin of the world and the spark for evolution, and I'm fine with it. Some things just are and I don't have to question them, that's why philosophers and scientists are for.
That's my long post for the night.
Until later,
Me.