Vancouver Secrets

Tony is Singing

This American election is getting more interesting than a 30 minute infomercial.

In the news:

Federal prosecutors asked a judge Monday to indefinitely postpone Tony Rezko’s scheduled Oct. 28 sentencing on corruption charges, acknowledging they are engaged in talks with the former top political fund-raiser for Sen. Barack Obama, Gov. Blagojevich and others “that could affect . . . sentencing.”

Puzzling how an Alaska Senator gets sentenced the week before the election and one of Obama’s insiders gets delayed.

Seems Tony is cooperating with prosecutors and may implicate some important figures. One of them appears to be the Democratic Messiah, Barack Obama who may be going down with Rezko. Sounding like Whitewater all over.

Even Hillary blogs are predicting doom for Barack… it reads like a Sopranos episode.

Who knows. Strange things happen in October.

photo credit: kps186media

So What is The Difference?

It started with an effigy of Sarah Palin hanging from a noose in Hollywood – the press chuckled and asserted “freedom of speech”.

“The sheriff made this clear: This is a country that has freedom of speech and we protect that right even when we think it’s idiotic and stupid and in bad taste and wrong to do,” said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for Los Angeles County Sheriff.

Now that the same is being done with Obama, a surprising different reaction.

Obama effigy found on U. of Kentucky campus

“College spokesman Carl Nathe said the effigy was found Wednesday morning. Police immediately took it down. A faculty member said he saw the effigy with a noose around its neck, hanging from a high tree branch.”

Officers with both the University Police Department and the Lexington Police Department are investigating the incident, and the Secret Service has been notified, Todd said. Todd said it is not known whether a student or someone else was responsible.

“It’s a very embarrassing situation that has happened on our campus, regardless of who did it,” he said. Todd referred to the incident as a “despicable act.”

“We certainly believe in political expression, just not in this form,” he said.

Surprised?

Almost Time To Let The Kids Plug It In

After a couple of years of my boys pestering me to allow them to plug their Xbox 360 into my LCD in the family room, I am now reconsidering.

Netflix streaming is going to be included in Microsoft’s “New Xbox Experience,” on November 19. In addition to over 12,000 titles available for quality streaming, Netflix will stream 300 titles in HD.

No more waiting on the mail with my Netflix subscription. True movies on demand.

So maybe I can put up with a little FarCry every once in a while to get access to this great service.

photo credit: johnporcaro

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

Biden – Whoa, Not True, Absolutley Not, Pure Hokem, Malarky

Next Time stick to the Phillies… you’ll get answers.

If You have To Ask…

Did a Halloween display go to far?

“The image of a hanged black man is much more intense than of a white woman”… in the words of the West Hollywood homeowners. At least they acknowledge the difference.

Video here – Palin Hanging

Reagan Warning Us Of The Obama Plan

Reagan could have made this speech today. It was a warning of what lies ahead.

Then we have Obama on using government and the courts to redistribute wealth.

Obama today…

Hopefully, America will realize what the man is promising, in time.

Canada Post Needs To Do This

Here’s a service that makes receiving postal mail as easy and convenient as email.

You set up a post office box on the service (or use one of their physical addresses if you get packages), and they receive and scan all your mail. You get an email alert that shows you a list of the day’s mail, and you’re able to request that your mail items be opened and scanned, recycled, shredded, or archived directly from the message. It’s genius. No more stopping by that Super Mailbox every day.

I use it for my US mail, and it costs me $20 month.

This type of service could actually re-invent Canada Post – if the unions could get their heads into the 90’s and allow it. The environmental savings alone could save them millions.

Or, maybe they’ll open up shop in Canada before Canada Post gets their act together.

Whoo Hoo! I Have Hulu

One of my great frustrations when I moved from the US to Vancouver was not getting access to US websites as a US resident.

In some cases, like iTunes, I want to be seen as Canadian. (It costs less with the dollar plummeting.)

Being seen as a Canadian resident means losing access sites like to Hulu. Hulu can’t be watched in Canada as it’s network sensitive. The TV powers don’t want us watching it, so they’ve blacked it out.

Hulu has a lot of the top shows and HD programming – all for free. With a HDMI link from my Mac to my flatscreen, I can now watch all the shows I like, when I want. It’s almost like TIVO on demand.

I found a work-around called Hotspot Shield – it creates a virtual private network (VPN) between your laptop (or iPhone) and their Internet gateway. With it, you to access sites in the US and be seen as being in the US.

Another great feature of Hotspot Sheild is that when you are on a public network or wireless hotspot, it prevents snoopers and hackers from viewing your email, instant messages, credit card information or anything else you send over the network.

The Hotspot Shield security application is free to download, uses VPN technology, and is dead simple to install and use. Mac or PC.

Happy Hulu’ing. Get it and then check out my favourite show (Not available in Canada):

Maybe Not So Far Fetched

photo credit: rkeohane

Here 3 reasons why I still believe that a McCain win isn’t as far fetched as you may believe…

1.) The polls are skewed left intentionally and will cause a large number of Democrat voters to skip the vote. More important things to do than vote for Mr. O as he’s already won.  The media has never in history campaigned this blatantly for a candidate. There will be a price to pay.

2) Voter reality – we are only hearing from the vocal minority of Republicans and Democrats. Why do you think Obama had the World Series delayed for a 30 minute commercial?

Newsweek has an interesting take on this:

… Three fifths of the electorate that shows up once every four years to vote for president but mostly hates politics. These are the 75 million folks who didn’t vote in the primaries. They don’t read newsmagazines or newspapers, don’t watch any cable news and don’t cast their ballots early. Their allegiance to a candidate is as easily shed as a T shirt. Several million moved to Obama through September and October; they’d heard he handled himself well in the debates. Then, in the last week, the LIVs swung back to the default choice: John McCain. Some had good reasons other than the color of Obama’s skin to desert him; many more did not. In October, a study by the Associated Press estimated that Obama’s race would cost him 6 percent. The percentage was smaller, but still enough to give the presidency to McCain.

3.) Today’s attack into Syria may lead to events that will bring up national security as an issue again. Obama will drop significantly if this issue were to become one of top three before the election. Biden’s prediction may come true in the next week.

Fingers crossed…

SNL Suddenly Gets Standards

The Sandlers complain to NBC and gets a Saturday Night Live sketch changed – these are the people behind the demise of Wachovia Bank.

I’d really like to see any other case where they have done this.

Tough to win an election when the Big three networks all conspire against you… by burying anything that might compromise the Democrats.

Biden Gets Interviewed – Finally

Joe finally got a few questions… his reaction is telling.

Biden so disliked West’s line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate’s wife.

“This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election,” wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.

McGinnis said the Biden cancellation was “a result of her husband’s experience yesterday during the satellite interview with Barbara West.”

All because she asked the Marxist question.

Time to ask Obama the same.

Need Another Reason To Get A Mac?

photo: acordova

Microsoft rushed out a pach this week to fix a vulnerability that allows hackers to run a malicious Internet worm on users’ computers. A successful attack would enable the hacker to take complete control of a victim’s computer, and ultimately steal sensitive financial information from their victims.

Once a user’s system is affected, the malicious code has the ability to rapidly self-propagate and infect every other unpatched computer in the network.

The flaw affects almost every Windows operating system, and is rated “critical” for many of the earlier versions of Windows.

Now the bad news:

By the time the patch was available, the hackers created a new worm, called Gimmiv, which exploited the vulnerability again.

It rifles through a victim’s Windows machine for system information and passwords and then posts them to a remote server.

So keep updating your windows – I’d do it every day.

Redistribution Of Wealth Explained

photo matt1125

This would be funny if it wasn’t frightening. The caller into the Schnitt Show is a snapshot of what quite a few Americans think Obama will bring:

Obama Voter Calls In… (mp3)

Didn’t They Ban It In The White House?

When I read a blog post earlier by SDL about how McCain was seen smoking in POW footage, it crossed my mind…

Why hasn’t the rabid anti-smoking lobby gone after Obama?

Is it because they are all left wing?

The ‘net seems to have been washed of the pictures of the Big “O” smoking (save for the one shot below.)

Just wondering.

As The Globe And Mail Cheers

photo credit: Petrick2008 

The Globe and Mail’s David Parkinson is taking bets – how low can it go today.

Seems that the US market could fall by 1,000 today – who knows about the TSX. The opening numbers scared me off.

The dollar is now below 80 cents – cancel that trip south for now.

From One Attention Whore To Another

David Suzuki should have said the same to Elizabeth May…

What’s David have against Paris?

Both of them are attention whores.

Both lack substance.

Both have used up their 15 minutes…

Steve also has a good post on the latest Suzuki controversy…

Vancouver Pride

As we enter the heat of one of Canada’s most bizarre civic elections, you’ll hear the candidates make promises on homelessness and affordable housing.

NPA’s Peter Ladner and Vision’s Gregor Robertson (yes, we have “Vancouver only” political parties) have solutions to the crisis…

Robertson: Insuring enough shelter beds to move people off the street; using city bylaws to keep buildings open and in decent condition at owners’ expense; improving outreach services to the homeless; establishing a mental health advocate to coordinate services and providers; more training to help street youth learn work and life skills; protect the current level of rental units and lobby to change provincial tenants’ rights laws; strengthen relations with other levels of government to “assure they live up to their responsibilities.”

Ladner: Increasing income by fast-tracking homeless people to welfare and pressing Victoria for higher shelter and welfare allowances; providing more supportive housing; ramping up addiction and mental health services.

I think the situation is hopeless with the current appeasement of the homeless – more needles, better services – without any effort to get these people off drugs and make it difficult for those that chose not to.

Any ideas?