Vancouver Secrets

And Then I’ll Bring World Peace.

Vancouver’s new Mayor Gregor Robertson will not only head our city for the 2010 Winter Olympics, but he also promises to solve an issue that has no one has been able to fix.

“Job No. 1 is calling together an emergency task force on homelessness and working on solutions to getting people off the street into a safe place to live as quickly as possible,” said Robertson, a 44-year-old businessman and former MLA, who won the Mayor contest in a landslide.

“We will bring out brightest minds together and end homelessness in Vancouver,” said Robertson.

You’d think that with an average expenditure if $44K per homeless person, they’d manage to at least get them a room.

The East Hastings area is the fastest growing area of Vancouver… it attracts the homeless from across Canada due to the the quality of drugs and services down there.

Good Luck Greg, you’ll need it.

photo credit: tris

Tech Tips - How To Get On Google

photo credit: Yodel Anecdotal

I get this question from website owners at least once a week:

“How do I get my site on Google?”

Finally Google has put together an easy guide to what they look for and best practices to follow. All the steps are easy to do.

The interesting thing about this guide is that the basics - that have existed for years -still rule.

You can read their post here, or download the guide directly from this link.

If you have a WordPress blog use this plugin - it does a lot of the tagging for you.

See you on Google.

Sunday Speed-Up For Windows Users

photo credit: niallkennedy

If you haven’t visited Lifehacker before, now is a good time to check it out - they have a great article on how to speed up your slow PC. Takes a little knowledge, but if you follow the article you’ll be able to do what they are advising and get that ol’ clunker of yours going again.

It’s the The Complete Guide to Speeding Up Your PC’s Startup… and in 15 minutes you’ll be good to go.

Also, make sure you read the article on common Windows performance myths.

Or, you could sneak out of the house and get on of those great new MacBooks

Real Men Of Genius

The Federal Court of Appeal has struck down the government’s monopoly on supplying medical marijuana.

Eric Nash can barely contain his excitement waiting to hear from Health Canada whether he can start growing marijuana for 250 patients. Nash believes commercial agricultural production of pot is around the corner and the sky’s the limit.

His local company, Island Harvest, has cleared the industrial security regulatory hurdles so the company meets the standards set by Ottawa to grow the much-demonized plant.

“Our vision is to have a sustainable commercial agriculture operation,” he said. “There’s no reason we can’t achieve that. Look at the number of compassion clubs, look at the number of people using marijuana to relieve a headache or pre-menstrual cramps!”

That’s one of the fundamental reasons behind the court ruling Oct. 27-  the medical marijuana program set up by Ottawa isn’t working.

The government sells maybe $1 million a year worth of the pot produced, and compassion clubs across the country sell about $10 million worth of cannabis products.

The BC market is $1.8 billion - just shy of the $2.3 billion we spend on tobacco.

It only confirms that the government is completely inept at business - It can’t even make a go of selling pot.

More on the story here..

photo credit: Riude

What’s He Got Against Steyn

photo credit: peterkreder

Kate at SDA covered the great battle going on with John Gordon Miller - The Journalism Doctor

“I blame it all on Ezra Levant. Canada ’s sawed-off, ultra-right-wing Sultan of Shout likes to wage nuclear war with anyone who dares to hold a reasonable thought in his presence, which means he never has any shortage of material to put up on his half-cocked personal blogging site.”

He takes on Marc Steyn:

You uncritically accepted her reference to the “Blue Book,” and went on to have fun with the notion of Mohammed Atta interfering with the livestock instead of suicide bombing. But there is no Blue Book, it’s The Little Green Book. And it wasn’t written by the Ayatollah at all, as you say, but by a source who was apparently at least three times, and three languages, removed.

The origin of the offending content: The meat of horses, mules, or donkeys is not recommended. It is strictly forbidden if the animal was sodomized while alive by a man. In that case, the animal must be taken outside the city and sold.

If one commits an act of sodomy with a cow, a ewe, or a camel, their urine and their excrements become impure, and even their milk may no longer be consumed. The animal must then be killed as quickly as possible and burned, and the price of it paid to its owner by him who sodomized it.

Unfortunately he isn’t taking comments…

Show some balls man, when you’re taking on Canada’s Right-Wing Blogosphere.

The Taliban Calls Out For Help

The Taliban has urged the United Nations to press the Afghan government to stop executions.

“We strongly request the U.N., the EU, the Red Cross and human rights groups to earnestly prevent this barbaric act,” the Taliban said in a statement on their website, accusing Karzai’s government of corruption.

This has something to do with Afghanistan executing four men today, including three linked to deadly attacks by Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents.

Poor Babies.

Here’s a short list of Barbaric acts by the Taliban:

- Yesterday two Taliban fighters poured acid on the faces of four schoolgirls in Kandahar.

- Five days ago, a Taliban force intentionally mixed in with a wedding party in Kandahar. The Taliban continued fighting and prevented the civilians from leaving. NATO forces called in an airstrike, which resulted in the death of 27 Taliban fighters and 36 civilians.

- A week ago, Taliban fighters halted a bus in Kandahar and dragged all thirty passengers off. All of the passengers, including women and children, were murdered. Six were beheaded.

Not to mention the Arena hangings they replaced soccer games with for five years.

The UN released the expected condemnation- of the Afghan government - “citing concern about the standards of judicial fairness.”

Let the hangings begin..

photo credit: jamiefreaky

Ontario Stops Sharing

No More Ride Sharing

Bus firm wins against Pickup Pal

An Ontario bus company has convinced the transport board that ride-sharing companies — such as Pickup Pal — operate illegally.

Pickup Pal matches up people who are heading to the same destination.

John Stewart, CEO of Pickup Pal, said the goal of the concept is to reduce greenhouse gases and air pollution by getting more cars off the road.

In Ontario the only way you can ride with someone is if you meet ALL of the following extremely impractical set of specific criteria:

-You must travel from home to work only
-You cannot cross municipal boundaries – (Live outside the city and drive in – sorry you cannot share the ride with your neighbour)
-You must ride with the same driver each day
-You must pay the driver no more frequently than weekly

PickupPal was charged and fined for facilitating a ride from Toronto to Montreal for $60. The crime – a PickupPal member crossed municipal boundaries. They were fined $11,336.07.

Trentway-Wagar, the local bus company, says its beef was simply that it is unfair they have to meet labor, environmental, and equipment standards to haul passengers around when services like PickupPal can arrange rides without doing any of that.

The issue is not only that PickupPal’s site allows drivers and passengers to connect for carpooling. While it is up to the users to determine compensation, apparently the site “does nothing to check on insurance, roadworthiness of the vehicles, driving history, or anything else.”

This worried the Highway Transport Board most.

Good thing they are looking out for the folks.

h/t

photo credit: joeventures

Gird Your Loins

As Biden predicted, the buzz is starting… and now that Obama is privy to all the secrets, his plans may need to be changed due to those pesky Jihadists. We know his website seems to be changing by the day. Maybe he knows something we don’t?

Report identifies UK terrorist enclaves

Secret enclaves of al-Qaeda extremists based in London, Birmingham and Luton are planning mass-casualty attacks in Britain, according to a leaked Government intelligence report.

The report continues: “The majority of extremists are British nationals of south Asian, mainly Pakistani origin, but there are also extremists from north and east Africa, Iraq and the Middle East, and a number of converts. The overwhelming majority of extremists are male, typically in the 18-30 age range.

“The main extremist concentrations are in London, Birmingham, with significant extremist networks in the South East, notably Luton. Extremist networks are principally engaged in spreading their extremist message, training, fund raising and procuring non-lethal military equipment to support the Jihads in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, and sending recruits to the conflicts.

“UK-based extremists, either under the direction of al-Qaeda, or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology of global Jihad, have also engaged in attack planning in the UK.”

Warning of new bin Laden attack
Paola Totaro, London

OSAMA bin Laden is planning an attack against the United States that will “outdo by far” September 11, an Arab newspaper in London has reported.

- bin Laden ‘planning US attack’
- Goal to ‘outdo’ September 11
- al-Qaeda reinforces training camps

And according to a former senior Yemeni al-Qaeda operative, the terrorist organisation has entered a “positive phase”, reinforcing specific training camps around the world that will lead the next “wave of action” against the West.

The warning, on the front page of an Arabic newspaper published in London, Al-Quds Al-Arabi - and widely reported in the major Italian papers - quotes a person described as being “very close to al-Qaeda” in Yemen.

The paper is edited by Abdel al-Bari Atwan, who is said to be the last journalist to interview Osama bin Laden in 1996. According to the report, bin Laden is himself closely following preparations for an attack against the US and aims to “change the face of world politics and economics”. The operative is quoted as saying that “this will be shown by the fact that we now control a major part of the south of Somalia”.

The ex-operative says he remains in contact with current chiefs of the organisation in Yemen and that only six months ago bin Laden had sent a message to all jihad cells in the Arab world which asked them not to interact with their governments or local political parties and to deny any request for mediation or formal talks.

Funny how none of this has hit American or Canadian papers… maybe it’s nothing to worry about.

photo credit: prozacod

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…

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.

Fox Continues To Beat CNN

Fox added another personality to continue its domination of CNN and MSNBC.

With Glenn Beck leaving CNN Headline News for Fox News, CNN is losing the only right-leaning personality they have.

I always thought it was a strange fit… one that I’m sure bothered the higher-ups over at CNN.

Glenn’s departure is a blow for CNN Headline News. Beck’s show was an instant sensation, and led the network to launch another talk show with Nancy Grace.

“I’m not surprised to see him go because it always seems like he fit in well with the other Fox people instead of with Headline News,” said Alan Breznick, an analyst with Heavy Reading, a media and telecommunications research firm based in New York. “I think (CNN) wanted character, but they didn’t necessarily want conservative ideologies.”

Maybe Fox News will get the channel placement that CNN has in Canada some day - where I have to pay for Fox while CNN is free.

photo credit: Joel Washing