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I juxtapose when Kate doesn't.

Jonathan Kay: "When I was a child growing up in Montreal — and even into my years studying engineering at McGill — the only parts of the Gazette I’d read were the sports pages and the comics. That’s it. I didn’t even glance at the front page, let alone the comment section, or follow the news on TV."
- from the Full Comment, National Pest Site.

The National Post saw a decrease of 20.22%, with a 159,089 daily paid circ average compared to 199,402 in 2008.

- http://www.mediaincanada.com/articles/mic/20090427/abcnewspaper.html?__s=yes

Vit, that was cool. The very definition.

Thanks, Phantom, you're welcome, &c. I figure that since everyone else is running hot, I might as well run cool. Sure, it's not such a big market; still, I got the whole damn thing to myself. You know, if someone could just explain to me how to switch to the Yiddish font, I could die a happy man, already ;-)

where do the greenies stand. public health or public dippers. or should I say where do the dippers stand , public health or public green.

http://www.wackyuses.com/wf_dixie.html

now swine flu takes the lead over global warming or recycling or does it.

A POTUS/TOTUS conference:

'President Obama’s speech at the National Academy of Sciences Monday morning hit a brief snag when Obama got ahead of his script.

'Laying his plan for a President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Obama began to name the members of PCAST listed in his prepared remarks – before realizing he’d already introduced them, earlier in his speech.

'“In addition to John – sorry, the – I just noticed I jumped the gun here,” Obama said, pausing for several seconds as he looked at the prompter. “Go ahead. Move it up. I had already introduced all you guys.”

'The audience, which gave the president a warm reception, responded with a quiet laugh."'

http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0409/obama_gets_ahead_of_prompter_3813cbcb-1e4a-44c6-b1e7-26017e7b70c2.html

"US to take majority GM stake." From Drudge, with link title "GM OFFERS ITSELF UP FOR NATIONALIZATION...".

To my eyes, it looks strategic...something along the lines of, "if we're going down, then we're going down with the government."

Take Five - as classic as it gets. This is a pretty quick version. Canadian saxophonist Paul Desmond was once described as sounding like a dry martini. I concur.

Thanks Vitruvius!

If one had to pick a jazz album to introduce the genre to an unaware world, Dave Brubeck's Greatest Hits would be in the top 5 recommendations. Well, my top 5, anyway. Thanks for this.

But Vitruvius, do you find this version a bit faster than your internal clock remembered? Slightly frantic, even?
And if so, does this tempo, reduce the coolness, somewhat?

Mind you, I never could quite get all those Ray Charles band cats who complained that Ray played way too slooooooow.
I'm a sucker for slow, myself.

Reminding me of my daughter's viola teacher a few decades back telling the story of the Russian pianist who shared studio space: after listening to a amateur playing in the next room, for way too long, he rushed in shouting, "heh, how about one burst of speed before you die".

Hard to believe he was talking about 10 billion as being controversial now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWOVZj_p3Yo&feature=related

Okay, alright, already. The phone lines are going crazy. So Paul Desmond isn't Canadian. My mistake. He just lived here for a long time, playing with (Canadian) guitarist, Ed Bickert.

This version is pretty fast, but that's what happens live sometimes. Maybe Morello hadn't had as many martini's as Desmond.

thanx for jazz nite Vit,
which of course, led me to Holly Cole, again.. *sigh* ...

*
“I want to assure the world that the nuclear capability of Pakistan is under safe hands,”
APP quoted President Asif Ali Zardari as telling a group of international journalists
here.

Safe, Asif?

You mean... like your late wife?

*

Great to hear Brubeck & Desmond again. Loved their stuff when I was younger. Seen them live in Calgary in the early 60`s. If you can find any, Ahmad Jamal was pretty hot back then also, especially his version of Poinciana.

The ROP is at it again in Thailand.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2009/04/28/9273721-ap.html

"after reviewing the cool tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures and a waning of the recent La Nina event,"
...-

"WSI issues hurricane season update

December, private weather forecaster WSI Corp predicted a relatively active hurricane season for 2009, with 13 named storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 intense hurricanes.

However now, after reviewing the cool tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures and a waning of the recent La Nina event, WSI is revising their forecast. The company now expects 11 named storms, 6 hurricanes and 2 intense hurricanes over the 2009 season.

The 2009 forecast numbers are quite close to the long-term- that is, 1950 to 2008 - average of 9.8 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2.5 intense hurricanes."
urlm.in/cfdd

The Conservatives have an effective and astute spokesman here.
He should be heard from more often.
...-

"Pierre Poilievre: Canada vindicated at Durban II

We Canadians are often too polite to say, “I told you so.” But 16 months after we told the world that the Durban “anti-racism” conference was anything but, we have been vindicated. Canada was the first nation to pull out of the Durban II conference and to cut off funds for NGO participation. Countries like Italy, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Israel and the United States of America followed us. Many other nations later walked out of the conference when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad poured verbal acid all over Israel, the United States and Europe.

As Ahmadinejad was speaking in Geneva, I too was giving a speech in the same city — at a true anti-racism conference organized to protest against the Iranian President and Durban II in general. UN Watch, the invaluable NGO, helped to host the event, which included presentations by Harvard legal scholar Alan Dershowitz and legendary soviet prison camp survivor Natan Sharansky. Everyone at the meeting praised Canada and Prime Minister Stephen Harper for leading the world in staying away from Durban II.

As a prescient lead-up to the conference, I joined the International March of the Living Mission in Poland, where we visited the remains of Auschwitz and Birkenau, two of the most infamous Nazi death camps. Thousands of students marched through the camps commemorating victims of the Holocaust and celebrating its survivors.

As the tyrant from Tehran took to the stage at the United Nations, I was reminded of the importance of reading history so as not to repeat it. Our experience with Durban II can teach Canadians two lessons.

First, the best way to support the UN is to insist that it live up to its own ideals. The world body’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights offers basic standards of liberty that all its member states should and must achieve. That’s what makes Durban II so completely tragic. Here is a UN institution reduced to little more than a soapbox for those who would demonize the one state in the Middle East that practises what the declaration preaches.

As Professor Dershowitz told me in Geneva, millions have died because the obsession with Israel has distracted the world from real atrocities — Cambodia, Rwanda and Darfur all come to mind. Imagine the lives we might have saved if the world had appropriated as much energy to these and other catastrophes as it has devoted to bashing Israel.

The second lesson is that leading can be lonely. When Canada first pulled out of Durban II, we were alone. When Canada first cut off aid to Hamas, we were alone. But others later followed, because we were right. Now would be the worst time for Canada to return to the mushy middle, where we follow the pack, as we did all too often in the past. “You have enemies? Good,” said Winston Churchill. “That means you’ve stood up for something in your life.”
We should continue to march in the right direction, at the front of a growing parade.

Pierre Poilievre is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada."
urlm.in/cfdf

Yes,maz2, Pierre Poilievre is an effective spokesman. The Liberals are very aware of it too, they're constantly trying to belittle him, he stares them down.

Vitruvious:

I continue to be unable to play your selections. ONLY yours. Including at your website. I have a well equipped computer, have no problem playing files anywhere else,
and always used to be able to play yours. Anyone else? Any suggestions? Thx.

O'McCarthy's witch hunt is underway with a vengeance by O'McCarthy.

"the term [McCathyism] was introduced by the Communist Party to discredit the movement to root communists out of government."

Joe McCarthy uncovered Reds* inside the American government.

O'McCarthy uncovers Republicans and loyal Americans. It's O'BDS in extremis.

*"McCarthy had actually cited 59 suspected communists in the State Department, and he produced that list, plus 22 others. McCarthy helped uncover a communist spy ring involving foreign service officer John Stewart Service and Phil Jaffe, the editor of a pro-communist magazine. He targeted Owen Lattimore, a key State Department adviser and communist. McCarthy's charge against Mary Jane Keeney, a State Department, U.N. employee and Soviet agent, was proven correct. McCarthy was right about Annie Lee Moss, an Army Code Clerk who was a member of the Communist Party.

Ken Ringle, in a Washington Post story about the new release of the hearings, still insisted that Annie Lee Moss was "a frail file clerk in the State Department who had no idea who Karl Marx was…" He and John W. Dean, in a column posted by CNN.com, made the claim that the derogatory term "McCarthyism" was coined by Washington Post cartoonist Herblock. But Herbert Romerstein, an expert on the Communist Party and Soviet espionage, points out that the term was introduced by the Communist Party to discredit the movement to root communists out of government.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg in the New York Times insisted that, "Historians who have reviewed the documents [the hearings] say they do not support McCarthy's theories that, in the 1950s, Communist spies were operating at the highest levels of government." But the John Stewart Service spy ring also involved Laughlin Currie, an adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt, and they succeeded in manipulating U.S. foreign policy to enable the communists to seize China. Other top communists in government included Harry Dexter White at the Department of the Treasury and, of course, Alger Hiss of the State Department, a founder of the U.N."
http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/smearing-of-joe-mccarthy/
...-

"DHS to Interrogate U.S. Intelligence Agents

The Department of Homeland Security will brutally question CIA and perhaps other agents using interrogation techniques developed during the previous administration.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated that the program is necessary to ensure that intelligence is shared one last time with the FBI’s Criminal Division investigators, in the interest of national security.

When asked if the move was in response to claims by some on both sides of the political aisle that Barack Obama's evolving views about prosecuting former Bush administration officials has created widespread risk-aversion within our intelligence agencies, Gibbs replied, "President Obama wants those who acted within the four corners of his many statements to know what he thinks about their being prosecuted.""
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/news-forum/index

OTTAWA -- A key executive of the company at the centre of the Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry says he never saw former prime minister Brian Mulroney do any work to promote the company....

Yesterday, the Oliphant Commission inquiry into Mulroney's dealings with Karlheinz Schreiber looked at whether Mulroney did anything in return for the cash payments of up to $300,000 that he received from Schreiber.

Mulroney has maintained that he promoted Thyssen Industries' Bear Head light armoured vehicle project to countries such as Russia and China after he left office.

Alford said that was news to him......

Later, the inquiry heard from Mulroney's former executive assistant Paul Smith -- one of the few people who knew that Mulroney met with Schreiber on June 23, 1993 while he was still prime minister.

Smith wasn't present at the meeting between the two men and didn't remember many details of the day but he recalled driving Schreiber from Ottawa to Harrington Lake.

Brown is a red-faced socialist from the cannibal party of socialism, aka the party of misery.
...-

"Brown left red-faced by debt lecture from Polish Prime Minister

Gordon Brown's attempt to put the economic misery of Britain behind him on a whistle-stop world tour were stymied today when Poland's Prime Minister embarrassed him with a lecture on the perils of excessive public borrowing and culture of debt.

Speaking after a breakfast meeting between the two leaders in Warsaw, Donald Tusk, the Polish premier said that while he did not want to comment on any other economy, the Poles had fared so well because they behaved with "full responsibility in terms of their deficit".

While Britain is struggling to cope with the effect of three quarters of economic contraction, Poland is basking in 12 years of consecutive, uninterrupted growth.

With Mr Brown standing next to him, Mr Tusk said that one of the main reasons Poland has so far managed to avoid the ravages of the credit crisis was because Warsaw had "efficient supervision to banks and sticking to the rules.... not exaggerating with living on credit. These are the most certain ways of avoiding [the consequences] of financial crisis.""
urlm.in/cfdy

Liberal Iggy:

I am not (gulp) a "surrounded" Tamil Tiger; nor, have I ever been a (gulp) "surrounded" Tamil Tiger.

"The Tamil Tigers are now surrounded in a 10-square-kilometre strip of jungle and sand."
...-

"Captured senior Tamil Tiger urges rebels to surrender

COLOMBO — A senior member of the Tamil Tigers who surrendered to Sri Lankan troops last week is urging the cornered rebels to lay down their arms.

Velayutham “Daya Master” Dayanithi said the Tamil rebels were using civilians as human shields and had fired at those who attempted to flee the war zone.

The “LTTE was keeping the Tamil people as hostages,” he said, using the acronym for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels. “Nearly 200 civilians died due to LTTE fire. LTTE propaganda was that these people died because of military shelling.”

The Tamil Tigers’ former media coordinator, Mr. Dayanithi, who goes by his nom de guerre Daya Master, gave himself up on April 20 after crossing the frontline from the rebel-held area to the government side. He is now detained in Colombo.

The National Post viewed a video recording of the interview. It was conducted Saturday under military supervision but he appeared relaxed as he told his story and answered questions on camera."
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1541647

April 28, 2009 at 12:37 AM EDT

In a historic reshaping of American capitalism, the U.S. government and the auto workers union are on the verge of controlling both General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.

The latest proposal offered up by GM — now subsisting on loans provided by Washington — would see the U.S. government hold 50 per cent of the company if it accepts a debt-for-equity swap. The United Auto Workers union would hold another 39 per cent of GM, if it agrees to allow a new health-care trust fund to be financed with GM shares.

Ottawa is watching the GM deal closely and is also looking at taking an equity stake...."

Boy, Jack Layton is finally going to get his deepest desire - nationalized auto companies taken over by the union with taxpayer money. It doesn't get any better than this comrade.

Yep, it had to happen.

Israeli Official: 'Swine Flu' Offensive
* By The Associated Press

JERUSALEM - The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed "Mexican" influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.

Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and "we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu," he told a news conference at a hospital in central Israel."

Well now. There couldn't be any problems calling it Mexican Flu would there?

"Supporters lauded the bureaucracy's ability to mobilize"

March 24, 1976: Ford Orders Swine-Flu Shots for All

1976: President Gerald Ford orders a nationwide vaccination program to prevent a swine-flu epidemic.

Ford was acting on the advice of medical experts, who believed they were dealing with a virus potentially as deadly as the one that caused the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic.

The virus surfaced in February at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where 19-year-old Pvt. David Lewis told his drill instructor that he felt tired and weak, although not sick enough to skip a training hike. Lewis was dead with 24 hours.

The autopsy revealed that Lewis had been killed by "swine flu," an influenza virus originating in pigs. By then several other soldiers had been hospitalized with symptoms. Government doctors became alarmed when they discovered that at least 500 soldiers on the base were infected without becoming ill.

It recalled 1918, when infected soldiers returning from the trenches of World War I triggered a contagion that spread quickly around the world, killing at least 20 million people. Fearing another plague, the nation's health officials urged Ford to authorize a mass inoculation program aimed at reaching every man, woman and child. He did, to the tune of $135 million ($500 million in today's money).

Mass vaccinations started in October, but within weeks reports started coming in of people developing Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing nerve disease, right after taking the shot. Within two months, 500 people were affected, and more than 30 died. Amid a rising uproar and growing public reluctance to risk the shot, federal officials abruptly canceled the program Dec. 16.

In the end, 40 million Americans were inoculated, and there was no epidemic. A later, more technically advanced examination of the virus revealed that it was nowhere near as deadly as the 1918 influenza virus. The only recorded fatality from swine flu itself was the unfortunate Pvt. Lewis.

History's verdict of the program is mixed. Critics assail Ford, accusing him of grandstanding during an election year -- it did him no good, because he lost anyway -- while kowtowing to the pharmaceutical companies. Supporters laud the ability of the nation's health bureaucracy to mobilize so effectively....."

Oh, about all those "green jobs" ...

Wind turbine-maker Vestas Wind Systems to cut 1,900 jobs

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8022688.stm

right on queue....

2:28:33 PM
No questions from Team Mulroney or the Attorney General, which brings us, finally, to Doucet’s very own lawyer, Robert Houston, who manages to sound like he’s treating his own client as a hostile witness as he snaps his very first question: “Mr. Doucet, when were born?” Pause. “What year were you born?”

I’m telling you, this lawyer fascinates me. There must be something about him that makes him a good get for a party to a high level inquiry, but I just can’t get past his weirdly abrasive style.

Anyway, he points out that Doucet, a good Cape Breton boy, would have “talked up” the Bear Head project any chance he got — which, after a moment, Doucet cheerfully confirms — and as a senior government official, and later businessmen, he made lots and lots of phone calls - to ministers, politicians, other businessmen, that sort of thing - and sent out many letters. He wouldn’t remember *all* those letters, would he? No, he wouldn’t - not even most.

2:32:32 PM
Uh, that was awkward. Asked about his heart condition, Fred Doucet just sort of - zoned out. It was unexpected and dramatic enough to force an immediate break, and even now that the court has momentarily adjourned - will someone *please turn off the mic* - he’s just sitting there."

O'Narcissist rages: Obama was "furious"*.

"they are unable to sustain even perfunctory civility and fast deteriorate to barbs and thinly-veiled hostility, to verbal or other violent displays of abuse, rage attacks, or cold detachment."
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/71124
...-

*Obama orders review of New York City flyover (was "furious" when he heard about the incident)"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2239729/posts

A center-left friend of mine sent me this recent article by Naomi Klein: http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/04/lexicon-disappointment

At least some people on the Left are waking up to the great ruse that is being played on them!

An interesting article on the Prius, and reports of some quality control issues like 'unexpected acceleration' and 'brake system rebooting'. And some fine detail on the quality of management at the Big 3.

Boy, it's a good thing our conservative government refuses giving massive amounts of corporate welfare to these bums....err....

"From 2000, when the Prius was introduced in the U.S., through last year, about 1.3 million hybrids sold in the country, according to numbers from the U.S. Department of Energy; Priuses accounted for more than half those sales. But if things had gone as planned, American carmakers could have been dominating the hybrid market.

In 1993, the Clinton administration developed the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, awarding federal funds to Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors and giving them access to federal research agencies. The goal was to develop a car that got more than three times the gas mileage of full-sized vehicles already on the road.

Toyota was left out of the New Generation program, but it responded in 1994 by officially starting Project G21, a program to develop an environmentally friendly car. Three years later, the first Prius was released in Japan.

Chrysler, Ford, and GM still hadn't shown any New Generation prototypes by the end of the decade, but an unveiling was scheduled for January 2000 at Detroit's North American International Auto Show.

Heralded in newspaper accounts as a possible breakthrough, some of the designs certainly were radical, but, as it turns out, actually were just for dreamers. Each company rolled out a New Generation car, but after the show the prototypes disappeared from public view.

The federal government had already fed more than $1 billion to the three automakers—at a time when the American manufacturers were still highly profitable—with few results. The New Generation program was a failure at best; Ralph Nader called it "corporate welfare at its worst."

The project was killed by the Bush administration in 2002.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2009-04-22/news/the-flip-side-of-the-perfect-prius/1

Vitruvious:
I always get a blank youtube screen on SDA Late Night vidoes.

This fails:
http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=faJE92phKzI

This works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faJE92phKzI

3,000-year-old arms storehouse uncovered in Sinai

By Ran Shapira and the Associated Press

Tags: Egypt, Israel News
Archaeologists exploring an old military road in the Sinai have unearthed four new temples amidst the 3,000-year-old remains of an ancient fortified city that could have been used as a stronghold during the Egyptian occupation of Mesopotamia and Canaan, and to impress foreign delegations visiting Egypt, antiquities authorities announced Tuesday.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1080538.html

Quote of the Day
—Ace

"Isn't it fabulous how Obama has reconciled with our enemies and put fear into the hearts of Americans? Does any image illustrate so neatly the wrongheadedness of the Obama administration than Americans scrambling in terror from Air Force One?"

From five feet of fury: "Canada. What a dump."

link:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Americans+right+worry/1537166/story.html

Headline: Americans are right to worry: No, the 9/11 terrorists didn't come from Canada, but there are many reasons for the U.S. to fret about our lax immigration policies

AND, BOY, ARE THEY LAX ... AND THEY'RE COSTING US HARD-WORKING, TAX-PAYING, LAW-ABIDING, ONE-PASSPORT-HOLDING CANADIAN CITIZENS A BUNDLE.

hardboiled...nobody cares about Muldoon,give it up and move on to the next Tory bash will ya?!

I agree, the music was a pretty fast version... but like the man said it was LIVE. The boys were probably sick of playing their hit, the same old way night after night.
But TAKE FIVE....simply a great composition, and one of my favs. I couldn't name another piece by them, however.

A little late with this comment. I like Take Five, too, but I have a CD called "Dave Brubeck Plays for Lovers," which is mellow and sweet. He plays songs like You Go to My Head, My Romance, I See Your Face Before Me, I'm Old Fashioned, Stardust, with great backup, including Paul Desmond. Brubeck's piano is in the forefront, producing a quieter sound and mood than Take Five.

A little late with this comment.

I like Take Five, too, but I have a CD called "Dave Brubeck Plays for Lovers," which is mellow and sweet. He plays songs like You Go to My Head, My Romance, I See Your Face Before Me, I'm Old Fashioned, Stardust, with great backup, including Paul Desmond. Brubeck's piano is in the forefront, producing a quieter sound and mood than Take Five.