123 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. Ohio’s method of conducting elections with electronic voting machines appears to have created a true privacy nightmare for state residents: revealing who voted for which candidates.
    Two Ohio activists have discovered that e-voting machines made by Election Systems and Software and used across the country produce time-stamped paper trails that permit the reconstruction of an election’s results–including allowing voter names to be matched to their actual votes.
    http://news.com.com/E-voting+predicament+Not-so-secret+ballots/2100-1014_3-6203323.html

  3. *
    Two more Van Doos killed by a roadside IED.
    Keep up the screaming about pulling out, Quebec…
    that’ll make those homicidal fanatics back it off.
    *

  4. Muldoon’s old buddy, (Roch La Salle), ‘bit the big one’, the other day.
    Imagine: La Salle- appearing before St. Peter-(because only catholics go to heaven), and St. Peter sez: “I can arrange for you to meet The Big Guy- but it’s gonna cost you.” Bwahahaha!

  6. Just spitballing here…but what do you think will cause the biggest uproar…. two dead CF men or the two injured CBC imbeds?
    With all due respect and reverence to all involved I must ask.
    What happened to our collective spine?
    Syncro

  7. “How did we get to Saturday (25th) so fast???”
    It was either those krauts playing around with the speed of light … or … it might have been AGW … get John Cross to do the math on it.

  9. “How did we get to Saturday (25th) so fast???”
    I’ll be away for the weekend and was saving posts to come up automatically while I’m gone. I hit the wrong button.
    So, instead of deleting it, and your tips, I’ve just re-stamped it for tomorrow morning. Sorry for the confusion.

  10. Kate,
    I think the article posted above by JT deserves a blog entry of its own.
    The author actually predicts ‘global cooling’ may be on its way, and the science in his paper looks quite solid. He sticks his neck out with a bold prediction: we’ll see cooling just about now.

  11. CEP Union claims about PM S Harper using agents to stir up violence – just saw the video. It appears to me that the police were protecting the three from being attacked by the CEP President and his masked goons. Dave Coles himself was using physical force to go after the three in question. If I were one of them I would consider requesting assault charges against Mr. Peaceful CEP President.
    Another little note – The CEP represent the communications industry including TorStar, CTV etc (cep.ca/about/locals_e.html). Can we start our own insane accusations that the Press Gallery and their opponents of the Conservative Party are milking this for all its worth rather than asking serious questions about the violent reactions by the CEP President and his masked confrontationists?

  13. “Just spitballing here…but what do you think will cause the biggest uproar…. two dead CF men or the two injured CBC imbeds?”
    You know, not being in the military (and very grateful to those who are), I always wonder if there are times like this when a journalist writing crap about the mission gets injured on the battlefield and the soldier doesn’t feel like getting him/her to the hospital.
    And then the soldier does it anyway.

  14. I stumbled across this pseudonymous Russian blogger, “veryrussian”, who give his take on world events and his country’s politics. One humorous post addresses the Estonian’s recent removal of a large statue or a Red Army soldier, as part of Estonia’s ongoing campaign to remove symbols of foreign occupation.
    Veryrussian points out to his neighbours that Estonia itself is a living testament to foreign oppression — that Tallinn’s name is old Danish for “Danish city” — and that the infrastructure may have been built BY Estonians, but it was never built FOR Estonians, any more than the pyramids were built for the Nubian slaves, as he helpfully
    puts it.
    He proffers this kind advice: “The next thing to do is tear down your present capital city, Tallinn. Flatten it. Raze it to the ground. Leave a huge crater where it used to be.”
    http://www.veryrussian.net/open-letter-to-estonians-tear-down-tallinn.html
    “Is it not a disgrace to make the torturehouse of
    your forefathers a tourist attraction?”
    A ho ho ho, a ha ha ha ha.

  15. I see, Neo, that you watched the evening news, too.
    If it was WWII we were fighting today, we’d have pulled out of Europe as soon as things got bad at Dieppe.

  19. …yeah ‘step right up and get your Global Cooling credits right here’
    Calgary’s night low for today (Thursday) will be 4c.
    With apology to Toronto for thinking the rest of the world will be the same.

  23. Those damn Americans are at it again. How dare they put billions and billions of dollars into Newfoundland’s(read Canada)economy. We need some serious moonbat protesters up there on the rock ASAP. How can it be good for national unity if NFLD’s standard of living surpasses Ontario? What will chimpy mcliar do? Can we shift the equalization formula so that Ontario receives money from NFLD? Oh, the tortured minefield that is national politics. Will this be the start of an exodus east(AB to NFLD, passing right over ON)?

  24. Questions> If a member of the hells angels touches a pouch of medicinal tobacco, does it still retain it’s magical properties? If a child smokes native tobacco, does a magical fairy keep the toxins out of said child’s lungs? When the mob trades contraband tobacco for heroin, does the magical properties of that tobacco transfer to the heroin? Just asking.

  25. A new AP-Ipsos poll finds that liberals read more books than conservatives. Some highlights from the poll:
    – 34 percent of conservatives have not read a book within the past year, compared with 22 percent of liberals and moderates.
    – Among those who had read at least one book, conservatives “typically read eight” books in the past year. Liberals read nine, moderates five.
    – “By slightly wider margins, Democrats tended to read more books than Republicans and independents. There were no differences by political party in the percentage of those who said they had not read at least one book.”
    h/t: farnwide.blogspot.com/2007/08/interesting.html

  26. ‘Talk about provocateurs.
    Anyone else catch Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) President Dave Coles on CPAC last night with Maude Barlow, both accusing the police of using pseudo-protesters at the Montebello Summit?
    Something Dave Coles said, in an interview with CTV, doesn’t quite make sense: “I accused them of being police, and every time I yelled at them that they were police, you could tell by their facial expressions that they were really troubled.”
    We know the three guys he accused of being police were masked, so how is it “you could tell by their facial expression” that they were cops and that they were guilty? This guy must have X-ray vision.
    Another Superman or just another super predictable make-it-up-as-I-go-along-to-suit-my-vast-rightwing-conspiracy-theory leftie?

  27. Apologizing to the Missionaries-Left confronts a nightmare as tribesmen apologize for cannibalism.
    Apologizing for the sins, real and contrived, of Western Civilization, is suffocatingly trendy among the West’s cultural elites. It fits their ideological assumption that the West and its religion have ceaselessly victimized benign indigenous cultures around the world.
    But this fad was tossed topsy turvey, recently, when Papua New Guinea tribesmen apologized for their ancestors having cannibalized Methodist missionaries 129 years ago. Thousands of villagers attended the apology ceremony in East New Britain province and listened to words of praise for the English missionary who had brought the Gospel to their region.
    The apologetic Papuans, led by the Governor General of Papua New Guinea, offered their apologies to the High Commissioner of Fiji. Four Fijian missionaries, under the command of Rev. George Brown of the London-based Wesleyan Missionary Society, had been slain and eaten in 1878 by Tolai tribesmen, directed by their warrior chief Taleli.
    According to a later report from Rev. Brown, the slain Methodist Fijians were targeted by the cannibals not specifically because they were Christians but because they were foreigners on the orders of a local warrior chief, Taleli, and were then cooked and eaten. …-
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1884744/posts

  28. Ted says, “A new AP-Ipsos poll finds that liberals read more books than conservatives.” (Reading one more book a year is significant?)
    Well, Ted, if there is any significance to this finding, it might have something to do with the dearth of books WORTH reading by conservatives. My husband and I were browsing the selections in Indigo the other night and had to laugh. There, front and centre, on the same shelf, were books by Al Gore, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Deepak Chopra–hardly an invitation to fork out the big buck$ for a read before bed–or anytime.
    In other words, our choice–that premium indicator for lib-lefties of a good life–is severely truncated in most book stores across North America.
    Add to our lack of choice conservatives’ insatiable capacity for hard work and there you have it: Most liberals would rather deal in theories with their noses in a book than in rolling up their sleeves to tackle real, honest-to-goodness problems head-on.
    At least, that’s my theory.

  31. Funny, Block, my leftie friends are constantly complaining about exactly the same thing as you.
    In fact, I went to Indigo and then to World’s Biggest Bookstore here in Toronto one time a year or so ago and, being a regular reader of conservative blogs and news, was surprised to see front and centre, right as you entered the front doors at the top of the pile the store was trying to promote the most, the following books/authors:
    Bill O’Reilly’s latest
    Sean Hannity’s latest
    Ann Coulter’s latest
    Clinton’s biography
    Moore’s last book
    all right alonside the latest fiction mass-produced bestsellers, Harry Potter and Lemony Snickets.
    I’ve had this argument about Indigo plenty of times: Indigo sells books that (a) have some reasonable assurance of selling well (meaning the author or subject matter is already fairly high profile), (b) can be mass produced (they want enough copies to put in all of their stores meaning only the big publishers are usually sold) and (c) can be purchased at huge discount rates (meaning again only the big presses who can afford the risk of the discount and the draconian returns policy Indigo forces upon them, and not the smaller or even medium size presses).
    But don’t worry about facts. That is Rule #1 about conspiracy theories, especially The Vast Leftwing Media Conspiracy Theory.
    They also have a preference for books that start out in hardback (bigger profit margin) unless rules (a) and (b) apply even more (i.e. bigger name, bigger discount).

  33. Which is not to say that your theory about “book smart” vs. “real experience” is correct or wrong. You’ve provided no evidence and I have none to refute that.
    As for evidence, the poll I thought was just interesting and posted the link. Kate, do you have a source for your comment that “Overall, Republicans have higher levels of education in the US than Democrats.” That would seem to be inconsistent with BATB’s theory.

  35. NEW STUDY DEBUNKS CARBON DIOXIDE AS A GHG
    http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf
    “Effectively, this (new study) means that the global economy will spend trillions of dollars trying to avoid a warming of (about) 1.0 K by 2100 A.D.,” Wilson wrote in a note to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Sunday.
    He was referring to the massive expenditures that would be required under such treaties as the Kyoto Protocol.
    “Previously, I have indicated that the widely accepted values for temperature increase associated with a double of CO2 were far too high, i.e. 2-4.5 Kelvin. This new peer-reviewed paper claims a value of 1.1 +/- 0.5 K increase,” he added.”

  36. A dinner conversation
    I tried, half-seriously and without much success, to convince a mathematician I was seated next to at a dinner-lecture last night to attempt a book on the “mathematics of predestination”. The conversation inevitably wandered to the subject of free will, and I remarked that whether it existed or not, all human beings were faced with at least the simulation of choice. If we can do nothing else in life, we can bet. There is, for example, Pascal’s Wager. “The Wager posits that it is a better ‘bet’ to believe that God exists than not to believe, because the expected value of believing (which Pascal assessed as infinite) is always greater than the expected value of not believing.” And we might as well bet because, I argued, one of life’s jokes was whether or not we believed in God; and whether or not we were inclined to take up Pascal’s Wager, circumstances inevitably force us into situations where we have to stake everything for an unknown payoff.
    Consider, I said, the case of the Jerusalem security guard who chose to stop a suicide bomber from entering the supermarket he was watching in 2002. “Jerusalem’s SuperSol supermarket was filled with last-minute shoppers stocking up for the Jewish Sabbath when the suicide bomber struck. … One man, who arrived just after the explosion, described what he saw in an interview with Israel Radio. … ‘I understood that the guard did not let the terrorist in, and they were blown up together,’ he said.” How do you understand this tradeoff? It’s an absurdity. What job could require a man to give up his life for a minimum wage? Yet the human condition often requires us to risk everything for the sake of ordinary things and people. In practice we are forced to behave as if everything depended on our choice. “We step out of the boat,” I remarked to the mathematician, “in the midst of the storm just as if we were called out of it, and we don’t know why we do it.” …-
    http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2007/08/dinner-conversation.html

  38. “That would seem to be inconsistent with BATB’s theory”–that “…Republicans have higher levels of education in the US than Democrats.”
    Not really, Ted.
    Maybe Republicans read smarter than Democrats. You know, maybe conservatives only need to read one book to turn out an A+ paper, whereas a liberal needs to read two books and a few blogs to turn out the same grade of paper.
    ‘Don’t know. But I’m sure Kate’s right…in every way! 😉

  39. ted – you are making some false assumptions.
    The most basic one – that reading a book is a sign of information-seeking or intelligence or what? The book could be a trivial thriller, a yet another gossip biography of Diana or pop fiction or..
    And, you are ignoring that a great deal of information – information, not gossip- isn’t from books but from journals, articles – which are readily available as well, on the internet.
    You are ignoring that some of the smartest minds deal in finance, marketing, science etc – and they aren’t ‘into’ books – but data sheets and professional articles.
    So, to assume a correlation between ‘reading a book’ and ‘intelligence’ – is invalid. Try again.

  40. What happened to our collective spine?

    Well we became trudeaupian socialists, also our sense of proportion is shot there will be more people killed in toronto this year than afghanistan but thats because of bad liberal laws so, they don’t make the front page of MSM’s.

  41. dear ms/mr been block:
    did you read or egad, *write* ‘puttin on the spin for dummies’?
    dont you know Ted, righties have lower reading levels seeing as theyre a bunch of know-it-alls. they write the books they expect others to read. the make the rules and the ‘vlwc’ is just a cover.
    rules? you need proof? mosey over to Quebec where the 3 n. american business friendly leaders are cutting deals to give away our nation’s resources for additional ‘security’.
    otoh, considering how the present rightie in the white house regularly mangles even the simplest colloquialisms “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice …. I wont get fooled again” (direct quote, GOOGLE IT), best for that end of the spectrum to steer clear of any arguements about ‘education’ levels.

  42. ET, there’s that reading comprehension problem again.
    I’m really curious about this particular misunderstanding of yours ET. When someone does not write a single word at all about “intelligence”, and only re-prints some poll results about how much certain groups are reading, how does your mind work that into a comment that some groups of people are more intelligent than others?
    I mean, do you read what I write, go away from the computer, forget what I wrote, come back a few minutes later and just maddly type away about some argument you had with someone else in about a related matter and hope beyond hope that it might apply to my statements? or do actually not understand what I write? Or do you see the name “Ted” at the bottom of a post and conclude: “Must. Refute. What. He. Says. Must. Invent. His. Arguments. To. Better. Refute.”???

  43. The problem, iberia – is the need for proof.
    I know that you consider an assertion by someone on the left as directly connected to a priori Truth and therefore, proof is unnecessary..but some of us insist that the esteemed union leader should provide proof.
    Proof that the protesters who came with stones, tomatoes, bananas – were just carrying them to eat, not throw. These people had no intention of violence, the union leader said. I think we need proof that their ‘artifacts’ were not thrown. The fact is – they were thrown. So? Non-violence?
    Then, we need proof that these ‘three’ were actually police plants. The statement by the union leader that ‘you could see on their faces’..their concern when he yelled at them accusing them of such – is interesting. First, they were masked. Hmm.
    Second – attributing a reaction to someone yelling at you as proof of the claim of that yell – is invalid. Remember how we ‘proved’ Stephen Truscott’s ‘guilt’? By saying that when questioned, his ‘knuckles were clenched’.
    Third – attributing an article of clothing as evidence of their membership in the police (they were wearing ‘police boots’) is invalid. Boots aren’t confined to one set.
    So- lberia or iberia or whatever communist hero’s name you want for yourself – your, and your union leader’s claim – is extremely weak. Rather than supposition – you have to provide, heck, data. Try to do so. Or do you live within a fictional world?

  45. Actually, ted, I’m probably making a false assumption about you. I’m assuming that your posts have some meaning, some point – and that they aren’t pure random emptiness.
    You see, if someone posts a claim contrasting two political ideologies – as evidenced by the members of those ideologies – I am assuming, Ted, that you are making some comparative point about the members of these two sets.
    Your data base is ‘reading a book’. Now – I am assuming, Ted, that you want us to derive some conclusion from this data comparison.
    You are comparing book reading practices of Democrats and Republicans. What is the meaning?
    Why are you providing this comparative data set?
    Is it comparison one of Waste? Are you informing us that Democrats read more books – and waste more trees? Is that it?
    Is the comparison one of Cost? Are you telling us that Democrats purchase more books? Now – is that good or bad for the economy? Are Democrats better for the economy? Is that what you are saying?
    Or do they get them from the Library? Are you saying that Democrats are more supportive of our public institutions?
    Is the comparison one of Time? Do Democrats spend more time reading than..doing what? Working?
    Is the comparison one of ..well..I picked Intelligence, Ted. I guess I was wrong. You weren’t using ‘reading books’ as a sign of intelligence.
    So- you tell us, Ted – why did you provide this comparative data set? What were you comparing? What does ‘reading books’ mean?
    Or- were you just being trivial and, like andrew, providing irrelevant and meaningless numbers.

  46. As a fairly well read person I’ve found that material worth reading has become relatively scarce.
    Re-reading classics is a lot more rewarding for me that suffering through the half baked work of often uninformed, misinformed and deluded modern authors.
    If Other conservatives feel like I do about the state of affairs of non-fiction writing then I can understand why they would be reading less.
    Reading more are getting less value for their time and money.
    There is an art to learning how to be discerning.
    In any case the real question about reading is why a person reads. Escapism or education, gratification or growth?
    To gargle or drink from the fountain of knowledge??
    Judging by the behaviour of liberals in general and the kinds of argument and reasoning offered by those that I see…. I’m inclined to think that the tendency of those “well read” liberal folks is to gargle a lot!

  47. For all of your long-winded bluster, ET, you sure don’t “get” things very easily.
    >> “why did you provide this comparative data set?”
    Because this is a “tips” post and, as I said, I found it interesting. Also, as I said, I don’t know whether it supports or refutes BATB’s claim that conservatives learn by doing and liberals learn by reading. But it’s a tidbit of information that may foster some debate about that subject.
    I will say this about intelligence, ET. Information, real facts, are neutral and it is a reflection of one’s intelligence whether you take that information and apply it to theories and test other’s preconceptions – as some have done here – or simply bluster on with a knee-jerk attack imputing evil intentions because you don’t like the conveyor of that information, as you are wont to do.
    I don’t have the time for your silliness and your basic inability to read today, ET, so please walk away from the computer and don’t fill up our screens with your misguided bluster.

  48. No, ted, you are slithering again. YOU posted a comparative chart – and therefore, YOU had some opinion on the MEANING of the comparisons.
    The ‘fact’ that you found it ‘interesting’ is not an answer, because you’d have to explain WHAT was interesting about it? One data set by itself might have no meaning, but, when applied to another variable – instantly, it becomes a comparative outline – and that implies meaning in that comparison. Basic statistical methodology.
    So- you provided us with a data set of two variables: One- reading books. Two- political affiliation. And then, you went further and provided us with a comparative chart between TWO political filiations. So, what’s your point?
    You are, again, slithering, ted. You are saying that because this is a ‘Tips thread’, then, your post need not have any meaning. It’s just raw data. Heh.
    Not a comparative data set; it has meaning.
    So- again, ted – what were you comparing? Waste of trees? Time spent reading rather than working? Intelligence? What?
    ommag – I agree with you. Reading books isn’t definitive of intelligence or a search for knowledge. You have to ask what type of book. And, a lot of books are ‘filler’; the key points can be dealt with in 20 pages. Not 200. Articles are far better suited to provide information and analysis than many books. And the majority of people who work in intensive jobs – such as finance, industry, management, etc etc – don’t have the time for books. They’ll read articles that are filled with information..but not books.

  49. Danny Williams announces billions of dollars of oil to be pumped from his province, yet nary a peep from Dion,Layton,Suzuki,etc.
    Can’t wait for the next time they say Conservatives are destroying the country with ghg emmissions from the Alberta oil industry.
    I would assume Mark Holland will be planning a trip down east promptly to let the pople of Newfoundland and Labrador know that a Liberal government will reign in their economy to meet Kyoto.

  50. Ted, as always you are so full of shit its laughable.
    Not once have you ever answered a question when it is directed at you.
    You are the quintessential liberal party hack….dodge, weave and deny…

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