“Maybe it was the lost tool bag from the ISS”

Via CTV

Update:

(via)

At Damn Cool Pics
h/t

Kate’s away again, so on her behalf I’ll invite the guest bloggers to feel free to post on SDA.
I must admit though, I’m somewhat jealous of our colleagues in the Saskatchewan Dipper blog-o-sphere. Calvert announced that he was done as NDP leader tonight, so they’ll have all sorts of political mischief to make in the next little while.
It hasn’t started yet . . . but once they get over the ass-kicking the NDP got in Saskatchewan on Tuesday, good places to visit are probably going to be: Sean in Saskatchewan, Giant Political Mouse, Accidental Deliberations, and the ULTRA LEFT WING!!! Buckdog.
I’m not so jealous of the Libloggers who will soon have the same opportunity. The grassroots and the establishment are set to have one big brewhaha. The fall-out isn’t going to be pretty and the grassroots are going to lose.
Just remember Liberals, at or about 10 am on the Saturday morning of your “good for TV” convention, while your 20 year old delegates where sleeping off their hang-overs, the few who bothered to show up for policy votes declined one member one vote.
That’s why the establishment feels free to cut the leader. That’s why they don’t care about you. You told them it was okay for cliques and divisions in the party. You told them that delegate voting was the right thing. You abdicated your responsibilities to your party.
You remember that when you’re whining about those “senior Liberals”.

Some rather disjointed thoughts after yesterdays election.
There’s a lot of anguish in the media and on the leftward leaning blogs about yesterday’s voter turn-out. PR is raising it’s ugly head, strategic voting was hailed as the saviour for the left and failed.
Woo, big surprise. Reminds me of the right during the 90’s. Here’s a hint to the left; appeal to the dedicated voter demographics or get them to be dedicated voters.
In my opinion, anyone thinking that Harper “lost” last night because he didn’t get a majority is wrong. At the outset, majority was best case, stronger minority was middle case and reduced minority was worst case. The Prime Minister said that. He met with all of the leaders to try and argue the case for the last parliament.
The results of those meetings was a resounding, “No.” Harper said, “Fine.”, and we went to an election. That became one of the first (of many) Martin campaign parallels, Dion had previously all but promised a fall election and PM Harper pre-empted him.

Continue reading →

“Put down that sandwich and come out with your hands up…”

Quebec’s Open Source association FACIL(Google Translated) is suing the Gov’t of Quebec because Quebec has refused to open tenders for software and support to local vendors. Quebec is using an exemption in law that allows them to buy proprietary where no other options exist. (Cough, BS.)

Good for FACIL, I hope they win. I also hope that other Municipal and Provincial governments as well as the Federal gov’t get off their duff and start moving towards Open Source Software. Usually it is license free, it is always better code, and service and support can be provided by local vendors because they have access to the internals. OSS allows gov’t to create a more diverse knowledge based economy and allows it to support it’s citizenry rather than the Seattle and San Jose economies.

h/t: Michael Geist. CBC story

Cheers,
lance

Old Pampered European Count: 0*

At 61, in his 9th Olympics, posting a clear round and Canada is into the jump-off with the US for gold in team show jumping. Woohoo!
update: USA – Gold, Canada – Silver, Norway – Bronze
Well done, “Captain Canada”.

Going through some old photos this morning, I came upon this snapshot of an oil painting that was “borrowed” from the art department wall of a now defunct sign company in Saskatoon at around the time I ended work there… (The name of the company was A.G. Neon Art.)

I did the piece as a teenager (from a magazine photo), and while it has no actual value, I’d still like it back. If one of you in this relatively large audience has spotted it in your travels, please send me an email (or mail to the address here). It’s a longshot, but you never know.
I’m not interested in anything more than the painting’s return – so no questions asked.

(video works now)
(Where are you going with this, Anchoress? (link fixed now))

Surfing around this afternoon (I’ve been sick most of the day), I found his page on the official Beijing Olympics site, listing the events scheduled with links to reports, results, etc. Nice clean design, and easy to navigate for those of you interested in the games.

Cough. 6-0 Riders.

Cheers,
lance

Finally, a reason to watch golf!
Update – QOTW comes from Bruce, in the comments;

“The “Improve Your Golf Game with Chris Evert” video should be available in 5-4-3-2….”

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I was painting a race ‘vette. A few of you asked for photos – here’s one. My portion of the work (I came in after the black base coat was completed by Lazer Auto Body of Saskatoon) was in painting the molded “bumpers” and “grill” to resemble chrome. It turned out pretty well, by all accounts.
A front and rear view.
(Just found track pics of the Scatrat, which I painted many years ago for Bob of Lazer Auto Body, as well as the Froot Loop, which I think I did in ’06.)

It’s been a productive trip so far. Second day in and my Can.Ch.Minuteman I Love Lucy scored a major, which brings her to within 3 points of her American Championship title.
I’ve tried to check on things when I can, but as you know, the site has been experiencing some outages, and it’s affected my access as much as yours. Thanks for your patience. I don’t receive any notifications from my hosting company, so I don’t know why – but DOS attack is a possibility.
Oh well – this too shall pass.
Wish us luck, please don’t engage the trolls, and thanks again to the guest bloggers who have been keeping the place together as best they can.

Anthony Watts’ cool new blog site.

Dick Martin has died at 86
h/t Cal2

Truckspills.com

If you can endure the “bruised”, “hunkered down” reporting of the Associated Press’s Jeannine Aversa for a few graphs, you’ll get to the meat of the thing: US economy grows 0.6%.

“The economy is weak but not collapsing,” said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Bank of America’s Investment Strategies Group. “A recession can’t be ruled out, although the stars are not lined up at this point to definitively say one way or the other.”
On Wall Street, investors found comfort that the GDP figure was a bit better than expected. The Dow Jones industrials were up more than 100 points in morning trading.

They’ll be kicking wastebaskets around in Democratic campaign offices this morning. Oh well, give the media a few more weeks to work their magic…