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.... but they can't even get the continent right?
CNN World Section, Americas archive, July 19th
• Nicaraguan cardinal forgives Sandinistas
• Bush calls for transparency in Venezuela recall
• Rwanda rejects U.N. draft report
• National Guard to fight Puerto Rican crime
• 'Spider-Men' take over Peru university
Can you see the problem...?
This is what Canadian peacekeeping is about:
KABUL - An Afghan boy with a fatal heart condition is expected to arrive in Canada Friday to receive potentially life-saving treatment.
CBC: Battle-trained Canadian soldiers use brains, not brawn, during Kabul mission:
KABUL (CP) - Canadian soldiers trained to kill and destroy with cool efficiency are instead saving lives and helping rebuild a country battered by more than two decades of war.In and around the Afghan capital, hardcore Canadian paratroopers are brokering a delicate solution to a potentially explosive conflict between squatters in tents and the villagers living in adobe homes below them.
This is something to be proud of. It's something Canadians, with a long Peacekeeping history, have always been good at. Just ask the people of Bosnia, who remember "King Marco" well.
We treat our military like crap - we ignore them, we cut their budgets, force them to make do with substandard and aging equipment - and what do they do? They do us proud.
Michele at A Small Victory has gathered together stories of 9-11.
And has links to sites remembering 9-11.
Laurence Simon over at Amish Tech Support walks home from work every day. He sees a lot of litter. He hates litter:
Know what really chafes my ass, besides ill-fitting boxers during my 2.4 mile walk home?Litter. Litter chafes my ass.
When I walk past litter, I pick it up and I pitch it. It's a bad-good habit of mine, and if I don't toss litter out it drives me nuts for an hour or two. If this is obsessive-compulsive behavior at its worst, then may everybody come down with it.
His message to the Blogosphere:
My challenge to the blogosphere is to pick up one piece of trash and toss it in a trash recepticle. Blog about it if you have to. But for God's sake, clean all this crap up.
Our son is three-and-a-half. He hates litter, too. Whenever he sees a chip bag or chocolate bar wrapper on the ground, he points it out, and says "A bad man dropped that! He's bad!"
He then picks it up, and puts it in the nearest garbage container.
I'm proud of our son. I wish more people had kids like this.
Thanks to my wife for pointing out this article a few days ago (ok, so it took me awhile to blog this): A new species of giant squid has been discovered in Australia recently.
The 250 kilogram (550 pound) specimen was found dead on a beach in Hobart, Tasmania. Scientists transported the animal in a trailer to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, where they examined it further.
Experts found several characteristics which they say they have never encountered before - including long, thin flaps of muscle attached to each of the squid's eight arms.
I happen to think squid are cool. Your Mileage May Vary (or, in metric: Your Kilometrage May Vary).
Oh yeah. This here be Entry Number 100! Wow! I've managed to ramble and rant my way through One Hundred Entries! Yeeeeeha!
Thank you. Thank you very much.
No, stop it. You're too kind. Thank you.
No, we don't live anywhere near the Blackout Zone. No, we weren't directly affected. We were, however, affected by the fact that our sites are hosted 2000 miles away - in the affected zone. SquidBlog came back up at 8:15am Mountain Daylight Time. That's some 18 hours after the power went off.
Michele of A Small Victory was without power until this morning, but she has written a beautiful account of her night: Darkness Falls.
The Command Post is doing a good job of covering all things Black Out, with both US and Canadian news. Check them out for a wide variety of information from lots of sources.
8:35am - Uh oh. Just tried to preview what I've written so far, server failed to respond. Power may not be stable yet for our hosts. *sigh*
8:50am - Ok, we're back again. I hope.
The BogieBlog has an interesting article on the rather rude trend to interruption of the customer after every third word to confirm what they've just said, instead of waiting for the customer to finish. This is a general trend towards poor customer service. Who needs to train personel? If they suck, fire them and hire more minimum-wage bozos, right?
Good customer service is a thing of the past. The bottom line rarely allows for proper training anymore. When I started my first job, part time in a department store while I was still in highschool, we got a full three days of training, both in customer service and in cashiering, before we ever saw a customer. This included training in how to give change properly, one of my pet peeves.
Today's cashiers just take the amount of change due, conveniently calculated by the cash register, out of the cash drawer and dump it into your hand - coins sitting on top of bills and likely to be dropped - which you then have to count yourself to make sure it's the correct amount. In the department store job and the many jobs I had during my long career as a student, nobody ever complained that I'd short-changed them. I get short-changed all the time. I often get too much change, too.
It is very rare for someone to count change back properly, starting with the total of your purchase, up to the amount you gave them. I bought coffee at a Tim Hortons the other day and was so astonished when the lady there counted my change back to me that I commented on it. She laughed, and called herself a dinosaur. That's sad. And it's wrong.
I came across this while perusing the always interesting stuff over at Simian Design:
Hitler vs Stalin, the Comic Book Edition (Authorized Annotated Translated version). It's possible it will offend some, but it's an interesting parody. If you're interested, give it a peek...
From mirabilis.ca:
Here's an addition for your "to visit while in Paris" list: Café Signes, where your waiter will likely be deaf, and you're encouraged to place your order in French Sign Language. From the BBC: Thumbs up for sign-language café.
I found this site about the little-known and long closed Chicago Tunnel Company. It seems a company ran a small railway under the city of Chicago, moving freight and refuse for some 50 years, from 1908 to 1959. The tunnels are still there, but in terrible shape. This site details much of the history of the tunnels and the company, and is illustrated with great vintage photographs, and some taken by the author on an excursion into the tunnels.
I found this on BrianKaneOnline.
Who knows geography these days anyway? :)
Posted by Arcterex at July 21, 2004 03:28 PM