On a shoe-string budget, the Young Liberals have released three attack ads emulating the I’m-a-Mac-I’m-a-PC ads.
The global warming ad (embedded below) is the best of the three. It cuts down the Conservatives without making the Liberals look like jerks, and it’s (relatively) well written and acted.
If the Liberals ever get their act together as a party and start some serious fundraising, I think they should consider producing the cross-dressing ad more professionally. It has a lot of potential. The synopsis in the Toronto Star made me laugh. The actual ad, not so much.
In the third ad, the guy is sporting a wig, lipstick and the same blazer as the woman and claims to be a Liberal too. He tugs uncomfortably at his clothes and finally confesses: “I’m ripping it off as soon as I get a majority.”
You can watch a clearer version of all the ads at the Young Liberals website.
Not only is my laptop broken, but my nearly-new iPod Shuffle was on the fritz! It was freezing up iTunes, unable to read the music I put on it (when I could even get the music to copy) and giving me the amber-green flash of death. Today I couldn’t even get iTunes to recognize it as an iPod.
I’ve been googling like crazy trying to find the answer to my problem. I even searched through the Apple site and found a potential solution – the Reset Utility – for Mac users only.
Without much hope but no other options, I skimmed the Wikipedia entry on the Shuffle and discovered – lo! – there is a version of the Reset Utility for Windows users too! I eventually found a page on the Apple site pretty much identical to the first page I visited, except it had two links: one for Mac and on for Windows.
So I’ve installed it, iTunes recognizes the Shuffle again, and we’ll see if I can load music onto it.
The hinges on my laptop are broken. It was a gradual process. First the springs were a bit sticky, then there were no springs at all, then the plastic broke, and now my screen swings a bit on an axis it shouldn’t.
No big deal, I thought. I have a three-year warranty.
Wrong.
The warranty, which I bought directly from Acer so they know I have it, had to be registered on their website withing 15 days of purchase. I don’t read the details of the warranty when I buy something, do you? Who can be expected to do this?
I can only assume this is a evil cash-grab on the part of Acer. It’s the only way that makes sense.
Fuck you Acer.
Thank God I have the new Rufus Wainwright to calm me down, otherwise I might have a stroke.
I have to say, I’m relieved to find out the general feeling that everything is crumbling around me isn’t just my university’s fault. It’s a systemic shortcoming. According to a research paper from the OCUFA Ontario’s universities will need in excess of an additional billion dollars over the next three years to patch things up.
It’s not just infrastructure that is in decline. The faculty to student ratio is on the rise and per-student funding had declined by $2600 over the last 15 years.
This paper should be a call to action for the government. I’ve noticed some improvements over the last two years but it is apparent there is much more work to be done. The benefits of post-secondary education to this province aren’t just a matter of quantity. While everyone willing to continue their education should be given the opportunity, the degree has to mean something to the rest of the world.
In California and Nevada there are hundreds of large stones which appear to be balanced precariously on one end, despite this region being a hot-spot for earthquakes. They have stood for thousands of years, either more stable than they appear or spared any sufficiently powerful earthquakes over the eons. Theoretically, an earthquake could fell any given stone tomorrow. But it’s not very likely.
The Canadian Senate is a bit like these precarious rocks. For the most part it has been free from outright, unabashed abuse, despite the apparent potential. Or perhaps it is less prone to abuse than it appears. In either case, nothing too horrible has happened since 1867 and in all likelihood nothing horrible will happen in the immediate future.
However, if we make piecemeal changes to the Senate, who can say what will happen?
To use a different analogy, the Leaning Tower of Pisa’s worsening tilt was only recently arrested, after a handful of attempts which actually worsened the situation. Only when a full effort was made a decade ago were engineers successful.
The Senate is working just fine as it is. When the federal and provincial governments and the people are prepared to invest their energy in making the Senate better, then we can improve it.
Unlike any other industry in Canada, the oilsands will be allowed to increase pollution under incoming “clean air” regulations.
Reasons this is stupid:
1) Bad PR everywhere but Alberta and northern Saskatchewan.
2) Pollution sucks.
3) As long as we have oil, there will be a market for it. Whether it gets dug up now or in five years, there will be somebody willing to pay through the nose for it. Oilsands are probably in the least precarious position of any industry in Canada, yetthe government wants to treat it as if the slightest breeze will send the whole economy of the West under.
From an outsider’s perspective, I can see that there are aspects of French government that need to change, and Sarkozy is the better candidate to make those changes. Unemployment, especially among youth and immigrants, needs to be addressed.
But I can say with confidence that if I were a French citizen I would have voted for the socialist candidate, Royal. I would be worried that Sarkozy would take the reforms too far – taking the “French” out of France. The country has a good thing going for the many people who can take advantage of what the welfare state has to offer.
Two less-than-desirable options. Two choices fraught with doubt. Too much change or too much of the same. The devil we know or the devil we don’t. It’s too bad the centrist candidate didn’t make it onto the second ballot.
There’s no question France is in for a well-needed tune-up. Is it going to involve merely inflating the tires or replacing the whole engine?
I was not a fan of Elizabeth May when the Green Party picked her to be their new leader. At the time, I thought the Green Party was crippling itself by picking someone so stereotypically “green” after Jim Harris.
It may have been an overreaction on my part. I think I’m warming to her.
If nothing else, she sure knows how to keep in the news. This week, she compared the Conservatives’ environment policy to Chamberlain’s appeasement of the Nazis.
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On a loosely related note, isn’t Björk wonderful? If you haven’t heard her new single (“Earth Intruders”) yet, you should check it out.
