Canadian Musings

What does Marriage have to do with Love?

Some would say nothing. Some would say everything.

But what is marriage really about? Is it about the two people who are married? No. Most emphatically, no. It's about creating as ideal a condition as possible for the raising of children. Marriage is about the children. And only about the children.

Yes, governments use marriage as a reason for tax discrimination. And both businesses and governments use marriage as a means of managing the scope of worker benefits. But nobody really gets married to adjust their tax status.

The various economic purposes of marriage (i.e. other than the true purpose) are merely choices which a free society can choose to exercise. Just as benefits could be extended to an employee's grandparents, aunts, nephews, next-door neighbours, or whomever society chooses. But choosing to extend benefits doesn't make it a marriage.

So let's be clear what this whole "Same sex marriage" debate is all about: it's about corrupting society and undermining our focus on the future. It's not about discrimination. It's not even about money, although some have pursued it for their own financial gain.

SSM must be opposed with every voice we can muster. The failure of Canada's nanny state education system must not be allowed to further undermine the purpose of marriage and leave young people thinking that commitments are only meant to last as long as they're not bored. Thinking that "marriage" is about the people getting "married".

Commitments are for life, and are made to create a stable and loving environment for the chidren who may come along. If anyone isn't adult enough to understand that, they shouldn't be entering a committed relationship.

I had some friends visiting from out of town this weekend. As we were touristing around town, we got to see the new War Museum from a number of different views. (Didn't have enough time to go visit yet, though. Another time.)

The first comment was that the part on top, which I'm told is supposed to somehow emote a soldier pointing towards the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill, resembles some sort of interstellar transport ship from Star Wars.

I guess it would have to be a troop ship.

Rick Mercer reports in his new blog that, "The life story of Tommy Douglas, Shania Twain and Walter Gretzky are already in the can"

I can understand the interest in Tommy Douglas, and in Shania Twain. But I would have guessed that Wayne's life would be more likely to be featured. Still, the CBC does have its own ways of making decisions. And a buddy of mine who on occasion would work with Walter Gretzky at Bell does have some interesting stories. Not necessarily about Walter, but about Bell. So I can only assume that CBC has found some of Walter's own stories and filmed them.

Or we could guess that Rick is mistaken. But I've met him, too. And I'm sure he's got his facts straight. Otherwise it wouldn't be The Monday Report.

Today saw more insults from the government benches directed at opposition Members of Parliament, with the Parliamentary Secretary for Finance specifically directing insulting remarks at Mr. Solberg.

I'm sure that with two Ministers whose job it is to hope that Opposition MPs behave better, the Prime Minister will act quickly to demote his government member.

And there's a blue moon coming soon. I'm sure of it.

The American Film Institute has released its list of most memorable movie quotes.

I would say the overall winning film is Casablanca, with several most-memorable quotes.

Former Immigration Minister Judy Sgro was severely evaluated by Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro in his report issued today.

There is nothing in the report which appears to clear Ms. Sgro. Indeed, the ultimate summary is that "The Minister has already resigned, and without comment on that decision, I have no further recommendation to make."

That's not an exoneration. If anything, it hints that a resignation would be recommended if it had not preceded the report.

Yes, much of the blame is placed on her staff, but Ministerial Responsibility brings the responsibility to her feet. And there are clear conflicts which go without much comment: there are supposed to be safeguards to ensure nobody with an open Immigration file was associated with her campaign, yet several examples are cited which violate that.

Shame on the media for repeating the Liberal spin.

Update: Link(s) fixed.

The FIA have apparently summoned the seven teams who were unable to participate in the U.S. Grand Prix Formula One Race to a disciplinary hearing.

How ridiculous can they be? These teams had equipment which was not certified for the race. If the slightest accident had occurred - and an accident was all but guaranteed had they raced - they would have been civilly and criminally liable.

The FIA had the opportunity to act: they could have achieved safe race conditions by allowing a chicane to be added to the racetrack. The FIA refused, proving that their concern is not for the safety of the drivers and the fans.

I would encourage these teams to boycott the remainder of the season, perhaps forming their own championship immediately.

But not in the comments to this post, please!

Seriously, in order to help provide security, you need to choose a good password. And a good password looks like a pretty random sequence of characters, including letters, numbers, and perhaps some punctuation marks, too.

A bad password would be your girlfriend's name. A poor password is a word found in a dictionary - even a very obscure word found in only the most comprehensive dictionary. A good password is generated by a randomized password generator.

But good passwords are extremely difficult for mere mortals to remember. So some experts recommend writing it down and keeping the piece of paper it's written on in a secure location (like, say, your wallet).

Personally, I compromise: I'll take two words from a phrase (or a book or movie title, or whatever) and interleave the letters of the two words. Then I'll do a few character substitutions, "8" for "a" or something like that.

That way, a so-called "dictionary" attack has a pretty long list of passwords they would need to check before they could expect to crack my password. They'd have to include all the names they could find. All the words in the dictionary. All in various combinations: straightforward; interleaved letters; with or without any typical character substitutions.

How close is that to a "true" random password? Far from it. But then again, I'm not going to stop a determined hacker. I just want to make it a bit more difficult than just a couple minutes effort.

This past week finally saw the release of the autopsy results performed on Terri Schiavo, as had been promised and due several weeks ago.

As the Good Captain notes, this was not about the Right to Die. Terri, as the autopsy makes clear, was not dying.

This case was about the State of Florida taking a life, and due process in that cause. And the need for a de novo review in Federal Court before the State takes a life. Any life.

Let's hope I never get sick in Florida, and have someone appear before Judge Greer representing themself and purporting to represent me simultaneously. After having gotten rich off my illness.

Formula One "racing" reached a new low today with what was supposed to be a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Park. What occurred, though, cannot be described as a race.

During the preliminaries (testing, qualifying) one of the tire manufacturers found that the tires which they had brought for seven of the participating teams (14 cars and drivers) were showing problems, and were not going to be safe for the race. As a result, that manufacturer refused to certify their equipment for the race as planned.

But there was an easy solution: put a chicane (kinda like a zig-zag section, for those who don't follow the sport) in one of the high-speed corners which was demonstrating the problem, in order to slow the cars and make everything safe.

The governing body for the "sport" refused: they used their leverage in threatening to withdraw their sanction for the entire race if such a change were made. No explanation was provided as to why a minor change to the track, identical for all teams, would be unacceptable. Other changes have been made in the past which have been beneficial to a few teams to the detriment of others.

The only difference was that today, the ruling benefitted Ferrari and Michael Schumacher. In the past, the rulings have tended to benefit Ferrari and Michael Schumacher.

Even with that, there being only six cars on the track for the entire "race", Michael Schumacher made a point of trying to cause an accident as he exited the pit lane and immediately drove into traffic. No punishment was meted out during the race, although the fact that it was his Ferrari teammate with whom he nearly collided, there is some hope that his team bosses will deal with it internally.

The FIA, who run F1 Racing, have demonstrated their incompetence at managing a fair race and only want to put on a choreographed event of their own choosing.

What occurred today was not motor racing. It was nothing but a farce, and hundreds of thousands of fans around the world are right to be very upset by the circumstances.

Andrew, of Bound by Gravity mentioned last week, as various bloggers have mentioned from time to time, some of the more obscure google searches which some folks have used to land on his blog.

Which has got me thinking: what are some of the most obscure google searches for any particular site? Is there a game to be found here?

A Googlewhack is a two-word google search with a single result (and a couple other rules apply, but I won't review them all here).

What obscure search results include your blog? Preferably, as a unique result. And no fair planting obscure words in your blog just to get an obscure search. Everyone's a winner.

The youngest Member of Parliament, a fellow by the name of Pierre Poilievre, has been doing some excellent work on behalf of all Canadians as well as serving as a Conservative MP for the federal riding of Nepean-Carleton in the national capital region.

He is working to put an end to the drain on healthcare dollars into federal coffers being perpetrated on Canadians by virtue of the rent charged by the National Capital Commission (NCC) to the Queensway-Carleton Hospital (QCH).

It would be correct for the rent to be reduced to $1 per year. It would be even better if the federal government simply allocated this land to the QCH, rather than to the NCC, in a simple asset transfer. Most hospitals have their land donated to them in various ways, and having the government take rental fees out of the healthcare system is unspeakable.

Another issue Mr. Poilievre has raised has to do with the special nature of the Senate of Canada. Senators have special privileges, and are not answerable to the People of Canada. As a result, they also have special responsibilities.

One such responsibility intersects with the fact that only the (elected) House of Commons can initiate "money bills": only the House, who are answerable, have access to the nation's pockets. Senators historically are therefore disallowed, by law, from directly participating in government contracts. (Indirect is okay, so, for example, holding some shares in a public company does not disallow that company from working with the government.)

There seems to be a Senator who, either directly or through a private company, received a multi-million dollar contract to lease a building to the government, and it would seem that this violated the rules.

After the violation was pointed out (by Mr. Poilievre, in the House of Commons), the rules were changed by the government. Which didn't make it any more correct. And which didn't change any previous behaviour which may have been wrong. But Mr. Poilievre has been working to ensure Canadians are at least represented in applying the law as it existed, despite some apparent attempts to ignore it.

And if Senators are to have access to my wallet, they should at least stand for election.

Thank-you, Mr. Poilievre.

I'm starting to feel a bit tired. You might be surprised, given that I'm posting this at 4:30 in the morning, but it's true.

I was out last night for a friend's bachelor party. And out of all the bachelor parties I've attended through the years, this was the first time that the bachelor party crossed paths with the bachelorette party. And everyone had fun. And the bachelor party picked up a couple folks from the bachelorette party.

It's not like we were misbehaving in any particular way. Drinking too much, but having fun doing so. And the girls had fun, too.

Now it's time for me to hit the hay. And sleep until later in the afternoon, probably. My schedule is so messed up ....

Just got home from the Blogger gathering at Darcy's, as organized by Shannon. Or should that be "Shannon".

I had a great time. Hope everyone else did, too, who made it out. It certainly was a pleasure to meet everyone who dropped in.

Of course, I happened to stay a bit later because a buddy of mine had his last day at work there that very day, so after a while I wandered up to visit with him .. and with a few other friends who were in town for the weekend. Great to see everyone.

Update: The Phantom Observer has some pics up. And Don of All Things Canadian live-blogged. Again, thanks to Shannon for organizing.

I have no problem with spiders in general. In the yard, I'll mostly leave them alone. But in my house, I'm more than a little annoyed with the little beasts.

Last winter, I probably vacuumed up thirty or so spiders. And tonight I vacuumed up another one.

I've been curious as to the varieties of spiders. I've seen at least four different varieties in my house, I'm sure. Tonight was a fairly large one, with a largish sac and a legspan of maybe a shade under 2cm. The other day I saw a tiny thing living in the screen in my front door, dark grey. There have been plenty of medium spiders, maybe 1cm or so, which I presume are brown spiders. And the occasional huge thing (long legs, small body) that looks something like a daddy long legs, but not as well-defined a sac.

I really don't like sharing my space with them.

Our municipal government here in Ottawa has a more or less typical left-wing bent to it. Meaning that too many of our City Councillors don't understand what the role is for municipal government.

Too many of them think that it's their job to create and support all sorts of arts facilities.

Don't get me wrong: a city is much richer for having plenty of arts and festivals. But it shouldn't be tax dollars being used to support all of it.

Let's get our city council to do some fundraising.

Taxes are based property assessments. Which means that rich and poor all pay comparably. The rich do not overpay; the poor do not underpay.

But to fund the fine arts, additional monies are required. And that money should not be taken from the poor. So let's get our city council to make some calls to various companies around town, and ask them to contribute over and above their tax bills to create a fund which council can then administer.

And all those citizens who put signs in their windows, saying "My Ottawa includes arts" can similarly donate.

And no, tax receipts should not be made available.

Frank McKenna, Canadian Ambassador to the United States, appearing on CNN on June 14, 2005, "I don't appreciate that Mexico is part of NAFTA ..."

So, Frank, who are the three signatories to NAFTA then?

This link won't last, because Yahoo News just doesn't work that way, but this story is a pretty decent indictment of the biases to be found on CNN.

How low have we sunk?

At least among the networks, Drudge is reporting Fox at 4.8M, CNN at 3.5M, MSNBC at 1.5M, and Nancy Grace on Headline News at 0.75M. Fair and Balanced wins the day again.

I've been keeping this blog for a few months now, mostly for my own reasons. Over the last few weeks I've come to learn that there was perhaps one (were there two or more?) occasional visitors who would drop by from time to time. (Can I say, "Hi, Nicole!"? Or is it one of the other Expats?) And if anyone has any doubt about the light traffic, just check my traffic stats (link on the right-hand side) for the last year, and then for the past week. And remember that a bunch of those "hits" are from myself.

Since yesterday, I'm not sure what happened, and who knows how long it might last, but my traffic stats have shown the sort of daily visits that I'm more accustomed to accumulating over a somewhat longer interval - like a month.

Welcome, new visitors. Feel free to let me know what you like or dislike. I have never yet found the need to remove any comments, and would not do so based on a difference of opinion. But I would put it on the record that I'm not here to serve as an outlet for anyone's hatred or bile. Any such posts unrelated to the topic risk being deleted, so while disagreements are fair game you have to keep the language clean and the post should be on-topic.

I don't want to suggest that it's at all likely that I'll ever have to take any such action. And only time and experience will determine what is and isn't acceptable in a free and democratic society, I want everyone to be able to enjoy their visit here. Even kids, who need to be exposed to various opinions but in an honest and hopefully informed discussion.

Enjoy!

All the media pundits were suggesting that the various political parties had lost their appetite for a summer election when it came to the various votes tonight in Canada's House of Commons which could potentially have brought down the Government and triggered a new vote.

But as I watched the votes, I noticed how consistently the MPs voted, in general, with their previous votes on the same questions. Well, their most recent votes anyway.

Because the Conservatives have never voted against the main (and original) budget bill, C-43, and that was the big boy on tonight's agenda.

It really bothers me, though, that media pundits are either so stupid, or so baiting, as to accuse anyone of having "lost the appetite" for an election, just because they have some principles and wanted this budget to pass.

Leading up to the May 19 vote, the media were even worse: they accused the Conservatives of having changed their vote - when in fact they had merely abstained previously, and planned to clarify their position in light of the NDP-Liberal Government Budget (C-48). The media somehow managed to twist the same facts to consider that the NDP were being consistent. They had actually stood up in the House of Commons previously to oppose the very same bill which they then planned to (and did) support. Yet because "circumstances had changed" their total reversal was somehow twisted into consistency, while the same change of circumstance was treated as a reversal of position (when in fact no such change had occured) on the part of the Conservative Party.

And the media wonder why right-thinking Canadians consider them to exhibit a left-wing bias!

In yet another shameful display, the Liberals, who have used their position as the governing party in the House of Commons to ram things down the throat of the rest of the MPs put on yet another shameful display tonight.

They had refused to act until they decided to make the House sit until midnight through the second half of June. Then they called for several votes, starting shortly after 10pm. Then they filibustered those votes, rising at the slowest possible rate.

Presumably one of their MPs was late arriving at the House, and they were refusing to allow the business of the House to continue until their late arrival bothered to show up.

Shame on them.

Maybe your roommates are the threat. Maybe it's you that is a threat to yourself.

In any case, as reported by Bruce Schneier, there is a solution available.

The only question remaining is whether there are specific colours and flavours to go with the various threat levels.

How much should transit cost? And how much cross subsidy should taxpayers incur?

There are arguments that property taxes include an explicit lineitem for transit, so transit fares should be raised in order to not tax non-users inordinately.

But all property owners pay that tax, whether they use transit or not. Just as all property owners pay road taxes, whether they drive or not. So if the argument applies for one group, why not apply it to both groups? Why not raise road usage fees in order to limit the subsidy currently being paid by transit-only users for car owners?

The city of Ottawa is currently looking at spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several years to accomodate additional automobile traffic. Why do I have to pay for them as well as for transit when I don't even own a car?

As a social policy objective, we should be looking at even higher base taxation for transit and additional road usage fees, in order to discourage car usage as much as possible. As a social policy objective, we should be encouraging use and growth of public transit alternatives, and making it a viable choice in many areas where it is not currently feasible.

Or, as a tax fairness objective, we should stop punishing non-drivers for making that choice. Currently, I believe the road subsidy exceeds the transit subsidy: non-drivers pay more in cross subsidies than drivers. Let's at least fix that.

I have to guess that the world was aware of Michael Jackson's acquittal by about 7pm. Because in the single hour between 6 and 7 I had a bit of a spike in visitor traffic to this blog. In the hours since, only a couple visitors.

And I doubt it was because I posted that the Canadian Parliament will be sitting late.

In other related notes, and mostly for my own future reference I've become a Flippery Fish in the TTLB ecosystem. My ranking, though, hasn't advanced much and is currently at #13674. In the Canadian Blog rankings, being tracked by Angry in the Great White North, I'm still hovering around #350 (okay, 354).

Flipping through the dial, I see that Michael Jackson has been acquitted. And to the extent that I believed that his primary accuser was more interested in pulling a con, based on the evidence published throughout the trial, I agree that there was reasonable doubt as to criminal behaviour on Mr. Jackson's behalf.

But that doesn't make Mr. Jackson an innocent man. Except in the child-like definition of innocence. He has exercised poor judgement in various aspects of his behaviour, and he must learn from this experience.

The Liberals, having accomplished nothing for months, have decided that it's time to punish everyone and extend the hours during which the House of Commons will sit for the month of June. Which, as near as I can tell, is already half over.

If they had wanted to hurry up and get something done, they should have started a long time ago.

Now it's just time for a coffee. I guess it'll be good business for the Tim Horton's just across the street from Parliament Hill.

Formula One Racing is popular worldwide, but has become even more of a political minefield than ever before.

Drivers are being rewarded for breaking the rules, or unduly punished, not according to the rule broken, nor according to the degree of safety demonstrated, but according to popularity.

A few moments ago, a condition existed in a race identical to conditions in so many previous races. But for reasons which are unclear at this time, the red light had apparently been turned on at the pit lane exit while the field was passing by under the Safety Car.

Ignoring the question of whether that light was proper to be on, and assuming that it was, the issue of an appropriate punishment is raised. And any normal punishment for such an infraction would be a drive-through penalty, effectively putting a driver to the back of the field in such a circumstance.

Instead, the driver was disqualified.

Compare that with any of the numerous infractions Michael Schumacher has committed through the years, and continues to commit. He has at times served penalties only after the race has completed, if any punishment is meted out at all.

One driver is popular with the ruling elites of F1 Racing (i.e. Bernie Ecclestone); the other apparently is not. If the race marshalls cannot uniformly and fairly enforce the rules, they shouldn't be in that role.

F1 is no longer a sport, and is nothing more than a choreographed show trying to put Canadian tax dollars into the pockets of a few. How can they defend this atrocity?

Bruce Schneier blogs about a plan under consideration in the United Kingdom to ban pointy knives.

And while it's easy to concede the danger in such a tool, it's much less clear that such a ban would accomplish its ultimate goal: the reduction of domestic violence.

Violent crime has been on the rise lately. But is that because more people are buying knives? Is there any evidence to suggest that more restrictions on the shape of knives will reduce spontaneous stabbings or other assaults?

It's the death of public healthcare in Canada, some exclaim, in response to the Supreme Court decision cited below.

But Roy Romanow, he of the expensive health commission (billions of dollars and still counting), appeared last night on CTV NewsNet to point out that currently, thirty percent of healthcare in Canada is provided by private service providers.

Much has been said already, and much more will be said over the coming days, about today's pronouncement by Canada's Supremes on the issue of Health Insurance for government-funded treatment.

Many are suggesting that this represents the end of Canada's much-vaunted medicare system. I disagree. I'm not a lawyer, but I am a taxpayer.

I have long felt that inequities in the current system needed to be addressed.

After all, the arguments in front of the court weren't about whether or not private care should be available or should be illegal. The decision acknowledges that the very rich have access to private care: the Supreme Court recognizes that Canada already has two-tier medicare.

The question was whether the Great Unwashed should be able to access that private system. Whether you and I should be allowed to purchase insurance so that we have an option to use the public or the private system should the need arise.

Doesn't this relieve stress on the public system? Doesn't it create a natural balance? If there is excess demand for a service which the public system cannot fund, the private system will grow. If there is sufficient capacity in the public system, the private system will stand aside.

But what were the arguments considered by the Court? I'll have to read it again, and in more detail, but among the first things I notice are that the court seems to want to protect this "thing" called the public healthcare system. Why it should want to do so is beyond me. The public healthcare system has no legal standing to warrant protection by the courts. And even if it did, or if one argues that it represents society's interests as a whole, the suggestion becomes one that providing healthcare and saving lives somehow damages society.

Other Justices, dissenting, almost seemed to suggest that the public policy debate surrounding healthcare and waiting times for treatment warranted a bureaucratic acceptability of a certain failure rate, as it were. That some percentage of the population could reasonably be expected to die waiting for treatment, in order to ensure money isn't being wasted. Tell that to your aunt Martha, who's being allowed to suffer and perhaps even die in order to prove that tax dollars can be wasted on other priorities.

Can you imagine being told that you aren't allowed to hire a security guard for your property because the police are reporting "only" a certain rate of crime in your neighbourhood?

Or can you imagine the equivalent circumstances of this lawsuit being applied to a private employer who is making employees wait an "excessive" time for basic medical care? Would the court still argue that the company has a right to allow a certain percentage of its employees die waiting for medical care in order to minimize its costs and maximize its efficience?

Because it isn't really a problem for the ruling class, is it? They're being provided with all sorts of benefits for allowing us to line up in pain, from their salaries and pensions to book deals and "sponsorships".

I lived for a great many years while violent crime was just a statistic.

A couple years ago I happened to be sitting with friends on a patio in downtown Ottawa when a robbery occured at the jewelry store next door ... and one of the thieves fired his gun behind him -- and at us. Thankfully, the bullets didn't hit anyone.

A couple blocks away, over the preceding and subsequent months, there were various stabbings and gun-related incidents, but they were somehow distant.

A few months ago, I was at a bar when a fight broke out. Blood all over the floor.

Last night, I was again at a bar when another fight broke out. More blood.

I could go the rest of my life without being close to any more such violent incidents.

But no more can anyone convince me to view Canadian society through their rose-coloured glasses, pretending the violence doesn't exist.

Sorry for the recent focus on the Grewal tapes, but there has been a lot to say, and a lot to respond to.

And let's be clear from the get-go here: I am not alleging any criminal behaviour here. I am only wondering, and asking questions. Nobody should think any less of anyone as a result.

But there has been some speculation whether the suggestions captured on tape could constitute criminal behaviour. Personally, I doubt it. But let's explore the hypothetical for a moment, shall we?

If what Mr. Murphy and Mr. Dosanjh suggested constituted an offense, or perhaps even what Mr. Grewal suggested, then who else might be in jeopardy?

Is there evidence against Mr. Volpe? Was he involved in any way in incorporating an apology as part of any 'deal' to have Mr. Grewal change his vote and cross the floor?

What does it say about Mr. Martin? Can anyone believe that a cabinet posting was not included in the deal to bring Ms. Stronach across? Did Ms. Stronach solicit such a position? (Can one imagine that she did not?) How about Mr. Peterson, the former Premier of the Province of Ontario? Was he not directly involved?

I believe I heard something on the tapes about Mr. Peterson acting as an intermediary "last Friday" (i.e. the Friday before Ms. Stronach crossed the floor Tuesday morning) so that she wouldn't get burned by it if it didn't happen.

But what wouldn't happen? If she wanted to cross on principle, would the Liberals refuse to accept her as a backbencher? Did she solicit a cabinet post, or did the Liberals offer one? Why did she need an intermediary? Didn't she know who Paul Martin is? And why would Mr. Murphy be involved prior to the dinner meeting at 24 Sussex if it is as Ms. Stronach has publicly claimed, that she crossed because she wasn't a strong enough person to stay in the same caucus as Mr. Harper after she got a bit miffed with him.

The first question, and perhaps the most important, is whether any of the players consider themselves above the law. Or will they cooperate fully. I have my guesses.

A simple look at the source tapes would clear things up right away. And the updated audio from Mr. Grewal's website seems to have a lot fewer questionable artifacts.

But the point is that all anyone can conclude from listening to the MP3s is that there are artifacts in the MP3.

MP3 encoders are notorious for introducing artifacts - especially older (and incorrect) implementations. And sampling from an analog source can introduce any of a range of artifacts as well.

If an "expert" is looking at a "zero-signal gap" in the digitized version, it's probably not from the analog original: the sampling will still typically find noise and encode it. Anyone saying that they can draw conclusions from this zero-signal gap probably doesn't have a clue what they're talking about: they don't even know what digitization methodology was used. (Was the tape player plugged into the "mic" jack on a PC? The "line in" jack? What sampling software? Why only sample at 14kpbs? etc)

In any event, none of this can lead to a conclusion about what is on the original analog tape unless you're examining the original analog tape. Yet today we read about all sorts of "experts" who have concluded that the (original) tape was spliced, tampered with, or otherwise edited.

Still more experts are cited as drawing conclusions about other supposed artifacts, without knowing for example where the microphone was located. I doubt it was held in front of each speaker in turn. So we should expect some artifacts arising from the placement of the microphone and local environmental factors (e.g. clothing muffling it when shifting in a chair).

But at the end, while I'd prefer the CPC dub were perfect, it shouldn't matter if it isn't. The RCMP won't be relying on the CPC dub. They'll be examining the original material for themselves, and probably doing their own dub using more experienced technicians.

And CFRA have examined the updated audio MP3s and acknowledge that the "clicks" (which formed the basis for their conclusion that the tapes were edited) are not in the new copies, and that there is more Punjabi conversation. They also examined the audio around the "suspect" word "deniability" and find no audible difference in that audio. They didn't discuss how the "tapes were edited" yesterday, when the artifact is gone today.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) have announced that they will be working to create a new ".xxx" Internet top-level domain (TLD).

But Castlemaine uses four x's in their "XXXX" brand of brew.

As a Computer Scientist, I think that ICANN offering a few new, sponsored TLDs ("sTLD's") to supplement the current generic TLDs (gTLD) and country-code TLDs (ccTLD) is a terrible idea.

ICANN should either open it up to any sponsored TLDs, or keep it closed. The current approach is unsatisfactory.

And it provides no useful advantage to users. A domain name will be resolvable to an IP address. But that IP address is not necessarily uniquely serving that domain: many domains could resolve to the same IP address.

So all that anyone can filter on is the DNS resolution of the domain name. And I can get remote services to do that resolution, and go directly to that IP address.

If that IP address is serving more than one domain, then the requested domain name will appear in the request, but any filtering advantage is weakend at best.

As for the ".xxx" domain specifically, it is being sponsored by a Canadian company, IFFOR. (The so-called International Foundation for Online Responsibility). Evidence is inconclusive how such a group would intend to police content in what they call a voluntary scheme. Instead, it seems Canadians are intent to become the world's pornographers.

No competent forensic analyst will give an opinion without access to the original source materials. Have people learned nothing from the CBS affair just last year, when news producers went to air without any supporting forensic analysis?

Yet today we see a coordinated effort by several media outlets to discredit the so-called Grewal tapes, citing "forensic experts" who claim to conclude that the tapes have been edited.

We do not know how the recorder was placed. Was it in a pocket, getting knocked around every time Grewal shifted in his seat? Was it taped under the desk, getting banged every time a teacup is set down?

If these are their claims, they should lose their accreditation. They are not competent to do forensic analysis.

Right now, only one person claims to know how the MP3 files which were released were originally created. That's the person who created them, who isn't saying anything about the topic. We don't know if the original recording was analog or digital. We don't know, if originally analog, how they were digitised. We don't know what further processing was done before they were released.

So there may be some 'clicks' of unknown causation on the released recordings. So what. And another self-proclaimed expert claims there's a "frequency change" - whatever he means by that - in part of one tape. So what. He doesn't know what the sampling algorithm was.

I can only conclude that this was orchestrated by the Liberals. Anyone have any other explanations for it?

I've spent a good part of my evening reading through the transcription and translation of the released Grewal tapes while listening to what I could of them, and while the transcription is less than perfect it does carry the sense of the conversations it represents.

From my read of the matter, there are a number of aspects at play: whether Mr. Volpe would apologize for comments he made; whether Mr. and Mrs. Grewal would cross the floor; whether any opportunity to "participate at an elevated level" would be open for them if they did.

All three of the primary parties involved, including Mr. Murphy, Mr. Dosanjh, and Mr. Grewal do take steps to ensure there is no "deal" as such. But at one point there is a suggestion made that getting an apology from Mr. Volpe is contingent on Mr. Grewal coming over. And that's pretty close to creating a "deal". But Mr. Grewal is insistent that the apology be separate from any decision to cross the aisle: that it not be included. Whether it constitutes anything untoward is for others to determine; I allege nothing.

I've noticed that I'm now a "Slimy Mollusc" in the TTLB ecosystem (Blog rank #13418). Woo hoo! No longer a mere "Lowly Insect". Of course, nothing is permanent, is it?

Oh, and on the ranking of various (Canadian) blogs currently being maintained by Angry in T.O., I'm currently slotted in at #357.

Not that anyone reading would care, but someday I might want to flip through my archives to see where I was.

Update, June 20: Now a Crawly Amphibian! One would almost think someone other than myself had read some of my posts :)

I characterize the media as including a number of elements:

There is one group, which I loosely characterize as reporters, who will re-write press releases or transcribe some announcement. One can hardly blame this group for the purported failings of the MSM.

Another group, which I loosely characterize as commentators, typically have a regular feature column which is largely opinion-based analysis of various facts of the day. These individuals, among whom I include Mr. Coyne and Mr. Wells, generally provide thoughtful and insightful commentary, but by their nature commentators will typically lag "breaking news" by a day or more.

A third group, which I loosely characterize as journalists, who dig into a story to report the underlying facts and who avoid injecting personal opinions into their analysis. These in-depth activities can often take weeks or months of investigation before ink meets newsprint.

It's a fourth group, which I loosely characterize as analysts, who try some days to be commentators and other days to be reporters, and with whom I am most disappointed. When it comes to asking the tough questions, some choose the oddest opportunity to become mere "reporters" and so seem to display a bias: they come across as being very selective on whom to attack. Few will challenge the spinmasters; few have a deep enough grasp of the details relevant to the issue at hand to approach their job with authority.

IMHO, the better analysts will become specialists and rise up to become commentators; others may be reassigned as mere reporters. But in that analytical proving ground one finds many flaws. It is in their seeming inconsistency that I find frustration. And it is in their seeming failure to check this Liberal government that one calls the MSM to the carpet.

[Disclaimer: The names I've ascribed to these groups aren't formal, and others would be correct to suggest that they are inaccurate at best.]

Most pundits have weighed in on the latest Grewal tapes. Some seem to blame the Conservatives for doing something so nasty as to tape the Liberals doing something immoral. Others blame the Liberals for their actions.

But I worry about those who have confused illegal actions and immoral ones. Some pundits seem to think that if nothing illegal was done, then it must be that nothing immoral was done.

Crossing the street against the light is illegal, but I would hardly characterize it as immoral. Lying to a friend is probably immoral, but rarely illegal.

Telling an MP that they can cross the floor and expect to be rewarded within a few weeks or months, but that no deal will be made per se, is immoral. Because there is no deal per se, the question of its legality is tougher to conclude. And personally, I would suggest that in all likelihood nothing illegal took place. But surely we live in a nation where not every wrong thing needs to be proscribed in law. Surely there are punishments short of the courts for some of our own actions, and responsibilities must be met.

The major record labels have complained often over the past several years that their sales are declining because of what they characterize as illegal file sharing.

Discussions of the legal issues are for another day.

How many people can name ten songs and/or groups from the 90's which they would go out and acquire if not already in their music collection? How 'bout from the 70's?

Let's face it. There just isn't as much music worth acquiring as there was in the past. And most folks have started to fill out their collection of classic 70s and 80s music. So what is there to buy?

When CDs were still new, a lot of people had to go out and rebuild their music collection, buying new copies of records they may have already had. And a lot more people bought a lot more music because you didn't need to become an audiophile in order to get a great sound from your system and a record that would last.

But now that the old music has approached a saturation level, and the new music is mostly crap, why should the record companies expect us to spend at the levels we once did?

One can admit that a few people won't spend money for songs they can get for free, but I suggest that the larger issue is elsewhere. There are more groups putting out small-label and independent releases, and overall musical tastes are much more diversified than they have been in the past. I can't recall the last major label CD I bought, and I don't do filesharing.