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| Migrating to Wordpress
I decided to be spontaneous and migrate from Xanga to WordPress after seeing two blogs there. Their user interface is especially nice in Firefox 1.5  Please update your bookmarks accordingly! | | |
| Canadian Political Parties
I just realized that you could get a really good feel for the social leaning of the political parties here in Canada by comparing their intentions in the SSM vote sequel. Fraction indicates likely SSM opposition (votes to repeal SSM in that party over the total MPs in that party).
New Democratic Party: 0/29 (0%)
Bloc Québécois: 6/51 (12%)
Liberal: 29/103 (28%)
Conservative: 117/124 (94%) | | |
| Still using Windows 98? (or know someone who does?)
While doing a little research I came across this page :
June 30, 2006 will bring a close to Extended Support for Windows 98,
Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Me as part of the Microsoft
Lifecycle Policy. Microsoft will retire public and technical support,
including security updates, by this date. [...] Microsoft is retiring support for these products because they are
outdated and can expose customers to security risks. We recommend that
customers who are still running Windows 98 or Windows Me upgrade to a
newer, more secure Microsoft operating system, such as Windows XP, as soon as possible.
There are of course several issues MS avoids discussing in their brief
summary, such as the fact that XP will likely crawl on computers
currently running 98, that the upgrade to XP will cost a non-trivial sum
of money which would likely be better spent towards a new computer (which
would have XP on it anyway, so you'd have to pay for it regardless), that XP as the recommended Windows version
is going to be replaced by Vista in the next year or so (the computer
for which would cost even more money), etc.
Now, if instead of taking the MS advice to switch to XP, the user
installs Linux, they can have a very secure OS, plus a universe of
excellent software for free... and if they pick the right distro it
won't be slower than Windows 98 on the same hardware.
Of course, if you fell bad that you wouldn't be sending Bill Gates any money (so that he can play humanitarian), you can use your savings to sponsor a child or something (and you'll get the credit, not Billy ;)
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| Misc News Roundup
Mozart was born 250 years ago today!
In Florida, a man who's been in prison for almost a quarter century (over half his life) was released "after DNA testing and other evidence convinced prosecutors he was not
involved in the 1981 armed robbery and rapes that led to his 130-year
prison sentence." This sort of thing increases my opposition to the death penalty.
Firefox Myths? Asa sure is upset. But do you blame him?
I made a couple of (anon) comments on Capitalist Pig vs Socialist Swine and I thought I'd copy them in here:
Regarding the recent Hamas landslide election victory: four years ago "Crown Prince Abdullah had proposed in an
interview with the [NY Times] that the Arab nations recognize Israel in
exchange for the Jewish state's total withdrawal from occupied
territory." But
no, Israel didn't like that idea. Now with a muslim version of GWB in
Iran and Hamas set to take control of the PA it sounds pretty good in
retrospect, doesn't it?
Regarding Stephen Harper's promise to revote on SSM: I think there are three increasingly large hurdles that the anti-SSM crowd must deal with. First, they likely don't have the votes in the Commons. Second,
it would have to clear the Senate. Now yes, usually the Senate is a
rubber stamp, but in 1991 they blocked the anti-abortion bill C-43. Third, even if it
became law, it would have to survive the guaranteed legal challenges in
the Supreme Court (and this is just so unlikely given previous lower
court rulings) This is really to appease the Alberta base, but
you can guarantee it will make them look like the redneck party to the
rest of Canada. | | |
| Update ~1:00 AM: CTV has estimated...
124 Conservatives, 103 Liberals, 51 Bloc, 29 NDP and 1
Independent.
So its (ugh) Prime Minister Stephen Harper. At least its a "minority
government"; he can't push through the right-wing-nut things that
he would have if he had a majority (Same Sex Marriage is thus likely safe).
Interesting: the Conservatives will have *no* representatives from "Canada's major urban centers" of Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver... and Alberta is now exclusively Conservative.
Update ~12:00 AM: CTV has estimated...
125 Conservatives, 103 Liberals, 51 Bloc, 28 NDP and 1
Independent.
Update ~11:30 PM: CTV has estimated...
124 Conservatives, 103 Liberals, 51 Bloc, 29 NDP and 1 Independent.
Update ~11:15 PM: Unchanged; Paul Martin steps down as head of the Liberal party.
Update ~11:00 PM: CTV has estimated...
125 Conservatives, 102 Liberals, 51 Bloc, 29 NDP and 1 Independent.
Update ~10:45 PM: CTV has estimated...
122 Conservatives, 105 Liberals, 50 Bloc,
30 NDP and 1 Independent.
Update ~10:30 PM: CTV has estimated 308/308 (100% of the)
seats...
Conservatives 123, Liberals 104, Bloc 50,
NDP 30, Independent 1.
Update ~10:15 PM: CTV has estimated 307/308 (99.7% of the)
seats...
Conservatives 122, Liberals 103, Bloc 50,
NDP 31, Independent 1.
Update ~10:00 PM: CTV has estimated 307/308 (99.7% of the)
seats...
Conservatives 121, Liberals 103, Bloc 50,
NDP 32, Independent 1 (looks like its pretty much stabilized).
Update ~9:45 PM: CTV has estimated 304/308 (98.7% of the)
seats...
Conservatives 121, Liberals 102, Bloc 50,
NDP 30, Independent 1.
Update ~9:30 PM: CTV has estimated 285/308 (92.5% of the)
seats...
Conservatives 113, Liberals 95, Bloc 50,
NDP 26, Independent 1, Green 0 (Hmm... looks like they're estimating, not calling the races; sorry Green Party! ):
Update ~9:15 PM: CTV has called 268/308 (87% of the) seats...
Conservatives 105, Liberals 89, Bloc 49, NDP 23, Independent 1, Green 1 (Wow! A Green Party candidate actually got elected! =).
Update ~9PM: Votes are coming in and CTV is projecting...
Conservatives 120-151, Liberals 78-109, Bloc 41-59, NDP 19-37.
Canadian Election 2006
Monday is the parliamentary election here in Canada. Hopefully we won't see a huge swing to the right. The CBC will have good coverage. Right now I'm interested in some speculation. The Election Prediction website suggests that the outcome will look like this:
118 Conservative
104 Liberal
56 Bloc
29 NDP
1 Independent
Out of 308 seats, 155 are needed for a majority.
BTW, as a refresher of Canadian politics: the Conservatives are right-wing with the general trend towards the far-right, as their name suggests; the Liberals are actually a centrist party, with members ranging from mid-right to mid-left; the Bloc is a special case but is similar to the Liberals, except a bit more to the left on average; finally the NDP... a bunch of pinkos (which is why I like them ;)
(caveat: The EP website has an accuracy of ~90% for Federal elections... but 10% wrong is ~30 seats! In this close election, that could make a huge difference...)
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