sexta-feira, setembro 29, 2006

Giuliano Zaccardelli the Weasel !!

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Next, Back, Thread Ahead: RCMP, bungling incompetence & malice, Thread Back: Maher Arar.

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"Mr. Arar, I wish to take this opportunity to express publicly to you, to your wife and to your children how truly sorry I am."

"I'm the commissioner of the RCMP and I intend to continue to be the commissioner of the RCMP."

      Giuliano Zaccardelli.


I heard it him apologizing on the radio. One time when the CBC's habit of repeating the same story again and again helped out. He sounded insincere to me, like a trapped weasel, choking on his pride. I took the time to read some of his speeches on the RCMP Website, and he is a bubbly pretentious airhead, consistently shallow and sentimental.

But it certainly looks like they are not going to fire him. How screwed up would you have to be to have any degree of confidence in this man? He must be holding some very heavy shit on Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper - it's the only explanation I can see.

Globe coverage: (Archive)
    29/09, John Ibbitson, What lesson will Arar teach RCMP?.
    29/09, Editorial, How Zaccardelli failed RCMP, Arar and Canada.
    29/09, Jeff Sallot, "Mr. Arar, I wish to take this opportunity ...".

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quinta-feira, setembro 28, 2006

On the Avenue

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Next, Back, Thread Ahead: On the Avenue - too, Thread Back: What to do?.

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Sunday - Went to the Metcalfe Fair and watched the heavy horse pull. 10,400 pounds on that sled. I think the initials G.G. are Greg Greeley, not sure.

Click to Enlarge / Click para AumentarFriday - Sign in a convenience store - the legal age is 19, but that is only if you have ID, otherwise it is 30 - only in Ottawa you say?

Click to Enlarge / Click para AumentarClick to Enlarge / Click para AumentarThursday - There is a big hill on Cape Breton, and at the top of it there used to be a garish sign in purple and gold that said, "PREPARE THYSELF TO MEET THY GOD". It was quite a shock the first time I saw it. It is gone now, doesn't fit with tourist correctitude no doubt. I found the modest and polite sign and took a picture just to remind myself. A-and the red leaves on the trees are NOT the Burning Bush either.

Click to Enlarge / Click para AumentarIf you look closely you can see the sun dogs. Taken in Edmundston New Brunswick, they were really spectacular, but by the time I found some high ground they were fading.

A stronger message of hope for me than a rainbow. Rainbows sorta got co-opted by the fringes, so I watch for sun dogs.

Click to Enlarge / Click para AumentarClick to Enlarge / Click para AumentarWednesday - Crossed on the Caribou. Lifeboat would'a done for me. Tried to take a picture of the sunrise; camera flaked. Tried to take a picture of Orion; camera flaked. Need one a those SLR binary gizmos I guess, oh well.

First time I remember seeing Orion since one night on the patio in Ipanema I saw it - yeah! in the South!

Entirely gratuitous boobage:
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terça-feira, setembro 26, 2006

Safia Ama Jan

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Next, Back, Thread Ahead: None Yet, Thread Back: City of Death.

Safia Ama Jan, Ana Jan, Safia Amajan, Safia Ahmed-jan ... Safia Hama Jan, Hana Jan ... the list goes on. Part of the reason for this post is just to put up something unified in the midst of so much confusion.

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If she ever saw this blog she would very likely be horrified (of course). Naked women! Ai ai ai! So it goes ... she's on my honour roll (anyway).

Safia Ahmed-jan (Wikipedia).
Women and Leadership: Voices for Security and Development (%$#! pdf, see page 9).
Dyana Afghan Women's Fund.
IRIN: Kandahar women's affairs head assassinated.

from the Press back to 2004: (Archive)
    26/09, Kim Sengupta, The woman who defied the Taliban.
    26/09, Afghana.org, Les femmes du sud afghan devront voter.
    26/09, Kansas City Star, Women’s affairs director slain.
    26/09, Noor Khan, Educator shot dead by militants in Kandahar.
    25/09, Aljazeera, Afghan woman activist shot dead.
    25/09, USA Today, Gunmen kill director of women's affairs.
    25/09, Carlotta Gall, Gunmen Kill Afghan Women’s Advocate.
    25/09, BBC, Afghan women's official shot dead.
    25/09, Herald Tribune, Gunmen kill director of women's affairs.

    18/07/2005, Waheed, 23 Girls Graduate After 11 years.
    05/07/2005, Saeed Zabuli, 23 girls complete school after 11 years.
    27/09/2004, Sabawoon, Southern Afghan women urged to vote despite threats.

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sábado, setembro 23, 2006

What to do?

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Next, Back, Thread Ahead: On the Avenue.

Looking from Signal Hill towards Cape Spear, 4 miles away, all you can see is a few hopeful sun splashes and Black Head looming; and looking back, feminine folds in this brutal and beautiful landscape.
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"Up until a few years ago, I still thought that there might be some hope for the human race, the human species. And I was willing to go on being a preacher and flailing away at the injustices of life, but somewhere, quite recently, it dawned on me that I was wasting my time, and I didn't have a lot of time left to waste. And what do I want to do?"

"Basically, we are turning ourselves into total aliens in the womb that gave us life."

"I hit warm water. Immediately, I felt better and I was full of energy and I could swim like bloody mad. I could cross an ocean."
        Farley Mowat, in The unrepentant misanthrope.


He is a fair bit older than me, has played enough monopoly to have two houses to live in, and keeps a wife and a dog for that matter; so when he says "What to do?" It is a bit different, different ring to it, but there is guidance there. Out of the cold and into the warm; good strategy for swimming ...

Eventually the universe does seem to get too personal ... We Await Silent Trystero's Empire.

Click to Enlarge / Click para AumentarClick to Enlarge / Click para AumentarYou can have the hand-drawn mute, or the fancy computer-graphics one from Wikipedia. Tristero, Trystero, whatever ... a pun on 'the last post' (not). A pun on boobage? Don't know any.

Click to Enlarge / Click para AumentarBut I did so have to laugh when these two showed up together in the same edition: 22/09/06, Rick Salutin, A priest, a rabbi and an imam ..., (Archive) and the cartoon to the left.

I gotta finish packing up soon ... one more Tim's ... oops! got a reprieve! do it tomorrow then ...

So I had time to take the Globe up Signal Hill for possibly the second-last time. There I found Rex Murphy in full flight (the erudite awk?), what a pleasure! On the subject of the Pope's misinterpreted statement: 22/09/06, Rex Murphy, Tolerance must flow two ways, (Archive), and even a Globe Forum yet! A-and a review of Adrienne Clarkson's silly book, Heart matters, that properly squewers it like a bug on the windscreen: 23/09/06, Rex Murphy, Adrienne Clarkson: the personal and the political, (Archive).

My weekend horoscope: "... and if friends and family are not providing the support you need and deserve you have every right to be annoyed. It's been building up inside you for long enough: it's time to let others know how you feel."   That's pretty funny, had ta laff an that makes me feel better; though I have already decided to just say nothing and leave.

Here is Tatiane again: (previously in Handbasket)
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Some pictures of her when she was starting out. She turns out to be Tatiane de Moraes Ramos, a Brasileira from São Paulo, the gritty side apparently - I should have guessed. In these earlier pictures she does not look so happy, no - more like grim. Some links describing her progress: by McLion, ArtModels in Belgium, Med-Models.com, Starlight Models in Spain (?), Fauland Photography, and wound up at Hegre as 'Wonder Girl' looks like, with at least one spinoff, KindGirls.com. I first saw her at Black Beauties. Surely with such a range of expression she could find better movies to star in than a 'masterpiece' such as Taboo? It's a start I guess; what do I know? MetArt Spread, MetArt Activa, & finally, The Beginning.

More: Fayelog - Tatiane, & (aka) Darla Teen Model.

Ok, back to business: (as things have occurred to me today)
     - learn Arabic
     - practice Tai Chi
     - study Buddhism
     - study Systems/Database development
     - go swimming every day, sauna
     - quit smoking, lose some weight
     - read the history of Tibet
     - find a Português tutor
     - figgure out how to truly forgive

     - eat some Ginkgo Biloba and stop making lists!

I will get one last shot of Cape Spear from Signal Hill tomorrow - forgot my camera today; sitting up there; thinking about Sleeping Beauty / Briar Rose - the 13th Good Fairy who was left out and then turned into a Witch instead; thinking about unworthiness and the counterforces of authentic trust, utility, praise, and concern - why should I have to qualify them with 'authentic' eh? well, because they exist in genteel bogus bourgeois forms too which are of no use or ornament.

When it comes to self-loathing, Newfoundlanders are past masters. Neat that the leftie ranter in The (Newfoundland) Independent picked on that very issue today: 24/09/06, Ivan Morgan, Rant & Reason, The flaw in our collective psyche, but you will have to use the (Archive) since they keep it locked up unless you pay; and even when you do pay you get that cumbersome and inconvenient Adobe/pdf nonsense.

Off the rails eh? Damn near ...

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sexta-feira, setembro 22, 2006

City of Death

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Next, Back, Thread Ahead: Safia Ama Jan, Thread Back: 9/11/2001.

Jewish New Year, a moveable feast apparently, but this year it is today.

Click to Enlarge / Click para AumentarClick to Enlarge / Click para AumentarClick to Enlarge / Click para AumentarClick to Enlarge / Click para AumentarThe children are running to get free soup (not to escape a car bomb as I first imagined). I have seen the same gutted cars in Montreal and New York City and Rio de Janeiro, without the body parts maybe ... but about the same.

Not just gonna be Baghdad go down the way I see it - the very notion of cities may be obsolete in the face of global climate change. It's Apocalypse eh? I'd say so. How do you run a city when you can't heat it, light it, or get around in it? Nevermind frills like water and sewage.

When it comes to figguring the Germans are pretty good. An estimate of "2 million tons of biodiesel every year. Compare that to the 130 million tons of petroleum the German population consumes every year" - this will not cut it; see: 21/09/06, Christian Wüst, The Fuels of the Future, (Archive), Technorati Blogs.

Some still think ethanol gonna save 'em, some nuclear power - it's all nonsense. Solar & wind could do it - I doubt the Muggles can get it together, nevermind 'in time'. Real/actual public transport would help, get city people out of their cars entirely - can't get that together either likely, even if all of the drivers and mechanics (and the policemen too eh? surely gonna need police for this) were women :-)

A-and for those who think the Internet is gonna save 'em? check this out: Zimbabwe: Internet shuts down after gov't fails to pay the bill (an that's nevermind the WI-MAx they are implementing in a city called Parintins in the Amazon not far from Manaus: 22/09/06, Município amazonense é o primeiro no mundo a testar tecnologia de internet banda larga sem fio).

OkOkOkOk - we'll just rewrite the covenant with the commas adjusted: 21/09/06, Russell Smith, 'What's up Doc?' or did you mean 'What's up, Doc?', (Archive). Commas have figured here before - So long, and thanks for all the fish - though it was just 2 million the last time, stakes are gettin' higher.

"Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
         Bob Dylan, Visions of Johanna.

In the face of doom only love survives, and not much of it I bet.

on Baghdad from the press: (Archive)
    25/09, Patrick Cockburn, A journey into the 'Taliban republic'.
    22/09, Bernhard Zand, The Battle for Baghdad, Technorati Blogs.
    22/09, Patrick Cockburn, New terror stalks Iraq's republic of fear.
    22/09, Rupert Cornwell: Nothing the Americans do stops the slide into despair.
    21/09, Afif Sarhan, IRAQ: Analysts say violence will continue to increase.

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Photos by: Teresa Flowers, Björn Oldsen, Gruppo Garage, Gruppo Garage, Theo Berends.

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