Forces finally get rolling;Chriac to help Canadians;Ships arrive in Turkey, A Slew of Rumors for WWDC & Snake Swallows blanket

Forces finally get Rolling; French Offer help in Evacuation; Ships Arrive in Turkey
According to CBC News, the Department of National Defence has ordered that HMCS Halifax (Frigate) and HMCS Preserver (Supply Ship) have been placed on 48 hours notice to be ready to deploy. As well 70 soldiers have been deployed from CFB Trenton to Cyprus and Beirut to provide security, crowd control and assistance to canadians while they are waiting to board ships. As well ships based in Halifax have been put on 48 hours notice to be ready to deploy to the Mediterranean. Ships HMCS Preserver and HMCS Halifax have been put on 2 day notice. The crew of Halifax was already been prepared to go to sea and was due to depart for a multinational extercise. The crew of Preserver bas been recalled from leave and the ship is being preped for a possible deployment.
So the forces have finally decided to get off they're duff and get moving, huh? Well it's not entirely they're fault. As I metioned in last night's post, the Forces have no forward deployed forces and only one base overseas. Ths inhibits the ability of the forces to deploy in a speedy fashion around the globe. As well, until at least 2008 and will not fully be operational until 2014. Heavy lift Chinook helicopters are due in 2008, the first JSS is due in 2012 as well as the new maritime helicopters and the new heavy lift planes. But I'm getting off topic. The point is, unlike the Brits, the Americans, the Italians and the French, amoung others, as of right now, Canada does not have the ability to launch forces into international crises at a moments notice. This is one of the major reasons that the Canadian military is impaired, but again I digress.
And here's a surprise: French President Jacques Chriac said that we was willing to help Canada get it's citizens out of Lebanon. Meeting with Quebec Premier Jean Charest Chriac said that he was willing to offer assistance to evacuate Canadians from Lebanon. No specifics where offered and the statement by Charest was very vauge to say the least. What does this mean? Will France deploy a naval taskforce to help evacuate Canadians? Or will they just allow Canadians to be transported out with French citizens? This statement by Chriac should develop over the next few days.
In my final peace of Lebanon related news, the remaining six ships carrying Canadians from Beirut to Turkey have arrived. They will be taken to a gym where food and water are availible. The evacuee's will be transported from the gym to the local airport where they will rest for a few hours. They will then be trasported to the local airport where flights will depart for Toronto, Montreal and Edmonton. All citizens leaving in those cities will take the respective flight. The ships wll refuel, restock and return to Beirut to pick up the next wave of evacuee's.
A Slew of Rumors for WWDC
If I have any Mac Addicts in my audience this should intrest you. Over the past few weeks, the weeks leading up to one of the most anticipated tech events of the summer, Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), a slew of rumors have popped up. Apple confirmed in July that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would premier OS X 10.5 codename "Leopard ". Rumors floating around include the prospect of the new Intel based Mac Pro being unvieled at WWDC, the prospect of a new "true" video Ipod or the most recent (just today) CFO Peter Opehimer said "where not sitting still" when a reporter raised a question about the iPhone rumor. Even if the new Mac Pro is not unvieled at WWDC it will be very exciting to watch with Steve Jobs unveil Leopard. If they annouce the ship date of Leopard I will hold off my Macbook purchase until the forclosed date.
Another popular rumor floating around is that CEO Steve Jobs has used his considerable clout in Hollywood to convince major studio's to rent movies. Job's originally started out with the intention of letting computer users own movies. However the studio's where no go and Jobs had to alter his proposal to allow people to rent movies from the iTunes Music Store. Personally I will not be dishing out $9.99 (likely more here in Canada) for a movie. And that's even if they decide to bring movie's to Canada. When they launched TV shows on iTunes they didn't bother to bring them to Canada or any other country but the US. This presents a problem of content distribution. If Apple is only willing to sign content agreements with only 1 or 2 of it's stores then, it's really not worth it. It's the same with music. Much of the music in the iTunes Music store is only availible in the US. One of my friends often complains (with due cause) that she can't find any AC/DC albums. Only tribute ones done by fans. Again this presents a problem of content distriubtion. The iTunes Music store shouldn't be tiered. All the content should be avaible to all. A song by a Canadian band should be avaible in Japan and vice versa. Hopefully things like TV shows and movies will come to the Canadian and International stores soon.
Snake Swollows Blanket;Gets Warm Fuzy Feeling inside
A 4 metre long Burmese phython (named Houdini) got more than he bargined for when he had dinner. He gota queen size electronic blanket with control fox and electric cord for his troubles. The blanket must have gotten tangled up in the snake's rabbit dinner, said owner Karl Beznosk, who lives in Ketchum, Idaho. He kept the blanket in the cage to keep the 27-kilogram reptile warm. It was removed from the python during a two hour operation by veterinarian Karsten Fostvedt. According to specialists at University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine the snake would have died. It's owner Karl Beznosk takes the snake to a local school for show and tell. This story just goes to prove the truth really is stranger than fiction.

On a personal note I am pleased to annouce that I have gained a temporary position at Staples this summer and I hope that it will carry into the fall.
Come back tomorrow night for more commentary
Nathaniel

PM lends a helping Plane, The Uknown artist with a huge following & Session moved so Klein can-FISH?!

PM to use Jet to evacuate Canadians from Lebanon
Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that we would use his own personal jet to evacuate Canadian nationals arriving on Cyprus from Lebanon. Harper has directed that the jet's staff being stripped down to those who are absolutely required (Pilot, Copilot and Security) Harper has directed that Foreign Affairs to charter planes to take the remainder of Canadians back home to Canada. Harper made the announcement at press conference in Paris today after meeting with French President Jacques Chirac. In a statement after the meeting Harper said that "due to the seriousness of the situation" he was taking his personal jet, along with a skeleton staff, to Cyprus to evacuate Canadian citizens.
In my opinion this is both a legitimate action and a cover-up for the government that has sat on it's butt with no plan, and done nothing for the citizens in the countries. It failed to react, simply doing nothing for days. It was only over the weekend that the the six vessels where chartered to take Canadians to Cyprus. Many Canadians with dual citizenship to other countries have left the country to seek alternate transportation home. For example a family from Montreal with dual Canadian-Italian citizenship departed on an Italian warship out of Lebanon. Others have risked the road to Damascus and flown home from Syria. Harper using his personal jet is both a gesture of good faith as I leader and a blunder for his government. I blame this on the fact that no back-up plan was put in place for this particular type of emergency and the fact that Canada has no forward deployed Air or Naval presence in the region. If we wanted the military to transport civilians out of Lebanon they would have to call Aircraft from Trenton (8 Squadron) Even then they would have to find a remote airstrip to airlift the evacuee's. Lebanon's only International Airport (Rafik Hariri International ) has been shut down for the past week since Israel bombed one of the main runways and the terminal. The other option is to evacuate by sea which is what many nations are choosing to do. Greece has sent a ship into the region to evacuate it's citizens and has three on standby. The United States has sent 9 ships to Lebanon to assist with evacuation. The U.K. has even sent it's flagship, the H.M.S Illustrious to help evacuate British nationals from Lebanon. Even if we just deployed a frigate or two to the Dubai in the U.A.E that would allow for most versatile transport and logistics operations. The shipload of Canadians is due to land in Cyprus on Thursday.
The Uknown Artist with a huge following
Millions of people see his work everyday-and we don't even know it. More than likely you've seen Dennis Wang's artwork before, and you probably don't even realize it. Dennis Wang is the designer of the Logo's that decorate Google's otherwise simple homepage sports or special occasions. You've seen them, the one on New Year's Day, Christmas, Halloween, Canada Day, 4th of July and other notable days of the year. People don't realize that there actually is an artist behind the colorful and complex six letter pieces of art. (Ironic, yes?) This includes myself. I thought that Google did it all by Photoshop. By it turns out that there is an artist behind the artwork. The height of the irony is people don't realize that there is someone behind the beautiful works of digital art and that that artist is never really acknowledged. Much like Vavaldi, who's works where never really recognized until after his death. Okay, so maybe that's not a horribly good example, but you get the idea. The fact is people like Dennis really aren't noticed. Webmasters, the people who write the code, test the layout- do all the behind the scenes work are rarely noticed or brought into the spotlight. Site's like Google, Slashdot, the CBC, CNN amoung other have dozens and sometimes hundred's of people working behind the scenes to make things work. Google, again is good example. It gets hundreds of millions of hits every day and if not everything is working properly, the site goes down and one of the most visited sites in the world is non functional. That's why Google has an army of engineers, webmasters, coders and other people who make the machinery at Google run smoothly. Although a minor role in the grand scheme of things, Dennis' job is one of the most noticable. When you go to Google and no logo is there on the Forth of July or Canada day, you kind of feel dissapointed. But Dennis take's the time to design each logo to reflect the fact that Google doesn't just run in one country. It runs in dozens and that Google Care's enough to recongnize Holidays and important people around the globe as well as events in history.
Session Opening Extended so the Priemer can-FISH?!
The outgoing Premier of Alberta, Ralph Klein has asked that the next session of the Alberta legislature be postponed so that he can go fishing. The session was scheduled to begin on Sept. 4th but was reschduled so that Klein can host a group from a fundraiser from the Alberta Northern Institute of Technology. The group of 12 members have paid a total of $50,000 for a week of fishing at Klein's lodge in British Columbia. Tony Defond who is one of the twelve people attending the trip said that it would be impossible to reschedule the trip so late in the season. Klein was given an emotional sendoff in May, as it was believed he would be replaced before the legislature reopened in the fall.
Now this is absolutely RIDICULOUS! Why should offical goverment bussiness so one man can take a bunch of people down to his fishing lodge? It's like holding up the plane/bus for one person that's late, it just doesn's happen. If your late, your late. So why should Klein be given that cortousy?It ticks me off sometimes, how politicans think they should be treated like VIP's and then think that everyone but themselves should be treated in an equal manner. Grrrr, it drives me NUTS! Take for example the Monika Lewinsky affair. Bill Clinton though that he could get away with having an affair in the White House because he was President of the United States (POTUS) However after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole he said "We will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to find those who killed our sailors and hold them accountable." So basically he's saying that he can commit an affair within the White House, without be prosecuted, but he can condemn terrroists for bombing a US warship. Politicans are held to a higher standard of morality than normal citizens. Obviosly Clinton did not adhear to those standards and therefore does not deserve to be a judge of character without examining his own. The same is true for Ralph Klein. He cannot expect that official goverment bussiness will be put on hold so that he can have lesiure time. Politicans should be held to higher standards than this. If anyone from Alberta reads this, please write your MLA and voice your displeasure of having goverment business put on hold for the sake of one person.
Come Back Tomorrow Night for More Commentary,
Nathaniel

Airmen Honoured, A Step for Democracy-in the wrong direction & Most Money;Worst Company

Comerant Airmen Honoured
For any Canadians who read this blog, you're probably aware that a Coast Guard CH-149 Comerant crashed in Canso last week, killing three coast guardsmen. Sgt. Duane Brazil of Newfoundland, Master Sgt. Kirk Noel, and Cp. Trevor McDavid where all killed Thursday morning when there Coast Guard CH-149 Comerant Search and Rescue Helicopter crashed in Canso, Nova Scotia, a short distance from the Canso Causeway. The preliminary investigation has ruled pilot error and poor weather conditions played a role in the crash. Capt. Gabriel Ringuette, 41, Sgt. Martin Maloney, 49, Capt. Ronald Busch, 40, and Maj. Gordon Ireland, 42, survived the accident. The thing is, these helicopters are only 6 years old which is young by Military standards. They where purchased in 2000 for use in SAR (Search and Rescue) In comparison, the Navy's workhorse CH-124 Sea King helicopter which is approaching it's 43rd birthday. However the Comerants have had problems as well, with problems concerning cracked rotors and the like. However, I do not attribute the problem to one major problem. First the major problem that I see is improper repair work. Unless Augesta Westland is a company that is incompetent and doesn't care about craftsmanship or quality of product (which I seriously doubt) then it has to be a personel issue. Either the crews are improperly trained or they are too focused on the Sea Kings to fix problems properly. Either way this is a problem that has to be addressed and soon. If another valiant member of the CF dies because of a politician decides to sit on his butt and cancel the order for the Sea King replacements again I'm firing off a letter to my MP demanding that the government face a no confidence vote. The Comerant fleet has been suspended since Thursday, allowing for only essential flights, but the flight restrictions where lifted today allowing for all scheduled flights to continue.
Democracy in Afganistan takes a Step Backwards
Afganistan's government has reformed the controversial Ministry of Vice and Virtues. Under the Taliban regime it enforced strict Islamic law (known as Shariah) which bans everything from consumption of alcohol (a good law) to banning watching of television and listening to of radio, virtual slavery of women, as well as the complete absence of technology. At it's peak , the ministry employed 32,000 people to enforce Shariah. The ministry was dissolved when the U.S. invaded Afaganistan in 2001. Both religious and tribal leaders have been pushing for Afghan President Harmid Karzai to reform the ministry. Well it looks like he's bowed the to pressure, though, he says, the ministry will not be as expansive or as strict as the Taliban version. This is not the first time that the ministry has tried to have been resurrected. An attempt was made in 2002 by Hazmid Karzai, but it was short lived. Again, I think this attempt will be short lived. The Afghan people will not tolerate it, for it brings back to many memories of the horrific Taliban regime.
This brings up another topic:Shariah law in non-Islamic countries. Recently the Ontario government considered the idea of introducing a law that would allow for shariah proceedings for divorce and matters concerning inheritance. Under shariah when a couple is divorced, the man has the upper hand in what he is able to have (Custody rights, Property rights, Finacial rights etc.) while the women is put to a disadvantage. When a father dies the wife and daughters are put to a disadvantage over inherritence (the son recieves 2/3 while the daugher and/or mother recieve 1/3) Shariah also allows for beating of women, simply if the the husband or father does not deem the daughter or wife to be virgin. If the women is found to have committed adultry or unmarital sexual relations, death can be the result. This happens all to often in Palestine, Egypt, Iran, Iraq amoung others. However the proposed law was dropped after a massive outcry by human right's groups and the Canadian Muslim community.
Worst Company;Most Money
You'd think that if a company like Google or Apple, that's raking in billions of dollars a year in profits, the founders and CEO's would bet massive salaries right? Or the ranking tech companies executives would get low paychecks right? Wrong. According to Study published by DolmatConnell & Partners, some of the lowest ranked tech companies in the world are paying they're CEO's and other executives millions of dollars in compensation-even when profits are slipping and viceversa . Take for example IBM, which has been losing money for the last couple of years now as Apple abandoned them for the more powerful Intel processors and they sold they're PC buildingbusiness to Levano. It's stock has slipped 16% in the last year alone. Meanwhile CEO Sam Palmisano is one of the highest paid in the industry. He was paid $12.4 million- that includes a $5.2 million dollar bonus, according to regulatory figures. In contrast Adobe-which is in the top third of the list is not paying it's CEO's well by contrast.CEO of Adobe Bruce Chizen was paid amere $1.9 million-below the industry average. It gets worse. Presidents of Google Larry Page and Sergy Brin, along with CEO Eric Schmidt are being payed $1 a year, because of there considerable net worth. However they are offered stock options as compensation. The same goes for Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who is worth an estimated $4.3 billion. He, like Schmidt,Page and Brin is payed $1 a year. However he has been therecipient of several "executive gifts" including stock options and a private jet . The fact is that salaries for these guys are not set for performance-they're set in accordance of what their peers are making. There is no consideration for performance. You wonder why everyone is getting rich for doing nothing.
Come back tomorrow night for more commentary,
Nathaniel

Israeli Troops Enter Southern Lebanon

Israeli Troops entered South Lebanon to hunt down and destory Hezbollah. Evacuation have also begun in Beruit and other parts of the country. This was inevetable, as Air and artierlly can only do so much. This is a deciseve movement: Either Hezbollah will be hunted down and destroyed forever or Israel will return home, humilliated and facing future attacks from Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

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Ready Aye Not Ready, Stumble Upon & Paying for '76 in '06

Ready Aye, Not Ready
In regard to last night's post, the conflict in Lebanon has escalated again today with Israel launching limited ground operations over the southern Lebanese border. Air attacks by the IDF continue to pound Bierut and other Hezbollah targets. Evacuations have began in Bierut with the United States, Greece, Italy, France, Sweden & Spain, amoung others to transport nationals and citizens out of the country. For example, the United States has sent a commercial ship, 2 destroyers and 3 helicopters to the region to evacuate American nationals. Other nations are arranging alternate forms of tranportation. Denmark and Poland are busing there citizens to Syria, the U.K. is sending an Aircraft carrier and a warship to evacute it's citizens (kind of overkill, but what floats your boat) In contrast the Canadian government's response has been sluggish. They have chartered 6 ships from Cyprus to transport Canadians from Lebanon back to Cyprus, where they will then be flown home to Canada. Only problem-The ships won't be ready until Wednesday at the earliest. In contrast- Sweden, the United States, Spain and other nations already have evacuation operations underway. Another factor is protection for the transports. Hezbollah launched two missiles and crippled the INS Hanit. And that was a military ship with armor plating. So imagine a convoy of ships sailing from Lebanon and Hezbollah decides just for kicks they fire of an Anti-Ship missile at the convoy. Or two, or three. Dozens, hundreds or even thousands could die. If the convoy was under military escort, now that would be a different matter entirely. Even a single Halifax-Class frigate could detect a threat before it threatened the convoy. But without an escort of some kind, the convoy is a sitting duck and a target to juicy for Hezbollah to pass up. So my advice to government : Send out one of the ships that are sitting at dock or their figurative butts and get them to the Med ASAP
Review: Stumble Upon
Being home today and having the first chance in eight days to catch up on podcasts and vidcasts I was watching an episode of commandN when Amber mentioned an extension for Firefox called Stumble Upon, and it is one of the coolest extensions for Firefox to date. Basically you go through the setup process which is painless, selecting things that interest you (For example I selected Humor, Computer Science, Mac OS, amoung others) and when your tired of the same old stuff you just go to your Stumble Upon toolbar, select a catagory and hit the Stumble button. It will take you to a site you never knew exsisted. Best of all most of the sites are very useful. SU has in place a very good feeback system where you can rate a page good (thumbs up) or bad (thumbs down) That ranking is taken into consideration and it is either promoted or buried according to your choice. The system reflects that of Digg. Stumble Upon is an amazing extension and I recommend it to anyone who is tired of reading the same content over and over again.
Paying for '76 in '06
Who knew Montreal hosted the Olympic Games in 1976, anyone? Well it's a little known fact that Montreal did in fact host the Olympic Games that year. But did you know that it almost didn't happen? Here's the story:
After the success of the Expo '67 in Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau pitched his idea of hosting the 1976 Olympic Games. It was a long shot, but they won the bid. The Olympics became Drapeau's obsession, he became manager of the massive work projects in Montreal, namely, the Olympic Stadium and the Veledrome. At one point there where 84 cranes on site. "The cranes where getting in each other's way, the workers where getting in each other's way" says Dr. Victor Goldbloom who was in charge of the construction of he facilities after the provincial goverment stepped in forming the Olympic Installations Board. The project was also deeply in debt. The Olympic stadium, supposed to cost $156 millions ended up costing $2 Billion. Just to get the stadium completed, 10,000 workers worked around the clock to get the projet completed. The city is finally seeing the light at the end of a vey long dark tunnel as payments for the games end later this year.
This situation was comparable to the debt that Great Britain accumulated from the Lend-Lease program during the Second World War. The final check for the debt was mailed just days before the 60th aniversery of D-Day. Vancover faces the same problem Montreal did but in a different way. Inflation has driven up the costs of things like Steel and skilled labour through the roof and it's becoming harder and harder for contractors to find skilled workers. The reason: The booming Oil driven Albertan Economy. It's not just from the East coast that workers are migrating, it's from B.C. that they come as well. The price of oil (over $70 U.S. a barrel) has caused the price of things like Steel to spike considerably, rising the cost of the construction of facilities and forcing the Vancouver Olympic Comittee to cut venues. So will it all be worth it in the end? I think so. It's been 18 years since the Olympics came to Canada. It'll be 22 years when Vancouver Whistler rolls around.
Come back tomorrow night for more Commentary,
Nathaniel

Firefox 2 Beta 1 Review, Israel in Lebanon & Step away from the console!

Firefox 2 Beta 1 Review
Firefox 2 Beta 1 was released about 5 days ago and I downloaded it to try out almost right away. There is no noticeable difference in the user interface when you load up Firefox 2. However, there are a number of new features. First, there is a new inline spellcheck for people who don't know how to spell (like yours truely) as well there is an anti-phishing feature. Also, something that I was hoping that they would feature was session saving. I tried out Opera 9 for about 3 weeks and I loved the session saving features. It's great the Mozilla has decided to include the feature in Firefox 2. This beta is not all good though, there are numerous bugs in the code that have yet to be resolved and none I repeat none of the extentions or skins will currently work with Firefox 2. Hopefully this will change in the public release of Firefox 2 later on in the summer or early in the fall. This is a solid beta and even though it doesn't have the extension or the skins that 1.5.0.4 does, it's still better than IE.
Video Game Rehab Center Opens in Ansterdam
A rebilitation center for video game addicts has open in Ansterdam. The 16th century townhouse. The Wild Horses addiction center operated by Smith and Jones is staffed with addiction specialists and psychiatrists. Both have yet to agree that video addiction is a diagnosible condition. The treatment regamin follows that of alcohol and drug detox programs. The patient goes through an intial detox followed by months of group and indiviudual threrapy. So if World of Warcraft is Warcrack then maybe you should consider going. If anyone here read's Control Alt Delete....read Ethan's Bio, this real life example is just a reinforcement of video game addiction. If you are spending 10-12 hours at a TV screen a day GET HELP!
Israel Invades Lebanon.....Again
Israel has launched air and ground attacks for the second time in less than 30 years. On Wednesday Israel launched Air and Ground strikes in Lebanon as well as initiating a blockade of Lebanese sea ports. Hezbollah responded by firing 2 missiles at an Israeli warship, the INS Hanit (Spear) damaged and towed back to Israel. Israel hit the headquaters of Hezbollah with Airstrikes as well as targeting the homes of Hezbollah leadership in the suburbs of Beirut. The IDF and Hezbollah traded off attacks with Hezbollah firing rockets fathur into Israel.Unless the Lebanese goverment cracks down on militants soon, they will get pounded into the ground by Israel. Israeli military equipment in supplied by the U.S. and is the best in the world. They have Nuclear Weapons they use modern military equipment. Hezzbollah doesn't not stand a chance. This conflict is pointless, Hezbollah will fire rockets, Israel will demolish Hezbollah and the war will go on and on forever.
That's all for tonight, Come back tomorrow night for more Commentary.
Nathaniel