- The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was commemorated with free outdoor concerts and celebrations this weekend.
- The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the Obama healthcare reform bill in a narrow vote – a crucial first step towards a complete overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system. But, as the New York Times reports, it came at a heavy price, with pandering to the anti-abortion movement. And the toughest fight may still be yet to come.
- Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, frustrated by his “inability to make peace” (read: his inability to achieve victory over rival Hamas), plans to quit. True to form, he blames Israel for everything. Who’s surprised?
- It’s a witch-hunt, as Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman allegedly responsible for shooting up a U.S. military base in Fort Hood is being investigated for terrorist links. Never mind that he was American-born, had served in the army for years as a psychiatrist, and seemed to have psychological problems. Nope, all it takes is for Americans to hear the word “Muslim” and they think they have it all figured out. Because everything’s always black or white, with no shades of grey, right? *Sigh*.
- Quebec is being lauded for having the fastest H1N1 vaccine program. Really? Is it possible that, as disorganized as our program has been, everyone else’s is actually worse?
- The Habs fell below .500 with last night’s 3-1 loss to Tampa Bay. Not only that, but thanks to a certain friend, I will no longer be able to watch Jacques Martin without thinking of The Count on Sesame Street.
I’ve got the new hosting for segacs.com up and running, and the migration of this site is more or less complete. Most links should work, though if you encounter any broken links, please let me know.
The next step will be a complete design overhaul of this blog. This template dates back to the blog’s launch in 2002, and it’s embarrassingly outdated. I’m considering migrating to WordPress, although I’m a bit intimidated by the theme customization process. (For someone who works in Digital, my actual coding skills are minimal and woefully out of date.)
Whether I stay with Blogger, move to WordPress, or go with a third option, the redesign is bound to be a big project, and I probably won’t start on it until after NaNoWriMo is over. Meanwhile, if anyone has any design ideas or suggestions, feel free to send ’em along.
Allegations that the Calgary Flames cut in line for the H1N1 vaccine:
The provincial health minister wants to know if swine flu shots were “inappropriately diverted” to the Calgary Flames while thousands had to stand in line for hours for the vaccine.
Alberta Health Minister Ron Liepert says he doesn’t know where the NHL team got the vaccine, adding that Alberta Health Services is the only supplier in the province. Team president Ken King says the club contacted the department and asked for the clinic.
[ . . . ]
Alberta’s opposition parties say professional hockey players shouldn’t be getting the vaccine ahead of cancer patients and pregnant women.
Or, more importantly, ahead of other NHL teams like the Montreal Canadiens.
Ukraine has closed all its schools for a week, trying to prevent the spread of H1N1.
No word on whether Alice Cooper will be releasing a song on the subject.
Okay, so I might’ve changed the headline a little. I still think mine was better.
Gérald Tremblay has won a third term as mayor of Montreal, following a six-week municipal election campaign that was one of the most heated and unpredictable in recent memory.
[. . . ]
At 12:15 a.m., with 3,685 of 4,517 polling stations reporting, Tremblay held a 37 – 33 lead over Vision Montreal’s Harel, with third-place candidate Richard Bergeron of Projet Montréal polling at 26 per cent.
There’s a Kang and Kodos analogy in here somewhere.
Geocities has officially closed. For the most part, this happened with a whimper, not a bang.
You can continue to access this site for now, but stay tuned for updated information within the next few days as I look into a few different hosting options. Wherever I go, I’ll probably continue using the segacs.com URL, so if you haven’t already updated your bookmarks, you might want to at this point. You may find some broken links and images during this transition period, but hopefully these things are all temporary.
I was going to write a lengthy nostalgia post about my first websites back in the mid-90s with animated GIFs and blinking backgrounds and wallpaper… but I’ll spare you.
The Internet Archive Project has preserved a lot of Geocities sites, if you’re looking for something from the distant past.
Me: Hello?
Him: (in fairly good, though heavily-accented English) May I please speak to [segacs]?
Me: Yes, speaking?
Him: I’m a volunteer calling from the Harel campaign team and I was calling to ask you about the municipal election. Are you aware that there’s an election on November 1st?
Me: Yes, I am.
Him: (a little embarrassed) And, may I ask if Mme Harel can count on your vote?
Me: (laughing) Well, I would definitely have to say… not.
Him: (laughing a little) Okay, thank you.
Even the volunteers know that when they get an anglophone on the phone, it’s a lost cause.
On the other hand, in an election where our choices are Gerald corruption-is-my-middle-name Tremblay, Louise I-hate-anglos Harel, and Richard cars-and-corporations-are-evil Bergeron, I can’t help but feel that my best bet on November 1st will be to stay home.
The usual list of celebrity idiots are protesting the Toronto film festival for highlighting Israeli films and culture:
The group is circulating a letter of protest and has drawn more than 50 signatures from artists around the world including American writer Alice Walker, Canadian writer and activist Naomi Klein, U.K. filmmaker Ken Loach and American actor Danny Glover.
“Looking at modern, sophisticated Tel Aviv without also considering the city’s past and the realities of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip would be like rhapsodizing about the beauty and elegant lifestyles in white-only Cape Town or Johannesburg during apartheid without acknowledging the corresponding black townships of Khayelitsha and Soweto,” the letter states.
Same bullshit, different day. But what’s almost more shocking is the response of the festival organizers:
Festival co-director Cameron Bailey responded with a statement defending the program, although he acknowledged “Tel Aviv is not a simple choice and that the city remains contested ground.”
Excuse me? Tel Aviv is “contested ground”???
There are no words.
Mermaid sightings in Kiryat Yam have been reported for the last several months:
An alleged mermaid, said to resemble a cross between a fish and a young girl, only appears at sunset. It performs a few tricks for onlookers before disappearing for the night.
One of the first people to see the mermaid, Shlomo Cohen, said, “I was with friends when suddenly we saw a woman laying on the sand in a weird way. At first I thought she was just another sunbather, but when we approached she jumped into the water and disappeared. We were all in shock because we saw she had a tail.”
There’s a million-dollar reward announced by Kiryat Yam’s tourism board for the first person who manages to photograph the mermaid. No word on whether that reward gets doubled if you present it alongside a photo of the Loch Ness Monster.
Why, indoctrinate the children, of course.
And Venezuela continues its steady slide into repression.
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