This cute little quiz was found via Dean over at Collected Miscellany. (My choices in bold.)

The knuckle-dragging 70s throwbacks in the RMT have tried, yet again, to bring London to standstill. No doubt eyeing the French with envy, they are demanding, amongst other things, a 4 day week. ‘Tis one of those days that those who can work at home really appreciate it.

“Sporting long sideburns, a bushy goatee and black baseball cap, instructor Ralph Echemendia has a class of 15 buttoned-down corporate, academic and military leaders spellbound. The lesson: hacking. The students huddled over laptops at a Los Angeles-area college have paid nearly $4,000 to attend ‘hacker college,’ a computer boot camp designed to show how people will try to break into network systems—and how they will succeed. ‘It’s an amazing thing how insecure the big corporations are,’ Echemendia said during a break in the weeklong seminar. ‘It’s just amazing how easy it is.’” (06/27/04)

This piece, via Rational Review is one of those wonderful opportunities to start prattling on about how it was back in my day…

Back in my hacking days I was self-taught and so were all my fellow white-hackers. I can’t imagine going to class to learn how to hack. Hacking is a thing that you have to learn by your own wits and persistence. This lot have no chance beating the spotty cranky adolescents bent on finding out what nooks and crannies they can get into in the wee hours of the morning.

A blogger examines Chirac’s latest bleating about Bush’s statements in Turkey.

EUObserver reports that a new grouping has formed in the EU Parliament for the more sceptical of the MEPs.

Well, things changed for the better as I slept last night. Most of the close races went to the Conservatives, and the totals today are:

Lib: 135
Con: 99
BQ: 54
NDP: 19
Ind: 1

Which puts the Liberals 1 below the 155-seat majority with NDP cooperation. The Con/BQ total is 153 seats, with the Independent, a former Conservative (he was deposed when his riding association was hijacked by an ethnic bloc) expected to vote with his former party.

So things could get interesting—not an adjective that usually describes Canadian politics.

And as its Colby writing it, its bloody interesting. Very mixed fortunes fortunes for the Tories in Canada. A similar sort of night to that suffered by the UK Tories on 10 June. He has posted a rather amusing apologia regarding his predictions for the night. Amusingly, he had written a more accurate prediction a few months back and totally ignored it in the run-up to the election.

A cranky and tired Paul has his say on the results too. He is not best pleased.

“Let’s fantasize of an across-the-board legalization of marijuana by the federal government. Stop laughing and set aside all of the improbabilities of such fantasia for now. Our purpose is to examine the ramifications of legalizing a substance that, in the past century, has infected our federal masters with an arguably unprecedented messianic zeal and unslakeable thirst for moralistic discipline.” (06/29/04)

This bit of rational thought about cannabis comes from Rational Review.

First out of the gate is the Symphony.

The Bonfire turns one! And to celebrate, we all trawled through the year’s contributions to find the worst of the worst of contributors’ noxious posts.

The Carnival com/2004/06/carnival-of-vanities-93-capitol-hill.html”>is up for the week. Enjoy its vainglorious glow.

The Brussels Agreement on the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe: A “user-friendly” analysis. Dr. North attempts to wade through the turgid mess that is the new EU CONstitution

Mr. Blunkett’s chutzpah knows no bounds. He was given new powers under the Police Reform Act 2002, and probably has been salivating ever since to prove he is The Boss. Now he’s grabbed hold of a really tragic case to flex his muscles, even against the wishes of the family of one of the victims. What cares he for them! And what cares he for the wishes of the Local Authority, for how could those yokels possibly know anything. He seems not to care one whit for what anyone else thinks; he has the power, therefore he will use it, right or wrong.

Since his own behaviour is less than stirling on several matters, including ‘failure to disclose material association’ with certain groups, even to the point of using subterfuge to conceal that and failing to perform properly because of that, it would seem he is saying to the general public: I am above you, therefore I do not have to behave well, but you must obey me.

A pox on his house and him!

The polls have just closed in Newfoundland. Four ridings reporting, the Liberals leading in each.

Good grief.

5-1 Liberals. Now it’s a 3-3 tie with the Conservatives. One Liberal declared elected – Bill Matthews with about 55 per cent of the vote in Random-Burin-St.-Georges .

LIB 47.85%
CON 32.87%
NDP 17.69%
BQ .00%
OTH 1.60%

This is kind of early, of course, and Newfoundland and the Maritimes are going to be more or less split between the LIBS and CONS. One NDP declared elected, though I don’t know who.

Hey, this is the Internet. Look it up yourself.

Results starting to come in from Nova Scotia.

Canadians go to the polls today, and there is some chance that the right-of-centre types might be in with a shot. (Though not in the riding where the noxious Patrick Brown in on the ballot, thankfully.) As you would expect, Canadian bloggers are covering this issue with enthusiasm, including the excellent Colby Cosh, Damian, David Janes, and friend to Dodgeblogium, Paul.

After the daft spectacle that was the torch run through London on Saturday, comes an interesting piece in the Torygraph. First of all, it seems, despite protestations to the contrary, that the Sydney olympics was not an economic success. Los Angeles was the only one that managed that. In the end it will probably be a giant money-wasting excercise like the Dome. I do so hope that France gets the nod. It’s probably the first and last time I will ever push for France to win anything.

“The Boston Public Schools system plans to give high schools the option of scrapping the ninth-through-12th-grade structure and letting students take classes at their own speed, a radical redesign of an American institution. The idea, a part of a slew of high school overhauls the Boston School Committee could approve as early as July 14, would replace a six-year get-tough policy requiring failing high school students to repeat a grade. Freshmen currently repeat the year if they fail English or math, or two of the following: science, history, or languages. But by this fall, students who fail a few classes in ninth grade would not return as freshmen the next school year.” (06/27/04)

Via: Rational Review

Japanese commercials often strike people as, well . . . weird, in that they can seem to lack any sort of connection to whatever’s being advertised.

Then again, sometimes they wrap things up with the perfect touch. You smack your forehead and say, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Like this, for instance.

the blog québécois

Johann has published a piece on the links between homosexuality and extreme/authoritarian politics. He links to it over at Harry’s place and started a bit of storm.

The viking laws are good ones for libertarians to live by.

Some are feeling sorry for the rich over-exposed choke-master. I, for one, hope the idiot’s reputation takes a nose dive.

Subject: Michael Moore on Capitalism

MM: I’ll give you one that I learned from those Pay Day [candy bar] people: Don’t do too good of a job. Because you’ll make your company too profitable and it becomes an attractive takeover target and it’ll get bought out and they’ll consolidate and throw a number of people out of work. Just keep the company solvent, but don’t make it too profitable.

“Colorado Republican Senate hopeful Pete Coors yesterday criticized the legal drinking age, chiding the federal government for coercing states into raising the age limit from 18 to 21. ‘We got along fine for years with the 18-year-old drinking age,’ the former CEO of the Coors Brewing Co. told an audience of about 200 people at a candidates’ debate [in Greenwood Village, CO]. ‘We’re criminalizing our young people.’ His remarks came in response to a question from his primary rival, former Rep. Bob Schaffer, at a Republican Senate breakfast forum sponsored by the Arapahoe County Republican Men’s Club.” (06/24/04)

This bit of sense comes via Rational Review. His namesake company may make rubbish beer, but at least he talks sense about the drinking age.

Wow, some of you may have forgot all about this by now, but I did not. I do want to finalize the final contest. Marty McKeever of Vigilance Matters was the tie-breaker, and voted to give the final title to News from the Great Beyond, who from hereforth shall be the only ever Queen of the Blogs.

we’re gonna be elected, elected, elected
respected, selected, call collected
i wanna be elected, elected
—alice cooper

Canada goes to the polls on Monday, and I know everyone is waiting with bated breath for my predictions. This is, after all, a political blog—or at least it was, until I realized I was lousy at writing about politics.

This was my brave call on April 7:

Steve Harper just might be the guy who tips undecided Ontario voters over the edge.

Er, that was my brave call on April 7 of 1996, in a FidoNet (ask your parents, kiddies) political echo. The talk at the time was of the prospective merger of the Progressive Conservatives and the Reform Party, and who should lead it.

That didn’t take place until October of last year, but I seem to have been prescient in my call for Stephen Harper to lead the new Conservative Party.

Without going into all the details, this represents the best chance in a generation to kick the tired, corrupt Liberals to the curb.

Unfortunately I don’t think they can quite finish them off this time, and I see at best a Conservative minority government.

But even that will give the Conservatives the opening to send in the auditors; and I think they’ll be able to dig up enough dirt to bury the Liberals for a long, long time.

the blog québécois

Husband of arch-banner and PMRC head Tipper, Al, has refered to pro-Bush bloggers as brown shirts. This is a good for a laugh considering Gore’s attitudes towards a few things that der Furher might have common cause with. After all NAZIs were known for their labelling tendencies, their efforts to ban things and their fervent anti-humanity/pro-enviromentalist stance.

Chris Muir’s take is a bit less nasty than mine.

Temple of Dagon have recieved some very kind and impressive recognition from Arkham House. Congratulations go to all those involved in this very impressive site.

On another note look for an exclusive piece from me in their Mythos Writer’s section.

Tom Utley has written an interesting piece on rebellion which features Cliff “Camp” Richard as its focus. I think the valid points he makes really get a bit drowned out by the vision of Sir Whiff as an icon of rebellion.

Not England’s (more importantly Beckham’s) performance at Euro2004 but the fans whingeing at the result. Why don’t they grow up? Their team was up to the task, and they still lost. Hopefully after England fans get over this loss, things will get back to normal, here. No longer is there any excuse for crap or rude behaviour (after today). Oh yes, and maybe a bit more respect will be given to the World Champion Rubgy team of Clive Woodward’s.

Speaking of rude behaviour, there was a rather serious incident of it at last night’s D-Day Ball put on by the YBF. A certain individual sitting behind thought it was more important to get text updates about England’s losing performance than it was for the rest of us to hear Simon Weston OBE deliver his moving speech on his experience in the armed services. It got so bad that after the fifth time, Simon turned around and commented on it. To be fair, almost every person in the room was appalled by the behaviour, so there is still some deportment left in this country.

Other than the fact that the evening was flogged as a Ball, but there was no dancing, and there was no late bar, it was a rather good event. I had the pleasure of sitting with Florence and Matthew of the Taxpayers Alliance. Matthew tells me that things are afoot there after a successful round of fund-raising. I had the pleasure of speaking to a few of the regular attendees at the Fighting Talk. (Speaking of nobs, this month’s event is being canned because of a tube/train strike next week.)

On a more positive note; good luck to Donal on his emigration to the British Virgin Islands. Good luck ole’ boy and I hope the sun, sea and Carribean outlook does good things for you.

For those who have recovered from last night’s disgrace, you might like to drop the ref a line, just to let him know what you think:

http://www.ursmeier.ch/referee/ref60.html

Now, children, be friendly…

I’m only about three months late with this, so my apologies if you’ve seen it before.

It’s an animated GIF portrait of a woman. Quite stunning, actually.

Via Steel White Table

Not content with causing havoc here and on Blogcritics, I have managed to cause a row over what defines zerg in Shadowbane. It was not my attention but it has gotten so bad the thread has been shut down.