the short version: the united states, in their infinite wisdom has decided to build a missile "defence" shield to somehow protect the united states from incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles (icbm's) fired by "rogue nations" like north korea or iran. the problem with the whole damn thing though is (a) it doesn't work. it's not like star trek where you have some nifty energy shield, no. they essentially fire one missile at another missile in hopes of them colliding before the incoming shot strikes paydirt. (b) it's prohibitively expensive. (c) (most importantly) it will spur a new arms race. both china and russia have already said that they're in the process of researching technology to thwart the "shield" and would un doubtably increase their stockpiles in order to maintain a balance against the americans. this is an issue for Canadians because they want our help and support in the production of this thing.

the long version can be detailed here.

this is not good for you and me. we've spent the last 20years dismantling these damn things and this shield is going to do away with all of that hard work... just to make some americans feel like safer (when they really aren't). that's why there's gonna be a demonstration/protest in the streets all over the country this saturday. here's the details for ottawa, toronto and vancouver. i'm not convinced it'll do anything. but it's better than staying home and pretending that this isn't a problem. do your kids a favour and get out there.

edit: turns out i missed the bit on the vancouver protest details. vancouver's going all out for this one, holding two protests in as many days. the details for vancouver and every city across Canada are best found here.

and in the "dear 'god' save us from your followers" department: a couple of wannabe disciples of jesus from quebec have decided that they want to erect crosses all over the planet to help "light the way" for jesus' return. ...like the "son of god" couldn't find his way without them. these things are SEVEN FEET TALL and are being put up in people's back yards everywhere. makes me wanna go out and construct a great big pentagram, star of david, crescent and hammer & sickle.... wouldn't want anyone to feel left out ;-)

it's a bit long, but this is worth the read for the politically minded. chrystal, you'll like this one ;-)

courtesy of angela's blog:

dream, the third of the endless, you are in charge of the dreaming, all imagination and creativity, everyone knows your beautiful realm, but none truly understand it. You are dark and brooding, creative, and spend a lot of time by yourself, just thinking. You are almost as serious as Destiny, but not quite. Everyone is enchanted by you, but you keep them all at a distance, even when you shouldn't. which endless are you?

so you might have noticed that my blog disappeared last night and was gone until just recently. apparently the modem i was using had had enough and chose last night to finally die after months of blowing up randomly. so after half an hour on the phone with rogers, the guy decided that my modem was indeed dead and that i needed an upgrade. i packed everything into my little bag and hopped on the subway to the nearest (open) rogers and swapped my shitty old modem for a new, shiny motorolla 5100. ...and now, i'm all upgraded to the new 5mbit pipe which should mean that if you have access to my fileserver, you can download whatever you like at a reasonable speed! not only that, but i should be able to download lots more anime.... if i only had the drive space ;-)

anyway, let me know if you notice a speed difference eh?

this is pretty impressive...
but THIS is fucking amazing. if the links ever go dead, let me know, and i'll post my own copies (don't wanna chew up all my bandwidth serving these files if i don't have to).

so yeah. this is my first theme based on a dark coloured background. what do you think? still readable? please send any bugs/issue to me over email so i can fix them as soon as possible. i haven't even tested this theme in anything other than konqueror or firefox.

after much pushing from various people in the comments, i've put photoshop on my new blank xp install and made up a button for my best friend. behold: optimus prime:


chris, i tried to use devastator, but he came out so small and squished. one with the autobot logo looked alright, but i thought this one was the best so... there you go. have fun and stuff.

so today was my first meeting the tev. they're a group that gets municipal funding to organise and run various environmental programs in and around the city and being volunteer run, they're always looking for new bodies to help run the show. i'm thinking that this'll help me get my fingers into the "powers that be" in city hall and learn more about how things run. well that and ruth's voice is weighing in here as well -- that i can help change the world a little piece at a time as opposed to big, sweeping changes. and while i don't totally agree with that line of thinking, it is, at the very least, a good place to start.

the meeting had a guest speaker from the ontario clean air alliance who had a lot of interesting things to say about coal power and it's effects on the air we breathe. at the moment, the provincial government is in the process of eliminating the use of coal power throughout the province by 2007, but the fight now is over how the the energy deficit will be made up. some people dig nuclear, but this group says that that route is very expensive and rediculously inefficient. instead, (and i agree) they're reccomending conservation incentives, increased hydro reliance & development, wind, biomass and co-generated natural gas.

the second plan seems more convoluted but believe it or not, it makes far more sense. i could preach to you here, but well, people don't typically read long blogs, so instead go here when you have time

• the ontario clean air alliance
• electricity choices