Thursday, April 23, 2009. Question period. The Liberals spent the first half hammering away at the government to get our own homegrown Omar the Terrorist back home. He’s a Canadian citizen, you see. A nice, Canadian citizen (and, uhm, an  accused terrorist with a looney-tunes terrorist family). Following this onslaught, the Liberals used the second half of question period attacking the government on failing to point out to the Americans that Canada is NOT the source of terrorists coming into the US.

Do you have to be a Liberal to see the logic in that? Because I sure don’t.

Neo from hallsofmacadamia requested this bit of code which will allow you to put your (ever growing!) Blogging Tories Blogroll list into a scrollable “window” to reduce its screen size:

Just wrap your <script></script> code from BT with a <div> like so:

<div style="width:220px;height:300px;overflow:auto;">

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"
 src="http://www.bloggingtories.ca/scripts/btblogroll.js">
</script>

</div>

The <script> code you already have, it comes from the BT site when you sign up.
The sizes specified in the style tag of the div are the width (22opx)  (make it the width of your sidebar minus 1 or 2) and the height (300px) of the scrollable box. You can put it to any size you want by changing these two numbers. A scrollbar will be automatically added by your browser if your list is longer than your height (by specifying the “overflow:auto” in the style tag). You can also add a border to it (any color or size) by adding:

“border:1px blue;” to the style tag, like so:

<div style='width:220px; height:300px;
  overflow:auto; border:1px blue;'>

Have fun!

Funny how the current deficit budget is now universally referred to as “The Conservative Deficit”, even after this current budget was forced upon us by the Liberals, NDPers and the bloc-heads after a mid-winter stand-off on the Governour General’s front stoop. As I recall, the Conservative’s Economic Update, brought forward in December, did not make us go into a deficit at all. It was after the three stooges reared their ugly heads and blackmailed the country, that the current deficit budget was tabled. In fact, the Libs and Dippers were crying foul that the $30B wasn’t enough.

So now it’s the “Conservative Deficit” eh? And as usual, Canadians just happily go along with it. After all, we Canadians like to hear what we want to hear and will go along with whomever says it at the time. Eventhough at another time he may say something completely different.

First they had Mr. Dithers, then they had The Dion-Witch Project, now they’re stuck with Mr. Flip-Flop. Those Libs just can’t get their act togther, can they?

So we headed down the Queensway late Sunday night to drop off our daughter and her boyfriend at the (depressing) downtown Greyhound bus station. They are headed back to Vancouver (where they study at Emily Carr University on Granville Island) via bus: you just can’t beat $240 for two people to travel across the country. However, for your $240 you can count on losing at least one bag along the way. It’s just that kind of a gong-show.

What I want to talk about is the new “security measures” implemented since the unfortunate incident in Manitoba last summer. These “security measures” are supposed to protect the travelling public from crazies with knives. As you may have seen, I put “security measures” in quotation marks, because, well, the “security” isn’t there, and “measures” is a very big word for what it is: two guys beside a fold-out plastic camping table, and all that is keeping ”us” separated from “them” is a type of barrier you may find at your local bank branch (those posts and the retractable “tape” type separators to guide you through a maze to the teller). The kids were required to open up their “carry-ons” and since they each carry laptops and electronics all had to be taken out and opened. My daughter could not get her laptop out of her bag quickly (her mother taught her how to pack well) so the “security” guy said she could move on without looking in her bag. The line-up was getting long… After the kids went past these two guys, we followed them along the walk-way from Checkpoint Charlie to the doors (about 30 feet, again, all that separated us was the tape) and did our hugs (that’s right: we hugged eachother right through the security barrier keeping “public” and “secured travellers” apart) and said our goodbyes, at which time we could have easily passed them several knives, guns, cleavers, baseball bats, what have you, if we were so inclined, without the “security” personnel ever knowing about it. Then they step out to the bus platform, and the bus driver loads the bus with their bags. Unfortunately, the bus driver has no idea which bags were “carry-on” (and thus: checked out) and which bags are luggage (not checked at all) and so they could have easily switched an unchecked luggage bag for a “carry-on” bag… Put your knives in the “luggage” bag, then step out of the door and carry-on your un-checked luggage bag onto the bus.

This is what Greyhound came up with: how can we calm the public with the cheapest “security measures” possible, to give the illusion that “we’re doing SOMETHING”, which isn’t anything at all: it’s all a show. Even my feeble attempt at putting myself into a ”criminal mindset” could penetrate that fortress of security on at least three occasions. Can you image what those crazies can come up with? 

Who said: “The only thing worse than no security, is a false security”?

After a devastating report late last week, the Alarmist Warmists were obviously looking for something visual and stunning to bring the cause back on track. And this weekend, they got it: a nice large chunk of ice broke off  the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica, destroying an ice-bridge, and creating a new island. Nicely viewed from space with beautiful satellite pictures for proof. Words like “could”, “likely” and “may” are strewn across the article bringing it in-line with those in the hay-day of Global Warming in the late 1990′s.

“We’re back, baby!”

Something I don’t get though… the article speaks of things like “first time in history” and “historic” and then says the following to make its case:

Cores of sediments on the seabed indicate that some of these ice shelves had been in place for at least 10,000 years. Vaughan said an ice shelf would take many hundreds of years to form.

Wait a minute, if these ice shelves have been in place for at least 10,000 years, doesn’t that mean that sometime before 10,000 years ago, there weren’t any ice shelves? And if “they take hudreds of years to form”, how can it be that them being gone is an historic first? If they need to form, there has to be a period where there are none. Am I wrong? Doesn’t this mean the term ”first time in history” is a lie?

But I must be wrong: these Alarmist-Warmists don’t lie. They want to save us.

Don’t they?

Researchers at the NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), after careful re-analysis of our entire array of climate data (50 years’ worth of adjusted, converted and re-adjusted pristine data), came up with a stunning conclusion: the Earth’s climate is mostly influenced by nature! Turns out, mankind isn’t “just” responsible for climate change, in the past 50 years it has mostly been shifting ocean currents.

Some of us have been saying this since the nineties, when the IPCC came out with  their first false report. And some of us have been trying to say this since Al Gore came out with his fictional movie and have been chastised for it as ignorant fools.

Imagine that… Mother Nature is responsible for weather patterns. WOW. That just blew my mind.

Al Gore, isn’t time to hand over that Nobel Prize?

This is our fifth anniversary at shopWebSpace.com and while it has been a good five years, we are implementing a shift from basic web hosting to ready-to-go packages for the technology challenged (while keeping some hosting packages for our current customers).

I have noticed in recent years how everybody wants to get on the web, and many people have the know-how, but there are a lot of people out there who want to start a blog or a community website or even a social network, but have no knowledge of servers, gigabytes, terabytes, databases, DNS records, email forwarding and what have you, and so are “stuck” having to use Google Blogs, or Blogspot (no offence) for their basic needs. Even though those are free and easy to use, they are very limited in terms of your “look”, or layout. You can express your thoughts, but not your personality. And that is where our new services comes in: for a low monthly rate you get your own hosted website with pre-installed scripts and themes or templates. We take care of everything: from registering your domain name and renewing it every year, to installing scripts for you with the plugins you want, or install a new template you want. We have a “WordPress Blog” package, a “Community Site” package, a “Social Networking” package etc. They are truly ready to go: as soon as you sign up, your blog or community website is operational. No installation required.

I am also happy to announce, that for those looking for more technical solutions, we now offer SSL Certificates, Instant Mobilizer, as well as Hosted Exchange.

Here’s hoping the next five years will be as exciting as the first!

One government giveth, the other taketh away.

Lovely isn’t it?

Anyone else find it curious that the first “tax rebate cheques” will be rolling out, uhm, say, three months before the next provincial election? And that’s Federal CONSERVATIVE money, by the way, that the Ontario Liberals will be happily handing out just before they need to be re-elected. And I’m sure we’ll see Dalton “That’s Not True” McGuinty’s trademark fake smile as he pretends to be Santa Clause, and how much do you want to bet he’ll say: “Oh, and btw, this cheque doesn’t come from us, it comes from Ottawa!”

Tory Senator Nancy Ruth told reporters on Tuesday that “Canada Geese should be culled and fed to the poor”. Now, I agree there’s too many Canada Geese, andexcrement is a problem, but feeding them to “the poor”, whoever they are, is not a solution. I mean, have you ever tasted wild goose? It isn’t much good. I am sure those “poor” (I assume they would include the bums on our streets who get their nutrition from a regular bottle of rum), would turn up their noses at the sight of Canada Goose. Might as well serve up beaver. Or Elizabeth May.

And I wouldn’t serve that to my worst enemy…

…who happens to be Elizabeth May.