The Thrift Store is Officially Open

We officially opened the new Thrift Store in Essex today. We've been opened on the new location since the beginning of the month, but today we had the local VIP's plus a few from DHQ down to cut the ribbon.

The picture is the staff and volunteers of the Store. I wanted one picture of the group and yes that is a cat in the photograph. We do have a cat, her name is Sally Ann and she is going to get fixed.

A great bunch of people who worked very hard to make this day happen.

Thanks all.

>Finally, Skiing

I have always enjoyed Cross- country skiing. I enjoy getting out along a trail, especially if that trail runs through the woods and just skiing. It's great just to get out there and listening to nature and seeing what there is to see.

X-country skiing has a lot going for it, the physical exertion, the challenge of using the body as the means of transportation, plus breathing deeply all that great cold air. Every moment I spent on skies has been a fabulous one.

As I blogged a few days ago, we finally got a good snowstorm and with the temperature remaining cold I figured this was the weekend to get out. Which is precisely what I did. I found my skies, which I haven't used in two years, lousy mild winter (grumble, grumble), and found a good place to ski.

Fortunately ERCA has established a greenbelt through the county. The Chrysler Canada Greenway is down one of the county roads and that was where I headed.

It started out snowing, but the clouds parted and the sun came out. I saw a number of birds, such as finches, cardinals, hawks and I think a couple of eagles. It was simply a glorious afternoon to go skiing

新年快乐

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

to all those who are celebrating the Year of the Pig, may it be a prosperous and blessed new year.

To understand Chinese New Year:

The Lunar New Year dates from 2600 BC, when the Emperor Huang Ti introduced the first cycle of the Chinese zodiac.

Because of cyclical lunar dating, the first day of the year can fall anywhere between late January and the middle of February. On the Chinese calendar, 2007 is Lunar Year 4704-4705. On the Western calendar, the start of the New Year falls on February 18, 2007 — The Year of the Pig.

If you were born in 1923, 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983 or 1995 - you were born under the sign of the pig. Like the pig, you are highly regarded for your chilvary and pureness of heart, and you often make friends for life. For pigs in 2007, any recent setbacks or obstacles can be overcome so look forward to a year in which to really shine, either personally or professionally.

As you know from reading my blog, I am a big fan of the New Doctor Who program. I am also a fan of classic rock.

I was searching for "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" videos I came across this little gem.



Yes, a video that features cuts from the first two seasons and BOC's signature song.

I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.

Winter comes to Essex County,

We've had the cold temperatures now we've got the snow. That's right the first large snowfall of the season hit yesterday and winter made up for the delay.


These photographs were taken around the house. Looks like I'll be doing some cross country skiing this weekend.


All photographs taken with my Virgin Mobile cellular phone.

Music industry wants copy surcharge on MP3 players

You know, just this morning I woke and said to myself: Self, you've not written anything negative about the Recording Association in ages. Well, actually I didn't, but it's true, the RIAA and the Canadian equivalent the CRIA have been behaving rather well. Yes the lawsuits are probably still flying but at least their not going after grandparents who don't even own a computer. I think some of the court decisions have been going badly as of late.

Still they have been good, then I open up my paper to day and read the above article. It seems a group in Canada, the CPCC want to revisit a dead issue, they want to have a levy put on all MP3 players. Now to give you some background and you can read the article, but still let me tell you aabout it. Two years ago there was a major push by the Recording Industry to have a levy placed on mp3 players, such as the iPod. The contention of the group is that the devices are recordings, such as blank media of which there is already a levy. In other words, the mp3 player is the media and not a devise for playing media such as music or videos. If that is the case then they demand a levy be placed on these devises. They also, I believe, at the time tried to get a levy on hard drives, since people download music onto them, those nasty consumers.

At the time, a Court ruled that such players are not under the jurisdiction of the Copyright Board and they could not impose a levy. I suggest you read the article to gain an understanding into the issue. If you open it to your PDF reader, you will find the salient remarks on page 39 and 40. Needless to say, there are people who want it revisited.

All this begs the question, what has changed in two years? The answer, nothing. MP3 players are still players, they are not the media or medium they play what is recorded on them, much as a CD player plays what is recorded on the disc that is inserted. They are a device for listening to music, certainly you download or burn music from CD's that have been purchased, but they are not media.

We have to keep an eye on this.

I'll keep you informed.

By almost three-to-one, Canadians say anti-Dion Tory ads are unfair: poll

Just read my pre-SuperBowl blog regarding the ridiculous attack ads the Conservative Party of Canada ran against the Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion. As you know from reading various blogs I am not a fan of the Liberal Party, but come on Conservatives. Let me introduce you a fascinating concept, this is not the 1990's. Yes I know there are still a number of attack ads each and every election but you want to know something, people are sick of them. You want to do something positive, then deal with issues not personalities.

The result of polls is this, 3 to 1 hated the advertisement, that works out to 75% of people who saw the ad thought it was unfair. That means there were a whole lot of potential voters who will not be impressed with anything else you do during the next election campaign.

Can I make a suggestion for all the major parties, knock off the attack ads. Honestly, it just makes you look stupid. How about spending all your advertising dollars on a campaign that will centre on issues and not what you personally think of someone else.

Just a thought.

New Social Justice Commission

Just the past week, the General of The Salvation Army, Shaw Clifton announced the establishment of an International Social Justice Commission. The purpose of this Commission will be:

* The director will lead a small team of full-time specialists, all committed Salvationists.
* The commission will be a permanent, standing body.
* A panel of expert international consultants will be created.
* The director and staff will be the Army’s principal international advocate and adviser on social, economic and political issues and events giving rise to the perpetuation of social injustice in the world. They will assist the Army in addressing social injustice in a systematic, measured, proactive and Christian manner, consistent with the purposes for which God raised up The Salvation Army.
* The commission will advise the General and other senior leaders at IHQ in matters of social justice.
* It will absorb and extend the current work of the Moral and Social Issues desk at IHQ, re-introducing an International Moral and Social Issues Council (IMASIC).
* The commission will expand and develop the Army’s role and influence within the United Nations, supervising and coordinating the work now being done in New York, Vienna and Geneva.
* It will place on a more systematic and effective basis the role of the Army in relation to other major world forums, advising the General on representation therein.
* The commission will liaise regularly with territorial and other Army groups engaged in social justice advocacy, seeking to ensure a coordinated approach and offering encouragement and guidance.
* It will liaise with territories and commands where as yet little is being done in relation to issues of social justice, seeking to find ways in which such a role can be undertaken by the Army in the local setting.

It's first Commissioner will be Commissioner Christine MacMillan. The Office will be established in New York City, with the purpose of giving the Army a voice before the United Nation. Certainly the time is now for a unique Christian world view to be presented before this august body. As well Commissioner MacMillan brings both a unique Canadian and world view of social Justice. As you can read in her bio, she has served extensively in the third world and so she does know first hand the social justice issues facing the third world.

She will do a good job.

Why I'm Glad I have A Satellite Dish

The National Post ran this article. Seems the governing Conservative Party has decided to buy time to run a few attack ads on the Liberals. So instead of watching the GoDaddy advertisement featuring Kevin Rose and Alexander Albrecht you will watch some ridiculous ad on how bad Stephane Dion is as a leader.

This is so sad, do you really want to have your enjoyment of a game interrupted by some stupid sleazy political ad? This reveals that the Conservatives are no different the than Liberals because given a chance it's the same old same old. Here's the thing, they want to attack him, then wait for an election, not during a football game.

I truly believe we should write to the Conservative Partyor if your local MP is a Conservative, to them and tell them we don't want the gutter. This is nonsense and they should be told off.

Fortunately, Starchoice runs the American channels without sticking in the stupid Canadian ads.

Three Special Birthdays

This being January 25th, I want to mention there are three special birthdays on today.
The first is the great Scottish Poet Robert Burns. Throughout the land people will gather to celebrate this special day with the singing of songs, the recitation of poetry and the eating of Haggis. To make sure it is celebrated correctly, let us all stand and recite his great poem, Address to a Haggis:

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak yer place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my airm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dicht,
An cut you up wi ready slicht,
Trenching your gushing entrails bricht,
Like onie ditch;
And then, Oh what a glorious sicht,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmaist, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit' hums.

Is there that ower his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him ower his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit:
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
Oh how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his wallie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!

If that was not enough of an honour for one day, there are two more who celebrate their birthday, and that is Kimberly and Katrina. So, Happy Birthday girls, have a great day today. Celebrate, but not too much.

Great Bear Rainforest Protected

This is very good news.

The Great Bear Rainforest is going to receive protection. A marvelous part of British Columbia and Canada will be preserved for future generations to explore and enjoy. We need more pristine forests protected, they are the front lines against Global Warming.

You can read more about the settlement here.

I want all of you to write to the government and encourage them to protect Canada's wilderness. Thank them for this and remind them that the environment is important because it affects us all.

These pictures are videosnaps from the movie/documentary An Inconvenient Truth. It is based upon the book and lecture the former VP of the United States Al Gore has been given on the issue of Global Warming. I know there are some people who scoff at such an idea, they say and I've heard some of them that the world is so big and we are so small. This is true but Mr. Gore points out where we are having the greatest impact is the smallest part of the planet's ecosystem and that is the atmosphere. We are dumping an incredible amount of waste into the air we breathe and its having the greatest affect on ourselves and the climate.

Global Warming is the reality and we are seeing it in places such as Essex County, the Arctic and the Antarctic. The Icefield is melting and the effects could be catastrophic, impacting both wildlife and us.

It is a fascinating movie, one that is developing a fair bit of controversy, including attacks by the Competitive Enterprise Institute a right-wing think tank that believes in things like not helping sick people acquire medication and other acts of compassion. Also, President George Bush was asked if he would watch the movie, his response was 'doubt it'.

The movie has inspired parody including one called Al Gore's Penguin Army. It was featured on YouTube and was supposed to have been made by a 29 year old living in Beverly Hills. However some investigating has discovered it was made by a PR firm with ties to the Republican Party and a number of Oil Companies. It features Al Gore, looking like "The Penguin" from the Batman movies and has him leading an army of Tux, the mascot of the Linux Operating System. Of course because it comes from Big Oil, its total nonsense, let's recall some of the PR spin that occurred after the Exxon Valdez.

I want to encourage you to find and watch the movie and consider doing research. If he is true, we need to do something.

For too long we've done evil, now it's time for us to do good.

Cease Fire in Darfur

I just received this email:

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson just released a joint statement with Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir that, if implemented, would bring some immediate security and relief to the people of Darfur as well as provide a clear path forward to long-term peace in the region.

We asked Governor Richardson to travel to Sudan to discuss ways to secure peace in Darfur and to end the genocide. The Governor was accompanied by Save Darfur Senior International Coordinator Ambassador (ret.) Lawrence Rossin, Refugees International Executive Director Kenneth Bacon, and Public and International Law and Policy Group senior attorney Amjad Atallah. Since Sunday, when they arrived in Khartoum, Governor Richardson and the delegation have visited Darfur and participated in a variety of meetings with government officials, rebel leaders, humanitarian officials, AU commanders and UN officials.

The promises from President Bashir in this agreement are encouraging. They include commitments to:

* A 60-day ceasefire with an international peace summit to be held before March 15, 2007.
* Sudan's cooperation to work with the African Union and United Nations on the deployment of a hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur.
* Ensuring "zero tolerance" policies for gender-based violence in Darfur.
* Free access for humanitarian aid workers and journalists.

This is excellent news. Perhaps not peace but its a start. If you want to read the full press release, go to here.

It recognizes there needs to be a free flow of aid to the region and the end of violence to the people of the Darfur.

Now before we all celebrate, remember Darfur.

Keep the pressure on the government of the Sudan and the United Nations to ensure the cease-fire is implemented and kept intact. As I said it's a start and it can be the start of something positive finally coming to the region.

Darfur

I got an email from the Save Darfur Coalition. The email wanted to encourage me

I just wanted to remind you about the email we recently sent asking you to make it your New Year's resolution to ask five friends or family members to join you in signing our petition to the President and the new UN Secretary-General

.

So here is what I want you to do, sign the petition. Follow this link and sign. The petition

2.5 million people have already been driven from their homes in Darfur, Sudan. The refugees now face starvation, disease, and rape, while those who remain in Darfur risk displacement, torture, and murder. We must act quickly and decisively to end this genocide before hundreds of thousands more people are killed.

Fill out the form below to add your name to petition urging President Bush and the UN Secretary-General to take immediate steps to stop the killing in Darfur.

People are still dying in the Darfur region. Just because it is not being reported doesn't mean it is over. Sign and get involved.

Do it.

This is your New Year's Resolution as well.

A New Niece

Ok, so Stephanie beat me to the post. Here is a picture of my brother and his new baby girl Erin Gayle, born in Windsor on the 28th of December.

She's very cute and very content.

Congratulations Neil and Terri.

You got a very cute sister Cole and Rachel.

I have to admit, there are some mornings when the first question I ask myself is "what day is it"? I suppose it has something to do with the business and busyness of the season. When everything is directed to a few events, it's almost impossible to think of the day. I mean I know it's morning and when the alarm goes off, I know the time.

It's just the day of the week I have a few problems with.

Perhaps it does stop me from waking up screaming.

Time Person of the Year is....You



As is the case, Time Magazine has named the Person of the Year, and if you have grabbed the magazine, or read it at your local bookstore/magazine rack, you've seen the shiny square on the front cover that acts as a mirror. The reason for the reflection is simple, Time has decided that the Person of the Year is us. That is any one who has made any sort of content on the Internet. It's all about Web 2.0. It's social networking, its blogs, wikis, podcasts, vidcasts. It's people making media and culture through the tools that make up the Internet. It's somebody using Audacity to record their own podcast, speaking into a simple or expensive microphone and saving the sound file as an MP3 to later upload to a website. It's that person talking about any subject they want to talk about, knowing there's someone who will share their interest. Instead of a microphone, it could be a webcam or a digital video camera and suddenly its a vidcast. Whatever it's people making culture.

It's a YouTube video of someone's interesting music video or something rather bizarre. It could be cats doing rather interesting and cute tricks, or people doing weird tricks. It's technology and culture together.

Now there are some who complain about this choice. The recent episode of Twit (number 80), has John C. Dvorak complaining about the choice. He felt it was cheesy and wondered why they went for a construct rather then a newsmaker. Other complaints given is that the Net is still a Western phenomenum, since much of the world barely has the electricity or food, let alone the Internet Connection to become involved with Web 1.0 let alone 2.0. However the Net is growing, China and India are opening up big to the Internet. Likely the day will come when Chinese will be the language of the Net.

Some have suggested the better choice should have been the people who brought YouTube to the world, certainlhy after being bought out by Google for a billion and change. Had Time done that, the issue would have been sold-out, since the two would have bought ever single issue of the magazine, I mean you can do that with a billion dollars.

On one hand, it is good to see the grassroots media is being recognized, on the other, it may be too soon to discuss where the Social Networking will take us. Like anything else, there is good and there is bad.

Still it's being making culture, and that's always a good thing

The Vonage advantage: Move early, quickly

This article in this Saturday's Globe and Mail caught my attention. It has to do with the growth of Vonage and the challenge it faces now that Ottawa has brought in deregulation to the local phone market. It's something the big telecom companies have been wanting for some time. The question is will it mean small and new starts like Vonage will have a chance? After all what can a company that employes 150 people do against a massive entity like Bell Canada.

Actually they can do a lot for they have one thing going for them, they aren't Bell Canada. Forget the cute commercials of beavers and cell phones, most people can't stand Bell. Just try it, ask the first 100 people you meet their opinion of Bell Canada and I will suggest to you the overwhelming response will be negative. Bell has been a monopoly for far too long to actually learn to care about the consumer. One result of deregulation will not mean the end of competition but the flowering of competition. Companies like Vonage, like Rogers Phone will have the ability to get in on that which has always been the private domain of large telecos such as Bell.

I would say the one area that Vonage must move towards quickly is the simplification of the installation. Make it easy, or provide technical assistance to install Vonage and people will flock to it. Most of us don't simply want to mess with wires and things like that, if it is far simple to stay where you are, that's what we will do. However, if Vonage moves aggressively in this area, people will gladly sign up.

As I said most people want to get rid of Bell. We're just waiting for the excuse.

Ubuntu Sticker on my Laptop



So I placed the Ubuntu sticker on the outside of my laptop, just below the Creative Commonists sticker. I have been impressed with all I have been able to do without having windows on my machine. I solved the problem with the mp3's, I had downloaded the wrong easy ubuntu program. Once I installed the right one, everything is good.

I'm continuing my experiments with looking at the KDE flavour of Ubuntu. It's quite good and I can go from one to the other without any problems.

So Bill G isn't impressed. All I can say is Linus Torvalds is The Man.

Good Bye Windows
Hello Ubuntu

Well I did it. I took my Dell Inspiron 1000 computer and removed Windows XP to install Ubuntu. I had wondered about the wireless access, but I did some reading and from what was indicated in the documents that going wireless with Ubuntu is not that difficult.

So today, I placed in a Ubuntu CD into the drive and got the computer to boot. I then moved the mouse over to the "install" icon and clicked. Well, after the usual time, it was installed and I rebooted. There it was, the Ubuntu screen and I typed in my name and my password. It happened, my computer is now a Ubuntu computer.

The next step was to determine if I could go wireless. I read some documents and felt that it was something I could do without too many problems. So I stuck in the wireless card and unplugged the ethernet cable. The result is this, I am typing this on my laptop using and there is no wires plugged into the computer, with the exception of the power cord. I am wireless and it is great.

I also wanted to see if other hardware could work and I plugged in my digital camera, it was found and I downloaded some photographs.

I still have to tweak a few things, I'm having problems playing mp3's. CD's are good but DVD's still need some work. I may have to find a few drivers for it.

Still I realize I got some work and with the help of documentation and the community I should do well.

Here's the picture of my wallpaper:


I'm looking forward to working with Ubuntu on my laptop.


Penguins Rule