Big lunch plans (LIVE) - 6

A few minutes ago I took the chili pizza out of the oven.



While the chili pizza was fine, I am not quite convinced that it was worth the effort.

Anyway, now I should be able to get back to work.

Big lunch plans (LIVE) - 5

Things are definitely looking up for this overly complicated lunch I have gotten myself into.

I rolled the dough and put in on a pizza pan.



I then loaded the dough up with the chili and the toppings (celery, red pepper, and red onion).



Not surprisingly, I then placed the prepared pizza in the oven.

My next problem to deal with is the leftover dough. What am I going to do with this extra dough?



I presume that in about 20 minutes I will finally be able to sit down to lunch.

Big lunch plans (LIVE) - 4

The dough has now been kneaded, though I really should have waited to do this until after I had prepared the toppings. Now things are all out of whack.

And because you want to see a video of me punching dough I have been kind enough to provide you with one.



[Embedded video]

Big lunch plans (LIVE) - 3

The oven is now pre-heating and I am actively mentally preparing myself to knead and roll the pizza dough. I am also in the midst of thinking about an order of operations for topping preparations, though at this point I haven't quite figured out how I plan on approaching things. Hopefully within a few minutes I will have a plan in hand.

Big lunch plans (LIVE) - 2

The dough is still rising. I guess it will take another few minutes. Presumably I should have already started to pre-heat the oven. I guess I will do that right now.

Big lunch plans (LIVE) - 1

A few minutes ago I was sitting at my desk thinking about what I might like to have for lunch. For some reason I was reminded of the recent cheese and tomato free pizzas that I have made and tempted in that direction. Unfortunately, I also remembered that we have a number of leftovers in the fridge, so I would feel bad about making something completely new when so much food has already been prepared. Furthermore, the chili that I made a few days ago is really tempting.

Fortunately, I found a solution to my problem. I decided to combine my desire to have pizza with my desire to work on the leftovers to create chili pizza (the chili will be used instead of the sauce and cheese).

Because I have all kinds of work to do I decided that I should probably live-blog my lunch preparation experience (with this as the first entry).

As an update, at the moment the dough is rising. I presume that it will need to rise for another few minutes (or maybe about 30 minutes).

Assuming all goes well, I should have this abomination in the oven in an hour or so. Can't wait (and I am sure that you, the reader, feel the same way).

A Few Quick Notes 480

-Today was a pretty decent fall day. My understanding is that tomorrow isn't supposed to be quite as nice.

-I had the pleasure of leading a class today. Unfortunately, two of the five students weren't able to make the class so the dynamic was a little off. That being said, I think that things went relatively well, or at least not horribly.

-This afternoon, while I was backing up a few files, I came across a few photos and videos earlier today I happened upon a few photos and videos from my 2008 trip to Sint Maarten. I decided to upload one of the Sint Maarten airport videos.



[Embedded video]

-I prepared another few pounds of vegetables tonight. I am slowly working my way though the bowl with little help from anyone else.

Food stuffs

Today was a big day for food prep for me.

This morning I woke up and baked a batch of bran muffins for breakfast.

This afternoon/evening I made some chili while also making a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and chopping some vegetables.

I guess we will have some leftovers for the next day or so.

A Few Quick Notes 479

-Amazingly, today's forecast today seems to be lining up with reality quite nicely. Fortunately, this has meant that the day so far has been quite nice. Hopefully I will get to experience a little bit of this weather in person.

-We played our second indoor Ultimate game of the season last night. While we didn't win, we did play a much better game than we did last week. Actually, had it not been for our poor showing in the first half we would have won (meaning that we outscored them in the second half). Hopefully We will be able to play as well or better next week.

-I made a batch of bran muffins for breakfast this morning. While the flavour is fine, they definitely aren't quite as three-dimensional as I might have liked.

-Just a few minutes ago I placed an order with an Canadian online bookstore. What amazes me about these orders is the amount of time that it takes for these companies to get the goods to their customers. When I lived in New York seven years ago Barnes and Noble was able to offer same-day delivery to addresses in Manhattan and pretty speedy delivery to other addresses in the US. What's up with Canada's much slower delivery times?

-I made another dairy and tomato free pizza last night. Actually, it would have even been vegan had I not topped it with pepperoni and turkey. I was pretty pleased with the outcome, though I think that by eating it all I overindulged.

-Apparently there is a yurt company in Wolfville. Not only will they rent or sell you a yurt, they are also willing to teach you how to build your own yurt.

School Appropriate?

A few days ago I was at Dal when I saw the following display.



While I am not sure exactly what the reference is to, it nonetheless seems a little strange as a dorm decoration. It certainly seems hard to believe that the university would really want such a display associated with their dorms if only because of the myriad of ways in which such a display could be misinterpreted.

I will be curious to see if these letters are still so visible next week.

A Few Quick Notes 478

-We are in the midst of a multi-hour rainfall. When this rainfall started I was hopeful that it would be brief and relatively inconsequential. As time has passed the rain has continued to come down with increasing intensity. Bummer.

-Yesterday evening I was one of about 12 people to attend my union local's meeting. At time we had trouble making quorum. For one reason or another we dropped the pretense of calling each other "Brother so-and-so" and "Sister so-and-so" during the meeting.

-I made a rather large batch of chicken noodle soup for lunch. It is a good thing that this batch turned out pretty well as there is quite a bit left.

-Due to popular demand I have decided to provide our readers with another puppy video.



[Embedded video]

While these videos still have some way to go before they become YouTube classics, I do think that this one is a fair bit better than the one I posted a few days ago.

-It seems that Danny Williams will be leaving politics and that Kathy Dunderdale will soon be Newfoundland's premier. Given that between now and October 2011 there will be a leadership convention and provincial election I think it is fair to think that Newfoundland politics will soon start to become a little more exciting.

Weather update

She's raining in Halifax. Thought you'd want to know.



[Embedded video]

Big news from Newfoundland

The word on the street this morning in Newfoundland is that Danny Williams will soon be leaving politics (and thus no longer be the Premier). In some ways this isn't surprising in others it is.

The aspect of the prospect of Danny's departure that I find the most surprising is the thought that Newfoundland might actually have a premier who is not Danny. Though I am sure that many cabinet ministers have been thinking about this eventuality for some time, I really have no idea who might try to step up and become leader. I also have to imagine that this departure will change the power dynamic in the government caucus.

Anyway, I guess this will all work itself out over the coming days and weeks.

A Few Quick Notes 477

-Though not particularly wet, today was definitely quite grey and cold. Not surprisingly, it seems that we might be in for some more snow in the coming hours/days.

-In my previous post it was mentioned that today I attended a talk given by Liberal MP Siobhan Coady. I should have mentioned that this talk was one of several today given by Liberal MPs. It seems that the Globe and Mail has already reported upon the talk given by Bob Rae. As strange as I found it to be a part of a campaign-style speech, I think that I find it even stranger to have been party to a nation-wide communications strategy on the part the Liberal party.

-I have decided to go for the turkey: three public lectures in three days. Tomorrow's lecture subject is South Africa's role in the world.

-For dinner tonight I made a pretty less-than-satisfying chicken stir-fry. Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to pin-point exactly where things went wrong.

-Because he Jesse Thorn asked nicely and because it is one of the most engaging interviews I have heard on his show in a while (and this isn't to suggest that there has been a shortage of engaging interviews) I feel that I should mention the recently released The Sound of Young America episode that features an interview with Judd Apatow (of Hollywood fame).

The Sound of Young America


[Embedded audio]

-I guess I should try to read a few more pages of this transition to democracy/democratization stuff before I call it a night.

Politicking and associated activities

This morning I received a notice that Siobhan Coady, the Liberal MP for St. John's South-Mount Pearl, would be speaking about Canadian foreign policy at Dalhousie this afternoon. Though the notice was somewhat last minute I decided that the event might be entertaining and worth attending.

I can't say that things started well, as one of the first comments during Ms. Coady's introduction was to point out that we would be in for "a hopefully great presentation." Talk about a ringing endorsement.

The talk then started with a somewhat off-subject anecdote/joke about Halifax being close to God. We then quickly moved on from locally flavoured anecdotes to a range of criticisms of the current government. "Bad diplomacy" on the part of the Conservative/Harper government was blamed for Canada's failure to win a UN Security Council seat as well as the loss of Camp Mirage in the United Arab Emirates. These failures were contrasted with the proposals supported by the Liberal opposition. It was, not surprisingly, suggested that these Liberal approaches would solve many of the problems that had been previously outlined.

I guess I shouldn't forget that a few characterizations of Canada were also provided: Canada "a trading nation," Canada as the "most international society," and the acceptance of the view of Canada as a middle power (whatever that means). There was also a fair bit of stuff about Canada's tradition as a peace-keeping nation (and our current deficiencies in this regard).

All-in-all, the talk was fine and Ms. Coady was a very effective speaker. I was particularly impressed with her ability to handle the audience's questions and comments, some of which were clear attacks on Liberal policy while others were just a little harder to grasp.

That being said, to at least some extent, the talk disappointed me. I guess it was just that whole thing had much more of a campaign speech feeling than I expected. Liberal policy proposals were praised and Conservative policies criticized. I just wish that in advance I had known that that was what I was in for, though I guess this is as much my fault as anyone else's as I don't think that there is much else that I could reasonably have expected to have happened at such an event. At least I will know that the next time I head to hear a politician speak, even if the event is sponsored by an academic institution, that I should expected a partisan campaign speech.

A Few Quick Notes 476

-Yesterday, for the first time this year, we had a real snowfall. For better or worse, most of the remnants of this snowfall have now melted or otherwise disappeared. I presume that this means that we will now be in for more similar weather over the coming days and months.

-We managed to rather decisively lose our first Ultimate game of the new winter season. Though it wasn't our only problem, our team was not helped by a high absence rate. Hopefully more of us will turn up next week and we will be able to provide our opponents with a better game.

-The aforementioned shift towards more winter-like weather seems to have encouraged a few more mice to invade our apartment. Fortunately, aside from one that we caught a few days ago, most of the evidence that we have that these guys are living in the building comes from hearing them in the walls rather than seeing evidence of them in the apartment. I think our continued efforts to plug holes with steel wool has really helped things, though I guess I shouldn't be so confident yet.

-This afternoon Peter and I attended a talk that presented the findings of a study that examined the ways in which Dal students used the Killam Library. One of the aspects of the talk, which was quite enjoyable, that I found most interesting was that the findings of the study were not effectively integrated into the development of new library website (even though the research was conducted in a way that would provide the designers with feedback).

A Few Quick Notes 475

-Today has been pretty mediocre so far. So far we have had a relatively nondescript combination of grey skies, cool temperatures, and a lack of precipitation.

-Tonight is the first night of our Winter Ultimate league. As Neil has decided to sit this year out I signed up with Jeannette. For better or worse, we know no one else on our our team. I guess we will get to know them tonight.

-Last night I attended an entertaining/thought-provoking talk by Neil Brooks. The talk dealt with material covered in a book the speaker and co-author Linda McQuaig recently published called The Trouble with Billionaires. For those of you who are curious, the overarching message was definitely pro-tax.

-I have some grading to take care this weekend. I guess I might as well get down to it.

Attacked by logic

This evening Neil, Rebecca, Jeannette, and I attended a Dal Alumni sponsored advance screening of the latest Harry Potter movie. As the recommended time of arrival was 6:00 I had to head to the theatre directly from school, without getting a chance to eat.

Shortly after we picked up our tickets I expressed an interest in getting a burger a fast food restaurant located next to the movie theatre. Neil was keen on joining me. I guess he was also quite hungry.

Though the line-up was not very long it didn't seem to be moving particularly quickly. After a few moments of observation I figure out the hold-up - the guy in front of us was paying with spare change. Though the guy seemed to have quite a bit of change he hadn't counted it in advance so he didn't know exactly how much he had, which meant a rather belaboured counting process. After an agonizing five minute counting process the guy then had to pick up the extra change that he had dumped on the counter. The only good news is that he didn't have to wait very long for his food to arrive after he had finished paying.

Then, all of a sudden, it was our turn to order.

I quickly placed our order, three of the special promotion spicy burgers, though I requested that two be plain and one have only lettuce and cheese. We were then told that we could not order these burgers without cheese or special sauce.

What? I can't omit the most expensive ingredients from my order?

Eventually they allowed us to hold the sauce on all three burgers and transfer all three pieces cheese to a single burger. When Neil's burger eventually came out they had placed two pieces of cheese on one side of the burger and the third on the other.

As ridiculous as this outcome was, I was quite pleased to have some food before the movie.

The movie, which was pretty much what I would have expected, was fine. That they split the final book in two was definitely a bit of a bummer, though a feature of the movie for which I was at least partly prepared.

One day - two classic assessments of Canadian federalism

Today has been a day for reading classic works relating to Canadian federalism.

This morning I started things off by finishing off the JCPC's 1937 ruling on the Labour Conventions case. As many will recall, one of the key findings of this ruling was that

“the Dominion cannot, merely by making promises to foreign countries, clothe itself with legislative authority inconsistent with the constitution which gave it birth.”

Of course, one of the classic lines from this ruling is the following:

“While the ship of state now sails on larger ventures and into foreign waters she sill retains the water-tight compartments which are an essential part of her original structure.”

It seems that over time our court rulings have lost the figurative language employed by the members of the JCPC in the early 20th Century. I can't imagine finding a similar passage in a current Supreme Court ruling ( though I guess it is possible that I haven't really read enough of them to know how everybody writes).

A little later in the day I moved on another, though earlier, classic text: The Durham Report. As I have read part of this report before I wasn't too surprised to come face to face with a strong assessment of the contemporary situation near the beginning of the report. Anyway, without further ado, here is one of Durham's famous, and still resonant, lines:

“I expected to find a contest between a government and a people: I found two nations warring in the bosom of a single state : I found a struggle, not of principles, but of races; and I perceived that it would be idle to attempt any amelioration of laws or institutions until we could first succeed in terminating the deadly animosity that now separates the inhabitants of Lower Canada into the hostile divisions of French and English.”

Requested vid

A few days ago I mentioned that some new dogs have been using the grassy area outside of my window as a playpen/toilet. At the time I posted a video of some pigeons who used to use the area outside of my Montreal apartment window as a fornicatorium.

Rebecca, through the power of commenting, wondered if I might be able post a video of puppies instead of pigeons.

While I am not too interested in taking down my amazing pigeon video (which has more than a hundred views on YouTube), I am interested in acceding to the other portion of the request - meaning the provision of a puppy video.

As the dogs were back today I was able to film a portion of their play.



[Embedded video]

I presume this video was a more intense cute experience that you imagined would be possible in a 11 second video.

A Few Quick Notes 474

-After a several day period of clear skies it seems that Halifax is now, once again, sheathed in clouds. The prediction is that this cloud cover will soon lead to rain, which would be a less than well-received turn of events.

-This morning I made an early trip to the grocery store so that I would be able to take advantage of an excellent butter sale, the first such sale in months. I had to go early because in such circumstances the butter tends to move quickly, particularly on Tuesdays as students get a ten percent discount. As it turned out, I was able to pick up 5 pounds of butter without much hassle.

-Yesterday, by taking two trips to the law library, I was able to pick up a few old Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (which was Canada's highest court of appeal until 1949) rulings that I need/ed to read. Though they turned out not to be all that difficult to find, I had been allowing myself to neglect this task for the past several months.

-While at the law library I was reminded that I really don't like the way the Dalhousie law library is run, particularly in relation to non-law students. For instance, instead of automatically granting graduate students the full loan period for a book their system has a shorter loan period as the default (you have to know to ask for the extra time if you want it). Also, study rooms and certain databases are unavailable to non-law students. Such practices seem to run contrary to the idea of an academic library (providing access to information and furthering the creation of knowledge in an academic community), but they are also more restrictive than those of non-Dalhousie libraries to which I have access through consortial arrangements.

-I guess I should get back to work now that I have bragged about my butter score and vented about the Dalhousie law library.

Unexpected change

Yesterday I happened to be looking at Montifax, mainly just to see that everything was in order, when I noticed that three was a somewhat substantial change that I didn't expect to see.

It seems that our list of Labels has been converted from an alphabetical list that included the number of times each label had been used to a more graphic display that has eliminated the list format and that increases the size of the text proportionate to the number of times the label has been used.

While my gut feeling is that this makes the list of labels a little harder to read/skim. This is mainly because multi-word labels make the alphabetical ordering less apparent. Anyway, as my sense is that the list of labels wasn't frequently used I don't imagine that this change will cause many of our readers too many problems.

Calm, cool, and collected

I have to imagine that junior high student staring in this video was a bit nervous to just calmly walk past the defensive team.



[Embedded video]

I like this video much more than I should.

It's a popular spot

The summer before last I noticed that a few times a day a women would bring her puppy to urinate and defecate on the relatively secluded grassy area just across my bedroom window. Over the course of the summer and following academic year the puppy grew so large that it would rightly be considered a dog instead of a puppy. Fortunately, at least for me, with the increase in size and age of the dog the trips to this grassy toilet have decreased.

Within months of the cessation of the visits of this first dog and owner a second dog owner has started bringing her pets to defecate and urinate outside of my bedroom window. This time, unlike last time, there are two small puppies that are now regularly engaging in various bodily functions across from my bedroom window.

While everyone in our apartment has agreed that these two puppies are quite cute (they frequently engage in a variety of puppy play fighting-like activities), I am somewhat disgusted to think that I have a bedroom window that looks on to the neighbourhood dog toilet.

I guess dog toilet is one step up from the pigeon fornicatorium that I lived across from in Montreal a few years ago.



[Embedded video]

A Few Quick Notes 473

-We had another great day in Halifax today. For better or worse, I didn't really experience much of it directly and instead had to grasp its beauty through a series of windows.

-Much of my day today was spent reading/studying and grading. Unfortunately, I spent less time doing either of these two activities than I might have like.

-Last night we went to the apartment of some friends for some homemade pizza (mine was cheese and tomato free) and games. I think a good time was had by all in attendance.

-Hopefully I will get a chance to read some of today's paper tomorrow as I didn't get much of a chance to read it today.

-I'm once again incredibly tired. Hopefully I will be able to make it to bed early tonight.

A Few Quick Notes 472

-Though it was somewhat chilly today, it was nice to finally have a day that wasn't overcast and rainy.

-I took advantage of the improved weather to conduct a major cleaning operation on our balcony. In addition to sweeping up a number of leaves and twigs I also washed quite a number of my pots and disposed of my frost-killed plants. Though I can't say that the experience was particularly fun, I am glad to have taken care of the mess that was beginning to be a little embarrassing.

-Our spike in blog traffic seems to be continuing. Strangely, the spike in traffic seems to be happening at the same time that we are having fewer people come to our site through search engine referrals. The whole thing still doesn't make too much sense to me.

-I spent a good chunk of the day reading, and then another chunk grading. Hopefully I will be able to devote several good chunks of tomorrow to similar pursuits.

-I'm beat.

Two news sources, two very different conclusions

A few minutes ago I happened to come across a Reuter's story entitled "Cargo bomb found in UK could have exploded over U.S." This struck me as strange as I recalled recently seeing a similar story, though the competing headline suggested that the bomb would have exploded over Canada. Though I am not sure if this is the story that I saw, the Washington Post presently has such a headline: "Bomb would have exploded over Canada, data show."

I guess the good news is that we can't accuse Reuter's or the Washington Post of just copying the other's work and claiming it as their own.

Fun fact

Who is the only 'country gentleman' currently sitting in the Canadian House of Commons?

According to the Canadian Parliament's website, it would be Peter Stoffer, the NDP member for Sackville–Eastern Shore.

On related note, while checking out Stoffer's parliamentary profile I noticed that one can now view a record of the way in which MPs voted in those votes on which division was called. While I was hoping I could get an RSS subscription to these votes I haven't figured out how to do this quite yet.

Maybe I do have what it takes to be a pop star

A few minutes ago Jeannette drew my attention to some Britney Spears footage/audio in which one can hear her singing without the intermediation of auto-tune. I am not starting to think that this whole pop star thing may not really be that far out of my reach (though I guess I will have to work on the hot bod/dancing thing)



[Embedded video]

I guess everything has been cleared up?

Yesterday I drew our readers' attention to a story about an unidentified missile in the Los Angeles area. At the time most of the reports seemed to suggest that precisely what had been captured on film by a local TV station appeared to be some kind of unidentified missile.

Apparently the latest take on the story is that the contrail was nothing more than a jet.

Really? A jet? And no one thought of this scenario yesterday?

What I find strangest about the turn of events is that when first reported upon, military officials seemed to suggest that it was not one of their missiles, not that it was not a missile. Wouldn't it have just been easier to say that you thought it was not a missile but a jet?

And then I would imagine that it should be relatively easy to figure out which jet it was given our modern radar and satellite tracking technologies. That the particular jet has not been identified seems notable.

Anyway, the whole thing continues to not add up. We seem to be dealing with relatively large-scale incompetence or misinformation, I don't see how it can be anything else.

Even more helpful government information or: How a missile of an unknown source hardly ruffled feathers

Yesterday in Los Angeles, according to a number of news sources (including Reuters), there seems to have been a mysterious rocket launch that is as of yet unexplained. It seems that military sources are claiming ignorance and an interest in figuring out what it was that took place.

An example from the Reuters' article of this kind of position is the following:

"So far we've come up empty with any explanation," Colonel David Lapan told reporters. "We're talking to other parts of the U.S. government. We're doing everything we can to try to figure out if anybody has any knowledge of what this event may have been."

If you are interested in a video clip of some of the coverage and the footage of the missile you can check out the following embedded video.



[Embedded video]

The interesting question that this video is how NORAD knows that there is no threat if they don't know the source of the missile? Furthermore, if government sources really didn't know what the source of the missile was wouldn't it make sense for them to be a little more concerned? How is it possible that the smallest airline related incident can raise the threat level by a colour while presence of an unidentified missile near one of the US's largest city seems to do nothing to panic the Homeland Security types?

Fundamentally, this story, as it is presently being reported, makes no sense.

I suspect that this story is another instance in which the information provided to the public by the government is garbage. There is no way that such an incident could be of such little concern if the origin of the missile was really not known. That the issue is of little concern only makes sense only if the origin of the missile is known, which I suspect it must be given the lackadaisical response on the part of the government (unless they have somehow managed to completely mask their concern and the fact that the missile is of an unknown/hostile origin).

Anyway, no matter what actually happened, I think it is safe to assume that the public are being fed a line of crap on this one. The only thing more amazing than the fact that the public is likely being misled is the complicity of the media in the misleading.

More helpful government information

Fast on the heels of the recent Statistics Canada information moratorium that I mentioned in the last post comes an issue with the opposite problem from the US.

The US Department of State (Hilary's stomping ground) makes public information for American (though the information is accessible to anyone) about countries worldwide. They recently released an update on their profile of Sweden, a known-to-be-relatively-safe Scandinavian country. The best/least useful part of the recent release relates to the potential for encountering terrorist activities in Sweden. They state that

Sweden remains largely free of terrorist incidents. However, like other countries in the Schengen area, Sweden's open borders with its Western European neighbors allow the possibility of terrorist groups entering/exiting the country with anonymity. You should remain vigilant and exercise caution.

Thanks guys, that information is really useful. Why couldn't you have just said something like "As safe or safer than the rest of Western Europe." By suggesting, even if only obliquely, that Sweden may be at risk of a terrorist attack the State Department undermines not only the usefulness of this report, but all other instances in which they pass on information about terrorist threat levels.

Making such a statement is akin to including safe handling instructions with shipments of NaCl (salt), they just encourage people to discount all such warnings as baseless. Given that there are situations in which such warnings (whether they be about terrorism or the dangers posed by chemicals) are important it is important that they not be de-valued and made a mockery of.

Back Up and At'em

It seems that Statistics Canada's website is back online and fully functional, apparently yesterday's service disruption was not an indication that the agency was calling it quits because of political tension. So if the Okanagan College library was right, and it was just a routine service issue, the issue of insufficient information still remains. Why would Statistics Canada not include an announcement indicating that their site was undergoing routine maintenance operations and would be out of commission for several hours? Maybe this was too easy? Not enough intrigue would have been caused?

Are they just going to close up shop?

As many of you will know, the advice given by Statistics Canada staff to the government about the mandatory long-form census was ignored. This situation eventually resulted in the resignation of the head of the agency and a relatively large public outcry. I am starting to wonder if this situation has also now lead to the destruction of the Statistics Canada website, which presently seems to be down. The only comment given on the splash page is

"We're sorry! The website is currently unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience."

While they suggest that interest surfers can head over to the Census for some information it turns out that data normally available through that site is also unavailable. Suspicious, to say the least.

I really feel as though I have no choice but to understand this disruption of service as an outcome of the dispute between the public service and the government of the day, nothing else could possibly explain such a strange service disruption. Of course, assuming that this general interpretation is correct I have no idea how exactly to interpret this turn of events. Was the site sabotaged by disgruntled public servants? Was the site taken off-line by the government with the hopes that if fewer people could access the 2006 Census results they would be less upset about the fact that the 2011 Census will have inferior data?

Anyway, hopefully the problems will soon be resolved so that I can figure out what percentage of Newfoundland residents have high school diplomas.

Update: At least one library seems to think that the fact that the website is down is just part of a scheduled maintenance outage. This seems suspicious as no such comment is included on the Statistics Canada splash page and such a comment would have been just as easy to include as was the comment about going to the Census page. And then there is the recommendation that people go to the non-functional Census page. All-in-all there is something very fishy going on, and I am pretty sure 'routine maintenance' is just an all-to-easy cover up.

A Few Quick Notes 471

-We are presently in the midst of a multi-day rainfall. While this has encouraged me to stay inside a little more than I would have otherwise, it really hasn't been too bad. Though I keep expecting heavy rain we have mostly just had relatively light rainfall with periods of heavy misting.

-Though it didn't feel like it, officially we received 53 mm of rain yesterday. Having the forecast and the weather station at the airport instead of in town leads to something of a disconnect between the forecast and reality, as we saw yesterday. I suspect that today's continued rainfall warning, which is this now suggesting "Additional rainfall amounts of 50 to 80 mm are expected," is also likely reflective of the geographic particularity.

-Last night, because we wanted to take advantage of a Video Difference free rental coupon, Jeannette and I rented Mystery Team, a new independent comedy from the US that I first heard about in an interview on The Sound of Young America. Though there were a few moments of somewhat cruder than necessary humor, on the whole the movie was quite enjoyable and funny.

-My SSHRC application has been chewing up some of my time of late, though maybe not as much as it should be. Anyway, I have now completed a second draft. Hopefully with just a few more revisions my application will be ready to submit.

-Last night I prepared beef ribs. Did they ever not turn out. Not only did there seem to be even less meat than on pork ribs, they seemed much fattier and less tasty. I think that in the future I will be giving these a skip. This is a bit of a bummer as I really like beef and was hoping to find a new cut of beef to enjoy.

-I spent much of yesterday studying/reading and plan on spending much of today engaged in similar activities. Actually, because I have been doing stuff like this I have had to dramatically cut down on the number of naps I am taking. I haven't taken so few naps since my junior high days.

Still waiting

While we have had some rain today, we have had nothing approaching levels that would require a warning of any kind. And while the warning hasn't yet been removed, it is worth noting that the forecast for today has been revised to "Rain at times heavy. Amount 15 mm," a drop of 10 mm from this morning's forecast.

Not surprisingly, the rainfall amount include in the rainfall warning, "Rainfall amounts in excess of 50 millimeters are expected," has not been changed. I guess this makes sense, the 15 mm forecast for today and the 40 mm forecast for tonight come much closer to 50 mm than did the earlier forecast that suggested 25 mm today and 40 mm tonight.

Whichever volume of rainfall we eventually receive I am sure that it will be significantly different than whatever any of these forecasts have suggested that it will be.

Consistency

As I mentioned in a recent post, Halifax is presently subject to an Environment Canada rainfall warning. What is notable about the forecast is the lack of consistency of the volume of rain that has been predicted.

In the warning proper it is stated that "Rainfall amounts in excess of 50 millimeters are expected." In the regular Environment Canada forecast a slightly different picture is given and it is suggested that there will be "Rain at times heavy. Amount 25 mm" today.

Of course, the general inconsistency has been further been compounded by a local news outlet who happen to be claiming that rain "up to 75 millimetres [is] possible by day’s end." The best part of this story is that the only individuals quoted as sources are employees of Environment Canada.

What bothers me about all of this is that it must be easier to come up with one number than three? How can we have a national forecaster that seems to be coming up with three, seemingly, unrelated forecasts?

Reality and Art

The first story most recent episode of This American Life deals with key players in a Michigan Tea party. At one point in the story the reporter, while interviewing a subject, happens to record a phone conversation that a recently fired campaign manager has with a member of the campaign team for the Republican candidate. The beauty of this recording is that you basically get to hear the change of position taken the fired campaign manager as well as the willingness of the Republican campaign worker to spread a false story (and I should be clear, I suspect that members of both parties frequently engage in such dealings).

[Embedded audio]

After having listened to this story I recommend that you watch basically any episode of the Thick of It, a great show about British politics. The pace at which positions are reversed, changed, or abandoned in both contexts is amazingly similar. Apparently the writers of the Thick of It really didn't miss the mark by much, which is presumably why the show is so excellent.

(I sure that I should have done a better job drawing out the parallels between the This American Life episode and Thick of It, unfortunately I am a little tired and this thought probably doesn't merit being held until a time when I am a little more rested.)

Traffic shortage/increase

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, but it seems that my three non-sequitur blogs (Red, Green, and Free) are not really getting all that much traffic these days. What's up with this? Aren't people looking for non-sense content? How long will I allow myself to continue creating such garbage content?

On the other side of things, it seems as though Montifax has seen a traffic spike of late. What's up with that? Are people really looking for that the inside dope on my grocery shopping excursions?

A Few Quick Notes 470

-While we are presently only dealing with light drizzle, Halifax is bracing for something of a rain storm tonight and tomorrow. Sadly, as much as I would like Environment Canada to continue their streak of incorrect forecasts, I think that they may be on to something in this case, though I don't know if it will be as bad as they think it will be.

-On Tuesday Jeannette and I played an intramural Ultimate game against the MBA team. Though I think I played relatively well (I scored three of our four points) we managed to lose by a pretty fair margin.

-On Wednesday Jeannette and I, along with a few of our friends, signed up for an indoor Ultimate league for the winter. Hopefully we will soon find out to which teams we have been assigned.

-I attended a very enjoyable talk this afternoon on the subject of John Wendell Holmes, a famous Canadian diplomat and author (not to be confused with porn star John C. Holmes).

-I feel as though I had a few other things to say that are now escaping me, I guess that is fine as I really should be getting back to work.

A Few Quick Notes 469

-Today was both overcast and cool. Fortunately, at least until now, shower and/or flurries have held off.

-The batch of bean soup that I made a few days ago I still alive and kicking even though I have been doing my best to kill it off. Hopefully after another one or two lunches I should be able to put this batch of soup out of its misery.

-Given the relatively cool temperatures that we are experiencing right now I am not particularly looking forward to the intramural Ultimate game that I am scheduled to play tonight. Given that we are scheduled to play the MBA students it would be nice if we are able to pull out a win.

-In the past week I have been quite engaged in TA related activities, not only did I spend a number of hours grading papers, but I also invigilated three exams, and gave a lecture. This later event took place this morning. Given the non-responsiveness of the class I can't really tell how it was received, though I fear that I bored them.

-I guess I should get back to work.