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musings of mark since 2001

   The normally staid Financial Times from Britain had this to say about the $320B tax cut put through in the US last week: “The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum”. It should be almost painfully obvious to anyone now that the Republicans plan to squeeze out the poor by deliberately setting the country up for a fiscal crisis in which popular social programs could be cut. While dutifully making a small amount of noise, the Democrats which are all well to-do ex-business men (and a woman or two) themselves, are just letting it happen as it won’t really affect them or their children.
   The present administration is ably showing it’s disregard for the law in other ways than holding people in Cuba without due process right at home as well. When the House majority leader Tom Delay tried smoking a cigar in a restaurant on federal property last week, the manager told him to put it out because smoking on federal property was against the law. His negative response according to the Washington Post: “I am the federal government”. You can read more at the New York Times article: Stating the Obvious

Bowen Island has it’s own take-off on the Survivor game from TV taking place at the BI Pub. Hopefully the earthman will read this little piece and not feel dissed that I’ve broken out his frames by giving a direct link to the Survivor page here: survivor.html I was all over the pub site trying to find an update to the game and was about ready to send him an email when by chance happened to click on the right place, think I can find that link again though? Hence the frame breakout.
The first round went really well, everyone had a good time and although it was kind of sad the non-islander got the boot at the beginning it’s also sorta fitting and no one is really out of this game because everyone that’s left after 5 weeks gets to vote on who is the winner in the sixth week.
Brenda did well, she volunteered herself for the hot seat on the card game by going first and won handily, the girls (yes it turned out to be a girls against the guys team thing, not sure why they did that ‘cause it loses a bit of the male/female dynamics ultimately by bringing it to the lowest level, imho of course ended up having to pick one of their own at Tribal Council when immunity was won by the Shurwana Tribe. Lots of good fun and looking forward to the next one!

I get lots of emails from people that need help with some aspect of their computer, I should have been filing these puppies all along so I could write a book about it huh? Here’s a typical one, names were changed to protect the innocent eh

   Got a little bit more time now, was just out the door on the way to the pharmacy in that last email. Besides the “refresh” button, another thing to do to help would be to clear your Internet History file out once in a while. You can even make it a smaller size etc.
   Looking at the source of your email, looks like you are on a Mac so I can’t really tell what you are using for a browser, it could be Mozilla, Netscape, or Internet Explorer. In IE, to clear your history, click on Tools (at the top), then Internet Options, then the “General” tab should be showing on the new window that opens up. About 1/2 way down you will see a button to the right that says something like, “Clear History”. Go ahead and do it. You may also want to reduce the number of days or size of your Internet temporary files too, all done from that same panel.
   Hope that helps some, that link I sent earlier is for a page on the “inside” of the site that has your listing. If you can’t click on it (not knowing how your machine is set up eh), just copy and paste it into your browser address field and you should be on your way.
   It’s too bad that we weren’t able to purchase the whole biac.com, .net, and .org domain names but the council is happy that they were at least able to get the four letter combo from the Canadian domain registrars to keep it short. The thingee that is crashing your computer is a “domain squatter”, which is a person that bought lots and lots of four letter combinations back in the olden days and then he just sits on them hoping that someone wants one of them badly enough they will pay big bucks for it.
Unfortunately for us, he’s got a mistake in the Javascript on the website that you get when you type in http://biac.com and that is what is causing your browser to crash. What I am trying to get you to do with the refresh button and clearing the History is to clear his malformed computer code out of your machine, hopefully it’s worked for you Give me a call if you still have problems, I’m kinda not available tonight, but try anyways. For sure you can get me in the am.
   
   Just another day in the life of a computer geek eh

   Another Victoria Day long weekend about to draw to a close and amazingly, the weather here has been great all weekend with today and yesterday simply superb. Dad and Margaret made it over early on Sunday and we had almost the whole day to explore the island features. After getting the highway out on my sundeck and admiring the garden and view we visited Rivendell, numerous beaches, the Opa Tree, Xena, the commercial districts, and even included some time at the Snug for lunch while watching the ferry line up in the sunshine. We had a great dinner of fish ‘n chips at Doc Morgans and relaxed the evening away at my home watching the ocean and talking.
   This morning it was breakfast at the Bed and Breakfast they stayed in and they made a good start back to Kelowna on the 9:35 ferry which at their pace would put them back in Kelowna around supper time. They really enjoyed themselves, and it’s so much fun to show off this chunk of rock I live on!
   Another chance this afternoon to be an ambassador for Bowen Island when I met Joanna, who’s thinking of moving out here herself. We ended up on September Morn beach and were able to walk a long way down with a low tide out this afternoon. Hope she decides to do it, we talked a lot sitting on a log and she’s attuned to the spiritual nature of the island and would really fit in well here, (she’s quite attractive too!).
   Lots of boaters out for the weekend also of course, the ferries had to let loose with a blast from the whistle more than a few times warning small craft out of the way. Saw one lone kayaker heading all the way to the continent as well through all the traffic, it sure looked like a long way in such a tiny boat. Think I’ll stick closer to the shore myself when it�s my turn

When NASA was preparing for the Apollo Project, it took the astronauts to a Navajo reservation in Arizona for training.
 

One day, a Navajo elder and his son came across the space crew walking among the rocks. The elder, who spoke only Navajo, asked a question. His son translated for the NASA people: “What are these guys in the big suits doing?”

 
One of the astronauts said that they were practicing for a trip to the moon. When his son relayed this comment the Navajo elder got all excited and asked if it would be possible to give to the astronauts a message to deliver to the moon.

 
Recognizing a promotional opportunity when he saw one, a NASA official accompanying the astronauts said, “Why certainly!” and told an underling to get a tape recorder. The Navajo elder’s comments into the microphone were brief.

 
The NASA official asked the son if he would translate what his father had said. The son listened to the recording and laughed uproariously. But he refused to translate. So the NASA people took the tape to a nearby Navajo village and played it for other members of the tribe. They too laughed long and loudly but also refused to translate the elder’s message to the moon.
 
Finally, an official government translator was summoned. After he finally stopped laughing the translator relayed the message:
“Watch out for these Guys – they have come to steal your land.”