blogx
musings of mark since 2001

The “Dock Dance” was this evening, the usual crowd showed up and they had the usual antics while the usual band played the usual songs. Noisy night around here, it’s 3:00 am and the stereo is still going upstairs but most of the people have left that were hanging out. Be nice to have a place to live that’s not so public and noisy, the public bathroom that I use is a mess from people having showers etc. Put a cup of coffee on and it’s an early start I guess, awake now anyways so might as well get something done.

The MainstreamMedia has picked up on a nickname for Marc Emery, the “Prince of Pot” described as such literally on the search warrant, as he was recently arrested while visiting back east along with having his store and two associates in Vancouver picked up by balaclava clad undercover officers. He faces charges of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, conspiracy to distribute seeds and conspiracy to engage in money laundering. Today, about 200 protesters showed up at the shop, among the comments to the television news staff attending the scene: “I’m an American, and I just wanted to visit our latest colony and see if all our Canadian slaves are behaving in a properly respectful way, because that’s really what happened yesterday—the Canadian police became a branch of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency).”

imho, Canadians are still a bit more interested in politics than those down south, maybe why they give some ink to Simon Fraser’s Neil Boyd who correctly thinks the case raised some sovereignty questions. “I think you have to put aside Mr. Emery and his politics and look at the bigger issue, which is, to what extent should Canada alter its priorities and resources with respects to policing cannabis?” he told CTV News Vancouver.

There seems to be some pure humanitarian issues at stake here too. If he is extradited to the US he will face iirc, 10 years to life in prison on the manufacturing charge alone, whereas in British Columbia, the province he was arrested in, judges in certain cases have reduced two year sentences for cultivation as “too harsh”. Canadian prisoners in the United States on drug offenses are often repatriated to Canada, where they are quickly released because of more lenient drug sentences north of the border, but clearly extradition and making an example is the goal of the DEA in this case. Indeed, “To what extent should we extradite people to face penalties that are substantially more than we would impose?”, given the current mood and attitudes in this Province towards pot.

Although the US likes to have people extradited to their own country when politically convenient, sometimes when people commit crimes in other countries it’s a differently story according to an article in the BBC.

There was an article in the Vancouver Sun by Vaughn Palmer last weekend, about how quiet it was around the BC Legislature this summer. It could be because they kept things so quiet this spring. Mentioned in the article, iirc, is the truckers’ strike, the nurses and doctors, the upcoming Olympics costs, etc. etc. but not a thing about our aboriginal folk.

For two months in the spring, Haida and non-Haida alike blocked roads and halted major logging on Haida Gwaii.
The Island Spirit Uprising, as it was called, pushed the provincial government to begin high level negotiations with the Haida leadership.

Elsewhere in the MM news: A First Nations activist arrested at gunpoint in Vancouver last month has been elected to a senior position with one of B.C.’s largest aboriginal organizations. David Dennis of Port Alberni is the new vice president of the United Native Nations, which represents nearly 100,000 off-reserve Aboriginal people in B.C. One thing the arrest and then release does show, is some light on the INSET or “Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams”. An odd branch, for some reason Youth and Aboriginal Communities are under the same priorities as Organized Crime, Terrorism, and International Policing.

I always thought England was a little more civilized than the US, but one has to wonder after what has happened over there to a Brazilian fellow who was shot dead just for being who he is. Cahal Milmo and Tom Phillips: “His fate was apparently decided by a cruel combination of improbability: that, used to the heat of Brazil, he should find a cool English summer’s day too cold to dispense with wearing a bulky jacket. Secondly, his skin colour might make him appear Asian to his pursuers. Thirdly he shared a communal entrance to a block of flats with a suspected member of the terrorist cell that carried out last Thursday’s failed attack on London’s transport system.” And they plan on shooting more innocent people.

Hmm, I wear a coat here during the summer myself at times, better make sure not to get on the ferry wearing one! At least they aren’t still restricting what we can see here, as long as you aren’t a Telus employee and have a Telus as your Internet Service Provider that is. Google has been by there already slurping up their guestbook 117 entries so far.

Microsoft has announced their new name for the OS so far called Longhorn, and have made it “Vista”. From what the FAQ on ZDNet says about the presentation from Jim Allchin, this is an underwhelming event for computer users. Longhorn, now Windows Vista, may be arriving more slowly than expected and it might not have everything that was once planned, but Windows chief Jim Allchin maintains “It’s a big deal.” As alterego says,” ‘It’s a big deal’ for Microsoft, not for Windows users.”

It was really starting to sound like another round of vaporware from Redmond, but they insist the thing will ship in 2006 sometime. Most of it just sounds like them trying to catch up with the other guys with features that have already been invented, the spin of course is that it’s all brand new and exciting with Microsoft.

The article first mentions the company has dropped plans to include its all-new WinFS file system, which isn’t really new at all and the idea was first, (unsuccessfully), tried by Jean Louis Gassee with the BeOS PC operating system back in ‘94 if I’ve got the facts right. And Google’s desktop search is already touting an Enterprise Edition.

Security is supposed to be better, just about anything would be better than their WinNTXP or any Win machine for that matter as it is now. Additionally, there’s a new secure boot-up process that helps prevent someone from gaining access to your data if your PC is lost or stolen, nothing new to Mac and *nix users, they have been password protecting their files from the beginning, ditto with encryption of said files.

The visual changes are a pure rip-off from Apple and Sun, starting with Quartz Extreme (the windows even look similar), being rewritten and a concept straight from Sun’s Looking Glass

Supposed to be easier to network too, maybe they will finally catch up to Mac on that one and Windows users will be able to plug and play to their network finally. And finally, let’s not forget to pay homage to the PC manufactures out there, 512MB of memory is going to be the minimum and Ghz range processors only of course. XP is handled on six compact discs, wonder what kind of behemoth has been created this time around, it just doesn’t make sense that their OS is better just because it’s bigger and they aren’t doing anything new.