A Post for All Seasons

Okay, people, we have a lot to cover.

First, the domestic cat. If you look it up, you will find that the domestic cat, Felis silvestris catus, is a highly effective predator which was probably domesticated in order to keep rat and mouse populations in check. It may also tell you about the cat's agility, balance, and effective weaponry in the form of retractable claws and sharp teeth. What it may not tell you is something I have been seeing a lot of lately, that cats are the absolute f*cking craziest animals in all creation. Usually, insanity is a result of advanced age, disease, poisoning, or prologued psychological stress. As far as I can tell, cats are born this way and require certain organs to be removed before any reasonable behavior can be achieved, and even then their logic is hard to fathom.

Next, one of the interesting things about living in Ottawa is the sheer number of dignitaries which are in town at any given time. Aside from numerous embassies, state visits seem to be very frequent as of late. As soon as the welcoming flags for King Carl Gustav XVI of Sweden came down, downtown traffic was severely disrupted by a motorcade centered around visiting statesmen from Mexico. I speculate that the Ottawa Police must have a special unit just to deal with events like this, otherwise patrols in the outlying areas would become very thin indeed.

In sports, the Ottawa Senators have remembered where the net is, scoring 21 goals in the last three games, versus 11 in their first 6. Which, of course, brings us to a more important stat, that is their record against arch-nemesis (rival is too light a word) Toronto Maple Leafs, a tidy 3-1. Can I hear you say YEAH!

In tech, Firefox 2.0 is now available. Notable improvements: links that normally launch in a new window now open a new tab by default (for those of you who use IE exclusively, tabs are a means of displaying multiple pages in one window, laid one on top of the other, to avoid cluttering the taskbar and desktop. This feature will be introduced in IE7 whenever the hell Microsoft feels like releasing it). An inline spell-checker has been added, the integrated search (another feature not available in IE without an add-on such as Google Toolbar) has been improved, and the overall look has been cleaned up slightly. Unfortunately, many themes and plug-ins designed for earlier Firefox releases do not work with 2.0, but I'm sure they'll come along, what with open source code, a host of developer tools, and a strong developer community. In short, eat it, Microsoft! Firefox is still a superior product, made with 96.5% less evil then the next leading brand.

Apparently the Universe has "Property of USA" Stamped on it

Now, I don't mean to pick on Americans disproportionately, I believe in offending everyone equally (i.e. the George Carlin school of political correctness), but frankly, the policy down there is big, bad, and ugly. I mean its terrifyingly bad.

Bush et al. have announced a new space policy that aims to curtail access to space for nations deemed to be enemies of the United States. Inherent conflict: The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty), which the US has signed and ratified specifically prohibits the claiming of any space resource by any nation as these are considered the common heritage of mankind. By the same token, I find it very unlikely that the United States can dictate who has access to space, any attempt to do so would run afoul of international law. Also, the new policy rejects any treaties that would prevent the weaponization of space by the US. But the weaponization of space is explicitly forbiden by the treaty, this violates international law, no if, ands, or buts. Once again American policy grossly oversteps the bounds of what is actually US juristiction.

What propted this might be the newly minted manned spaceflight capability of China. Perhaps by trying to effectively claim space for the United States, Washington thinks that it can prevent China from becoming the next superpower, but I'm afraid that die is cast.

This whole issue has been very under the radar, the new policy was published on October 6 with as little fanfare as possible. It becomes another example of a government which has become so corrupt and power-mad that it no longer recognises that some things simply aren't under its control.

This Nukes for You

Here's a language issue with a nice destruction-of-civilisation twist. North Korea has threatened a second nuclear weapon test and has called UN sanctions imposed against it a "declaration of war." First of all, the UN is intended to represent all of the countries of the world and therefore cannot declare war on anybody, its a bit like declaring war on your left middle toe. It also accused the US of using the UN as a tool to enforce its hegemony. Well, it is true that the American government only goes through the UN when the Security Council is in a giving mood, but really if the US wants to enforce its hegemony, it needs only to remind Pyongyang of one simple fact. North Korea has, what, 20 devices at most and no way of delivering them to US territory (excepting Alaska), and it may yet be years before the technology is developed for the weapons to become a genuine threat to the continental US. The US, meanwhile, is in possesion of about 10 000 nuclear weapons, about 8 000 are attached to a land-based missile, submarine or bomber capable of delivering it anywhere in the world. Not that the US would use its big stick, North Korea, I think, is viewed by the US as a backward little nuisance that wants to play with the big boys. The only tangible threat outside of South Asia that anyone has been able to come up with is American security analysts who have suggested that North Korea may give a weapon to terrorists. Ah, terrorists, the great excuse for the culture of fear that has allowed the US government to do some spectacurlarly bad foriegn policy (Afganistan, Iraq, etc) and keep its own population in a nice, obeidient roll-over-when-we-tell-you-to state. If anything, North Korea should thank the US for the idea, maybe it will make up for that whole axis of evil thing.

Taking it to the people.

G'day and welcome, all, to Rantings of a Mad Engineer. I'm Colin, the aformentioned Mad Engineer. Mostly I'm mad crazy, but sometimes just mad angry. I've had a blog through MSN for over a year now, but due to the fact that I talk about personal stuff on that blog access is restricted to a few friends.

Now I've decided to take my general ranting to the people! Also included will be random news, views, opinion, music and movies and whatever else I feel like.

All aboard the crazy train! Boom-boon-boon.