Cold Prickly

Ahoy there Trinidad Express - it appears that you''e taken some booty from a fellow blogger. That's called piracy in some parts o' the world. How can you use a picture from the Internet without at least attributin' the source? Who is the Captain o' the Trinidad Express, and why ha'en't they had someone walk the plank?

Perhaps because they're pirates? Aye, me parrot concurs.

Aye, so will the Copyright Office o' Trinidad and Tobago say somethin'? Perhaps the Media Association o' Trinidad and Tobago? Or will it be lawyers at 20 paces, then?

A pence for an old man o'de sea?

Aye, translation via Talk Like A Pirate Day Garrr...

I've waited for the last posting on this issue for the reason that I had no clue as to what was actually said. Nicholas Laughlin cleared this up for me in dropping a link to me on Facebook - the transcript of what was said can be found here.

After writing the Prime Minister an Open Letter on the topic, then following up, I'm almost done with this issue. To keep it nice and clean, we'll do this in point form: { Read more }

• While I am not a fan of commentary during newscasts, as is (was?) apparently available on 94.1 FM, I recognize that no broadcast of news is the same and that there is an option for people to change the channel or turn the radio off. More than likely, people who were listening to the broadcast enjoy that sort of commentary. Judging the people who provide the commentary during the newscast is also judging the people who enjoy the commentary. Thus, the suspension of the involved employees of 94.1 FM after a visit by the Prime Minister is a strong signal to listeners of 94.1 FM. You can't have it anymore. Squelched.
• The visit by the Prime Minister, as the 'spirit moved him', to a radio station is not appropriate for a person who holds an office that can (and apparently does) be used to intimidate the media.
• Management at 94.1 FM seem derelict in their responsibilities if the people suspended never received punitive measures before. If I were suspended by the management there and I had a clean record, you can bet your bottom CNG container that I would be seeking legal counsel. I've never owned a radio station before. That could be fun.

There's a lot being written of the present economic crisis. Frankly, if it weren't for Alex Rollin and his Facebook updates (he hasn't blogged on his site), I wouldn't have thought as much about it. It seems surreal, especially from my own context.

After getting the turbo gaskets replaced on the Mazda B2500 Turbodiesel, I ended up visiting an Uncle who - true to form - was watching the BBC because he has a tendency to know when to turn on Aunt Beeb. He and I sat there and watched the $700 million bailout bill pushed by George W. Bush fail, and he asked me what I thought. I basically said that I didn't know what to think. The word 'socialist' kept getting used in conjunction with the bill, and I honestly don't think that the Bill itself was socialist as much as it was a Third World answer to a First World problem. My gut told me that the response to the bill, demonstrated by the vote which turned it away (228 nay, 205 yeah as I recall), was a democratic surge of socialism itself. 'The meek shall inherit the earth', but who wants a blue marble so deeply in debt?

The tongues of Aunt Beeb's analysts danced across the screen, discussing why the bill failed. They spread their net and found a few folk who had a few interesting things to say. One man said that (paraphrased), 'everyone wanted the bill but no one wanted to vote for it'. In essence, everyone wanted to get rid of this debt but no one wanted to bail out the people who created the problem in the first place. { Read more }

Via China Goes On Offensive In Its Crackdown On Critics:

Chengdu, China (AHN) - The Chinese government issued a statement on Sunday decrying criticisms of the crackdown in Tibet, calling United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "habitually bad tempered," while accusing the Dalai Lama of causing the pro-independence protests in Tibet...

Hmm. That Dalai Lama guy has great powers indeed if he can make people rise up to China from India. What was it? Telepathy? Astral traveling? How, exactly, did the Dalai Lama do this?

Is there a special insurrection Buddhist dance the world is not aware of?

And what, exactly, is bad about pro-independence protests? And if this is all a big misunderstanding, why is the news being censored? Giggles? Or is it that any recordings of the Dalai Lama astral traveling and inciting pro-independence protests some form of China National Security Issue?

Seriously - they'd be better off accusing Brad Pitt of being the cause of the pro-independence protests in Tibet. At least his superhuman powers have been documented on film. OK. Sorry. that wasn't serious.

I think they must have hired a Western PR agency to actually try this. It reeks of all the insane subterfuge marketers try to get away with (and largely do!).

Xinhua accused China's critics of wanting to smear China's reputation.

No, no, China's critics don't have to smear China's reputation. China is doing it all by itself. And as far as the US and EU supporting the Olympics despite the outcry about this issue... well, what can we expect from the groups that wander around, pay the UN no mind if it is inconvenient and go around invading countries looking for magic carrots? { Read more }

As usual, I find myself in a very odd situation. On one hand, I've seen and discussed ambitious projects within the synthetic world of Second Life, such as Play2Train. On another, I have seen my post on Where There is No Doctor being made freely available become one of the most popular pages on this site. As a former Navy Corpsman who did a lot of hands on patient care in hospital and field environments, I have a very sincere respect for the patients and the people who still take care of them. And on still another, I have close ties to medicine in the Caribbean and South America - relatives and friends in the medical profession.

And as someone who has been involved in medical/disaster handling (not management! no one manages disasters...), enough so to gain some obscure mention here and there, I have always been somewhere on the edge of medicine and technology - from repairing the pulse oximeter in the ED or doing emergency surgery on the ED coffee maker to giving the old 12 lead a well placed slap next to the power supply to get it going (mechanical recalibration) to developing a database to deal with the medical readiness of 2000 Marines. { Read more }

I first saw it here - something that came up on my multiple RSS feeds and email alerts. I don't remember which it was, but I remember passing over it without too much consideration. It references a petition here for the removal of images of Muhammad from the Wikipedia.

A hornet's nest if ever I saw one. Tonight, with some time to spare, I ended up coming across the same blog with a separate entry - the posting of the Wikipedia's reply on the Prophet Muhammad.

My first thought was, this is how wars start. This isn't a reference to the Christian-Muslim tension in the world right now, which is mainly due to extremists of either side. Its the matter of two sides with different perspectives not being able to find a middle ground. I decided to check out the appropriate Talk Page to see what had been said, and who said what, and so forth. Despite poor English, the request to remove the images was polite and based from an Islamic perspective. I do not know that it is a majority or minority perspective, but it most certainly is a perspective of someone who is Muslim. There are only 61 signatures on the petition. And the 'NPOV' issue of the Wikipedia - which it usually doesn't have in the English Wikipedia due to the bias I have seen for things unfamiliar to editors and administrators - is hardly a good response.

I'm a Buddhist. Not a Muslim. I don't know that I could speak for anyone of the Muslim faith even if I wanted to. And I don't know that the Wikipedia should either, if you take my point. { Read more }

Today, the sky cleared after days of rain and I decided to hike San Fernando Hill - not the human thoroughfare, but the back areas that used to be my haunts. I recall going up there with a short cutlass, a knife, some string, a slingshot, matches, water and some pepper sauce and salt wrapped carefully in some aluminium-foil. Should I have gotten hungry, there were fruit trees - a really nice mango tree, too, full of hornets. Should a snake wander chance by, it made a quick meal over an impromptu spit. Yes, I did, and it was pretty good.

In those days, climbing San Fernando Hill allowed one solitude, silence, and the ability to observe a nature which was only rudely destroyed on the other side of the hill, where the former quarry now is. Many is the time that I sat up there, finding new areas to climb or even new places to swim.

Now, I have a small cafeteria that sells snacks and drinks with throbbing base coming from hidden speakers. Whatever will I do with my slingshot? But this, you see, is 'reforestation' and I am an alien in this environment. I get ahead of myself...

The Trip Up

I had wandered up through my old trails, stopping to note where humans and animals had been. On the way up, I encountered a Copper-rumped Hummingbird who was patient enough until I got within 10 feet of it. It then decided we should part ways. I need to get faster at the manual focus on this camera. { Read more }

Dear TSTT,

I was wondering if you could spare a moment from your busy schedules to address some of my concerns. Since it is impossible to get any answers directly from anyone outside of your normal business hours, and since even then the answers are unintelligibly consistent when it comes to some of these issues, it seems fitting that I write an open letter. After all, I cannot even get Google.com to resolve through your Domain Name Servers right now. I haven't been able to since last night. Oddly, my site comes up just fine - so it stands to reason to me that this is a clear sign.

I'm supposed to write something.

I know, it's Sunday, you think I should be out at the beach - where significant parts of you may be. But I am trying to get some things done with the internet connection that I have been paying TSTT for since about 2001-2002. We've come a long way in 6 years, if we don't count the initial 6 months it took between ordering an ADSL connection and actually receiving one.

To make this simpler, I'll do this in point form. This will be easier for the digestion of the bureaucracy, as well as allowing at least one of your consumers a voice - namely myself. However, I do speak with the authority of those I know with ADSL connections, so I do not count myself alone. { Read more }

• DNS resolution is a consistent problem. Today, it is a horrible issue - but most of the time it is simply money in the pocket of my dentist, who has suggested that I wear a mouth guard while using the internet connection that you provide. The tooth grinding, especially bad for my molars, is especially annoying when a site will not immediately be resolved - so reloading has to be done almost all the time. I imagine a world where I could type in a link or click a hyperlink and be able to get to a site without much in the way of tooth damage.