Happy New Year

Best wishes in 2004!

A great exit strategy

St. Paul's aging congregation decides to close early and share its resources with charities and a school. Kind of cool.

As Face of Poor Changes, So Do Food Baskets

From the NY Times

For years, public and nonprofit food assistance programs have been reporting a sharp rise in the number of working families using their services. But now, as working families are becoming as common visitors as the indigent elderly at the city's soup kitchens and food pantries, many program officials say an ambitious shift is under way in how food for the needy is delivered.
The conventional answer of a box full of donated canned fruit, rice and beans, and the odd piece of eggplant is being supplemented, and in some cases replaced with new options: complete premade meals for takeout, for example, or frozen family-size portions of chili and spaghetti sauce.
Driving the shift in strategy, experts and providers say, is a familiar social and economic phenomenon: the growing numbers of working poor turning up at the soup kitchens and pantries, in most cases single mothers with children, are so busy juggling jobs, commuting and child care that they have little time to cook the food they are given. "The face of poverty is a working woman with two children," said Robert Egger, the founder of D.C. Central Kitchen and an advocate for rethinking what goes into a charity food basket. The options most of the nation's poor have, he says, are to stand in line for a meal at a soup kitchen or to go to a local church to pick up a box of groceries assembled from donations.

Arctic explorers raise awarness of climate change

An American-led dogsled team headed out on their six-month adventure through the Arctic on Wednesday.
Arctic Transect 2004 will take three dogsled teams carrying six people over more than 5,000 kilometres through the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
"The reason why we're doing this trip is to raise awareness and educate about global climate change," says Canadian Hugh Dale-Harris, one of the members going on the expedition. "What we want to do is really put a face on climate change."
Dale-Harris was a teacher in Nunavut and now lives in Ontario. He says the trip is a special one because he loves dogs and the North, and looks forward to learning from the Inuk community.
The five men and one woman are educators and explorers. They'll head as far north as Pond Inlet on Baffin Island, and end up in Pangnirtung in June 2004.
The group will talk to elders who've seen changes in the environment over the last 40 years.
Dale-Harris says they'll use laptop computers to update their website during their expedition. The website will track their route and provide information on climate change.

The official website

We made foreign policy mistakes: Powell

The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has admitted foreign policy mistakes and sought to assure the outside world that despite the US invasion of Iraq, the Bush Administration's approach "is not defined by pre-emption."
In an article in Foreign Affairs magazine released by the State Department on Tuesday
Mr Powell sidestepped the question of Iraq, but implicitly took issue with his presumed chief rival inside the Administration, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who has dismissed the decades-old concept of military deterrence as a theory that "has been overtaken by events".
Mr Powell presented a different point of view: "As to pre-emption's scope it applies only to the undeterrable threats that come from non-state actors such as terrorist groups," he writes. "It was never meant to displace deterrence, only to supplement it."
The invasion of Iraq undertaken last March with the goal of ridding the country of weapons of mass destruction - none of which have been found - is seen as the first implementation of a 2002 US pre-emption doctrine.
But in his article, Mr Powell argues that "our strategy is not defined by pre-emption".
"Above all, the President's strategy is one of partnerships that strongly affirms the vital role of NATO and other US alliances including the UN," he writes.
He also admits that "it would be churlish to claim that the Bush Administration's foreign policy has been error-free from the start".

Link to the Foreign Affairs article :: It appears that Secretary Powell has some fight left in him. I agree with his words about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Most important, we recognized that there needed to be fundamental reform inside the Palestinian Authority if the forces for peace among Palestinians were to prevail. After it became clear that the United States would not obstruct Israel's efforts to defend itself from Palestinian terrorism, pressures for genuine reform grew within the Palestinian community. This convergence produced the hopeful premiership of Mahmoud Abbas.
Unfortunately, Abbas' efforts were aborted by Chairman Yasir Arafat, and Abbas' successor, Ahmed Qurei, has been obstructed as well. Chairman Arafat has not been a genuine interlocutor for peace; he has been an obstacle to it. Although our hopes for progress have been temporarily disappointed, it is now clear to all where the real problem lies. One way or another, we are bound eventually to get past this problem. Moreover, there is now a solid and growing constituency in Israel that supports prominent Palestinian leaders who genuinely seek an honorable and stable peace. Bleak as things often seem in this conflict, this does represent progress.

His comments about NATO

It is true that we have had differences with some of our oldest and most valued NATO allies. But these are differences among friends. The transatlantic partnership is based so firmly on common interests and values that neither feuding personalities nor occasional divergent perceptions can derail it. We have new friends and old friends alike in Europe. They are all, in the end, best friends, which is why the president continues to talk about partnerships, not polarities, when he speaks about Europe. Some authorities say that we must move to a multipolar world. We do not agree -- not because we do not value competition and diversity, but because there need be no poles among a family of nations that shares basic values. We believe that it is wiser to work at overcoming differences than to polarize them further.

He also talks about the U.S. policy on pre-emptive attacks

It is somewhat odd, therefore, to discover that our foreign policy strategy is so often misunderstood by both domestic and foreign observers. U.S. strategy is widely accused of being unilateralist by design. It isn't. It is often accused of being imbalanced in favor of military methods. It isn't. It is frequently described as being obsessed with terrorism and hence biased toward preemptive war on a global scale. It most certainly is not.
These distortions are partly explained by context. The NSS made the concept of preemption explicit in the heady aftermath of September 11, and it did so for obvious reasons. One reason was to reassure the American people that the government possessed common sense. As President Bush has said -- and as any sensible person understands -- if you recognize a clear and present threat that is undeterrable by the means you have at hand, then you must deal with it. You do not wait for it to strike; you do not allow future attacks to happen before you take action.
A second reason for including the notion of preemption in the NSS was to convey to our adversaries that they were in big trouble. Instilling a certain amount of anxiety in terrorist groups increases the likelihood they will cease activity or make mistakes and be caught. Moreover, some states have been complicit in terrorism not for ideological reasons but for opportunistic ones. It was worth putting the leaders of such countries on notice that the potential costs of their opportunism had just gone way up.
Sensible as these reasons are, some observers have exaggerated both the scope of preemption in foreign policy and the centrality of preemption in U.S. strategy as a whole. As to preemption's scope, it applies only to the undeterrable threats that come from nonstate actors such as terrorist groups. It was never meant to displace deterrence, only to supplement it. As to its being central, it isn't. The discussion of preemption in the NSS takes up just two sentences in one of the document's eight sections.

Twelve people falsely accused of ritualistically abusing foster children

From the Toronto Star

Twelve people who were falsely accused of ritualistically abusing three foster children more than a decade ago were themselves the victims of a malicious prosecution , a judge has ruled.
Richard Klassen and 11 others were charged in 1991 with abusing the children in bizarre and demonic ways - forcing them to eat eyeballs, drink blood, participate in orgies and watch newborn babies get skinned and buried.
Saskatoon police called it the "scandal of the century" at the time, but most of the cases never made it to trial. Charges were stayed and the children recanted their accusations.
Klassen and the others sued the investigators and, today, Queen's Bench Justice George Baynton ruled in the plaintiffs' favour.
"The case was labelled by the media as the 'scandal of the century'," Baynton said in his ruling.
"The real scanda, however, is the travesty of justice that was visited upon 12 of those individuals, the plaintiffs in the civil action, by branding them as pedophiles, even though each of them was innocent of the horrendous allegations and criminal offences charged against them."
The ruling applies to three of the four defendants in the civil lawsuit: The lead investigator - Saskatoon police Supt. Brian Dueck, who was a corporal when the case broke; a therapist, Carol Bunko-Ruys; and Crown prosecutor Matthew Miazga.
The case against another defendant, Crown prosecutor Sonja Hansen, was dropped.
Baynton cited several reasons why the prosecution was malicious, including a lack of reasonable cause.
"In my view, proceeding with charges in such an extraordinary case in the absence of reasonable and probable cause constitutes a strong presumption of malice," Baynton wrote.
He said evidence suggested Dueck was "blinded by his zeal to turn the wild allegations of the Ross children into a high-profile case that would portray him as a diligent and unrelenting protector of abused children.''

A Happy New Year from your friendly neighborhood neo-conservatives

Am I the only one that finds this stuff scary.

President George W Bush was sent a public manifesto yesterday by Washington's hawks, demanding regime change in Syria and Iran and a Cuba-style military blockade of North Korea backed by planning for a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear sites.
The manifesto, presented as a "manual for victory" in the war on terror, also calls for Saudi Arabia and France to be treated not as allies but as rivals and possibly enemies.
The manifesto is contained in a new book by Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and "intellectual guru" of the hardline neo-conservative movement, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter. They give warning of a faltering of the "will to win" in Washington.
In the battle for the president's ear, the manifesto represents an attempt by hawks to break out of the post-Iraq doldrums and strike back at what they see as a campaign of hostile leaking by their foes in such centres of caution as the State Department or in the military top brass.
Their publication, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, coincided with the latest broadside from the hawks' enemy number one, Colin Powell, the secretary of state.
Though on leave recovering from a prostate cancer operation, Mr Powell summoned reporters to his bedside to hail "encouraging" signs of a "new attitude" in Iran and call for the United States to keep open the prospect of dialogue with the Teheran authorities.
Such talk is anathema to hawks like Mr Perle and Mr Frum who urge Washington to shun the mullahs and work for their overthrow in concert with Iranian dissidents.
It may be assumed that their instincts at least are shared by hawks inside the government, whose twin power bases are the Pentagon's civilian leadership and the office of the vice-president, Dick Cheney.
Such officials prevailed over invading Afghanistan and Iraq, but have been seen as on the back foot since the autumn as their post-war visions of building a secular, free-market Iraq were scaled back in favour of compromise and a swift handover of power next June.
The book demands that any talks with North Korea require the complete and immediate abandonment of its nuclear programme.
As North Korea will probably refuse such terms, the book urges a Cuba-style military blockade and overt preparations for war, including the rapid pullback of US forces from the inter-Korean border so that they move out of range of North Korean artillery.
Such steps, with luck, will prompt China to oust its nominal ally, Kim Jong-il, and install a saner regime in North Korea, the authors write.
The authoritarian rule of Syria's leader, Bashar Assad, should also be ended, encouraged by shutting oil supplies from Iraq, seizing arms he buys from Iran, and raids into Syria to hunt terrorists.
The authors urge Mr Bush to "tell the truth about Saudi Arabia". Wealthy Saudis, some of them royal princes, fund al-Qa'eda, they write.
The Saudi government backs "terror-tainted Islamic organisations" as part of a larger campaign to "spread its extremist version of Islam throughout the Muslim world and into Europe and North America".
The book calls for tough action against France and its dreams of offsetting US power. "We should force European governments to choose between Paris and Washington," it states. Britain's independence from Europe should be preserved, perhaps with open access for British arms to American defence markets.

With increased speculation of Colin Powell not being around for a second term, I get increasingly worried about the increased influence of the neo-cons. For me, their game seems increasingly short-sighted and seems to have some long term consequences that are negative for the United States when it is no longer the lone superpower on the block (China) and later when it is one of many powers (Brazil). Being at constant odds with middle powers like France and Germany is not good news for Nato as well. While that may not be a problem for the United States, it will eventually cause other long term allies and friends to choose sides. Instead of unifying, it polarizes which is fine if you are always confident you are going to be on the winning side.

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The Three Postmodernisms by Brian McLaren

Good article on the term postmodernity

Digital Museum Burns to the Ground

Founder of MP3.com on the destruction of the music hosted there (if you hadn't have sold out, this wouldn't have happened)

William Shatner to release new album

It should sell at least a couple hundred copies.

The Edmonton Oilers

Normally I delight in bad things happening the Edmonton Oilers but this year I am finding it hard to delight in their horrible play. The reason is that I won't have the joy of seeing the Dallas Stars knock them out of the playoffs for what seems to be every season for a decade or so. I am going to have to dig down deep and find some joy in their misery soon as I won't be able to do that this post-season. Doh!

Why Good People Quit Seminary

From Off The Map

The Normative Nature of the Traditional Family

Dave Tomlinson writes this in The Post-Evangelical from pages 48-50

...Few subjects, however, better illustrate the differences between traditional evangelicals and post-evangelicals then the family. The big question is, What do we mean by family values? For most evangelicals, family values are associated with a particular model of family--the modern "nuclear" nuclear family. Even though this family model bears little resemblance to the multigenerational, extended family that existed in biblical times it has a kind of sacred status for evangelicals.
For a middle-class evangelical perspective, "family values" means first and foremost the sanctity of marriage--that is, the lifelong commitment of one man and one women within a legally recognized marriage.
Christians of all persuasions agree that a lifelong, faithful partnerships are desirable. They may be less agreement, however, about whether a partnership must be a state-and/or church-sancitoned marriage. The concept of living together without a marriage ceremony has become an accepted social norm. From the evangelical point of view, such arrangements are almost invariably unacceptable, since couples that simply live together are not counted as married and are consequently "living in sin" (though the phrase is somewhat out of vogue). Many post-evangelical, however, are troubled by this simple equation, specially since, from their perspective, many of those cohabiting are Christians as deeply committed to their relationship as any formally married couple--perhaps even more so. In such situations, the desirability of a formal partnership is not what post-evangelicals are questioning. They do question the inflexibility of those unwilling to accept the validity of marriage when it exists in essence even though the traditional, culturally sanctioned marriage ceremonies were not observed.
Scripture nowhere insists on a specific ceremonial model for entering into marriage. In fact, some Scripture obscures as much as it reveals. Issac's marriage to Rebekah, for example, is summed up with a terse description of Issac bringing her to his mothers tent where, we are told, "He took Rebekah, and she became his wife." Talk about cutting the formalities. Even the famous marriage at Cana that Jesus attended is silent about the "ceremony" that presumably took place, if not about the shortage of wine at the reception.
Most evangelicals believe the biblical notion of marriage incorporates at least three basic elements a) the couple "leave and cleave"==that is, they move in together and live under the same roof, b) covenant is created publicaly between then, consisting in vows of faithfulness, and c) the relationship is consumated in sexual intercourse. According to this sort of definition cohabiting couples are only two-thirds married. "Ah yes," I hear people say, "but they are missing the most important ingredient." Perhaps. But might not an announcement to friends and family that they are committing to each other serve as a public covenant, even if the church and/or state isn't involved?

He goes on to say this

My point is not to question the importance of marriage, but to plead for a significant distinction between a casual sexual or cohabiting relationship , and one in which two people are truly committed to each other. As Anne Borrowdale points out, "A cohabiting couple committed to an exclusive, permanent, faithful relationship [is] often said to be fulfilling the conditions of marriage, even though they have not gone through a ceremony. And conversely, the presence of a wedding ceremony in not way guarantees such a relationship. As Karl Barth once said, "Two people may be formally married and fail to live a life which can seriously be regarded as married life. And it may happen that two people are not married and yet, in their precarious way, live under the law of marriage. A wedding, he continues, "is only the regulative confirmation and legitimization of a marriage before and by society. It does not constitute marriage" Adrian Thatcher makes a similar point: "The ceremony is the means of public recognition of a marriage relationship that already exists."

Just one of the more controversial sections of The Post-Evangelical. I think he has some good points. What difference does a piece of paper from the Government of Saskatchewan play in the sacred covenant of marriage? I am not sure it has a huge role. When Mark looks back at the kind of father he watched me be and how he saw I treated Wendy, I don't think he will take into consideration my legal status but rather what kind of man I was and how I loved his mother (provided he wan't switched at birth). That is what I think Barth is getting at with his quote. I am not sure that is the point and I think the church missed it a bit but being the administrators of the paperwork for the civil authorities. There is something sacred about a covenant before God and I think we miss that. The government paper is a big deal but not the most important deal. For me the bigger issue isn't whether or not the Government of Saskatchewan says I am married (which I help administrate) but the covenant before God and those witnesses I said it in front of. The question is, "what does that covenant look like?" Does it have to happen in a cathedral? or have to have a valid government marriage license and official present? Is it the oaths? The witnesses? The reception? Now Clement Ng brings up the debate also about the regulatory nature of marriage and has some good points. Have fun with this one. I don't agree with Tomlinson in this one although I think he brings some good points to the floor. Argue amongst yourselves. That's what the comments are for.

Porn Cars Not Welcome at Church

At least not at Mosaic. That being said (linked?), let's not confuse the comments of people inside the church with the stuff written by Erwin McManus. The people upset were not the church leadership but people who attend the church. I pastor a small rural church and what they believe is at times contradictory to what I believe and it is the same in every church.

Spurrier Quits Redskins

He never seemed to want to put in the hours that other successful coaches in the National Football League did. I don't question his mind but the job takes more than eight hours a day.

Switzerland

As I mentioned before, Wendy gave me a copy of Hans Kung's memoirs for Christmas. In the third paragraph of the book, Hans Kung says this

In its manifesto Crossing the Divide, addressed to the UN General Assembly, the "Group of Eminent Persons," convened by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to which I belong, which also includes Richard von Wizacker, Jacques Delors, Nadime Godinmer, Prince Hassan of Jordan, Amariya Sen and a dozen other personalities he stated:

It is ill advised to consider primordial ties as necessarily detrimental to the cosmopolitan spirit. We know that our strong feelings, lofty aspirations and recurring dreams are often attached to a particular group, expressed through a mother tongue, associated with a specific place and targeted to people the same age and faith. We also notice that gender and class feature preeminently in our self-definition. We are deeply rooted in our primordial ties and they give meaning to our daily existence. They cannot be arbitrarily whisked away any more than one could consciously choose to be a totally different person.

Back to the roots then? That is not an easy undertaking. Each individual has a whole web of roots: historical, natural, cultural, spiritual - land, history, nature, family, community, church. So back to the roots it is. Nowadays my relationship with my homeland, Switzerland, is more critical than that of the Catholic conservatives and more conservative than that of the left-wing intellectual critics. And I do not write at such length about my Swiss roots in this chapter out of a sheer delight in telling stories. What I want to do is to answer the question I am sometimes asked, how the Swiss boy (though by no means uncosmopolitan became a world citizen, though by no means alienated from Switzerland)

I am Canadian. I was born in Edmonton and have lived in Western Canada (Rainbow Lake, Calgary, Moose Jaw, and Saskatoon) my entire life (to my chagrin sometimes). As Kung goes on to talk about being Swiss is a major part of his worldview, I am sure being Canadian has a huge influence on my theology as well but what influence. Perhaps we need to really look at what being a Canadian, British, American or whatever means first and really figure out its influence on our worldview. Reading Michael Adams' Fire and Ice put a much clearer idea of what being a Canadian was in my head than ever before. I have been rereading Pierre Burton's amazing book Vimy as well in my understanding of what it is to be a Canadian. Maybe I will never not be a Canadian Christian but if that is the case, I need to better understand how it influences my theology rather that just go blindly on. I think the same needs to be said for those of every country.

Mad Cow

Talking to some ranchers recently who told me that they have been seeing the occasional cow that act like those infected with mad cows for decades. They just used to shoot them. I don't know if they were infected or not but I think it has been around for a lot longer than what anyone says on both sides of the border.

Project 365 is now live

here. Feel free to help spread the word and check back every day for a new picture.

Handwriting Analysis

Apparently I am emotionally restrained

Pure objectivity in response would imply no pull of emotion going either backward or forward. This is the interpretation of an upright writing. Indeed, vertical writers are head-before-heart people. I have only seen a few purely upright samples. (Dr. Spock of Star Trek, who was never emotionally swayed, would have scored a perfect 10 for logic and zip for emotional response.) Assuming the baseline is quite even and that letter size is not erratic, the vertical writer can be controlled, poised, cool, and unbiased. Even though they may feel strongly they can restrain their expression and maintain an objective position. Stay tuned—all the evidence isn't in yet. (We need to look at writing pressure.) They may have explosive moments too since it takes a lot of energy to hold back stored feelings and sometimes the cork pops.

As writing bends even slightly to the right, emotions begin to exert some influence. (Copybook has a slightly rightward slant so that's the slant we were taught.) As it goes more rightward the heart rules more and more and objectivity takes second place. When it is goes to the extreme the writer is being influenced by strong internal responses. The farther to the right the writing slants the more subjective the person is. Without strong controls (such as perhaps, dignity, caution, repression) to hold back expression, the deep right-slanter also will likely show emotions. But if there are many controls in place the feelings are reined in so you might not see such expression. We learn early in life that expressing everything we feel may not be acceptable. So, often we learn to squelch them. "Big boys don't cry, Son."

Whatever.

Project 365

I have been looking for a personal 2004 project to undertake. I have some writing goals and some scholastic goals and even some athletic goals but nothing that got me that excited. When I got an e-mail about what I was going to do with my fotolog, it started me thinking about bringing it back as a showcase of some of my best photography in a photographic community (I find the quality of photographers on Fotolog to be amazing).

Fotopages is a great place to post a lot of pictures and my fotopage has been a lot of fun but doesn't do what I want it to do in the presentation of photographs. So I am creating a new fotolog at www.fotolog.net/project365 and posting a picture a day for all of 2004 (and the last couple of days of 2003). I was thinking of registering a new domain and running Moveable Type or Radio Userland on it (Fusion Publisher doesn't quite do what I want) but I decided to use Fotolog. One of the reasons that I enjoy free services like this is that part of what I enjoy doing is saying, "head to Blogspot/Typepad/Fotopages/Fotolog and start your own as it is super easy." Not that registering your own domain name is that hard but when I suggest it to people, they kind of look at me with horror.

Aircaraft carrier for sale on eBay

Didn't get one for Christmas? Here is your chance.

Saskatoon to Spiritwood and back again

Some scenery pictures are over at the fotoblog and for anyone that thinks that Spiritwood and my church is a hub of postmodernity, check out this poster that was up at the church. Scary thing is that she would outdraw U2 in much of Saskatchewan.

Mini-Me?

Mark now has an imaginary friend named "Coop" that has a much lower voice. You can hear them talking. As long as one of them doesn't tell the other one to start burning things, it should be alright.

My old fotolog

After I posted the link about Heather Champ, I got a couple of e-mail about my old abandoned fotolog. I went over to see if it was still around and found that its comments were full of porn and cleaned it up. I tweaked the colors to line them up with my blog and was thinking of bringing it back. It like my fotopages site as it allows me to post a lot of pictures on it but it doesn't do a great job of presenting a single picture. Any thoughts or ideas? If you have any, let me know in the comments below.

Christmas Card Spam

via Seth Godin

Call me scrooge if you want to, but I can't help but notice a new trend. Call it Christmas Card Spam.
Christmas cards used to be handwritten and thoughtful. They took a lot of time and were thus sent just to people who actually wanted to receive them.
Then the professional printers stepped in and Christmas cards became a bulk item. Businesses get them by the hundreds. Even ordinary folk can count on dozens of cards every year. You might not wanted to get a Christmas card from your Xerox machine service guy, but hey, it only took a second to chuck it. More important, the cost of the card and the stamp made it prohibitively expensive for the Xerox guy to send 1,000 or 4,000 cards.
Today, thanks to the zero-cost nature of email, the equation has been completely reversed. The cost to the sender of a card is essentially zero. The cost to the recipient, however, is significant. This stupid snowman card (who, exactly, is Telemak and why are they writing to me?) took about 20 seconds to receive via my DSL connection. Watching my email take five or six minutes is enough to induce Dickensian feelings, for sure. Telemak must have sent 10,000 cards... costing the recipients about 50 hours of download time.

Joi Ito has some thoughts as well.

Horse Miscarriages in Kentucky

I was reading National Geographic this spring and there was an article on the miscarriages that race horses were having on the horse farms. National Geographic posted an update on their site saying that the precautions that the breeders were taking are making a difference. Apparently it is linked to canker worms.

They also have a 360 degree panorama of Everest online as well.

Indie Allies Meetup

find out more at indieallies.meetup.com

Indie Allies Meetup is coming again soon on January 13, 2004. As you can see, there is over 1800 people signed up worldwide and we are looking for more. If you have signed up, go an vote. If you haven't, it is FREE to join, and takes about 30 seconds to join. It is a monthly gathering of people who are exploring new ideas in Christian thought and expression and want to see what God is doing in their communities. If you haven't signed up, you are missing out on a great time. There is no central agenda, just a meeting over coffee and a beverage to see what's up in your part of the world.

Network Church

Steve Collins has some thoughts on the network church.

Heather Champ

One of the blogs I added the other day to my blogroll was Heather Champ's fotoblog which is the best fotoblog that I have ever seen. I was amazed at some of the pictures. I am just pointing it out to you. Enjoy.

Terror Attack on Vatican?

According to this AP report

Terrorists planned to attack the Vatican (news - web sites) with a hijacked plane on Christmas Day, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was quoted as saying in a newspaper article published Saturday.
Berlusconi told Milan's Libero newspaper of a "precise and verified news of an attack on Rome on Christmas Day."
"A hijacked plane into the Vatican," Berlusconi was quoted as saying. "An attack from the sky, is that clear? The threat of terrorism is very high in this instant. I passed Christmas Eve in Rome to deal with the situation. Now I feel calm. It will pass."
He added, "It isn't fatalism, but the knowledge of having our guard up. If they organized this, they will not pull it off."
Berlusconi gave no further details in the interview about who the intended hijackers were, where the information came from and how the attack was thwarted.

but later Premier Silvio Berlusconi backed away from it and denied part of it. Who knows what's going on?

The blog

The blogroll (the list of websites to the right) is coming back slowly but surely. As much as I like RSS, it is lousy tool for exploring the web and the feedback is that people use my blogroll to explore other sites. I find that my blogroll and to a greater extent my blog is a large collection of bookmarks and I kind of missed it. I was thinking of creating a separate page for those links but I never use them while I find myself exploring other blogrolls quite a bit. The blogroll is getting an overhaul with quite a few new blogs being added.

As you noticed, I am going back to five days of posting on the site. I really liked Dave Winer's Scripting News' redesign but it doesn't work for my site. I am using Blogger while Dave is using Manilla which does handle archives a lot better. While I read Dave Winer's blog every day, if I don't, I just miss it. I am planning to do a lot longer writing in 2004 and I would hate to see it being lost just hours after I posted it.

Mars Hill

Interesting discussion about Mars Hill Church and its beliefs.

How to make a road trip great

from The Morning News.

The end of Christianity Lite?

Article from the Edmonton Sun

Rapture Letters

E-mail you friend a letter after the rapture happens. umm, yeah.

The Most Miserable Place in Saskatoon

Did some running around today, returned a defective gift to Cosco which was very quiet. We did drive by a Wal-Mart store today and it was packed beyond belief. I can't imagine what would posses someone to want to shop in a place that busy. How good can the deals possibly be? Wendy used to work returns at Woolco many years ago and she used to say that people would be so frustrated by the time they got to her that they would just start yelling before she could even talk.

Boxing Day

The tree is down, the lights put away and all traces of Christmas are gone. It was a good run but it's done. The only thing that is different from my childhood is Aunt Beth isn't sitting there smoking away while drinking coffee and criticizing my mom's tea (Mom deserved the criticism). Now the bad part. Mark's Tonka Fire Engine stopped working so we have to exchange it. It brings back bad memories of one Boxing Day returning a stereo for my brother Lee, three different times to Consumers Distributing. Long lineups, poorly trained staff and a ghettoblaster that didn't work...

Wendy wants to go and take some pictures. Neither one of us can think of a really good place so there may or may not be some pictures on the fotoblog later tonight.

The Terror Alert is...

via Boing, Boing

What Does Apple Have to Teach Us About Innovation

From Fast Company

No one knows the cost to Apple to manufacture and market the iPod, and estimates of its operating margin range widely: 2.5% to 18%. But even at iPod's lowest list price of $299--and using a conservative margin estimate of 8%--it's clear that the iPod contributed substantially all of Apple's 2003 estimated operating income of $24.8 million, excluding onetime charges. Without the iPod, Apple is in trouble.

That's why recent releases of competing portable music players take on great significance. Selling for as little as $299, the Dell DJ is about $100 cheaper than the iPod with the same 5,000 song capacity. (A $500 iPod holds 10,000 songs). A third product, a 20-GB unit made by Samsung to work with Napster 2.0, costs $100 less than the 20-GB iPod, or about $300, and boasts a lot more features, including a built-in FM transmitter--to play songs on a car radio--and a voice recorder.

In terms of its innovative legacy, the iPod and iTunes together probably represent Apple's greatest achievement since the introduction of the Apple II in 1977. First, because they mark an important evolution inside Apple as it moves further away from its roots as a PC company and closer to a new role as a consumer-electronics and entertainment shop. Promoting the Mac as the "hub of a digital lifestyle" certainly indicates recognition that Apple may do better to cut its losses in the PC business. In this arena, Apple may benefit from its consumer focus, artful design, and strong brand equity.

ITunes also deserves recognition as Apple's first foray into business-model innovation. It is, after all, nothing but a novel distribution and pricing arrangement. Apple's ability to get users to pay for songs, rather than steal them, also convinced the recording industry that digital-music delivery was worth supporting. Without this leadership, Roxio Inc.'s Napster 2.0 and Dell/Musicmatch might never have negotiated their own digital-rights agreements.

Still, Apple may have learned these important lessons only partially, and too late. The iPod works only with the iTunes service, and has a $0.99 fee-per-song pricing structure. Dell/Musicmatch and Napster offer consumers more choice. Their Windows-based players and services are interchangeable; they sell individual songs and let users listen to (but not keep) as much music as they want for flat fees of less than $10 per month. Meanwhile, the $15 million or so that iTunes has generated in revenue thus far is statistically meaningless even for Apple. And after it has paid the music labels and covered its costs, Apple is left with just pennies per song. Even using a generous operating margin estimate, iTunes won't turn a meaningful profit until it hits Jobs's stated goal of 100 million songs sold. Jobs has said he hopes to do so by April, but at the current rate of 1.5 million songs sold per week, that is more than a year away.

And the competition is swarming. Dell and Samsung are challenging enough, but this business is about to turn into a battle of the titans. Wal-Mart is launching a cut-price online music store of its own--and now Microsoft and Sony, no less, are joining the fray. So Apple's venture into online music is beginning to look like yet another case of frustration-by-innovation. Once again, Apple has pioneered a market--created a whole new business, even--with a cool, visionary product. And once again, it has drawn copycats with the scale and financial heft to undersell and out-market it. In the end, digital music could turn out to be just one more party that Apple started, but ultimately gets tossed out of.

Fighting Skills of the SAS and Special Forces by Terry White

The SAS Fighting Techniques Handbook brings an insider's eye to the most secretive and demanding military techniques used by the SAS (Special Air Service - England's equivalent of the United States Special Forces). Written by a former special-forces commando, this fully illustrated book reveals the amazing tricks of their trade. Each technique or skill is an essential part of the SAS Playbook to dealing with dangerous situations and has been previously unavailable to the public. Learn: survival, evasion, resistance, and escape techniques; how to use the sun's shadow to determine time and location; how to board an aircraft at 130 mph; personal camouflage; how to read footprints in the field; reconnaissance techniques for all environments - beach, woods, jungle; essentials for a SAS survival pack; how to find food and adequate shelter in hostile environments; how to enter a submerged submarine; how to avoid being tracked; how to get your bearings without a compass; and much, much more!

I read this a couple of nights ago. I have so much useless knowledge in my head right now, I don't know what to do. That being said, I now know how to board a plane flying at 130 mph.

Fire him now

Matt Dunigan is the new coach and general manager for the Calgary Stampeders. He want's Danny McManus as his QB. Good move Matt, there is thinking for the short term. Get a QB who is as old as dirt as you build for the future. No wonder why executives around the CFL were baffled by the announcement. They let go the most successful coach and gm in the CFL because one person couldn't do both jobs and then hire a television analyst with no coaching or management experience to what you said that Wally Buono could not do. I am so confused.

Cymric Chapel

One of the most amazing gifts Wendy and I got this year is a wonderful framed picture of one of Cymric Chapel's windows taken by Amanda Johnson. The Johnson's gave it to us. You have to see it to appreciate it. Not only is it a cool picture of one of the chapels at Arlington Beach Camp but it has a great looking frame as well. We have it hanging on the wall now. I love creative gifts like this, especially by people who have way more talent in an area I enjoy.

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone is having a good day. We had a wonderful service and communion at Lakeland Church last night. Some carols, apple sider, and soda were included during the evening. It was a really nice time. I posted a couple pictures over at the fotoblog.

This morning was the weirdest wake up ever. Everyone was sleeping soundly until they awoke with me yelling at the top of my lungs in pain. I had a leg cramp and went from peaceful sleep to screaming in under a second. Wendy had a good laugh at my expense and pain. I have had two leg cramps in my life. I wouldn't wish that on anyone when they are sleeping. Two minutes later I was fine although everyone else looked a little tense.

We all went downstairs and opened our stockings. Mark got a toy Palm Pilot which he was enamoured with, some Mega Bloks, a Tonka fire and rescue truck, a hockey stick, and skates along with a lot of other cool stuff from friends. We flipped the television on to an old Cooper tradition, the Disney Christmas Parade from Walt Disney World. About ten minutes of that and I was thankful that I was not Regis Philbin. I had managed to clean up the mess that was the rink yesterday with about five floodings and some snow so we we took him out to the rink with the skates that the Reimer's got him. He was all over the ice and was rather shocked to find out that he couldn't skate at all. It was really funny as he yelled out in frustration, "I can't skate!". We brought out a stool for him to push but after a while he just sat on the stool and slashed Wendy and I.

The only thing I really wanted for Christmas was Hans Kung's book, My Struggle for Freedom: Memoirs and Wendy was kind enough to get me that. I was also telling her about the old Mattel handheld games that we had as kids and she found one of them for me. It is great. It isn't really hockey but rather some led lights that move around. Not fun when I describe it but I played it a lot as a kid.

After the gifts were open, Leighton dropped by for some cider and for his birthday. He turns 30 today so we wished him happy holiday and a happy birthday!

After LT was off, Wendy, Mark and I wandered out to the street beside the house to play some road hockey. Much slashing, hooking, and high sticking took place with the dog being sent to the penalty box for interferance.

Tonight the three of us are having a quiet ham dinner with turnips. No one around me likes turnips but turnips in butter are amazing. For me, Christmas dinner is all about turnips. The ham and the pie are alright but turnips are what I love!

I posted some pictures of the day here. Have a great evening.

blogroll is back

but smaller, am rebuilding it over the next couple of days. Thanks for the feedback and have a great Christmas!

Random Christmas Eve Thoughts

Last night I had the water on the rink and put a nice finishing coat on it so it would be perfect for Christmas Day. About an hour later I went out and (I later found out) that the same three boys that have smashed and stolen most of the Christmas lights on our block went smashing through the fresh ice which totally ruined the finish on the rink. The bad news is that there won't be skating in the backyard but the good news is that we are in walking distance of a rink so we will take Mark there unless I can get the rink looking good again. The boys that did it come from a home situation that is less then ideal and are out until four and five a.m. most nights. You can hear them running around and around the block. I don't know if they are just not thinking or really have miserable intentions but they have been really brazen in the last couple of weeks. Not everyone is looking forward to a wonderful Christmas.

I got a card from a family member last week. My name was spelled wrong in two places. Thanks for caring.

Took Wendy to work this morning early which got Mark excited as we stopped at the weir across from the University of Saskatchewan and in his words "watched the sun wake up".

No Christmas Party this year but have had a lot of friends over. It seems really hectic this year, more so than usual. That is never good.

We are off to Spiritwood later tonight, first for supper, and then the Christmas Eve service. We get home really late. Not as bad as when the service used to be at 10:00 p.m. We never would leave until after midnight and then two hours of driving on abandoned highway in -20 below weather on Christmas Eve. Not bright. For the last seven years we haven't seen a car over the 200 kms between Saskatoon and Spiritwood.

Some site tweaks

The only posting one days content on the same pages doesn't work. I post late at night and sometimes early in the morning which means there is a good chance that a lot of people will miss the late night posts. So I went back to five days though it may later change to four days of content later on. I am still undecided about the blogroll. It may or may not come back. A lot of sites like Caterina Fake's, Larry Lessig's, Megnut's, and Scripting News don't have blogrolls and I don't really mind them and many people who were on mine said that they didn't get that much traffic from it but I am still mulling that over.