Don’s Blog

The past month has been really good for quotes from politicians…my two favourites are below:

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney:

"I don’t know what conspiracy," Mr. Kenney said yesterday on CTV’s Question Period.

"Would this be between the Conservative party, the NDP, three Filipino nannies and the Toronto Star [the newspaper that first reported the story]," I mean I can hear the black helicopters hovering overhead. I think it’s unfortunate and undermines credibility when people start talking about conspiracy theories."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/article1140133.ece

Gov. General Michelle Jean:

Jean said the seal hunt is a vital part of the Inuit economy that is done in a sustainable and respectful way.

She said people are probably too conditioned by modern life and forget where food comes from.

"When I eat beef, I am totally aware that eating beef is also … a once-living thing.

"Vegetarians make a choice in their life. I haven’t made this choice. When I eat lamb, I know that I am eating a lamb. When I eat veal, I know that I am eating a veal. Those, too, are very cute animals."
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/05/27/jean-hunt.html

Yes…I know my sense of humour probably isn’t quite mainstream—but I’m not the only one.

Some of you will appreciate the cartoons at: xkcd.com

Most of my blog reading is with specific goals in mind (IT subjects, travel, economics, etc.)

However there is one blog that I subscribe to purely for entertainment purposes:  http://thisisindexed.com/

A sample of the humour can be found below (and yes there’s a new index card drawing posted everyday.)

When you live in a country where you’re not perfectly fluent in the language (and reading isn’t really popular activity) you’re always on the look-out for English language magazines.  Fortunately, there is a source available and they actually are offering one-year subscriptions to the electronic editions of numerous different magazines for free!

More details at:  http://goreadgreen.com/category/subscriptions/featured/

(It’s not quite the same as “real paper” but you do get to view every page of the magazine..)

A while ago I posted a list of my favourite audio programs/podcasts on the internet. 

It’s now time to add two more to that list:

TVO’s Big Ideas

Broadcast on TVO this program is also available as both an audio and a video podcast it bills itself as "TELEVISION FOR PASSIONATE THINKERS"…

The Economist Audio Edition

The entire content of each week’s edition of The Economist is converted to audio format and available for download/listening to.  Unfortunately the entire contents are only available to subscribers—but a few audio/video podcasts are posted each day here.