just a thought

I went to this page to see the "huge loss" incurred by Ford Motor co., thinking the losses must be "huge" and dismissed it upon seeing that it lost only $284 million. On further consideration it seems large numbers no longer seem to have a huge amount of significance anymore. Really, what's a loss of a quarter of a billion dollars?

Good grief where have I been?

August 27, "better get at it." Didn't get at it.

The world affords plenty of opportunity for the undisciplined mind to not get at it. The undisciplined mind, in this case of course, is my own mind. There have been plenty of distractions between my last post and now that have weaseled their way in front of me.

Many of those distractions have been superficial in nature, such as the limitless territory of a world wide web filled with curiosities of little significance blended with dolops of insight (someone should develop a banal filter for web-browsers,) and others of a more pressing issue, like merely surviving the rigours of an intense school schedule (made more intense by possessing an undisciplined mind.)

A survival mechanism ought to kick in at some point and shut down access to the internet. With its elimination, productivity on my part would no doubt double. School is the priority and this is where my energy should be concentrated.

However, that mechanism has yet to kick in and it is left to a willful act on my part, which has yet to materialize, to shut the system down. It is time, to cut out the clutter, avoid the information overload and get down to the business at hand: survival.

Fight or flight, the most basic equation of survival is universal in all animals. It is possible to do both at the same time. Consider a Zebra trapped between a hyena and a lion. At the same time the Zebra runs from the lion it can fight the hyena, and don't underestimate the power of a zebra's hoof thrashing into the chest or skull of a hyena.

For me, the internet is the lion and school is the hyena. Although school (publishing a newspaper, writing hard news stories, cutting and editing hard news stories on video and a range of other academic elements that seem to conspire against allowing one time to breath and raising the level of anxiety to hitherto unknown levels) has an intense pressure to it, the internet is by far the more dangerous of beasts when allowed to roam the plains unchecked for it has an ability to suck you in for hours at a time then spit you out with generally no noticible benefit from the experience.

Now I just have to start kicking.

better get at it

I just visited The weird and cumbersome trip through life and noticed that Jon has a link to my blog there. Got me thinking that I've only written two entries through most of the summer and by all accounts look pretty lazy. In fact I am lazy, but that's beside the point. I just have to get at it, I guess.

GT along the Howe Sound Crest trail

Self-fulfilling prophecy

The following quote is compliments of the LA Times website.

"Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world's terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror," (Bush) said. "This mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight."

Didn't the US invasion of Iraq make Iraq the central front in the war on terror?

Warm Springs, Oregon, June 5, 2005. 

Off to the RAO

yehaa.

watch

I'm not entirely happy with some of the editing in this film - some of the footage is repeated - but watching was worth the 18 minutes of my life. Scroll up for Realplayer and Windows Media Player links.

bush says

Recently reported in the Globe and Mail is the response by George W. Bush to "unauthorized" release of pictures of Saddam Hussein in his knickers:

"I don't think a photo inspires murderers. I think they're inspired by an ideology that is so barbaric and backwards that it's hard for many in the Western world to comprehend how they think."

If comprehension within the West of radical Islamists is so lacking then it stands to reason that there would be a similar lack of understanding travelling in the other direction and in fact we in the West likely appear barbaric and backwards to those fighting Americans in the Middle-east.

It strikes me that there is likely a lack of imagination on the part of the Bush administration when it comes to dealing with many of the myriad problems faced by the U.S. abroad. If they are unable to comprehend the backward, barbaric thinking if Islamic radicals then there is likely no solution to the impasse. America will fight on in a misguided attemp to impose order on a chaotic world.

It would be nice if all the nasties in the world could be hauled together in one place and kept an eye on. Australia was settled by the British essentially as a penal colony. The criminal element seems still to be alive and well in the land down under, as is made apparent by that country's participation in the war on Iraq. So, start repopulating the land with all the bad-asses from around the globe. With a little luck the kangaroos will kick some decency into them.

time is all he has

with too much time on his hands, Mike Powell digs up a nugget from CPAC.