Posted by: aardvarkcola on: June 12, 2009
The 1918 swine flu started in the United States and spread quickly, helped in part by thousands of troops being shipped back and forth across the Atlantic.
That was an H1N1, just like this one, and just like the last one, it spread world-wide, was mild, albiet with some resulting fatalities, but so it goes with many flus.
The second wave, however, was deadly, a world-wide killer of 50 million people, beginning in Europe in November, and spreading just as the war ended and troops were coming home from Europe. Many graves in Canada from that time are of 1918 Swine Flu victims. Masks over faces did not begin with SARS. There are photographs in Alberta of farmers with masks over their mouths in 1918-1919.
Here’s a story on the disturbing pattern of this swine flu, by the Vancouver Sun, and the worry this one, too, will have a deadly second wave.
Posted by: aardvarkcola on: June 11, 2009
I gotta say it again. One of my favourite writers. He writes movie reviews like composers write music; his reviews have a melody all their own.
Here is Roger Ebert on “Tyson”, the movie, a documentary in which Tyson talks about himself.
In a 600 words Ebert makes you feel for the guy you’re glad you never met in a bar in a bad mood.
Click here.
Posted by: aardvarkcola on: June 11, 2009
I’ve been reading older blog entries.
I really liked the I.O.U.S.A article from back in October on America’s national debt.
Canadian billionaire Kevin O’Leary, who knows something about money, said on Squeezeplay, the show he co-hosts with Amanda Lang,”They are going to have to tax migrating birds to pay this off.”
And, if you don’t know about Squeezeplay, it is simply the best show on tv. This is our Squeezeplay review for the start of this tv season just ending.
Posted by: aardvarkcola on: June 11, 2009
Only two teams in NHL history have won game seven on the road.
So if you’re a betting person, Detroit looks like the winner on paper before the final 2009 Stanley Cup game starts in a one-game winner-take-all series.
Here’s the analysis by Pensburgh, a blog for Penguin fans.
Okay. So much for on-paper predictions. Pittsburgh won 2-1. I have a story about my night as the game was on, but you wouldn’t believe it. I’ll end up writing about it sometime. Not now.
Posted by: aardvarkcola on: June 11, 2009
He has an impressive resume, does Halifax resident Ralston MacDonnell, the father of the press secretary clutz, Jasmine MacDonnell.
This link will include nothing on his Liberal bent or fund raising or goverment friendships, just pure professional accomplishment
Click here.
Out of interest, here is a thank you for Mr. MacDonnell from none other than Stockwell Day, at a May, 2008 Vancouver conference on port security. MacDonnell, who has a professional interest in these matters, introduced Day, who made his speech.
Posted by: aardvarkcola on: June 11, 2009
I notice people clicking on this blog did a search for “Jasmine MacDonnell photos”.
Interesting.
Well, why not. Ms. MacDonnell certainly draws interest, and her exploits have certainly entertained us here.
Here are three photographs of the Mink Panther.
One social party shot from McLeans, one of a fawning MacDonnell with blogger BCer in Toronto asking for you to write the caption to it, and McLeans.ca again, for Lisa Raitt’s Martini Party, in which MacDonnell is also featured.
Since you searched for them, here you go.
Posted by: aardvarkcola on: June 11, 2009
A 72-year-old Texas woman was shot with an electronic stunning device by a police officer during a dispute over a possible traffic violation.
Here’s the BBC link for it, and the video of the thing is here on a link to a Denver Colorado media outlet, called Fox 31.
Posted by: aardvarkcola on: June 11, 2009
You know, Jasmine MacDonnell isn’t the only screwup in Ottawa.
I should link back to this recent item just so it’s up there. You may have read it already, I’m sure. But if you hadn’t, it seems Buckingham Palace long ago, in the 1960s if I remember right, lent Rideau Hall some very nice silverware. It’s been used when Her Majesty comes a-visiting.
The government recently sold it for bargain basement prices as surplus stuff.
There was a list of items, but while I’m thinking of it, I’ll link to the story from the Ottawa Sun.
Posted by: aardvarkcola on: June 11, 2009
A overlooked tidbit. Gossip but good gossip. From Stephen Maher again, Halifax Chronicle Herald, who reports from the infamous Raitt tape that apparently three of Canada’s top bankers told Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff to lay off defeating the government of Stephen Harper. Click here.
It could be bullshit, but there it is, reported from what’s on the tape, and apparently a minister of the Crown, Lisa Raitt, believes it, as she told her former press aide so.
Knock it if you must, but Rob Harvie over in Lethbridge (Searching for Liberty blog) has the most most plausible explanation of Janine MacDonnell’s incompetence- the Liberal mole in the Conservative heap theory. It sounds so absurd, really, but it’s either that or she’s a Pink Pantherish Inspector Clouseau, leaving sensitive cabinet material out for journalists to browse over.
Not once but twice. Not just the tape recorder forgotten in a washroom and then not picked up but she left behind important papers in a television station.
Posted by: aardvarkcola on: June 11, 2009
A press aide in Ottawa makes $120,000 annually?
With that, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s comment on MacDonnell’s consistent screw-ups,”I don’t blame 26-year-olds” seems less politicially wise (blame the minister, not the help) and almost silly.
One hundred and twenty thousand dollars? A year? Ten thousand a month? For a fucking press aide? Twenty-five hundred a fucking week?
For a press aide?
This story, from Stephen Maher, himself, who broke the damn thing, and note I’ve focussed on an itty-bitty portion of it.
One hundred. And twenty. Thousand? Dollars. A year. For a fucking press aide. A fuck-up press aide. Holy HJ Moses. Am I being naive here?
Click here for his June 8 Chronicle Herald story.
