Bits and Bytes

Well, well, well... here I am, back again after my inexcusable leave of absence from the blogging field, I really have no idea why any of you keep reading me considering the shameless way I neglect you. I wouldn't tire you with my excuses, but they are relevant to a couple of points.

First, I am busy because I am working for the Prince Arthur Herald, that fledgeling conservative student newspaper you should all know and love. Gems coming from the editing desk of the Marprelate include Samantha Lui's analysis of Rebecca Black's supposedly (haven't actually watched it myself) horrible Youtube by the name of Friday, and the intensely negative reaction she is receiving. For my comments? The reaction to Rebecca Black's song, considering her age, is nothing short of a mass cyber-bullying campaign. These people need to think a little bit about the fact that they aren't just criticizing a song, they are potentially devastating a young girl who didn't know any better than to release the song, and doesn't know any better than to take the sarcastic comments at face value. If anyone's head should be on the chopping block it should be the idiots who helped her produce the monstrosity.

Japan and Libya are eating up the headlines these days. Our condolences to the people of Japan in their time of need, and in particular profound applause for the heroes who are still in the nuclear plant.

Libya, fewer condolences, especially to Gaddafi. Canada has finally declared war on him, just as we are trying to get out of Afghanistan. Question of the day, will liberals still be able to fault conservatives for meddling with the freedom and sovereignty of Libya after everyone gave the go-ahead and it was properly approved by all the relevant international authorities. A. Of course they will, stop asking stupid questions.

Things you thought were safe, that aren't. Your iTunes account. Unless someone in my very uni-lingual family bought those Chinese proverb apps (Chinese proverbs in Chinese that is) and isn't fessing up our account was unceremoniously hacked and our gift-card money pilfered by some unscrupulous proverb aficionado. One is forced to conclude that either they have not studied their proverbs with sufficient diligence despite their desperate measures to obtain them. On a more serious note, we were fortunate to have not had our credit card attached to the account, or the damage might have been more serious. iTunes did do a "one-time" refund and disabled the account, but you may want to think twice before letting them get their sticky little mittens on your credit info.

In one of the more irritating stories of the week (And no it doesn't even involve Heather Mallick, well actually now that I mention it there might be a toss-up for most irritating story) a landlord had his buildings seized because someone was running a grow-op in the house. Are they all mad? They have made it almost impossible to evict tenants and very difficult to properly screen them. Everyone knows not to give bad references, as they can come back to haunt your bedside with a libel suit in hand. You aren't allowed to discriminate on so many different grounds, that if you deny someone a least based on the fact that you just know they are probably a small time criminal you can be making yourself vulnerable to a Human Rights lawsuit with all the joy that involves. Now granted that in this case the landlord was accused of being willfully blind, if not actually in the know that his houses were being used for the production of illicit flora. But surely a $240,000 odd thousand dollar fine is extremely hefty for being live and let live about the less than above board activities of your tenants, especially considering how difficult it is to evict bad tenants should one wish to.

I don't know about the rest of you human, or non-human, critters, but I believe grading inspires me to work harder, learn more, and explore issues more deeply than projects which carry neither positive nor negative consequences. (Point in fact, I have been neglecting blogging to focus on my economics courses). Grading - good. No objective standard to judge personal achievement by - bad.

And no, that was not responsible neutrality.