Sunday, December 31, 2006

'He who confront'

By Peter Goodspeed, National Post

In a region familiar with despotism, Saddam Hussein, whose name in Arabic means "he who confronts," was one of the most ruthless and violent dictators in the Middle East's bloodstained history.

He subjected Iraq to his will for more than 30 years of informal and formal rule. He attacked his neighbours, raised the world's fourth-largest army and relentlessly sought to arm it with weapons of mass destruction.

Raised by a poor peasant family in a mud hut in a small village dominated by tribal loyalties, Saddam aspired to a life of riches, opulent palaces and power.

In public, he presented an image of a fastidious family man, while in private he indulged his every whim and selected nightly partners much like Sultan Sharyar in The Thousand and One Arabian Nights.

A master at using fear to command obedience, Saddam sought to become an Arab hero and entertained visions of leading his people to new glory. Instead, he repeatedly led them to disaster.

He murdered tens of thousands to maintain his regime and condemned millions more to death in three unsuccessful wars.

The Iraqi leader was a master of brutal reprisals. In 1990, when Lieutenant General Omar al- Hazzaa, a military advisor, was overheard criticizing Saddam, he was immediately sentenced to death. Before the execution, Saddam ordered the man's tongue cut out. The general's son was also executed and his family's home bulldozed.

On another occasion during a Cabinet meeting, Saddam is said to have drawn a pistol and shot dead a minister who had dared to question his strategy.

Born in al-Awja, just east of Tikrit, in north-central Iraq, Saddam grew up in the impoverished village after his father abandoned the family just before Saddam's birth.

Saddam had a harsh and brutal childhood. His stepfather was a cruel, illiterate peasant who beat him and called him the "son of a whore."

The boy did not go to school or learn to read until he was 10 and did not finish the equivalent of grade school until he was 16. Later, when he wanted to become a soldier, he was unable to enter the Baghdad Military Academy because he was such a poor student. Once he became a dictator, Saddam compensated for those setbacks by appointing himself lieutenant-general in 1976, then promoting himself to field marshal after he became president in 1979.

Despite his lack of formal military training, Saddam insisted on personally directing his wars against Iran, the UN Gulf War coalition and the U.S.-led coalition that finally toppled him.

As a youngster desperately searching for an identity and a sense of family, his chief role model was his uncle, Khayralla Tulfa, a former army officer and ardent Arab nationalist who had been expelled from the military for participating in a failed uprising. When he started school, Saddam went to live with his uncle and eventually married his daughter, Sajida, who remained his wife for 40 years. They had two sons and three daughters.

While still in school, Saddam joined the clandestine Baath party. One of his first roles was to organize fellow students into a gang to intimidate political rivals.

By the time he was 21, Saddam was implicated in the murder of one of his uncle's political rivals -- a cousin who was the Communist party chief in Tikrit. He was jailed briefly on suspicion of murder, but released for lack of evidence.

Within a year, he was involved in the attempted assassination of then Iraqi leader, General Abdul Karim Kassem.

Saddam was the leader of a four-man hit squad that botched the assassination so badly some of the would-be killers shot each other. Saddam and his intended victim were the only survivors. Saddam carved a bullet out of his leg and fled to Syria. Later, he went into exile in Egypt, where he was infatuated by General Abdul Nasser's appeal to Arab nationalism.

He returned to Iraq in 1963, when the Baath party staged a coup. But he was jailed within months when right-wing military leaders seized power from the Baathists.

By 1966, one of Saddam's older cousins from Tikrit, Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, had become president and chairman of the Baath party's Revolutionary Command Council. When Saddam escaped from prison, his cousin made him party vice-chairman and gave him responsibility for north-central Iraq, including his hometown.

By 1968, the party had once again seized power in a coup and Saddam's cousin became president. The then 31-year-old Saddam automatically became the power behind the throne. As deputy, he created a ruthless new state security system that answered to no one but himself. Enemies were eliminated, unfriendly factions in government were intimidated into silence and Saddam's reputation as a man to be feared grew.

Saddam extended his grip on power by appointing relatives and allies to key government and business posts. Then, in 1978, it became illegal -- punishable by death -- to belong to an opposition party. The following year, Saddam forced his cousin, General Bakr, to resign and assumed the presidency himself.

Shortly after he took office, Saddam purged the Baath party of all potential rivals by murdering dozens of officials he suspected of disloyalty. In a bloodchilling episode, Saddam invited all the members of the Revolutionary Command Council and hundreds of other party leaders to a conference hall in Baghdad. Then, dressed in a suit and

smoking a cigar, he announced he had uncovered a Syrian plot against his government.

Within minutes, the acting secretary-general of the Baath party was dragged from behind a curtain and began to confess his involvement in the alleged coup. As he spat out the names of coconspirators in the audience, they were dragged away to be executed. In one fell swoop, Saddam eliminated 66 rivals and injected Iraq with an atmosphere of fear that lasted two decades.

His ambition turned almost inevitably to dreams of conquest, leading ultimately to the defeat of Iraq and his own capture. In a series of massive miscalculations, he launched a war with Iran, then later invaded neighbouring Kuwait. Both invasions ended in disaster.

The war with Iran dragged on for eight years and killed more than a million people before Saddam reluctantly accepted a ceasefire that changed nothing in terms of the disputed boundary along the Shatt al-Arab waterway between the two countries.

But his army had grown steadily, with conscription and modern weapons, until it was the fourth-largest in the world. Saddam had an arsenal of Scud missiles. He had launched a sophisticated nuclear weapons program and used chemical and biological weapons in battle.

Undaunted by his failure in Iran and desperate to redeem his reputation as a great commander, Saddam invaded oil-rich Kuwait and tried to turn it into a province of Iraq in 1990. Like Hitler in Czechoslovakia half a century before, Saddam did his best to confuse the issue before he invaded, producing a long string of grievances and territorial claims to justify his actions.

But he failed to convince his Arab neighbours or the Western states who had previously acquiesced in his aggression toward Iran. Then he compounded his blunder by bracing to face a U.S.- led UN coalition in the "Mother of all Battles" instead of simply withdrawing from Kuwait.

Oblivious to his impending defeat, Saddam told CNN television he was prepared to endure weeks of bombing by the most powerful military force in the world.

"Whoever has God on his side never gets defeated," he said in an interview.

Weeks later, as his armies reeled in retreat from Kuwait and bombs rained down on Baghdad, Saddam ordered the Kuwaiti oil fields set on fire and sabotaged the country's oil pipelines.

In defeat, Saddam remained defiant and sought Arab support as the only Middle East ruler willing to stand up against both Israel and the United States. He offered a bounty to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and ordered an Iraqi hit squad to try to kill former U.S. president George H. W. Bush in a car bomb attack while he was visiting Kuwait in April, 1993. Two months later, president Bill Clinton ordered air strikes on Iraqi intelligence headquarters in response.

In the meantime, international economic sanctions, imposed on Iraq to force its disarmament, continued to devastate what little of the country's infrastructure had not been destroyed in the war. Infant mortality rates soared. But Iraq continued to defy UN weapons inspectors and tried to manipulate the images of children dying in poorly equipped hospitals to win international sympathy.

The UN introduced an "oil-for- food" program that allowed Iraq to sell small amounts of oil on international markets to provide people with basic foods and medicines. But the elite continued to have access to luxuries and military spending continued to climb.

Saddam continued to build and furnish dozens of new "presidential palaces" but refused to allow UN weapons inspectors access to them.

He repeatedly accused the inspectors of spying for the United States and Israel.

But in 1995, after a shootout with Saddam's eldest son, Uday, two of Saddam's sons-in-law defected to Jordan and began to reveal secrets about Iraqi weapons programs the UN inspectors had not even suspected.

They said Saddam had been closer to building a nuclear bomb than anyone had thought and that he had enough biological and chemical warfare agents to wipe out hundreds of thousands of people.

Both men were immediately killed after Saddam persuaded them to return to Iraq.

By mid-December, 1998, UN weapons inspectors had left Iraq, claiming they could no longer do their work because of Iraqi resistance.

Still, Saddam continued to defy the West and methodically plotted to rebuild Iraq's military.

After the 9/11 terror attacks, the U.S. government was no longer prepared to tolerate a possible new terrorist threat from Iraq. Pentagon planners began to plot Saddam's downfall.

Outgunned and outmanoeuvred, Saddam nevertheless continued to manipulate the UN inspections process and displayed considerable diplomatic skill at splitting his opponents as he repeatedly reversed course and offered and then withdrew minor concessions.

But Saddam's diplomatic dancing, displays of defiance and macho rhetoric accomplished little. He immediately became a target as soon as a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq from Kuwait in March, 2003.

His regime collapsed beneath a blizzard of satellite-guided bombs and cruise missiles and he was forced to go into hiding as Iraqis began pulling down his statues all over the country.

In the weeks before his capture in December, 2003, his retinue had dwindled to just a handful of trusted aides, but he continued to try to defy an enemy he could never defeat -- the military forces of the United States.

At the end of the year, he was pulled bedraggled from a hole in the ground by U.S. troops. The man who claimed he would go down fighting was captured without firing a shot.

Imprisoned for the past three years at Camp Cropper, a U.S. base not far from one of his former palaces, Saddam was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court in November after a year-long trial over the killings of 148 Shiites from the village of Dujail in 1982.

2006: A bad year for America

Condensed from the Article by Conrad Black in National Post

The geopolitical ambiance as this year is unpromising. The United States has almost become, in Richard Nixon's famous phrase, a "pitiful helpless giant," with its entire conventional ground-forces capability mired in an apparently unchanging morass in Iraq, and US$800-billion current-account deficit. The administration has almost no credibility within or outside the country.

The U.S. still has some card to play. The threat of American withdrawal would be a high card, if it is not seen as inevitable. George W. Bush and his most likely successor as Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, have advocated the deployment of another 20,000 men to Iraq. If the Americana did this, it could break the confidence of those who are happily awaiting another American bug-out, Saigon, Beirut and Mogadishu all over again. It would help if the percentage of American forces in Iraq that were trigger-pullers and not pizza-cooks or questionnaire-pushers, were higher that 22%. In the Second World War, they were almost 60%. The more successful the military operations, the higher the number of real soldiers, and vice versa.

If the U.S. looked like a durable player and not just an incontinent bird of passage, the Syrians and Iranians could conclude that there was some point in negotiating with the Americans.

Russia's Putin has packed the government with ex-KGB officials, suppressed democracy, and will doubtless vacate the present requirement for him to retire in 2008. Let us not be under any illusion that this is just another Russian tyrant. He has brought Western Europe, in all its prosperity and self-importance, and the afterglow of the glorious, bloodless(mainly American) victory of the Cold War, to its knees in quest of Russia's oil and gas resources. Putin is returning to advanced missile development, to try to penetrate American anti-missile defenses; and he is dispensing passports in Georgia to encourage annexationist agitation in that former Soviet republic. Putin is also threatening the recognition of the independence of the pro-Russian provinces of Georgia if the West promotes Kosovan independence.

The Chinese are as irresponsible as the Russians. They have refused and support for international action to prevent the slaughter in Darfur, apparently because they have invested $4-billion in the Sudanese oil, and buy more than half that country's oil exports. China has cozied up to Iran, which is its chief provider of natural gas, including by the sale of nuclear warhead-capable missiles.

If the U.S. were not stuck in Iraq and steeped in foreign indebtedness, the Chinese and Russians could be quickly reminded of where their national interests lie. It is not beyond hope that Bush, or, failing him, McCain or Hillary Clinton, will produce a respectable policy in Iraq and shrink the open U.S. current-account artery. It is more likely that this vacuum where American power normally resides will be reoccupied by Americans, than that the U.S. will retreat into sullen isolationism.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Where did the Big Bang come from

Last March, astronomers(working with data from a NASA satellite circling the Earth since 2001) concluded that time began 13.7 billion years ago, a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. At that instant the universe expanded from submicroscopic to astronomical size in the blink of an eye. Why would it want to do that?

Thomas Nagel, the philosopher, recently pointed out that if we are to believe evolutionary explanations, and therefore that the necessary seed material (or energy) existed at the time of the Big Bang, we have to realize that there is no scientific explanation for the existence of that material in the first place. A complete understanding of evolution would involve answering a question as complex as evolution itself: "How did such a thing come into existence?" We have done nothing but push the problem one step back.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Career strategies for the new year

By Barbara Mose, The Globe and Mail

Workers today can be excused if they're feeling a little cocky. Their sense of job security is at a high and, with media reports about employers bemoaning a talent shortage, skilled employees ought to know they are in the driver's seat. This may lead some to believe they can simply coast through 2007 with little care about their careers. But that would be a mistake.

There are still many issues to contend with,such as everyday stress and striking an acceptable balance between work and a personal life, not to mention finding ways to move to the career ladder and finding ways to enrich your work.

This is the perfect time to leverage your confidence to ensure that your work meets your needs. Here are some nuggets of advice to put to work in the upcoming year.

How's the fit?
Find roles and environments that play to your strengths. Your work should support your talents. If you constantly have a feeling that you aren't contributing the way you want, or that you are walking around in a fog because you just "can't get it" or master what is required, you will go into a downward spiral leading to depression. Identify the source of your distress, Is it a critical or micromanaging boss? The boring nature of the tasks you are doing? Is it a lack of appreciation or recognition? Or is it just that the work represents a fundamentally bad fit?

Firm hand on the rudder
Make conscious career decisions. Do not put on the backburner things that you care about deeply. Make a date with yourself at the end of each week and ask yourself: What did I learn? Which of my values and desires are being met? Looking to the future, what will I learn? How can I make my work a better fit? Don't treat your career like a force of nature-something you only think about when it's a disaster.

Roll the dice
Pay attention to niggling voice that says: "You aren't happy." Confront the fear reptile and take a risk. It's not easy, but it's always worth it. You will never have a 100% guarantee in anything in life(except death and taxes). Overcome the anxiety of uncertainty by reminding yourself of your inner resources and of past experiences when you took risks. Don't overestimate negative consequences of the worst-case outcome. No one ever died from a well-planned risk, although many have died psychologically, or least paid a huge emotional price, for having continued in unsuitable work; they now beat themselves up endlessly for it.

Be true to yourself
Know and act on what is most important to you. Keep it front and centre in your mind; use it as a sieve for assessing work commitments and decisions. Your work should support your values. You should feel proud of the choices you make during the day. Many people suffer from shame for having violated their sense of integrity-for example, they have not stood up to argue against an ethical violation. Maintain your own moral compass even if it means standing up to bullies.

Pick your spots
Practice strategic laziness. Avoid the knee-jerk response to agree to every demand on your time. For every request, ask yourself: Why will I do this? How will it meet my needs or the needs of people I care about, whether they be the boss or the kids. What is the cost of doing this in terms of not meeting other obligations? Many people overestimate their own importance, telling themselves it will be a disaster if they don't do something, when in fact it will be merely awkward of disappointing. I have never heard anyone say: "The company went bankrupt because I didn't attend that last-minute evening meeting." And to be honest, I've never heard of anyone being fired because they occasionally turned down a work request.

Find or be a mentor
If you are a younger worker, avail yourself of the huge pool of talented seasoned professionals who want to contribute to other's development as part of their legacy. They can act as a sounding board and share their wisdom... Older workers consistently cite mentoring as one of their most satisfying work activities. It is also a highly prized career skill today. Overworked managers with broader spans of control cannot provide their young staff with the ongoing coaching they so desperately need.

Be financially smart
Start saving young. As the financial planners say, pay yourself first by saving 10% of your income. Although this won't have an immediate impact on your career, it will liberate opportunities long-term, whether to take a sabbatical, or to fund further education. Money buys you freedom to make career and life choices that are not completely driven by debt. Think twice before you buy something. You do not want to find yourself in serious debt, surrounded by a sea of stuff you don't need. Think of your work life in terms of how much pleasure you derive from the challenges and problems you deal with, not your income or job title.

Extend your network
Include people outside your profession drawn from different age groups. The best networkers describe non-industry connections as leading to the most interesting and creative relationships. Think of networking in terms of building knowledge exchanges. Don't evaluate your connections in purely instrumental terms... rather, ask yourself: What is interesting about this person? What can I learn from them? How can I help them?

Broaden your horizons
Identify one new thing you can do at work, something that plays to your strengths, or uses your strengths in different ways.

Enjoy life on the outside
Stretch yourself outside of work. DO something you have never dome before that will give you a sense of pride and will give you a sense of competence... Engaging in non-work activities can provide a huge source of career renewal, especially for midlife workers.

Invest in yourself
Improve one skill that will increase your employability. Think of yourself as the owner of a self-managed skill portfolio that provides you the security to make work choices based on what you want. Too many people stay in jobs they cannot stand because their experiences are not valued by the professional community. If you lost your job tomorrow, could you readily find another source of income? If not, what is the gap and how can you correct it? You should define the currency of your skills by their value on the street, not by your employer's standards.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Conspiracy theories rebuffed on Diana's death

The British police inquiry report examines all the allegations of wrongdoing in the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed.

Allegation: Mohammed al-Fayed said his son and Diana were involved in a serious relationship and intended to get engaged.
Conclusion: The inquiry found no evidence that Diana was to be engaged or has selected a ring.

Allegation: Mr. al-Fayed alleged Diana was pregnant with his son's child.
Conclusion: Tests on a blood stain from the carpet of the crashed car, confirmed to be Diana's, found no evidence of pregnancy, the inquiry said. Only Mr. al-Fayed says Diana told him she was pregnant. There is no other evidence she thought she might be pregnant.

Allegation: Members of the Royal Family, Britain's domestic intelligence agency MI5, and foreign intelligence agencies were involved the deaths.
Conclusion: The inquiry said Diana's ex-husband Prince Charles, his father Prince Philip, and Prince William co-operated with the investigation. The inquiry found "no evidence" to support Mr. Fayed's assertion that Philip was directly involved in a conspiracy to killed the princess. The inquiry quoted some of Diana's friends as saying she never feared Charles or his entourage.The inquiry categorically dismissed the role of MI5 in Diana's death. The report said Henri Paul, the driver, was working for the French intelligence as a "low-level informant of sorts." But it found no evidence to substantiate claims that U.S. intelligence monitored Diana's phone calls. The inquiry was not allowed to see the 39 files related to Diana held by the National Security Agency, but it quoted the agency's policy director, Louis Giles, as saying none of the files was relevant to the crash. The report concludes that the spying allegations were "a very difficult thing to prove or disprove."

Allegation: A white Fiat caused the Mercedes to crash.
Conclusion: There was a glancing contact between the Mercedes and a white Fiat Uno just before the tunnel. It is "very unlikely" that the car will ever be located.

Allegation: Photojournalist James Andanson, who owns a Fiat Uno, committed suicide because of guilt over his involvement in or knowledge of the deaths.
Conclusion: Mr. Andanson, who did own an Uno, was interviewed by French police and was not implicated, said Robert Stevens, who led the inquiry. Mr. Andanson committed suicide in 2000 and his offices were burgled shortly afterward. There was no evidence he was murdered or that he was involved with any security service.

Allegation: Blood samples from Mr. Paul, the driver, were switched to make it appear he was drunk.
Conclusion: The blood samples match Mr. Paul's DNA, and show that he had three times the legal limit of alcohol in his system at the time of the crash.

Allegation: British authorities have developed a bright flash weapon designed to temporarily blind a driver with the intent of causing a crash, and such a device might have been used.
Conclusion: British authorities do not have such a weapon, and there is no evidence of blinding flashed at the time of the crash.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Friends rally to help Alberta farmer after freak accident

Lief Erickson, a third-generation Northern Alberta cattle farmer, has survived it all: low grain prices, droughts and most recently the financial drain spurred by the mad-cow crisis. But what happened to him two weeks ago has rallied people in farming communities from across North America with offers of cows, cash, hey bales and even free labor.

More than half of Mr. Erickson's cattle herd plunged to their deaths in a freak drowning accident on his sprawling farm north of Viking, a small community of 1100 about 110 kilometers southeast of Edmonton.

The animals, 170 black Angus cows and calves worth more than $100000, which were uninsured, died after walking onto the ice of a 60-meter-long dugout that was covered by snow from a recent storm.

His neighbors quickly pulled together to help Mr. Erickson with the grim task of burying the 170 carcasses, which were frozen into the watering hole. People offered the use of their backhoes, while others donated their labor.

A local auction mart has organized a cattle sale and silent auction last Friday. Proceeds will go to Mr. Erickson and his family. Terry Cartier, a local auctioneer, helped to organized the fundraiser at the Viking Auction Mart. "Our phones haven't stopped ringing. We've got calls from Illinois to the Northwest Territories. There's lots of support from Saskatchewan and just all over the country. Every body wants to help", he said. "People in the cattle industry understand how tough it is to be in this business right now trying to make a living." Mr. Cartier said that donations for the silent auction have ranged from tickets from a rodeo to generators to cows to thousands of dollars worth of tubing needed to build corrals. "We have no idea how much we are going to raise. Stuff just keeps coming in," he said.

According to Mr. Cartier, the Ericksons are well known in the community, and Mr. Erichson is the "kind of person who would take off this shirt for anybody else." He said while farmers routinely lose a few animals from time to time in drownings, he doesn't recall ever seeing an accident on this scale.

In the news

  • Hydro costs soar 50% since shakeup
  • After almost 14 years, six of them spent in a maximum-security prison, Randy Druken finally received $2.1 million and an apology from the government of Newfoundland and Labrador for his wrongful murder conviction in 1993.
  • 24 Peel Regional Police officers accused of boozing, beating.
  • Senator's illness puts Democrats on edge. Crisis could give Republicans control.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Possible election next spring

From The Globe and Mail Dec. 15, 2006

The possibility of a spring election surfaced yesterday as Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said he expects to oppose the next Conservative budget.

This would mean he would join with Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe, his old political foe, who has already declared he too is willing to topple Stephen Harper's minority government.

However, a few hours after Mr. Dion made his threat, a combative Mr. Harper said yesterday that neither he nor the public have an interest in an election at this time.

"I've got to say I really like this job, I want to keep it a while, I want to get some things done", the Prime Minister said. " I have no reason to call an election. The public's not asking for an election. I don't know what the reason for an election would be."

It was earlier this week that Mr. Ducippe started moving in for the kill when he said he is willing to defeat the Harper government on any one of three fronts: the fiscal imbalance, the Kyoto accord and the military mission in Afghanistan.

But Mr. Harper yesterday angrily rejected calling an election over Afghanistan. "Don't play a game on the backs of Canadian soldiers who are putting their lives at risk for us..."

Mr. Harper argued that the Bloc Leader's concern is a cover for the fact that he wants an election before the Conservatives fix the socalled fiscal imbalance. "I think Mr. Duceppe is looking for an excuse to call an election before we table a budget and we move forward on ore commitment to deal with the fiscal imbalance because Mr. Duceppe has come to realize the longer we have a Conservative government in office that Quebeckers see federalism works, federalism respects them..."

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

NASA retracts solar array on station

In fits and starts, NASA began retracting via remote control a 115-foot solar panel on the international space station Wednesday, likening the tricky task to folding a road map back up and stuffing it in the glove compartment.

The electricity-generating solar array served as a temporary power source aboard the orbiting outpost. NASA needed to move it out of the way so that a new, permanent pair of solar wings could rotate in the direction of the sun.

The folding-up began shortly before 1:30 p.m. EST and was expected to take about five hours.

Flight controllers on the ground and astronauts at the space station were forced to unfold sections of the golden array they had just retracted in order to smooth out creases and counter slack in the tension.

Monday, December 11, 2006

They are looking without seeing

By Ronald A. Rensink:

A large fraction of traffic accidents are of the type "driver looked but failed to see". Here, drivers collide with pedestrians in plain view, with cars directly in front of them, and even run into trains. That's right - run into trains, not the other way around. In such cases, information from the world is entering the driver's eyes. But at some point along the way this information is lost, causing the driver to lose connection with the reality. They are looking but they are not seeing.

Friday, December 8, 2006

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

2000 Years of Economic History

What 2000 Years of History Tells Us About China's Economic Future

Russia to Join USA for Lunar Exploration

MOSCOW, December 5 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will join the U.S Moon exploration program if Washington provides the necessary funding, a Russian space representative said Tuesday.

After U.S. President George W. Bush announced his Vision for Space Exploration in 2004, a plan for new manned lunar missions, the country's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) elaborated a program that envisions the construction of a manned lunar base, which will require broad international cooperation.

"If the U.S. offers the necessary financing for Russia to participate in its national lunar program, Russia is likely to accept the proposal," said Igor Panarin, a spokesman for the Russian Space Agency.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Microsoft brings television and movies to the Xbox 360

Citizens of the Microsoft gaming world can now experience television and movies like never before. On its first year anniversary, Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 is set to redefine entertainment as we know it.

Microsoft's efforts at convergence have certainly come a long way with the announcement that the Xbox Live Marketplace will now provide loyalists with the option to own full length TV shows and rent downloadable movies over broadband, from a consortium of industry leaders that includes Warner Bros Home Entertainment, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), CBS, Turner Broadcasting Systems Inc., Paramount Pictures and MTV Networks. Plans to add new content for download every week are on the anvil.


The Xbox 360 has been breaking records since its launch last November. 6 million units of the platform were sold by the end of September 2006, granting the Xbox 360, the distinct honor of being the fastest console to reach 5 million units sold. The Xbox 360 is expected to be made available in 37 countries by the end of the year sales are expected to cross the 10 million threshold.

Harper announces national cancer strategy

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Friday the formation of a national agency to co-ordinate the fight against cancer, a long-awaited strategy that many involved in the battle say will help iron out inequities in prevention and care that currently face patients in different parts of country.

Ottawa has dedicated $260 million over five years to the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, fulfilling a promise Harper made during the last federal election campaign.

Fall in global oil supply not expected before 2030

The world's oil supply won't begin to run out for at least another 24 years, contrary to some theories that suggest production has already peaked and supply is now in a terminal decline, a prominent U.S. energy consulting group says.

Cambridge Energy Research Associates estimates remaining global supply at 3.74 trillion barrels, compared with 1.2 trillion estimated by "peak oil" theorists. Peter Jackson, CERA's director of oil industry activity, doesn't dispute that oil will run out, but says the peak won't occur before 2030. He said the peak won't be followed by a sharp decline but by an "undulating plateau," in which production rises and falls for decades before entering permanent decline.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Quote of today

When it is a question of money, everyone is of the same religion. - Voltaire

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Canada woos mine partners from China

From The Globe and Mail

In a renewed effort to woo Chinese mining money. Canada is handling out stacks of detailed geological maps and data sheets to anyone who wanders past its booth at the annual China mining conference in Beijing.

The maps - giving the precise locations of everything from copper and gold finds to uranium and zinc deposits - were quickly snapped up by the scores of Chinese mining executives who crowded around the Canadian booth yesterday.

It was a clear signal that the new Conservative government in Ottawa is throwing open its doors to Chinese miners, despite the political furor over a failed Chinese corporate bid to acquire Noranda Inc. in 2004.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

China and India Emphasize Cooperation

China and India declared today that there was room in Asia for the two emerging economic giants to coexist in a cooperative rather than competitive relationship. At the start of a visit that was heavier on symbolism than on substantive new agreements, President Hu Jintao of China and his Indian host, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, unveiled a 10-point plan that aims to double bilateral trade to $40 billion by 2010. They also pledged “cooperation” in the field of civilian nuclear energy -- potentially marking an end to decades of nuclear rivalry and suspicion.


Despite the emphasis on collaboration, there was no sign of a significant breakthrough in any of the key areas of conflict, including border disputes, bilateral relations with Pakistan and the United States and tension over Tibet. Nor was there any progress on the creation of a free trade agreement.

Wikipedia offline in China

China's easing of a ban on the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia appears to have been short-lived. Users reported Friday that the site was unavailable in several parts of China, barely a week after it suddenly became accessible.


It wasn't immediately clear if user-contributed encyclopedia was unreachable due to technical glitches or because government censors had blocked the site again. The Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Information Industry did not immediately respond when contacted for comment Friday.


Beijing first blocked access to the English and Chinese versions of Wikipedia in October last year, apparently out of concern about entries touching on Tibet, Taiwan and other sensitive topics. China's communist government has waged a battle to control the anarchic Internet and filter the information Chinese can get. Police employ an array of measures, from sophisticated filters and detection software that hunts for sensitive words to having officers monitor Web traffic.


As a result, surfing the Web in China is a very different experience from that in much of the world. Because almost anyone can add to and edit listings in Wikipedia, the site is famously freewheeling, addressing sensitive topics that pose a challenge to Beijing's control.

Calif. court says bloggers can't be sued

The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that bloggers and participants in Internet bulletin board groups cannot be sued for posting defamatory statements made by others.


In deciding a case closely watched by free speech groups, the court said a federal law gives immunity from libel suits not only to Internet service providers, like AOL, but also to bloggers and other users of their services.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Ottawa to block CRTC plans on VoIP

The Haper government will announce today its intention to rewrite the CRTC's key ruling on Internet-based telephone services, a highly unusual move that could mark a big step toward a more open and consumer-friendly sector. Industry Minister Maxime Bernier will say in a speech in Toronto that the Conservative government will again block the CRTC's repeated efforts to regulate phone services that run over the Internet. The move increases the odds that digitally based telephone services will become even more common in the near future, which could be a boon for consumers.

On investment risk

A prudent investor's best safeguard against risk is not retreat, but diversification

- David Harding, Windo Capital

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Hubble Telescope Makes New Discovery

The Hubble Space Telescope has shown that a mysterious form of energy first conceived by Albert Einstein, then rejected by the famous physicist as his "greatest blunder," appears to have been fueling the expansion of the universe for most of its history.

This so-called "dark energy" has been pushing the universe outward for at least 9 billion years, astronomers said Thursday.

The idea of dark energy was first proposed by Einstein as a means of explaining how the universe could resist collapsing under the pull of gravity. But then Edwin Hubble _ the astronomer for whom the NASA telescope is named _ demonstrated in 1929 that the universe is expanding, not a constant size. That led to the big-bang theory, and Einstein tossed his notion on science's scrap heap

There it languished until 1998, when astronomers who were using supernova explosions to gauge the expansion of the universe made a shocking observation. It appeared that older supernovae, whose light had traveled a greater distance across space to reach the Hubble telescope, were receding from Earth more slowly than simple big-bang theory would predict. Nearby supernovae were receding more quickly than expected. That could only be true if some mysterious force were causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate over time.

Cosmologists dubbed the force "dark energy," and ever since they've been trying to figure out what it is.

U.S. Concerned about Rising China

By ANNE GEARAN, The Associated Press, Friday, November 17, 2006

HANOI, Vietnam -- The United States has some concerns about a rising China, including a military expansion that may be excessive, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.

Beijing has spent heavily in recent years on adding submarines, missiles, fighter planes and other high-tech weapons to its arsenal and extending the reach of the 2.3 million-member People's Liberation Army, the world's largest fighting force.

Its reported military budget rose more than 14 percent this year to $35.3 billion, but outside estimates of China's true spending are up to three times that level.

Beijing insists its multibillion-dollar buildup is defensive, but it has alarmed some Asian neighbors and U.S. military planners who see China as a potential threat to U.S. military pre-eminence in the Pacific.

U.S. concerns are manageable within a relationship she described as strong overall, Rice said. She visited China last month to shore up United Nations sanctions against China's ally, North Korea, and she credited Beijing with cooperation in opposing the North's nuclear development.

Bush and Rice were both meeting with their Chinese counterparts during this weekend's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

The first brand logo that can be seen from space

The goateed visage of Colonel Harland Sanders has long been one of North America's best-known corporate icons. Yesterday(Nov. 14, 2006), however, he became the most visible logo on Earth.

In a publicity stunt to kick off a global marketing campaign, KFC Corp. has painstakingly constructed a one-hectare likeness of the Colonel in Rachel, Nev., making him the first brand that can be seen from outer space.

The 65,000-piece mosaic, situated, appropriately, in a patch of desert known as the UFO capital of the world, introduces an updated look for the fried-chicken chain's deceased founder and former pitchman: the southern gentleman's white suit has been scrapped in favor of a chef's red-and-white striped apron.

"If there ate extraterrestrials in outer space, KFC wants to become their restaurant of choice," said Gregg Dedrick, president of KFC.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Human rights or business?

A meeting between PM Mr. Harper and Chinese President Hu Jingtao during APEC was canceled by China, who originally requested the meeting. China's Decision comes amid a cooling in the bilateral relationship as Canada takes an increasingly harder line on China's human rights record. Recently, some of Canadian businesses have expressed concern to the PM' Office about the lack of engagement with China, the emerging economic giant.

The problem for Canada is how to find such a way that we can encourage improvement in democracy and human rights in that country while at the same time do not let our economic interests are unduly jeopardized.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Female officer of the China PLA

womanofficer
womanofficer,
originally uploaded by zwzhang.
Can you believe it? She is a colonel.

Monday, November 13, 2006

How to review you investment portfolio (Part 2)

Form Investor Insights by TD Waterhouse

Performance

  1. Are my targets realistic?
  2. Are returns adequate? Even if they hit your targets, you need to make sure returns are sufficient to fund your future plans. If your portfolio isn't growing quickly enough to meet goals such as retirement, it may be time to make changes. Pay attention to longer-term performance, rather than short-term. Short-term volatility in your portfolio means little when you have a long-term horizon.
  3. How is my portfolio performing compared with markets? Compare percentage returns with appropriate financial market indexes.
  4. Am I within my risk tolerance? Taking on more risk is a way to increase potential returns, particularly through growth investments such as stocks. But it also increase your potential for losses. Know how much risk you're willing to take and check regularly to see whether your current risk level is acceptable.
  5. Am I taking full advantage of my RSP? One of the best ways to reduce taxes is by making the maximum allowable contribution to your RSP every year.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

How to review you investment portfolio (Part 1)

From Investor Insight by TD Waterhouse:

Financial markets change, and so do you. That's why it's always a good idea to review your investment portfolio regularly...

Your investment objectives

  1. Are my goals reasonable? You can't meet impossible financial goals.
  2. How quickly must my money grow? Look at how far you've come, and how far you have to go. Adjust your performance objectives if necessary. But keep them real and within your risk tolerance.
  3. Am I investing enough?
  4. Has my live changed? Has anything vital changed in your life that calls for an adjustment of your financial objectives or investment strategy? What about major developments, such as marriage or divorce, the birth of a child, or a change on employment?

Asset allocation

  1. Is my portfolio adequately diversified? Do your investments include cash, fixed income, and equity investments in a mix that is suitable for current market conditions and your risk tolerance?
  2. Do I need to rebalance? If certain investments have appreciated in value, they may now represent a disproportionate amount of your portfolio. It may be time to lock in profits and reinvest in more attractively priced securities.
  3. Should I change my focus? Generally speaking, the older you are, the greater the need to be aware of the risk and potential of loss of capital. After all your time to replenish lost capital diminishes as the years pass...
  4. Is my portfolio tax-efficient? Properly allocating investments among your Retirement Savings Plan(RSP) and non-registered investments can reduce income tax. Consider holding interest-generation investments, such as bonds and bond mutual funds, insider a RSP, where the income generated is tax-deferred. Equity investments may be more suitable outside your retirement plan because the dividends and capital gains they generate receive favorable tax treatment.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

The start of air forces

From Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing by Tom Clancy

In August 1914, a British aviator patrolling the skies above Mons, in Belgium, spotted the advance of von Kluck's German army toward the British Expeditionary Force. Interviewed for TV five decades later, the pilot recalled the reaction of senior officers when he reported the news...they didn't believe him. Pilots soon took cameras with them to give proof of their sightings to skeptical general officers whose vision was limited to the view from the ground.

Before long, both sides were flying reconnaissance missions, and hostile aviators were firing pistols at one another. Then machine guns. And soon after that, aircraft were designed as aerial killers - the first fighters. They were delicated, unstable constructs of wood and wire, usually underpowered by inefficient engines. But they could fly. And the learning curve was steep back then. One day, someone asked, "if you can hang one engine on an airframe, why not two, or even more? If you can see to shoot, you can see to drop a weapon, can't you?" Thus began the age of the bomber.

It was the Germans at Verdun, in the bitter weather of February 1916, who first made actual the concept we now call airpower - the systematic application of tactical aircraft to control a battlefield (the definition will change and develop). The objective was to seal off the battlefield form French aviation, denying the enemy the ranging eyes needed to see behind the German trench lines; and as it turned out, the plan didn't work terribly well. Still, others saw what the Germans tried, and recognized that it could be made to work. By the end of the war, aircraft were attacking infantry on the ground. And for the first time soldiers knew what field mice had long understood: The target of an aerial predator feels as much psychological burden as physical danger.

Between the wars, a handful of visionary officers in Britain, Italy, German, Japan, Russia, and the United Sates grappled with the theory of airpower...and with its practical applications in the next, inevitable war. The most famous of these, the Italian Guilo Douhet, proposed the first great "philosophy" of airpower: Bomber and attack aircraft can reach far into the enemy's rear to attack the factories that make the weapons and the railroads and roads and bridges that transport them to the fighting front. It was Douhet's view that airpower alone - without armies or navies - could bring victory in war. In other words, if you smash enough factories, railroad, roads, and bridges, you'll bring your enemy to the point where he will lie down and wave the white flag.

Douhet was too optimistic. An air force is remarkable not only for what it can do, but for what it cannot. The unchanging truth of warfare if that only infantry can conquer an enemy - infantry is people, and only people can occupy and hold ground. Tanks can roll across ground. Artillery can punish and neutralize ground. And airpower - where is at the heart longer-range artillery - can punish and neutralize over long distances. But only people can take up residency there.

Yet airpower can have a powerful effect...

Thursday, November 9, 2006

Change my blog name

Ok, that is true, I cannot write. But I can copy and paste. As developers, we spend much more time before a computer than any other people. Undoubtly, we will find some thing that we would like to save for later and share with friends.
That is what I will do with this blog: Find good, useful stuffs, and paste them here.

Now here comes the first:
A used-to-be US soldier in Tikrit Iraq wrote about his feeling on the Memorial Day. If you would like to learn how a real soldier feels and thinks during this war, you could go to his blog. There are also links to his budy's blogs.

Wednesday, November 8, 2006

What should I blog and how

Today I spent the whole morning to complete the template of this blog, since I just like a simple, clean look. At first those new tags are little scary, but after looked at them last night carefully through the XML file, I know I can do it!

Now, sitting in my home office, looking at the home page, I started to wondering what topics should I write and how should I do it.

What to talk about (Or more simply use this for what)?

  1. There is only one thing for sure that I will drop some C#/C++ code here from time to time. As a developer, I do need a place to keep some important code pieces, how-to and so on for my later reference. It would also be a good thing to share these stuffs with other developers.
  2. What else I will drop here, I do not have a idea!

What language should I use?

It is true that Chinese should be the language for me to write this blog. But living in North America, would this be a good chance for me to improve my English?

Test Windows Live Writer

I just downloaded the Windows Live Writer, and want to give it a test. In fact my first try failed due to a problem between WLW and Blogger Beta. Somehow, I found a workaround, and now I am trying it. If you see this post, that means it worked. Well, at least for a simple post.

Update of our status

Last year is a very busy one for both my wife and I. Moving from St. Louis to Toronto, settling down here, and finding jobs. It was so busy for me that I totally stopped any blogging at all.

Now after having been working for HSA as a Leader Software Engineer for almost a year, every thing looks just fine for us. And I think I could find some spare time to work on my blog again. My friends are welcomed to visit here from time to time, so you guys can get some updates on us. Thank you all.

Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Test a new blog at Wordpress.com

Just play around for a little while at my test blog at Wordpress.com. The great, well-known blog platform application: Wordpress, is one of the best blog application out there today. Howerver, I believe the service provided by Wordpress.com is not stable. At least currently, I will stay with Blogspot.