Little CP's a drivin' fool

Hurray! You're a driver-bean!
(I've been saving this comic for you! Click the comic to embiggen).

And now Some Handy Tips for Driving in Chile:

-Right-hand turns are prohibited at red lights unless otherwise posted.
-Major roads are generally in good condition throughout the country, but there are a lot of tolls so have cash to pay them. Some secondary roads may be poorly maintained and may be Rossland-esque in the mountains.
-If the air quality is bad in Santiago, you may not be permitted to drive your car in the city. The government selects numbers corresponding to the last digit of your license plate the day before those numbers will be subject to restrictions. Also, in Santiago, certain major arteries switch directions during morning and evening rush hours.
-Aggressive and inconsiderate driving is common throughout Chile (buses especially are jerks). Especially when changing lanes and merging because drivers rarely signal or yield in these scenarios.
-It's a good idea to drive with the car doors locked (because of thieves and such).
-You should have an international driver’s permit in order to drive in Chile (ICBC also has info). Although car rental firms may rent to customers with only a regular driver’s license, the police fine foreigners for driving without a valid international permit.
-The public bus and subway system was significantly overhauled recently. If you're going to be in Santiago, you should purchase a “BIP” card, a prepaid ticket required for public buses (this handy blog tells about it and a bunch of other stuffs).

p.s. KP is also a soon to be drivin' fool. Happy 16th Birthday!

Talking to Politicians: The Green Party

I sent the following email to Amber Jones of the Green Party of Saskatchewan:

On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 12:33 PM, [CP] wrote:
Hello Ms.Jones,
I am an archaeologist in Saskatchewan. I'm currently attending the University of Saskatchewan Masters in Archaeology program but I have been living and working as an archaeologist doing cultural resource management in Saskatchewan for 4 years now. I was curious as to your stance on cultural resource management in Saskatchewan. I know the Green Party is concerned with environmental and native issues, but are there any plans for reform of the heritage branch? Perhaps more incentive for companies to follow protocol, harsher punishments for companies who willingly violate regulations or a better inclusion of historic sites within the legislation to protect our heritage? I know this is less of a hot button issue than environmental protection but I see the archaeology in the province being destroyed day by day and while this is somewhat inevitable in light of industry, there are ways to protect these resources through awareness, avoidance and archaeological recovery before they are lost forever. Does the Green Party have an interest in these concerns and a plan to address them? Thank you very much for your time and any information you may have! I look forward to voting Green.

Today, I got my response from the Green Party (see below) and then I decided to send the same email, with a few modifications (the party names changed; the "I know the Green Party is concerned with environmental and native issues, but are there any plans for reform of the heritage branch?" changed to "Are there any plans for increasing resources or positive reform of the heritage branch"; and the "I look forward to voting Green" replaced with "your response will help determine my vote"), to all the major political parties to see what they say. So this is the first part of a multi-part series that I will post as the answers trickle in. Fun times.

This is what Amber Jones had to say:

Hi [CP],

Thanks for your interest. The Green Party wants to ensure that we have adequate funding to protect both natural areas and our heritage resources. We will ensure further protection of existing parks and heritage sites, and increase the number of protected areas. This will be done both by expanding our national park system and by working with provinces, territories, and aboriginal peoples, including working with the heritage branch. We will purchase private land where necessary and adequately fund Parks Canada. We will also provide more interpretation so as to educate people on the importance of natural and historical sites.

As far as reforming Saskatchewan's heritage branch, the GPS does not have any specific policies, just a commitment to protecting our natural and historic resources. However, we will be having policy forums in the coming months as we prepare for the next provincial election and I would love to speak to you (as my role as leader of the Green Party of Saskatchewan) on what the best way to protect Saskatchewan's resources are.

Amber Jones

If you would like to contact Ms.Jones her email is ajones@greenparty.ca and the Green Party's provincial website is here. FYI the Greens were the only ones with an actual person as the "contact us", the other parties had general email addresses.

p.s. The reason I went provincial instead of federal is because my issue with cultural resource management is by and large a provincially designated issue except for certain federal jurisdictions like national parks.

Chickens! Concert Series #23: Bad Religion

Bad Religion (with The Bronx and guests) played at the Odeon this past weekend. A good, if sweaty, venue to be sure. The opening bands were nothing special, just blah, blah, loud noise, blah, blah, all songs the same, one relatively decent ballad, blah, blah. The thing is, I went The Bronx's myspace and listened to some of their music and I didn't mind it, it's fine in smallish doses, but I don't really like the lead singer. I don't think they translate well to concert form (the ability to control the volume might have something to do with it?) and the lead singer is much screamy-er and in the forefront in real life. That's getting into screamo territory, which I don't appreciate. While I am generally a fan of noises and the things that make them, I do require a selection of multiple forms of noises to hold my interest for any length of time. At least with heavy metal screamings you have the occasional sweet guitar solo, but I digress. One mustn't generalize too much.

Anywho, Bad Religion was awesome so that's OK, even if D had troubles getting beer and hates people now. I especially liked the little acoustic set they did as part of their encore, it was a pleasant surprise that provided good contrast. And I appreciate the politically relevant yet blasphemous lyrics (although they say they are more about anti-conformity than anti-religion and often use religion as a metaphor), so all's well that ends well I say. There is a quite interesting little blurb to read on the myspace page about the band and their music and their new album. Also, I love this quote: "I think a lot of our fans are just angry nerds like us,"Gurewitz says afterwards. "And that's really who we write for. Being a humanist and an intellectual is about as rebellious as it gets these days." Funny times, reminds me of a Simpsons episode. Anyway, here is a clip from the acoustic part of the show:


Some Band History:
Bad Religion formed in 1980 while the boys were still in high school. They are credited with being one of the most influential punk bands of their day. Since then they have recorded fourteen albums (their newest album is called New Maps of Hell) and toured extensively around the world. The original members were Jay Bentley (bass), Greg Graffin (vocals), Brett Gurewitz (guitars) and Jay Ziskrout (drums). Bentley and Gurewitz have rejoined Graffin for the current tour (though Greg has been the only constant since the band was formed).

Fun things to learn and know:
Greg Graffin was recently honoured with the "Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism" by Havard University's Humanist Chaplaincy. Greg's academic background includes a double-major undergrad degree in anthropology and geology from the University of California, a master's degree in geology from UCLA, and a PhD in zoology from Cornell U (his thesis topic was "Monism, Atheism and the Naturalist Worldview: Perspectives from Evolutionary Biology"). Also, while at Cornell he founded the Cornell Evolution Project, the "first major study of the beliefs of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists regarding traditional religion, naturalism, and the philosophical implications of their scientific work". Currently, among other things, Greg is a professor of Life Sciences as part of UCLA faculty of biology.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Avast me hearties! Sail ye to yon official website lest yer oily weevil hides be damned to Davey Jones locker by his great and wondrous noodleyness! Arrrr! Remember: stop global warming, become a pirate!

Also, you may also like to peruse past fine pirate related offerings from Chickens!. Umm...ye scurvy bilge rats!


p.s. In honour of ITLAP day Google has added the "pirate" language option to it's growing list of amusing interface choices. Just go to the Google homepage and click "preferences". Then change the "interface language" to pirate and click save preferences. It joins the ranks of "Bork bork bork", "Elmer Fudd", "Hacker", and "Klingon". Oh Google, you canny wastrel!

p.p.s Facebook also hoped on the yardarm with a pirate language setting! Shiver me timbers!

Squirrel miscellany

That squirrel is a genius!


I saw the video and it put me in mind of this comic. Hilarious! It was so funny LP's vball team even used it as their logo. There is a different (more recent) version of Danger Squirrel here, but I like this one better. I'm pretty sure it's the same guy though, the comics at lonely fetus are pretty weird and usually quite dark but there are a few pretty funny gems in there.

Also, just to nerd it up a bit, here is some of the diagnostic features of the Sciurid skull. I believe the example used is the eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). The image is from the immensely useful Animal Diversity Website.

Death Panda

Death Panda is part of the Japanese metal scene described in the sweet documentary Global Metal by Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn. The sequel to his first metal documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey (which I haven't seen yet but I expect some people to have some sort of metal movie night soon). I was quite pleased with the film! Very interesting to get different viewpoints on metal music and how it is affecting and being affected by different cultures that are new to it. I especially liked the Israel based metal band called Orphaned Land. Also, it made me really proud of Sepultura and their forward thinking ways.

Anywho, one of the stand out funny things was Japan's take on some aspects of metal music (namely visual kei) and there was a clip of a cartoon called Death Panda.

According to this blog:

"The Death Panda is a shock manga by artist Waita Uziga about a giant demonic panda bear from hell. A more cutesy guitar playing anime character called Death Panda (loosely based on the manga) was created and aired as one of the segments of TV Tokyo Channel 12’s wacky TV show "Takeyama sensei?!"

The video clips show an angry guitar playing and singing panda who laments man’s extermination of animal species around the world. The speed metal theme was created by (ex-Megadeth guitarist and now Tokyo resident) Marty Friedman and was sung by members of the popular all girl idol group AKB48."

You know, sometimes things just make you go "What the heck!?" but are awesome.

p.s. If anyone knows the translation let me know (I wouldn't want a repeat of the Polish fiasco).

Dinosaur!

In honour of Leonardo, the mummified dinosaur recently discovered in Montana, the first to be found with intact internal organs and stomach contents (and the new documentary "Secrets of the Dinosaur Mummy" airing on the discovery channel, which I'll probably post later once it is available), here is the documentary Dinosaur!" It was made in 1985, hosted by Christopher Reeve, it was one of the first of its kind featuring recreations of dinosaur life. A far cry from the fancy computer animation of today. We had this on VHS and watched it so many times! I remember thinking the part with the Tyrannosaurus was so freaky! Note a young(er) Robert Bakker who also makes an appearance in the Dinosaur Mummy documentary (check the preview here, he is such a character). FYI the bones discovered by Jim Jensen in 1979 and named "Ultrasaurus" in 1985 (later renamed "Ultrasauros" in 1995 because "Ultrasaurus" had already been published in 1983 by Haang Mook Kim as applied to a South Korean specimen he had discovered, which turned out to not be so big after all because he had mistaken a femur for a humerus), were later found to be parts of two separate dinosaurs, a Brachiosaurus and part of a Supersaurus that had been discovered at the same location. After that the term "Ultrasauros" came to be just another name for the Supersaurus, which was still really big.

El Grillo

Mike Bonales is a Spanish artist, animator, and designer. I found him through his comic South Pole, which was originally in spanish, but was translated to english here. He has also done some very powerful stuff couched in a deceptive animated format. Below is my favorite, entitled "El Grillo" set to the song “Persigue los sueños que hay en ti“ by the Spanish band El Grillo.

Media to Greens: Fine! Be that way!

Yesterday the announcement went out that the major networks that will be broadcasting the leaders debate on Oct.1st will allow Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, to participate. That means the debate will have five podiums, not just four, which will stand in front of leaders from the Conservatives (Stephen Harper), the Liberals (Stephane Dion), the New Democrats (Jack Leyton), the Bloc Québécois (Gilles Duceppe), and now the Green Party. This is in the wake of an announcement (2 days ago) that, due to major party leader protests, May would be banned from the debates or the debates would not take place at all. What a thrilling time for democracy! The recognition that a party that took 4.5% of the votes in the 2006 election (which secured them federal funding) and is running 306 candidates in the upcoming election (there's a total of 308 ridings for those of you who don't remember) is not a "fringe party".

FYI the Conservatives and Liberals got 36.3% and 30.2% respectively, the NDP got 17.5%, and the Bloc got about 10.5%. So 4.5% isn't too shabby considering the next most popular group was independants with about 0.5% (to illustrate: that wouldn't even fill the Green Bay stadium pictured to the left. I'm sure they all car-pooled) and like 1/4 of those votes were won by one guy (André Arthur who was elected as an independent candidate in the Quebec City-area riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier) and he won a seat for that! A little over 20,000 votes as opposed to the Greens over 660,000 votes (that would fill Lambeau stadium like 9 times). Does that make sense!? He's running again you know, does that mean he should he be included in the leaders debates? Yes he should if all we are basing inclusion on is whether or not a party has a seat in the House of Commons (which is why Jim Harris was excluded from the debates in 2006). Obviously Andre isn't the leader of a federal party so he shouldn't be included on those grounds but hey, neither is Gilles, he only represents one province so why is he there? Plus, with separatist support at an all time low since 1993, current polls suggest the Greens may beat out the Bloc this time popularity-wise. But I digress because now the Greens have an MP and with more than a little cajoling by the concerned voting public, threats of legal action by the Greens, and some recent yet bland changes of heart by the major party leaders, the Greens are in the debates. Huzzah!

"Now wait a minute!", you might say (if you were paying attention to the above bracketed sidebars), "why are the Greens only running 306 candidates this year when last year they ran 308?". Good question! Well the Greens and the Liberals have agreed not to run opposing candidates in their leaders ridings. That means May, who does not have a seat, but has chosen to run in the Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova (currently held by Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay). The Greens won only 2% of the vote there in 2006 but they are currently a close 3rd in the polls. In turn the Liberals gain an ally to support their new pro-Green image (Green candidate Gilles Mercier was not a significant threat to Stephane's seat in the last election but neither was anyone else). By the way, this deal was sited as one of the complaints against letting May into the debate. Oh, and the Greens also won't be opposing Bill Casey in the Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley district (which is in Nova Scotia). He's an independent but the Greens like him, he used to be a Conservative but he was expelled from the party when he refused to support Harper's 2007 budget that didn't honour the Atlantic Accord (Oh that makes sense because he's an MP from Nova Scotia! Right!). Remember that? That time the Conservatives didn't honour the Atlantic Accord? Yeah. Anywho, now the Conservatives have all his campaign money and are using it to run a candidate against him and it is quite the soap opera! So the Greens figure it's the least they can do. They talk about the story here on the Green Party website.

The Green Party of Canada is part of a global alliance of Green parties founded on 6 key principles: ecological wisdom, non-violence, social justice, sustainability, participatory democracy, and respect for diversity. The 2008 political platform will be released soon but the 2006 platform included such gems as reforms to mass transit systems, health care, and taxation and implementation of legislation concerning equity and support for women, the priorities of Aboriginal peoples, arts and culture, National Parks, health care, human rights and immigration, animal cruelty, government accountability, and, of course, protection of ecologically sensitive areas, decreasing pollution, and the like.They're also into subsidizing and lowering tuition costs, providing affordable housing, electoral reform, tax cuts for low-income Canadians, revitalizing our international role as peace-keepers, fair trade, long walks and sunsets. Their pet peeves are sad kittens and mean people. While some might argue there plans are ultimately too naive to put into place, I think the transparent optimism of their goals is what makes them such a popular alternative choice. Even if they won't realistically become the next leading party or official opposition, I think that recognizing the importance of this message is a very smart move by the Liberals.