Working in Montréal today --An Agreeance Agreivance

Good morning folks, I will be working in Montréal today.

Have you hear the word Agreeance lately?

Are we in agreeance here?  I have heard this word a couple of times in the last bit.   Most recently in a Judge Judy case where the Plaintiff used it to describe the meeting of the minds that existed between herself and the Defendant.  Judy snapped back in usual style, "Agreeance is not a word!".  

Sorry Judge, it is a word, it is however obsolete and archaic; it really has not been used since the 18th century but lately it seems to have a bit of a resurgence.

I think that Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit (?  What an awkward name for a band) used it a couple years back in an environment speech and was so terribly offended when the press flambeau'd him.

I mean if a fond wishes to effect an acucian on words since not uttered on moons many passed, what not I were affect?    Friends, countrymen lift ones eyes to welkin present and aecon such talu opportunities, albeit all sundry!

Annoying, isn't it Fred?  Do try to stay in the 21st century.  

I was going to slip in a reference to Wes Borland leaving Limp B, and I did wonder, what the hell was with that two hand banging the hell out of the guitar instead of using a pick about? But I won't bother since it is unlikely most will know what the hell I am talking about.

Hey, what happened to the 40 billion dollars that the New York Fed sent to Iraq during the early part of Operation: Economy Killer?  That was the largest cash transfer in history and no one seems to know where it went.  There is a current investigation underway, but so far The Special Inspector General's office finds it not suspicious that all pallets of cash were received in Iraq by always the same guy.   A sub-contracting language translator that used to live in the States and now lives in Dubai.

Similarly the U.S. Department of Defense says it is expected that with proper retirement planning and frugal use of coupons even an E6 can retire with millions in gold storage.  Nothing suspicious there either.  I think they were just begging for trouble when they were only concerned with counting the pallets of cash --a little too aggregate for me thanks.

Have a great day.

Working in Ottawa today --Epaulettes R US

Good morning folks,  Just to keep everyone on their toes, I am traveling on a Friday, 'stead of a Thursday.

I really have no desire to have my weekly email become an obituary column, but the world just keeps serving up some notable passings.

This week in the Lifeless, deceased, expired, departed, gone, no more, late, perished, fallen, slain, slaughtered, killed, murdered, extinct, dead as a door nail, six feet under, pushing up daisies list..

That wacky, self effacing, epaulette wearing, snazzy dressing Muammar Gaddafi.  Reportedly Gaddafi was killed after a brief exchange of gunfire between him and members of the NTC Rebellion, aka, The Revolutionary Forces.

In an odd copycat of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi was also found huddled in the ground in a concrete culvert, it was also reported that one of the armed Revolutionaries hit Gaddafi with a shoe.  I read this is an insult in the Arab world.  I thought that was a bit of redundant journalism since I cannot think of any culture where smacking out a guy with a shoe is an act of endearment.   Well maybe only one.  The safe word is, "banana".

For those that are not familiar, Gaddafi and Libya..  Everyone and his brother has laid claim to Libya at one time or another, Spain, France, Britain, Turks, Ottoman, Italy.. I apologize to any one that I may have missed.  In recent memory, the future of the region of Africa known as Libya was referred to the United Nations at the end of WWII.  This resulted in a resolution for Libyan independence a national assembly elected Mohammed Idris (aka Idris I) as King.  Idris formally declared the independent state of Libya in December 1951.

He then proceeded to rule in the old fashioned and traditional monarch style, with little regard to democratic ideals.. Yeah okay, with no regard.  I am pretty sure that the only income that Libyan had at that time was some rent collected from U.S. And British airbases and some international aide.

Then oil was discovered in 1959.

Many of the aforementioned countries of occupation and colonialization issued a collective, "Doh!".

The next 10 years saw a rather lazy move to economic independence and when Idris was off visiting Turkey, 27 year old Gaddafi, pardon me, Captain Gaddafi led a bloodless coup and took the throne.

And with the same regard for democratic ideals as his predecessor, Gaddafi held that office until yesterday.  During his tenure he waged war, endorsed international terrorism and oh yes, at some point he gave himself a promotion to Colonel.

What point am I trying to make?

Simply that Libya has no experience with Democracy.  The peoples of Libya have no experience with Democracy.  But they do have much experience with occupation, oppression, violence and factional disputes.

I fear that the end of Gaddafi is no end to the problems in Libya, but rather we will see Libya descend into civil war between several groups pursuing control, not the least of which will be religious extremists.

Don't worry, it's still a great planet for the arms dealers and the AK-47.

Have a good day.   Keep the safety switch on.

Daniel is sick, still

I will be spending another day at home on my couch.

So what is happening inside Daniel's body?

Quite simply I have been invaded by a very small infectious organism.  Very small.  Smaller than a bacterium, smaller than a fungal spore.  I have been invaded by a virus.

In all likelihood the virus running rampantly from cell to cell is a member of the rhinovirus family, aka, the common cold.  This is actually a good thing since the rhinovirus attacks and infects cells solely in the upper respiratory tract, the nasal cavity, pharynx, larynx.  If is was influenza or something more nasty then the lower tract could be attacked as well, my trachea,bronchial, and lungs.

My first indication of the invasion was a scratchy throat, likely the point of the initial breach of my cells, the first ones to be invaded.  The virus may have been breathed in or arrived on some food or hand to mouth or even a glass of water.  Once in my throat and a cell wall breached, the virus would have injected its RNA (for the curious, rhinoviruses have single strand RNA genomes) into my unsuspecting cell which then would take over the inner workings on that cell.

As my cells fall victim to the invading RNA they release "please come help me" proteins known as chemokines which serve as sort of a guiding smoke signal to my immune system which causes the area to be inflamed with white blood cells.  Unfortunately it is likely that my immune system had not had an encounter with this particular virus strain and although I have soldiers in the area, they are not capable of binding to, and rendering the virus immobile.

So we are having a bit of a race right now, the virus's RNA is moving from cell to cell, taking over nasal and throat, and my white blood cells are developing a counter attack.  There is no doubt that my crew will win, the only question is how quick they can adapt and replicate.

Early this morning the infection progressed to my left nasal passages, I had hoped that my Sagittal plane would also serve as sort of a Maginot line and give my defenses time to reinforce but it too failed in hours.

However, moral is still high, I watched Monty Python's The Meaning of Life this morning and all of my white blood cells had a good giggle when the men came for the (still very much alive) fellow's liver, although his screams and spurting blood were a bit gruesome.

Have a good day, wash your hands.

Daniel is sick

Good morning folks, I sent this email a few minutes ago to everyone I think that I may have had plans to meet today.  As you can see, that just is not going to happen.  

>>Hi Folks, I will not be in any office today.
>>Have a cold coming on, throat, nose, ears, attitude, generally feeling like road kill.
>>I will spend the day on my couch and see if I can't beat this back with superior 

>>mental discipline and plenty of fluids.

Working in Ottawa today --We are amused

Good morning folks, I will be working in Ottawa today.

A few items that should be included in today's email..

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Today is election day in Ontario.  Get yer asses out to VOTE!  I plan on bemoaning fiscal and social policies through out the next four years and if you didn't vote, you won't be able to join in and express your opinion.  Don't be irrelevant, VOTE!

I had no faith that I could get back to Mississauga in time to vote this evening, so I voted yesterday by special ballot.

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Steve Jobs has passed away yesterday at the age of 56 after a battle with Pancreatic cancer.  Over the last 10 years, after 10 years in exile, Jobs reformed Apple computers, the company that he co-founded in 1977.

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I started to pen a brief tutorial on how not to get conned by Social Engineering, be it phone calls, phishmail, or lurkers checking out your monitor for PostIt-Note! passwords. When I typed a sentence with the words," ..and then we have..".  My attention was transfixed to the word "we".

It was clear to me that I really meant you, but I had used the literary device, we.  The more I thought about the we device, then more interesting the topic seemed.

You (we) surely are familiar with the Royal We, bet you didn't know that it started likely with William Longchamp in the 12 century (remember him in that film about William Wallace?).  The use of we actually refers to both the Royal and God, collectively.  Solves that little puzzle of how royalty can appoint bishops.

How about the use of the Patronizing We?  The doctor asking, "and how are we feeling today?".  I don't know about you doc, but I have this pain on my neck.  

Queen Victoria's "We are not amused.". she was not actually invoking the Royal we, but speaking for herself and the women of the court according to Caroline Holland in Notebooks of a Spinster Lady, 1919.

The editorial or author's we suggests an assumptive agreement, that the readers agree with the editorial position or share in the knowledge.  This can be as a conclusion to a logical construction, "Take 10 and 5 and then we have 15" or just as agreement to a particular opinion or position, "Raising the blood alcohol limit will reduce the incidence of drunk driving?  What we have here is an absurdity."

There is the We of Solidarity, We shall overcome.  We, the People in the Preamble of the United States Constitution.  We are not ashamed, Joan Jett.

Let's have a good day shall We :)