On this Remembrance Day, my thoughts turn to my 2 grandfathers (both still alive) who served in the army and air force respectively for Canada in World War 2. It’s not hard to remember this for me, as my 1 grandfather is now finally in the Veterans Hospital, and his Alzheimer’s has progressed so that most of his remaining memory comes from the the 1940’s when he was overseas.

Remember them all today at 11 am.

Alzheimer’s Disease sucks.  Read up on the disease and ways you can help the  Alzheimer’s Society of Canada, and in particular, consider holding an Alzheimer’s Society coffee break fundraiser. My mom decided to hold one this past Friday, setting 200$ for the afternoon as her fundraising goal, and she raised over 450$,  with more late donations rolling in.

May I also say cancer also sucks.  Find out more about how you can help defeat this insidious disease here

Family matters take precedence over politics today, so go read some very good blogs over at Progressive Bloggers or Liblogs for your political cravings. Be back after supper when I return to get the blog back to regularly scheduled blogging.

This story in the Globe talks about how after 4 days Canada has no medals yet at the Beijing Olympics, and there are already grumblings amongst Canadian athletes about how little support they get from the government with regards to funding as compared to other countries.

A few thoughts on this:

1) It’s still early in the Games - there is still a chance the medals will come and that the goal of 16 medals is met.

2) Corporate sponsorship in this country lags just as badly,  if not worse then government funding does, in my view.

I think obviously everyone wants our athletes to do well.. but if we do poorly at the end of these Olympics, it will be interesting to hear the Conservatives defence or explanation regarding current funding. I’ve read at Red Tory’s site from a commenter in his post on this that “this is the first year that  Canada is offering money for medals all the while cutting funding“, and he blames Harper’s and the Conservatives free market approach for this result.

I don’t know if that’s correct or not, but even if it is, I have my doubts anyone in Canada will vote against the Harper government  because of how they choose to spend funding on the Olympics.  If this Olympics turns out to be a disaster for us medal wise by the end of it however, it might bring pressure on the Harper government  to make sure we wouldn’t have a repeat of this in Vancouver (though we do better at winter sports anyhow).

I was joking a bit last blogpost about it being monsoon season in Ontario this year, but there’s always a silver lining to every dark raincloud.  Here is a good article in the Star today listing 10 reasons why it’s a good thing we’ve had all this increased precipitation this year. Try to see the positive in all this rain as you’re grumbling at the cottage.

On a side note to do politically with this, the Guelph forecast today is for a 70% chance of showers and risk of a thunderstorm.  Both the Ontario Young Liberals and the Green Party’s youth wing are doing canvassing this afternoon for their respective candidates in the Guelph byelection, so hopefully they don’t get too wet and can avoid the raindrops.

While watching all this rain and thunder and lightning occur (as Matthew over at Pample the Moose observed, I didn’t know Ontario had a monsoon season), I thought I’d ask if anyone’s interested or excited in watching the Olympics.

For myself personally, I don’t know if it’s the time zone difference, or the bad publicity surrounding the games (ie. Tibet, ridiculous air pollution, or China going back on its promises and stifling freedom to access sites they may not necessarily like politically), or getting depressed reading some Canadian sports journalists saying there should be low expectations for the Canadian team and its medal haul, but I’m really not into watching the Olympics. I wonder what others feel about that.

.. despite what some would tell you.  The sales pitch for getting high-speed wireless is that you’re able to keep a signal and a connection in bad weather, unlike say, satellite-based internet. That may be true, but we’ve been off-line or with intermittent service (and still are as of this blogposting)  around here since late last night.  According to our ISP, the service disruption is due to “adverse weather conditions”.

Eh?

I thought short of the wireless tower blowing over in a tornado that the signal was supposed to stay true? Anyhow, between that and tracking Hurricane Dolly’s landfall (it got up to a Category 2 with 100 mph maximum sustained winds), I’ve been a tad removed from political chit-chat today.

Updated: Hurricane Dolly, July 22/08, 5:00 pm EDT

One of the quirks I have is a fascination with Tropical Storms and Hurricanes. Don’t ask me how that got started, but I’m in awe of the pure power these things possess, and also how beautiful they can look on radar and satellite. I of course do not wish for destruction or loss of life, just as a stormchaser doesn’t wish a tornado to hit a town head-on. It’s just an appreciation for this phenomenon that I have.

Anyhow, it appears from the 11 am National Hurricane Centre update that Dolly is about to gain Hurricane status, and could be making a landfall on the US/Mexico border at the extreme southern part of Texas, near the community of Brownsville, sometime tomorrow.

It appears its going to be another busy season in the Tropics, when we’re already up to the letter “D” for named storms in July, and the busy part of the Hurricane season hasn’t even got here yet. I don’t think anyone is predicting this early in the hurricane season that the NHC will run out of letters and have to go to the Greek Alphabet like they did in 2005, but they’re on the 2005 pace so far. I of course will not attempt to make a link to this and climate change, as it’s not enough evidence to on an active hurricane season to do that, but the  increased activity and ferocity of these storms makes you go hmm, or it should.

A real good place to follow hurricanes and tropical systems and get some good analysis is at the Weather Underground, and to follow the blog of Dr. Jeff Masters.

UPDATE@5pm: We have Hurricane Dolly, the 2nd of the season.

… to all my readers and friends.

What would be a good synonym for Pierre Poilievre?

Probably this:

Feel free to leave other synonyms, or anything else on your mind.

PS - RIP Tim Russert. I didn’t watch his show all that often, but I was aware of his importance on the American political reporting scene.  I was surprised to hear the news of his sudden passing.