Tag Archives: holiday

Winter in Saskatchewan

Posted on by John Klein

When it’s too cold to explain, photos will have to do.
Wood Mountain December Sunset

Christmas Tree

Deer at Wood Mountain

Sundog at Lakenheath, SK

I don’t go to church anymore, and didn’t want to long before I stopped going. This year I was invited to two different Christmas church services, and ended up going to neither. When I do go, it’s out of respect for my family’s traditions, and end up socializing with people I would otherwise not see day-to-day. Most of the time I cannot bring myself to support what I feel is such a waste of time, money, and effort to support religious institutions that do far less good than they promise and would have us believe they do.

The new Nigerian priest for the part of southern Sask. where my parents live, became lost when trying to drive to church in Glentworth on Sunday. He wound up in a town about 30 minutes away, then called for directions and arrived about an hour late. There was a fresh coat of snow everywhere, the road included, so it must have been a bit of an ordeal to go from +30 to -20 in the span of a month, and become lost where the closest farmyard can be 15km from any given point on the road. He was oriented for Christmas Eve evening service at least. The roads have not been kind to priests in the past year; Father Carrigan, a priest that served Wood Mountain and Lafleche, passed away from a highway collision.

The Spirit of Christmas

Posted on by John Klein

Using Adrian’s generalization logic, since he’s a climate change denier every time people try to help him learn with evidence, what can we pretend all climate change deniers are like?

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Background story.

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ADDED BONUS CONSERVATIVE:

San Diego’s Big Bay Bust

Posted on by John Klein

I’ve witnessed two big American 4th of July fireworks shows, in New York ’02 and San Diego ’10. The San Diego show two years ago lasted at least 20 minutes, and we watched it from a hill near PB. While there we also heard people talk about ice blocking down the hill, one story resulted in someone bailing out and the ice block hitting a car. Charges ensued for that failed sledder.
San Diego Fireworks 2010
- It should look like this

Last night’s show in San Diego was a spectacular failure, with a computer program accidentally setting off every firework at once, instead of spaced out among twenty minutes. I’m surprised the amplified explosion didn’t cause any reported damage (other than to egos and expectations).

FIRE ALL THE FIREWORKS!

TAKE ALL THE PICTURES!

What’s better, just another fireworks show, or the #EpicFail show, famous around the world?

Software testing is something moderately important for a big show. What glitches will we see during the Olympic Games this year?

A Year

Posted on by John Klein

It’s been a year of marriage, and I don’t want the honeymoon to end.

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It’s that time of year when the weather gets hot, and the blogging gets slow. Where is everyone? Where’ve I gone? I hope someone is looking after the ‘shop.

The Moose Jaw Tornado

Posted on by John Klein

Last week there was an impressive tornado south west of Moose Jaw. Here’s one of the more popular videos of it, brought to you by Saskatoon Scanner who I know going back to the early YouTube days.

#SKstorm Regina
- A little bolt lightning, but mostly sheet lightning illuminating the clouds sweeping eastward.
Here are some less exciting videos of some lightning I shot on Canada Day.

Here’s Saskatchewan’s most famous tornado chaser, Greg.

Radical Good Sense

Posted on by John Klein

The “Fight for Canada”, did not happen in 1812, since Canada did not exist as a nation for decades later in 1867. The Department of “Canadian Heritage” ought to be ashamed of its atrocious rewriting and dumbing down of Canadian history by calling the War of 1812 a fight for Canada. Who wants to bet that the winning Canada Day “1812: Fight for Canada” entry will have a Canadian flag on it, even though that flag didn’t come into being until 1965? Where historical accuracy loses to artistic license, that art becomes propaganda.

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The not-so Honourable Minister of Natural Resources has kicked up Harper’s attack on environmentalism. Fortunately there are some real journalists out there still to hold his feet to the pyre he’s hoping to toss us onto.

Creekside’s Alison has the hilarious transcript of our Minister acting like a jackass on air, being caught with the plain truth. If non-Canadians with money for the oil patch want to spread money around for political purposes, it’s fine, but if non-Canadians want to spend money with the idea of protecting humans from pollution, then they are radicals.

The Globe dug up a few of those local Canadian “radicals” who probably voted Conservative last election.

Mr. Oliver was quite forceful, warning that such groups “threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.

There could not be a more hilarious case of an old pot calling a (stainless steel) kettle black. Oliver described the Conservative party’s corruption of our democracy to make radical ideological changes on their well known “secret” agenda (ending: CWB, gun registry, Insite, all without logic or facts to back up their position soundly).

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What I find amazing in this article is that an NDP leadership candidate is proposing something I proposed the NDP, Liberals, and Greens try before the next general election: joint nomination meetings for key disputed ridings. If only 30 of these are successful, that should give the Conservatives some measure of defeat in the 2015 election.

Note that the article headline would also be true if there were at least 15 ethical Conservatives left willing to put their country before their party, and vote as independents, apart from the Conservative caucus. Sadly “ethical” and “Conservative” do not belong in the same sentence anymore I fear.

I can’t find my original article with my idea when I first pitched it, but it may be prior or perhaps after this comment toward the end of the comment thread. It could have been after 2011′s election I brought it up, or maybe only on Facebook for some reason.

Basically the Liberals, NDP, and Greens would agree to run only one candidate, the most successful party at organizing the largest nominating group would run the respective candidate. That way each party gets a chance to run their candidate, and the vote splitting falls away long enough for election reform to pass.

Good Luck Hangover

Posted on by John Klein

“Good Luck Chuck” [3/10] was on Netflix, and it’s every bit as uncomfortable as the critics said it was. It’s a mean spirited Hollywood vehicle to show a lot of topless women to actor and comedian Dane Cook. If you like a movie with a lot of boobs, and tortured reasons to show them off, watch this movie.

“The Hangover II” [4/10] uses the same gags as the first. It’s Home Alone II basically, but with adults encountering an unlikely situation, again. Watch this movie if you’ve seen The Hangover and want to see it again.

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And the blog year couldn’t begin unless we talked about a list. The weather has been quite unusual for most of the year, especially in Regina where it’s been hovering around zero degrees Celsius through most of December! Reality deniers will try to say these sorts of extremes happen all of the time, or happen naturally, and they’d be correct except they are happening in the context of humans polluting the atmosphere at an increasing rate never achieved before in human history.