Phasor Burn

Parliament Hill set to expand house of commons seating capacity.

A Bill introduced this month proposes that a 330-seat House be in effect by 2014. The idea is to better reflect the rapid population growth in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta — although Ontario maintains its bigger delegation would still leave it under-represented. Regardless of whether the Bill passes, there will be more MPs in the future under an existing formula to adjust the House as the population grows.

[…]

A less likely option is to replace the current desk seating with British House of Commons-style benches (the origin of the term “backbencher”). Britain’s Commons can only accommodate 427 MPs, though there are 646 representatives. During major political events, like the lead-up to the Iraq war, British MPs pack into doorways and sit on stairs. Sir Winston Churchill decided against expanding the Commons after the war because he liked the idea of more MPs than seats and felt the atmosphere was better.

Hell yeah! More representation for Alberta and I really like the idea of benches. Doubt they’ll go for it, but it makes sense on some level to me. Most of the time our MP’s are not in the house all at once, and when a critical vote/debate/whatever comes up make them get in there and sweat it out shoulder to shoulder.

If we’re lucky the tensions could get to where we might see some Taiwan-style parliamentary brawling. Hand them lacrosse sticks and let ‘er rip. Anything to liven up the house and make it more likely the public will tune in to see what the federal weasels are up to on any given day.

Masked Youths attack 12 yr old with roman candle fireworks.

The incident took place at about 3 p.m. after the suspects threatened the boy. The 12-year-old ran away, but tripped and fell, which gave the attacker the opportunity to light the firecracker, police said.

Revenge sparked by a dispute the day before appears to be the motive, Staff Sgt. Howie Page told the Star.

During the pursuit, the victim hid under a car, at which point one of the youths bounced a firecracker off the vehicle — a dangerous move because of the proximity to the car’s gas tank, Page said

Oh please. Someone ought to inform this moron, Staff Sgt. Howie Page, exactly how hard it is to light a car’s gas tank on fire.

Mythbusters tried with tracer rounds, on a tank that was already full of holes from previous attempts, and failed to cause any kind of explosion. The only reason it lit up at all was because of all the previously created holes letting air/gas mix copiously first.

I highly doubt a roman candle would have done anything, unless it was shot directly down an open gas tank fill pipe, and even then it is unlikely due to the backflow trap and lack of O2 in the tank itself.

Anyhoo. Kids, don’t shoot roman candles at each other, mmmkay? You might put an eye out, burn somebody, or cause an ignorant cop to think you were trying to blow up a car.

I’m taking a page from Zarquil Zonar’s blog, and will state that I’m on vacation.

Still using the computer. What’s that faint cry I hear from Lori, all the way from Portland where she’s at Rails Conf?

Put the browser down, back away from the computer, go outside.

Yeah… that’s a good idea… maybe do some spring yard cleanup. Mow the lawn and call Greendrop and ask why they fertilized instead of aerated/raked. Yeah…..

Oh hey. Sparrows. Sparrows for the dog to chase around the yard.

Now all I need is some sunshine and to get the patio furniture out and a book to read…

Right after I finish blog posting.

Look out, here comes Windows Server 2008

[…] we have done a lot of work in 2008 to make the system more modular. You have the server manager; every role is optional, and there are more than 30 components not installed by default, which is a huge change,” Laing said.

To read more about the first public beta for Windows Server 2008, click here.

“We also have server core, which doesn’t have the GUI [graphical user interface], so I would say that is a response to the options people had with Linux that they didn’t have with Windows,” he said.

All I’m going to say right now is that the following still applies :

Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
– Henry Spencer
Usenet signature, November 1987

Heroes–Zeroes 1