I have made it to Missisauga and cannot wait to go out tonight. I will be in arriving in Hamilton on the GO Bus in the morning the next couple of days. Want to catch up? Email me.

Apartment scandal forces PM to resign
The Associated Press
Prague, Czech Republic (Apr 26, 2005)
Prime Minister Stanislav Gross resigned yesterday after weeks of political crisis sparked by a scandal over the financing of his luxury apartment.
Gross first said he financed it with the help of a mortgage, but later said he borrowed money from his uncle. The Czech news media later reported that his uncle had borrowed the money from a journalist he barely knew.

Shame on City Council for having considered this disrespectful act against the greatest Mayor Hamilton has ever had!
It makes me sick to see Council being this disrespectful!
From the Hamilton Spectator:

Copps Coliseum name up for sale
By Jacquie De Almeida
The Hamilton Spectator
The city’s entertainment board will consider taking Victor Copps’s name off Copps Coliseum if it can find a big-name corporate sponsor.

If you name something in honour of a great person, you keep that person’s name on it!
What a stupid get rich quick scheme!
Of course, it would not be a city council related story without Sam Merulla adding his two cents:
Ward 4 Councillor Sam Merulla favours selling the naming rights. But he said losing the Copps name entirely would be disrespectful and remove all historical significance of the city-owned building.

“This (facility) was named for a reason,” Merulla said. “We can find a compromise somewhere.”

No, Sam there is not a compromise here. It either remains Copps Coliseum or not.

The stream for my favourite radio has not been working since Friday and it finally came back online sometime tonight.
I listen to:
www.newcountry1039.com
103.9FM – Louisville KY USA (BTW)

I have changed my archiving on individual entires so that they are not number but instead they have a bit of the title in the link…
for example:

http://www.joeycoleman.ca/archives/2005/04/24/not_surprised_.html

was

http://www.joeycoleman.ca/archives/000286.html

The problem with the old setup is that when I move my cgi-bin MT directory, the rebuild changes the numbers because I sometimes use numbers to store data and never use the number for a public post.
Basically, this entry below this should be the 286th entry but it is not. When I rebuild to fool Dos and TBSpam attacks, the rebuild will renumber it to 283 which will confuse search engines and legimate users. I have now fixed that problem.

It has been said before and it is said again. The Canadian Forces are not interested in justice, just interested in protecting the higher ranks:
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/OttawaSun/News/2005/04/24/1010312-sun.html
Another military watchdog quits

By STEPHANIE RUBEC, Parliamentary Bureau
A power struggle with Defence Minister Bill Graham has provoked the military’s acting ombudsman to resign just weeks into her job. Barbara Finlay, who was appointed acting ombudsman by Graham when Andre Marin resigned April 1, stepped down last week.
Spokeswoman Barbara Theobalds said Finlay quit after she received a letter from Graham April 14 confirming her appointment and asking that she forward sensitive complaints to the minister’s office.
WANTS ‘FULL AUTHORITY’
Theobalds noted that Marin was not subject to the constraint, adding the rule means if the ombudsman’s office receives more than one complaint on a sensitive topic, Graham has to vet it before an investigation is launched.
“What she wants is the full authority of an ombudsman,” Theobalds said.
Finlay has resumed her former position as the ombudsman’s director general of operations — leaving the office charged with resolving soldiers’ complaints without a boss.
Graham spokeswoman Isabelle Savard said Finlay remains the acting ombudsman in the government’s eyes and denied the minister wants to vet any investigations.
Savard said Graham only wishes to view sensitive investigations after Finlay completes them but before they’re made public — a practice started by her predecessor.
The ombudsman’s office and federal lawyers are expected to meet shortly to try to settle the feud.

Lets think about this, who do I believe? The Ombuds or the Politican who is part of the higher ranks.. (and is part of the Paul Martin government…..)
this is hard…. if this were what the Minister’s office says it is, do you think she would have resigned?
The story has been picked up in other places on the blogosphere
Small Dead Animals
Polspy
CounterFactual

When I was repacking all my stuff to ship to Ontario, I found a shoebox that was full of all the extra army stuff I bought in Gagetown two years ago. (I bought seconds of the stuff I had to shine so that I always had a ready set in case I needed it.)
I found my extra set of rank pins and thought it was pretty cool:

Not only have the Liberals made federalism look bad in Quebec, they have managed to call the judiciary into question and damaged the faith that I and Canadians like me have in the courts.
The first name is now being thrown around the blogosphere here:
http://angrygwn.blogspot.com/2005/04/has-first-judge-been-fingered.html
and here:
http://andrewcoyne.com/2005/04/judgescam.php

I just got a Yahoo! Reminder:
End-of-Year Social, McLuhan Hall, 4/23/2005, 6:00 pm
except that this social was cancelled in October and I just forgot to remove it from my calendar. I should have organizated that social, would have given me something to do with my night rather than sitting on a computer killing time.
On a sidenote, I did panic for a second thinking what did I forgot? M.Hall – damn, I shipped my suit! Oh no! Then I realized that it was an event I was going to plan for my student group and decided that it was not work during exams.

I AM DONE!!!
YEAH, MY SCHOOL YEAR IS DONE!!!!
AGAIN I AM DONE!!!!
Now, I just have to kill time for the next week. So I am going on a website building spree!
I am going to rebuild my frontpage again and see if I can get something that I really like.

I do not want to reveal what or why….
but I have a feeling that a piece of mail I am expecting to arrive on Monday will be a letter I rather not have received.
No worries, I can deal with bad news.

I write my final exam in just under one hour. I cannot believe how fearful I am right now! It is really bad. I have studied hard but I am afraid that I will not pass the exam and hence not pass the course. Too much worry!
I other news, I am now a week away from being back in Hamilton! Yes, that is right; Hamilton. I have decided to return to Hamilton and take up a summer job there. I will be attending McMaster as of May 2nd. I am looking forward to it! Now to get to the arcade to relax before my exam. Anyone have an good ideas on what to do to kill time this next week?

While, this afternoon, I ran my website statistics and noticed that my University Administration, and Public Relations people were all over my website. (Between 1pm – 2:30 I had 20 visits from Admin and PR.) I was wondering what was going on?
Turns out they have imposed a new fee:

UTech Fee
The U of M has implemented a technology fee (UTech fee) starting in Summer Session 2005. The fee in Summer Session is $25 per registered student (the fee will also be applicable in regular session but at differing rates). The UTech fee will be used to upgrade building networks and equip classrooms with the latest technology, as well as install wireless networks in common areas. These upgrades will ultimately result in improved teaching and learning experiences at the University.

I have tried to find out when the Board of Governors approved this fee increase because all fee increases are supposed to be approved by the Board. I have not been able to find this. It could exist and I just could not find it. I have heard that for regular session this fee will be $110 for 30 credit hours. I do not have a solid figure has the University has not made it public on the website yet. Actually, the University went out of their way to quietly do this.
Now where do I stand on the fee?
If the University uses this fee plus the $60 extra fee for resident students to actually install internet in residence then I am in favour of it. It will be cheaper than getting a phone line and dial-up internet. Not only that, the University claims they will be using this to place wireless in common areas. But since the new wireless technology has much greater range, they should be able to make the entire campus a hot-spot. If they use the money to support Student Computing, I am in favour of it. If they use this money for Administration, then I am opposed.
What do I want the University to do?
Simple, START WORKING WITH STUDENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So many problems and concerns would be solved if they worked with students to implement things instead of trying to hide things and hope we do not notice. Come on Admin, we are your University’s students. If you do not have confidence in us, why should employees? This attempt to hide new fees is unacceptable and saddens me. I was one of the few UMSU Council members who is open to fee increases provided the increases go into things that help students. This fee appears at first glance to be good because if it is invested into student computing it will improve the campus for students. Yet the Ivory Tower (The slang term on campus for Administration since they have their own building which is on the highest point of land on campus) is trying to hide the fee which leads me to believe that it is just another cash grab.
Look, students are now going to pay an extra $2,750,000 a year plus the $60,000 that resident students will pay on top of that, students want to know where these millions of dollars are going.
So, will Administration use the money from students to benefit students? or will they use it to benefit themselves?
In summary, I am not opposed to the idea provided that it is not another cash cow for Administration but I do not trust Administration to not make it a cash cow.
On a last note, I will not be updating my blog until Saturday afternoon.

Everytime Internet Explorer loads on the computers I use in the computer lab, I get the University of Manitoba Homepage. For the last week, I have been looking at it in dismay but today they added a third banner to the rotation. I really like the three banner. It is a natural picture without noticable Photoshopping. It shows a bunch of University of Manitoba students with the Administration Building in the background. The picture is not brighter than the rest of the page and does not jump out over all the other elements. Instead, it fits into the page perfectly. I love it! (and for those of you looking out your rez windows right now; Yes, those are pigs you are seeing fly!)

http://www.anticorruption.ca/ is the best site I have seen in Canadian Politics for a long time. Funded by Conservative supporters, it is a perfect example of how to use the internet in politics…. I need to quickly rebuild my site in order to show their flash ad but it is great!