Who says developers don't have a sense of humour?

In the hamlet of Rockwood, Ontario, there is an intersection of Brady Street and Christie Street.

Better late than never...

Steven Truscott has been acquitted by the Ontario Court of Appeal, a scant 48 years after his wrongful conviction for the rape and murder of a 12 year old girl.

Life continues apace

Friday I had to bring my car to work, because I had to pick up the temp and drive to the sort centre while the others were out collecting in the van. The van only seats two, and the shitmobile is away on another project (not broken down, amazingly enough), so I had to use the car. They're supposedly going to pay mileage, though. In the evening I went to see Paprika with the Ps and a friend of theirs. A very confusing movie; maybe I should have been in a different state of mind or something.

Today I tried to set up the new computer I picked up this week. It's an Athlon 64-bit machine, except this one is effectively a zero bit machine. No video, either from the onboard socket or from another video card I tried sticking in there. I suppose I'll have to take it back and whine to them. I also went to pick up the roll of black and white astrophotos I dropped off at one of the few remaining places in town that does black and white, only to find that I'll have to come back next week because the technician who does B&W is on vacation.

Tomorrow I'm doing some canvassing, then going to the company social gathering in the evening. Oh well, I imagine I'll survive that.

Quebec police admit they went undercover at Montebello protest

You've probably heard about the reports that the Quebec may have had agents provocateurs at the protests against the recent "Security and Prosperity Partnership" summit in Montebello, Quebec. If you haven't, here's a YouTube video:



Now, it seems that the cops have admitted that there's some truth to the claim:

Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday that their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protests at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.

The police came under fire Wednesday when protesters accused the force of planting undercover officers in the demonstration to provoke violence. A video surfaced on YouTube that appeared to depict disguised police in the crowd.

Source.

Mid-week report

On Monday I worked in the office as usual, and CL and Ms P came over for a while in the evening. Yesterday we were to do roadside collections in Wellington County, and we did indeed do the collections and bring the material to the sort centre. However, there were serious discrepancies in the sheets telling us which houses to collect from. Eventually the order came to abort the sort and return to the office. Both the Human Sawmill and I were worried that we might have somehow been at fault; on arrival the HS was asked about how the sheets were put together but nothing seemed to come of it. We're in the office again today, to resume collections tomorrow.

Yesterday evening I went to Catherine Fife's place for her campaign kickoff, and ate a couple of veggie burgers. Nice evening, and Catherine is pumped for the campaign... now all we need is for Elizabeth Witmer to bite the head off a rat on live TV or something.

A good weekend

Saturday morning I biked to the market, picked up some staples, bought some photo supplies at the soon-to-be defunct Heer's Camera Shop, checked out the NDP office, and biked around a bit for the heck of it. Today I cleaned my apartment (or rather, cleaned the living room and kitchen), visited my grandma, and hung out with Ms P. Nothing really spectacular, just a general feeling that it was a weekend well spent.

And you just have to watch this:


Via atomicat.

Is this the start of a new Great Depression?

Maybe, maybe not. I'm no expert. But this article is a bit ominous:

"In short sales," Shapiro explained, "you don't own the share you sell; instead you borrow it. Then you replace it when you cover the short. If you're right and the price has gone down, you replace it at a lower price, and the difference between what you sold it for and what price you replaced it at is your profit. The problem with a naked short is that you don't borrow the share you sell. You sell it without ever borrowing it. In effect, you invent a share."

If this is beginning to sound like a game of Monopoly built on fake money, that's because it is. By injecting so many invented shares into the market using naked shorting, hedge funds have not only created an economy in which they can manipulate the stocks of companies smaller than Microsoft and Wal-Mart, but they have also created a market in which there are more shares than actual stocks. And that's about as hyperreal as an economy can get.

Confused? You're not alone. This could simply be yet another correction, but if you walk down Bay Street (or Wall Street), it wouldn't be a bad idea to bring a good sturdy umbrella, just in case it starts raining brokers.

Edited to add: They just said on the radio that even though Canadian companies aren't seriously exposed to the subprime crisis directly, their stocks are falling because they're being sold by US hedge funds, who are trying to cover their losses from the crisis.

I should be upfront here and say that in a very small way, I contributed to the crisis. You see, a few years ago I worked for a call centre that dabbled briefly in selling subprime mortgages to American consumers. I hate to admit it now, but I was actually quite good at it.