UofA Leads CIS in advancing Sports Scholarship funding

According to the Edmonton Journal, the University of Alberta is leading the way among the Canadian Inter-university Sport (CIS) organization by expanding the financial support offered to students.   Beginning in 2014 CIS schools will be able to offer enhanced financial support and scholarships that include things like Room & Board and Books - instead of just tuition - which scholarships have been restricted to before.

A 5 year pilot project by the UofA Panda (Women's) Hockey Team will evaluate the program.  Canadain Universities have been loosing the battle for talent to U.S universities for many years - especially in Women's hockey.  Athletic Director Ian Reade said Canadian women are 1/4 to 1/2 of many U.S NCAA Hockey teams - even higher in Ivy League (Cornell 67%, Dartmouth 70% and Clarkson 95%).

The hope is make the program permanent.

No comment about application to Men's sports was mentioned.

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Obama drops "Under God" in reciting Gettysburg Address on 150th Anniversary

150 years ago - Nov 19, 1863 - Abe Lincoln dedicates the Gettysburg Cemetery to war dead from the American Civil War and makes his famous, short address.

President Obama recreates that moment - but excludes the words "under God".

There can now be no doubt.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

 Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

 But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Justin Trudeau's most admired government? China

As relentlessly covered by Sun News - the gaffe by Justin Trudeau (Le Dauphin by some) about "the country he most admires" being China has been wonderful fodder for Conservative pundits.

But Terry Glavin's comment in the Ottawa Citizen has received the most attention - mostly due to closer's like this:

"... not to impugn Trudeau’s intentions ..... [but] Justin Trudeau, as a ridiculous, morally illiterate and fathomlessly unserious person."

The issue here in my opinion is JT's admiration of totalitarian methods.  He admires their ability to take the "right" actions to quickly solve a problem.  Obviously the central question is not the "rightness" of the action - it is the desire to use the power of the state to impose his solution on the voters (hopefully only a small subsection.)

This was covered by Joseph Ben-Ami in an article in the Canadian Observer in Spring 2012 "A Whiff of Totalitarianism" regarding JT's comments that he might support Quebec Independence if Canada ever
succumbed to Harper's "Hidden Agenda" to do away with same-sex marriage and abortion.

This a subtle change.  It used to be Quebec's National Identity was forged by Language and Culture.
No longer.
Trudeau now tell's us it is a commitment to abortion  and same-sex marriage.
Ben-Ami suggests this will not play as well to Quebecois outside Montreal as JT may think.
His conclusion was they may be more concerned with Civil Engineering (as an Autoroute bridge collapsed over some poor commuters near Montreal) rather than Social Engineering.
But he identified a core truth about these issues.
When you eliminate choices - the debate becomes about nothing but style.
There are now so many third rails that we are behind bars.
The most successful tyranny is one that removes awareness of possibilities.

How to debate a Liberal

Ben Shapiro has been pushing this message lately.  I think it is valid.
He has described the problem of reaching the LIV (Low-Information Voter).

Rob Ford is a Kardashian wrapped in an episode of Intervention inside a bottle of vodka.

Undoubtedly an apology to Churchill (Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. BBC Radio, Oct 1, 1939) - this is one of the best quotes from the Mayor Ford debacle by noted journalist Christie Blatchford.

Why MS Word must die!

I must admit to having had this opinion for some time.
The Microsoft era is at an end - and they know it - hence Office365 (or what ever they call it).
I am using Google Docs alot - expect when I need to work "off-line" - which is more often than One thinks (bad reception etc).

Here are two of the software apps mentioned - I am not familiar with either but felt I should list.

VIM - text processor.

Scrivener - a manuscript management program.

I am sure there are many more - and perhaps readers would add their 2c in comments?