On last night's BCTV News, the president of the BC Teacher's Federation said on camera something to the effect that in past teacher's strikes that have lasted three months, there was little or no harm done to the student's education.

Update And reiterated by their lawyer:

"In the past, there have been lengthy strikes and lockouts without serious consequences for students or the education system," the union's lawyer Diane MacDonald told the labour board.

And:

"By and large, it's not going to be harmful or injurious for people to miss a few weeks of school," [Surrey Teachers' Association president John] Wadge said. "There's a lot that can be done in terms of catching kids up. It's not as though you're trying to fill a container. They don't have to have X amount of knowledge by the end of the year, particularly in elementary school. It's not going to handicap them for the rest of their life or anything."

(Kids, I think you've found another excuse to skip school.)

Is this such a smart thing to admit to?

Does this mean I've wasted three months a year for twelve years in school?

Does this mean that teachers are extremely inefficient at teaching? (That's three months out of ninth months which means a 33% waste factor!)

What about grade twelve students taking pre-university courses?

Today's Local Weather Was: Cold and sunny.

Today's Local Weather Was: Cloudy.

Am I the only one who thinks that any driver who parks their Smart Car in this way is asking for trouble?

How exactly are the other two cars supposed to pull out without mashing steel (and plastic) together? Or how is the driver of the red car supposed to use the rear hatch?

Today's Local Weather Was: Cloudy. Sunny. Rainy.

YES!!! An Almost Live! reunion show. I can finally see Billy Quan kick some ass again.

Yes, Life is worth living.

Today's Local Weather Was: Sunny.

I'm predicting that with a decade, if the European Union has its way, the European economy will go into recession:

Defence chiefs are fighting to prevent the Army's tanks being stopped in their tracks by the introduction of a European directive on vibration and noise at work.

The Control of Vibration at Work Regulations and the Control of Noise at Work Regulations have left officers scrambling to discover if the military's armoured vehicles break the rules.

But with a slim chance of reducing vibrations in a Challenger 2 tank and the Warrior armoured vehicles, the Ministry of Defence will be seeking an exemption from the rules by invoking an "opt-out" clause. Soldiers who travel in the back of tanks and are subjected to substantial jolts and constant noise will have to suffer the discomforts until at least 2010 when the regulations become law.

Thinking about this for a moment. Fewer clubs because of DJs' and bouncers' exposure to loud music. Construction of new universities will take a decade or so be carpenters can only work for a few hours a day. Bus fare will increase because more drivers will have to be hired in order to shorten their shift hours. Desk-bound paper-pushers will be reducing their number of work hours due to all the noise from the printers, computers, copiers, telephones, etc.

Wait a minute. Less work. More play. Ahh, maybe bureaucrats are on our side.

Today's Local Weather Was: Sunny.

From VideoBusiness.com:

20th Century Fox and LucasFilm will release Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith, expected to be one of the season’s top sellers, on DVD only. Star Wars will be the first major new release to skip VHS, some say a move that is unsurprising because of its heavy DVD audience.

Today's Local Weather Was: Depressing. And the weather was bad too.

On the weekend I caught Major General (ret’d) Lewis MacKenzie's presentation as part of the "Handcuffs and Hand Grenades: The Use of Force Within and Between Nations" conference from the Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs (broadcasted by CPAC's "Public Record"). If you're interested in issues such as United Nations reform, humanitarian intervention, and similar issues I encourage you to at least read the summary of his presentation available on the institute's website.

In conclusion, Major General MacKenzie referred to the case of a displaced Sudanese woman fleeing rape and beheading that would not care less about "Canadian values," which we claim to be exporting. Our priorities must lie in the obvious: defending victims and rebuilding countries, which ought be the focus of the future Canadian military. Classic peacekeeping has hardly existed since the end of the Cold War, and the Canadian military must adapt to address real needs at hand.

Today's Local Weather Was: Cloudy. Rainy. Sunny. Crummy. Pissy. Willowy.