Great Lakes Freighter

Rust Paint Needed

Web Warriors

How far away are we from total cyberspace catastrophe? I almost feel I should rush to get this posted while I still can. One week the CBC airs a revealing documentary saying the internet is hugely vulnerable to hackers and sabotage. Criminals, often state sponsored, working overtime to undermine society which now depends so much on computers for anything from electrical grids to transport and banking. All this could go down rapidly and life as we know it too. Russia is the source of huge numbers of full-time hackers responsible for 80% of on-line crime. Then we hear this week that North Korea and China are suspected of probing American and South Korean websites looking for weaknesses. The internet a military target and one sure way to get at an enemy? Publish. Now. Whew! Hope you get to read this.

Blowing Air Kisses

A Globe and Mail article reports on John Baird, federal Minister of the Environment at the time, dropping in to collect food at an Ottawa vegetarian restaurant, the Green Door, and unwittingly gate-crashing Green Party Leader Elizabeth May's speech to a business group. She was presenting a strong critique of his do nothing Kyoto policies. Baird was commonly regarded as the Conservative Party's pit bull in a difficult portfolio subject to much opposition. So it raised eyebrows when he sought Elizabeth out and they hugged and air kissed before he declined an invitation to stay. Elizabeth reportedly put on her blog afterwards she liked John, just not his policies. Surprise, surprise. If only we non-politicians could be so magnanimous, liking our peers and colleagues just not what they advocate, say or do.