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Showing posts from July, 2010

School Budgets Shrink While Writers Get More Coffee Money

This just in from the grand people at Access Copyright. These people are so happy that they can get money from Canadian schools for photocopied pages. Toronto - July 26, 2010 - Canadian creators and educational publishers have won a six-year legal battle to receive reasonable compensation for the reproduction of copyright-protected teaching materials used in the classroom, according to a decision by the Federal Court of Appeal. In 2009, the Copyright Board of Canada certified a tariff to compensate creators and publishers for the photocopying of their works in K - 12 Schools. Ministers of Education of all the provinces and territories with the exception of Quebec, along with close to a hundred individual s

How about that Weather....

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With all of the wind overnight and a prediction of a warm afternoon, I was curious what the weather was going to do this afternoon. FINALLY, I found a source of frequently update satellite images for my region.

Sewage Treatment - Barren Oceans

Victoria's mayor, Dean Fortin, is continuing to spearhead a massively expensive sewage treatment system. The plan is to treat the sewage generated by the 250,000+ people from the region. All of the sewage that was formerly pumped out from several outlets will be routed to one facility in Esquimalt. Then, the bio-matter will be removed from the sewage before the water finds its way into the waters surrounding Greater Victoria. One of the reasons cited is the harmful chemicals and wastes could collect in the food chain and make its way back to our dinner table. While there are harmful chemicals and agents being released into the waters, there is lots and lots of biological material. It's a digusting truth that what we flush ends up as a vital food source for plants and very small creatures who in turn are eaten by larger creatures and on-up through the food chain. The ocean isn't a grocery store. What we stop supplying will have a direct impact on the ecosystem off-shore. Br

My Heart Will Go On and On and On

Bad News : I didn't win, place or show in the Monday Summer Fiction Contest . Good News : I decided to publish my story anyways. "Please-- you must stop!" she cried with a hoarseness and desperation etched into her soul. Those big cow eyes were puffy with tears and month without sleep. "Please, just let me go!" I looked down at her. She was on her knees in the dry hot sand. Her dress was in tatters. I raised my arm and placed my other hand to my heart. She shuddered like a puppy before a rolled up newspaper. She curled into an egg shape, she tore at her scalp with jagged painted nails and shrieked like a wild animal. Her madness was nearly complete. I drew a deep breath and began to sing: "You're here, there's NO thing that I fear, And I know that my heart will go on I'll stay for a long time You are safe at my heart And my heart will go on and on and on and...." As though I could focus my voice like a cannon I aimed down at her head into t