My friend, Greg, is counting his blessings today. His town was among many in the Midwest that were hit by a substantial outbreak of tornadoes. I heard that as many as ninety tornadoes may have been involved in this outbreak. The Weather Service confirms that thirteen touched down in Indiana.
Greg's family lost their back porch. His next door neighbour's house, however, is gone. So far, however, it seems as though nobody was hurt. Everybody headed for the cellars at the first sign of trouble. So, definitely a time to count one's blessings, even though I doubt that I would, if in a similar situation.
On Warren Kinsella's blog, I learn that the bad news that hit his family and then vanished returned again, and it will be a while before we can expect Warren to post.
My thoughts and prayers are with a lot of people on this day.
Carnival of the Canucks #20
Think of it as the little carnival that grew. The Carnival of the Canucks is now up to its twentieth installment over at Circadian Shift. Head on over to see what's interesting in the Canadian blogosphere this week.
Tweezer's Edge
A tip of the hat goes to David Phillips of the Tweezer's Edge blog, and a look of disdain goes to the good folks at Movable Type.
I have, for a while, been struggling to try and implement the TypeKey comment control feature that graces Movable Type 3.0. Unfortunately, instructions on how to do this remain vague. I thought I had figured this out when MT showed me a tag that took care of the whole commenting kit and kaboodle (<MTCommentFields>), only to find out that it didn't work and, worse, it had errors on it that kept my page from validating as correct HTML. Sloppy work, guys!
David Phillips has crafted a replacement to MTCommentFields that does the job properly. Thanks again, David!
Vote Out Anders!
I was rather surprised to find myself linked to by the website Vote Out Anders. I appreciate the company. This website appears to be a pretty non-partisan (save for being non-Anders) affair which strikes to replace the current Conservative MP with... well, just about anybody.
Rob Anders earned considerable derision for being the lone voice in the House of Commons refusing unanimous consent to award Nelson Mandela honourary Canadian citizenship. In explaining why, he called Mandela a "communist and a terrorist". Vote Out Anders provides a pretty good rebuttal of this claim. There is no doubt that the African National Congress has resorted to violence in the past, but considering the oppressive regime they were up against, this lends Mandela and the ANC the title of freedom fighter, in my opinion. Certainly the work Mandela has done to reconcile with the Afrikaaner minority and build a diverse and stable multi-ethnic democracy, thus avoiding the mistakes of Zimbabwe, earns him his Nobel Peace Prize.
His boorish attitude is compounded by his refusal to even pick up the phone when the former South African president called to hear Rob Anders' concerns. It's little wonder that he's been kept on a tight leash by the Conservative Party leadership.
Still, Vote Out Anders has their work cut out for them, as they're unlikely to rally Albertan support around the competing Liberal candidate (especially with the lacklustre campaign Paul Martin has run), and the NDP appear disorganized enough in Calgary West to not have a website this group can link to. Still, I wish them the best of luck.
And, you never know: maybe this would be an excellent riding to try and gain a Green Party victory...