The Majumdar Family

I just watched a truly disheartening and frightening CTV W-Five episode covering a subject that is often not discussed – far less so by the Federal ministers on Parliament Hill just blocks from one of the worst drug, prostitution and homelessness problems anywhere in the nation. None of them, including Public Security Minister Stockwell Day, accepted to meet with CTV W-5 saying they were “too busy”…

They hounded the Premier of Ontario, but he also brushed off a reporter and hustled into a building…

Personally, I am not surprised by this report. I’ve been to Ottawa many times over the last 20-25 years; my ex-wife and much of her family were from there, as was my late stepfather.

In January 2008 I began a series of about a ½ dozen business trips, one every month or so, to the National Capital Region and usually stayed in hotels in the Downtown, or Byward Market area. The Byward Market is a charming 3-4 square block neighbourhood which, by day is a nice selection of multicultural restaurants and farmer market type stands. It’s next to one of the largest shopping centre’s in the Ottawa metropolitan area; the Rideau Centre Shopping Centre.

Now being a Montrealer, I like to explore a city’s nightlife and evening culture – we have a massive choice of cafés, lounges, showbars and nightclubs in Montreal – around the market.

A few of the times I stayed in hotels (including the Econolodge and Marriott Courtyard Inn) near the Byward Market. Those are both nice hotels; granted the Econo Lodge Downtown at 475 Rideau street is pretty much no-frills motor inn more than hotel with rooms straight onto an inside parking lot that is directly onto Rideau street across from a 7-11 and in the vicinity of churches, residential homes and … well a little pic of the Econolodge :


(more…)

While driving around in the car with the boys, I started singing the refrain to “Funky Cold Medina” by Tone Loc, who arguably had/has one of the funkiest raspy voices around. Well, since I’m still working on my “acute” bronchitis, my voice was a bit like his (for the wrong reasons)… anyways, the boys giggled and asked me what I was singing. We then broke in to a discussion about funky vs. hip-hop… and then they said they had almost forgotten the Beastie Boys. I reminded them about the robots in the Intergalactic video, and the b-boys rapping as pseudo-teletubbies in the other video… and their eyes lit up and both wanted to watch it here tomorrow….

Always in their casual yet tenacious style, the B-boys want to remind all eligible US voters to get out there and exercise their right. To back it up, they’ve announced a “voter awareness tour” called Get out and Vote ‘08 which kicks off in several so-called swing (critical) states including the following shows which were just announced:

October 28 Richmond, VA at Richmond Coliseum
Beastie Boys along with Sheryl Crow / Jack Johnson / Norah Jones / Santogold
(wow what a line-up)

Nov 1 St. Paul, MN at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium
Beastie Boys / Ben Harper / Tenacious D
(another nice trio of top level artists)

Nov 2 Milwaukee, WI in the U.S. Cellular Arena
Beastie Boys / Ben Harper / Crosby & Nash / Tenacious D
Again C&N with B-Boys ? Wonder if they’ll do an on-stage mashup ?

I love how Adam, Mike and Adam finished off with “we are very excited about obama. hope you all feel the same.”

Here’s the full PR:
(more…)

You gotta wonder about the timing… eh ?

The top legislators in Alaska have approved the release of a report that finds Sarah Palin guilty / responsible for the unjust firing of Walter Monegan who was the Public Safety Commissioner in Alaska - essentially the highest ranking law enforcement position.

Apparently, the firing resulted from Mr. Monegan refusing to fire an Alaskan State Trooper (Mike Wooten) who was going through a bitter divorce and custody battle.

Supposedly, the Palins (Sarah and her husband Todd) put intense pressure on Commissioner Monegan to fire Wooten…

The McCain campaign had released its own 21 page report on the incident which concluded

“It is tragic that a false story hatched by a blogger over drinks with Trooper Wooten led the legislature to allocate over $100,000 of public money to be spent in what has become a politically-driven investigation”

Can we say smear campaign..

The sad thing in all this is that it is the (real) family that really suffers…

Info and source: BBC News about Sarah Palin

Yesterday I wrote about Scott Pelley of CBS 60 Minutes doing a pretty fascinating interview with “Dalton Fury” a Delta Force commander who lead a team of 40-50 elite Delta Force commandos to attempt to kill Osama Bin Laden shortly after the September 11 attacks.

Of course, the interview was partially in support of the new book Kill Bin Laden : A Delta Force Commanders Account of the Hunt for the Worlds Most Wanted Man which was released today… it seems like it would be an interesting read.

$18.24 on Amazon.ca

All those sites also have the book in other formats (such as Audio CDs, etc.)

Talk about annoying.

I was just watching a pretty fascinating story on 60 minutes with the commander of the Delta Force unit (about 50 top commandos) sent into the hills of Afghanistan via Tora Bora to hunt down and kill Osama Bin Laden. They had heavily disguised the Delta Force commander, who has just written a book about the mission under the pseudonym Dalton Fury, and had first time video of the mission, which was to approach the 14,000 foot summits in the Afghan mountains where Bin Laden was suspected to be holed up.

Previous strategies to approach by surprise from the top side of the 14K mountains and another one to litter the path through the mountains with air-dropped landmines by unknown sources higher up, either in Central Command or even higher (i.e. POTUS)…
(more…)