Lotto Double Double Happiness

In the sea of current financial troubles, it is so nice to read that Jorma “a small double-double without the trouble” Hogbacka has kept his promise to share his big Lotto 6/49 winning ($14.8 million) with former Tim Hortons employees that served him well years ago. $30,000 for serving Jorma’s coffee right and with a smile. :)

Jorma, enjoy your winnings and thanks for putting smiles on our faces.

Obama’s “Buy American” rule is mis-guided!

Jan 30, 2009 Update: Good to see the Obama administration is “reviewing” the ‘Buy American’ clause. Will see what happen.

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I believe when a good friend makes mistakes, we should let them know clearly. The “buy American” rule in the current stimulus bill approved Wednesday night by the House of Representatives is wrong and is setting the worst possible example for the world to follow.

A trading world will benefit participating nations and economies. If countries start “protective” measures to “protect” our own short-sighted individual interests, I believe each of our own recovery periods will lengthen and not shorten. In a global world, protectionism will harm us all.

While President Obama is trying hard to bring peace to the world, I hope he will have the wisdom not start trade worlds with countries around the world, including Canada.

President Obama, you now have an opportunity to trigger a chain reaction of trade wars — America with countries around the world and also other countries amongst ourselves.

President Obama, will you have the wisdom to do the right thing and stop the chain reaction of trade wars? Or will this be the first major policy failure of your administration?

HSBC at CYVR, CYYZ, EGLL, RJAA (40+ airports in 17 countries worldwide)

Interesting to see HSBC created a program to brand itself at 40 airports worldwide including Vancouver (CYVR), Toronto (CYYZ), Heathrow (EGLL), and Narita (RJAA). I like the idea and the exposure this campaign will give HSBC. Nice job in giving us the impression that it is “the world’s local bank“.

As an aside, I think HSBC can be considered as one of the first banks that come clean about its mortgage loan problems as I blogged in Feb 2007 and they seemed to be willing to work with their suffering customers as I blogged in July 2008. It will be interesting to see what kind of results HSBC will report in early March, 2009.

Again, nice campaign to project the image of “the world’s local bank“.

Is Nano Risk Small?

CP is reporting,

“Canada is poised to become the first government in the world to require companies to provide information about their use of potentially harmful nanomaterials in products, experts say.”

Part of me has always been fascinated by Nanotechnology but I think it is better be safe than sorry years down the road. If nano materials can be pealed off due to the wear & tear of product use (including clothing), then it is probably reasonable to know how will these materials affect the human body.

Ex-US Attorney General Gonzales speaks

You may or may not think the ex-US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had greatly harmed the rule of law or the image of the US around the world but this rare execlusive Jan 26, 2009 NPR “Tell me more” interview is a great one to listen to in Gonzales’ own words.

P.S. My feeling can be read in between the lines here. :)

We

The dance rehearsal video.

HT: AdAge’s “What T-Mobile’s ‘Dance’ and Ikea’s ‘Du’ Teach Us About Messaging” (emphasis added),

There is a recent trend for brands to go for this more personal language. Even the biggest German social campaign — an initiative of a number of the biggest German companies — says: “Du bist Deutschland.” This would have been a great issue not long ago, as it would have been considered “improper language.” A different — but very exciting — “We” approach is the much-discussed T-Mobile viral, which is taking the “We” beyond family into a completely new field of social interaction.

Sundance 2009 – Redford, Mary & Max, 20th Sex, Lies and Videotapes

My friend Cam Christiansen (see my 2008 CIFF interview with Cam) attended the 2009 Sundance film festival and wrote three great blog entries to share his experiences. Very enjoyable read.

• Labour Pains and the Birth of Mary and Max
• The Buddha-like Presence of Robert Redford
• Sex, Lies, and Inauguration Day

I am going to pay attention to Mary and Max, a claymated feature film from the creators of the Academy Award winning short animation HARVIE KRUMPET. I hope I will have a chance to watch it.

History Television to broadcast Tiger Spirit on Jan 26th at 8pm, a doc Min Sook Lee made about the two Koreas

History Television will broadcast Tiger Spirit, a wonderfully made heart warming documentary, that Canadian filmmaker Min Sook Lee made about the two Koreas.

Watch it on History at 8pm on Jan 26th, 2009.

Watch a trailer and listen to my interview with Min Sook in this blog entry.

GE Talent vs GE should lose its Triple-A

It is fun and a bit ironic to read Ivey Business Journal’s “General Electric: An Outlier in CEO Talent Development” and Portfolio’s “It’s Time for GE to lose its Triple-A” back to back. Worth a look.

[HT: Paul Kedrosky for the Portfolio article link]

Growing stocks of unsold cars around the world

Saw this stunning collection of 13 photos of growing stocks of unsold cars around the world at Guardian. A hauntingly beautiful depiction of the current economic crisis. Worth a look.

[HT: Paul Kedrosky]

Recovery.gov – What Harper can learn from Obama

It is wonderful to the US government be in the position to set great examples for the world (in particular, Canada) to follow. In President Obama’s first weekly address, what caught my attention is his administration plan for transparency for his recovery plan execution all soon open for Americans and the world to see at recovery.gov.

The Canadian Harper government has much to learn. Prime Minister Harper, it is your turn to reverse the secrecy you’ve enjoyed so much. Learn from President Obama.

Here is President Obama’s first weekly address on Jan 24, 2009. See this blog entry for full text of the address.

Canada’s reply to Dear World, We, the United States of America, your top-quality supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service.

Saw the following letter in a friend’s Facebook note and then I found it in many places from Google search. And then I magically StumbleUpon the following reply from Canada. (Please note that I have a request for help at the end of this post.)

Dear World,

We, the United States of America, your top-quality supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service.

The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located and the software responsible was replaced on November 4, 2008.

Early tests of the newly-installed program indicate we are now operating correctly and are fully-functional as of January 20, 2009.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward to providing full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely,

The United States Of America

The following is a reply from Canada.

[The follow message magically appeared for some reason. Epidemiologists suspect it may have been due to the condition known as OMOE in Canada. (Obama Mania/Obama Envy)]

Dear United States Of America,

Apologies accepted, eh.

You see, when we, Canada, suspended democracy on December 4th, 2008 because of a rogue software, we were nice as usual and immediately locked up the doors to our parliament to avoid spreading the software to you and the rest of the world.

While the rouge software has been known and located since day one, we lack the means and technologies to install any new software. You see, the doors to our parliament were locked, eh.

Our next software update cycle will start on January 27th, 2009. Please wish us lots of luck.

Sincerely,

Canada

P.S. Due to OMOE, we will gladly let Obama run Canada until our next software update as our current software is not responding to Command-P, known in Canada as “Commands from the People”.

I am curious to find out where the letter from the United Sates of America was first originated. Can anyone help? In the mean time, I’ve found where the above letter from Canada was originated.

P.S. I had wanted to trace where the chain-mail/virus of the terribly time-wasting AAA BBB CCC DDD game was originated but my research partner abandoned me and I was too busy to spend time into it. I did write a pair of postings “AAA game with philosophical twist” and “Followup on the AAA BBB CCC DDD game” to try to shine some light on that virus.

Capt. Scully’s Stories

Feb 10, 2009 Update: Watched the wonder segment on 60 Minutes of the stories of Scully, his crew, and the passengers.

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I was so looking forward to hear from Capt. Scully to tell the story of the whole thing. All those split seconds decisions and they all were the perfectly right ones in order to save everyone on the plane including himself.

What made Scully’s decision making and quick thinking even more astonishing is that his co-pilot was flying the plane as the birds crashed into the engines.

Scully had to take over as all hell broke loose. Imagine driving a fast car on a highway and switching from an active passenger to driving a crashing car on the spot.

What burns into my mind were what they said to each other as the Scully took control. Clean and simple and direct.

Quote from Bloomberg,

“Sullenberger said “my aircraft” as he took the controls, Higgins said. “Your aircraft,” the first officer said.”

“My aircraft.” — “Your aircraft” as if it is another day in the boring office. :) How cool and how professional.

In a world of wars and financial crisis, we, collectively, own Scully for this ultimate story of unlucky, professionalism, and luck with a happy ending.

A Tale of Two Transparency – US vs. Canada

Wonderful step in the right direction in the US (emphasis added),

President Obama wasted no time in moving to roll back the Bush administration’s disgraceful strictures on open government.

In a welcome series of orders, Mr. Obama directed federal agencies to err on the side of transparency, not the Bush-era default of secrecy and delay, in releasing records to the public. He also undid the executive order signed by President George Bush that lets past presidents and vice presidents sit indefinitely on potentially embarrassing records that belong in the public domain.

Sadly in Canada (emphasis added),

Canada’s information watchdog says the public knows less than ever about what its government is doing — a stark contrast to U.S. President’s Barack Obama’s push for openness in the United States.

Information Commissioner Robert Marleau said Thursday the grip on federal files is tightening, largely because of the Conservative government’s “communications stranglehold” on the bureaucracy.

“There’s less information being released by government than ever before. And that’s alarming.”

The Right 35 Words

From WaPo (emphasis added),

There’s no formal name for what President Obama and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. did last night.

After flubbing his one role on Inauguration Day — administering the oath of office to Obama — Roberts traveled to the White House to re-administer the oath.

Just to make sure.

“We decided it was so much fun . . .,” Obama joked while sitting on a couch in the Map Room. Obama stood and walked over to make small talk with pool reporters as Roberts donned his black robe.

“Are you ready to take the oath?” Roberts asked.

“I am, and we’re going to do it very slowly,” Obama replied.

Real Travel in Hong Kong

My friend Daisann McLane is a travel writer,photographer and essayist. Her “Real Travel” column appears in every issue of National Geographic Traveler, and her articles about Hong Kong’s food, culture and politics have been published in the New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune and Slate.

If you or your Canadian or American friends need some expert advices in traveling to Hong Kong and Macau, tell them to contact Daisann if they want to

“… find the best Cantonese restaurants–not the over-hyped and pricey hotel restaurants in the latest Michelin Guide, but the word-of-mouth ones that only locals know. Or you want a deeper insight into the history and politics of Asia’s most multi-cultural, cosmopolitan city, and see how the “One Country Two Systems” relationship with mainland China really works.” And much more.

Check out Daisann’s Real Travel Hong Kong site where they can contact her for information and cost.

P.S. Daisann knows Hong Kong eateries well as I personally benefited a few times when she showed me a few good word-of-mouth restaurants. The food were inexpensive but very tasty.

In the interests of justice …

It is nice to see justice and the rule of law starting to mean something again. Here is an excerpt from CP (see more in WaPo, Times, BBC)

U.S. President Barack Obama wasted little time following his swearing-in Tuesday in telling prosecutors at the war-crimes cases here at this infamous prison to seek a 120-day adjournment.

The verbal order was made late in the day through Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, and the prosecution complied by filing the request with the judges in the cases of Canadian Omar Khadr and the accused conspirators in the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

“In the interests of justice, and at the direction of the president of the United States and secretary of defence, the government respectfully requests the military commission grant a continuance of the proceedings . . . until 20 May, 2009,” the motion states.

It says the adjournment is needed to permit the new president and his administration “time to review the military commissions process, generally, and the cases currently pending before military commissions.”

Remaking America – President Obama’s Inaugration Speech

From President Obama’s inaugration speech (emphasis added),

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

[...] As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

P.S. From Guardian, “JFK’s speech writer hails Obama’s address“

Tragedy of Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish’s three dead daughters unfolded live on Israeli television

For the sake of Palestinians and Israelis, I hope this sad tragedy will be the turning point like when Americans saw the photo of the Napalm girl (Kim now lives in Canada). Here is an excerpt from a CBC report (emphasis added),

Before a ceasefire took hold Sunday in Gaza, the tragedy of Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish’s three dead daughters unfolded live on Israeli television.

The doctor, a Palestinian in Gaza, acted as a Hebrew-speaking witness to the suffering there in nightly interviews with Israel’s Channel 10.

Speaking via cellphone Friday night, he told correspondent Shlomi Eldar that two shells had just torn into his house.

“My daughters!” he screamed. “Oh, God, my daughters!”

Three of his daughters and a niece were killed.

Abu al-Aish had been planning to take his family and start fresh in Canada, but no one in crowded Gaza or nearby Israeli towns was immune to shells or rockets during the conflict, which left more than 1,200 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead.

The Moon

The Moon, a short film by Anna Tonrungroj (Vancouver Film School). Enjoy.