No Blackberries (yet) in Russia, no Iphones (yet) in Canada

The reason: lucre.

Blackberries soon to be available in the CCCP; Felix Would Be Proud

Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:35 PM GMT147

In October, MTS launched the BlackBerry in Ukraine, first among the twelve former Soviet Union states. In Russia, corporate clients are able to use the BlackBerry devices with foreign SIM-cards via roaming.

Apart from Russia and Ukraine, MTS, controlled by services conglomerate Sistema (SSAq.L: Quote, Profile, Research), operates in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia and Belarus.

Vimpelcom, owned by Russian Alfa Group and Norway's Telenor (TEL.OL: Quote, Profile, Research), services clients in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Tajikistan and Georgia.

A Vimpelcom spokeswoman said the company had been cleared to ship 1,050 of the 8700 model, versions of which RIM (RIMM.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has been selling for several years.

MTS spokeswoman said the company had been allowed to ship around 1,000 phones. Shamolin said MTS would sell in Russia all BlackBerry models available on the market.

The companies will be able to start shipping the handsets after they are certified by Russian regulators.


(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Anastasia Teterevleva; writing by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by David Cowell)

I love a number of things about this story. First, that there could be a company called Vimplecom. (Try pronouncing that in the style of Dr. Evil.) Second, Blackberries -- surely a device that no self-respecting kleptocrat could be seen without -- have so far been unavailable for 'legal' sale in the CCCP, I mean, Russia. Why? Because the KGB, I mean, the FAS, were unable to eavesdrop on Blackberry to Blackberry traffic (listening in on Blackberry to something other than a Blackberry was never a problem.) Third, that Putin no longer feeling uncomfortable at the prospect of an email exchange that he could not be a party to (did the Lizard or the Basilisk turn over the codes or did FAS crack the network themselves, I am betting the former) finally allowed his subjects the opportunity to thumb their mistresses, so to speak, during important meetings. And lastly, that the Ochrana, perhaps the model for all future intelligence agencies, the author of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which began under Peter the Great is still very much in beezness. Russia may change its name, its spots, form of government, leader, and choice of motor car, but it will always remain Russia. I would almost like to say that there is something comfortable in that notion, but for the tragic fact that most Russians (and have no choice in the matter) have no where to go.

True or False?

The photo is what it appears to be: Hawaiian Spam Musubi. That said, I am not sure this this could be true.

A favorite Hawaiian way to eat Spam is in the form of a musubi (pronounced moo-soo-bee, with no accent). It is a fried slice of spam on rice pressed together to form a small block, then wrapped with a strip of seaweed. A special kitchen gadget, known as the Spam Musubi Maker, is responsible for the proliferation of this treat. It is a special plexiglas mold with the outline of a single Spam slice. The Spam musubi is eaten as a sandwich, and it is perhaps the Island's favorite "to go" or snack food. Spam musubi is literally everywhere in Hawaii, including local convenience stores, grocery stores, school cafeterias, and even at the zoo. Eating a Spam musubi seems to serve as a rite of passage for newcomers anxious to attain "local" status.

Seems rather a waste of the rice, but if your appetite has been whetted click here.

This 1949 Soviet Glimpse into to Immediate Future Out to Embarrass Ridley Scott

Toronto in 2056? (That's the CN Tower isn't it?)

The above (1956) is from an amazing collection of Soviet Block art here:

The New York Times Coverage of the Grey Cup; Kramer Would Not Be Pleased

The bar in Brazil, # 6 sounds great.

1. PRO FOOTBALL; Underdog Back Under Center
...highway to San Jose State. He set team passing records there, then went to the Canadian Football League, where he won a Grey Cup championship with the Calgary Stampeders in 1998. The San Francisco 49ers lured him close to home again, and he was soon...
December 16, 2006 - By JOHN BRANCH - Sports - 750 words

2. PRO FOOTBALL; Life Shaped by Tragedy, Built on Resolve
...college. When the N.F.L. did not want him, he played for five seasons in the Canadian Football League and won the 1998 Grey Cup. When the 49ers, the Browns and the Lions no longer wanted him as a starter, he found a spot as a backup in Philadelphia...
January 5, 2007 - By JERÉ LONGMAN - Sports - 1388 words

3. PLUS: C.F.L.; Late Touchdowns Give Lions Grey Cup
Robert Drummond and Damon Allen scored fourth-quarter touchdowns to power the British Columbia Lions to a 28-26 Grey Cup victory yesterday over the Montreal Alouettes in Calgary, Alberta, giving the Lions the Canadian Football League championship.
November 27, 2000 - 90 words

4. PLUS: PRO FOOTBALL; Stampeders Capture Fifth Grey Cup
...Calgary Stampeders upset the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 27-19, before a crowd of 65,225 yesterday in Montreal to win the Grey Cup. The Stampeders, who went 8-10 in the regular season, won their fifth Canadian Football League championship. They...
November 26, 2001 - 134 words

5. PLUS: PRO FOOTBALL; Montreal Victorious In C.F.L.'s Grey Cup
Anthony Calvillo threw two touchdown passes, including a Grey Cup-record 99-yard toss to Pat Woodcock, as the Montreal Alouettes held off the Edmonton Eskimos, 25-16, in Edmonton for their...
November 25, 2002 - 126 words

6. NEXT STOP | BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL; A Town Where All the World is a Bar
...clink of bottles -- not a D.J. -- provide the soundtrack; grey hair and what in the United States would be underage youth share...serves a limited but creative menu, like mulled wine, or a cup of squash, mozzarella and chicken soup (3.50 reais), a...
October 28, 2007 - By SETH KUGEL - Travel - 1214 words
7. SPORTS BRIEFING: PRO FOOTBALL; C.F.L. QUARTERBACK VISITS JETS
Ricky Ray, who led the Edmonton Eskimos to the Grey Cup championship in the Canadian Football League, will visit the Jets today and could be considered a backup quarterback candidate...
February 12, 2004 - By Judy Battista - Sports - 112 words
8. Players Banished From N.F.L. Find Refuge in Canada
...the league's championship, the Grey Cup. Williams quit the Dolphins before...businessmen. A marketing push and a Grey Cup victory in 2004 boosted average attendance...Argonauts' vice president who has won six Grey Cups as a coach and executive, sees...
May 24, 2006 - By JOHN BRANCH - Front Page - 1357 words
9. PLUS: C.F.L. -- Grey Cup; Toronto Captures 2d Straight Title
...Saskatchewan for its second straight Grey Cup, the championship of the Canadian...in the third quarter, including a Cup record 95-yard kickoff return by...crowd of 60,431, third-largest in Grey Cup history, saw Flutie throw touchdown...
November 17, 1997 - 201 words
10. PLUS: FOOTBALL -- GREY CUP; Hamilton Captures The Championship
...open the fourth quarter -- to give the Hamilton Tiger-Cats a 32-21 victory over the Calgary Stampeders to win the Grey Cup in Vancouver. McManus, who completed 22 of 34 passes for 347 yards, was the outstanding player in the C.F.L. championship...
November 29, 1999 - 142 words

I watched the game with my father until he fell asleep just after Lenny Kravitz’s highly misunderstood cover of ‘The Guess Who’s’ American Woman – a song as much misogynistic as knee jerkingly anti-American – during halftime.

American woman, said get away
American woman, listen what I say
Don’t come hangin’ around my door
Don’t wanna see your face no more
I don’t need your war machines
I don’t need your ghetto scenes
Coloured lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else’s eyes
Now woman, get away from me
American woman, mama let me be.

I then slipped off into the night. I understand from Google that the Saskatchewan Rough Riders won. Winnipeg fans may find some solace in the fact that ‘The Guess Who’ originated in Winterpeg.

Dalton48 on Snapping Turtle Said it First

Krugman in yesterday's NYT.

“What were they smoking?” asks the cover of the current issue of Fortune magazine. Underneath the headline are photos of recently deposed Wall Street titans, captioned with the staggering sums they managed to lose.
Skip to next paragraph

The answer, of course, is that they were high on the usual drug — greed. And they were encouraged to make socially destructive decisions by a system of executive compensation that should have been reformed after the Enron and WorldCom scandals, but wasn’t.

In a direct sense, the carnage on Wall Street is all about the great housing slump.

This slump was both predictable and predicted. “These days,” I wrote in August 2005, “Americans make a living selling each other houses, paid for with money borrowed from the Chinese. Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a sustainable lifestyle.” It wasn’t.

Anyone know the spread for this weekend's Grey Cup: Thought Not!

All Apologies to Betjers (When short of ideas, recycle)

Come friendly snow and fall on Toronto!
It isn’t fit for humans now,
There isn’t grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Blizzard!

Come, snow and blanket Toronto with invisibility
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A condo for ninety-seven k Canadian down
And once a week a half a loonie, worth US$10.4
For two thousand years years.

And get that man with double chin
Who’ll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women’s tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It’s not their fault that they are mad,
They’ve tasted Hell.

It’s not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It’s not their fault they often go
To Buffalo to shop.

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-English Pubs And daren’t look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
They frizz their dogs with peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly snow and whitewash TO
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

Cutting Edge News from CKTB: Bee Mystery Solved

Bee Mystery Solved
Wed, 2007-11-21 12:57.
Stephanie Sabourin
A 35 percent loss of bee colonies last winter had Ontario beekeepers worried.
Ontario Beekeeper's Association's Allison Skinner says they've now discovered it was a combination of disease and environmental factors.
She says the good news is it can be fixed.
Skinner says bee keepers are working to reduce the stress on the bees which lead to the disease.
She says it's important to keep bee numbers up because they not only provide honey but pollinate many fruits and vegetables.

Makes sense. Happier bees. More bees.

Refren - Krzysztof Kieslowski (1972)

I don't really know what's going on in this film, but I can't keep being reminded of that poor Polish bastard that 5 (count 'em) RCMP officers killed in Vancouver Airport.

Worth a Listen

Stephen Fry and the Former Prime Minister

That's Mr. Fry in the Middle

I May Have Got Grey Cup Weekend Wrong, But I am Sure about This

From Popular Science: How to Cook the Perfect Turkey

Happy cooking! The Perfect Bird
The centerpiece of the dinner has a puzzle built right in. You have a 15 or so pound object—the turkey—made of two different types of meat that must remain stuck together, at least until after a dramatic table presentation just before serving. The white meat, or breast, is delicate, low in fat, and is at its juiciest at about 155ºF. The dark meat doesn't begin to get tender until its collagen-rich connective tissue turns to gelatin. And that doesn't get going until around 165º. So how can you get both in the oven at the same time, take them out at the same time, and keep them at the correct temperatures throughout?
Food-science expert Harold McGee, author of the encyclopedic culinary reference On Food and Cooking, has come up with the answer. He builds in a temperature differential before putting the turkey in the oven, giving the leg meat a head start at heating up.
Here's how he does it: A couple hours (no more than three) before cooking, he moves the turkey from the fridge to the counter and places sealable plastic bags filled with crushed ice on the breast. As the legs warm up, the breast stays cool. When the breast meat is around 40º and the leg meat is close to 60º, he puts the bird into the oven. It's done when the breast meat reaches between 155º and 160º and the dark meat around 180º. Both meats are perfectly cooked. For perfect browning, McGee applies some final touches to the skin with a heat gun.

Two Articles on Two Consecutive Days that Dis Lada

(The Only Green Lada I could Find for Sale)

More older vehicles going the extra mile
Tony Van Alphen 2007/11/22
The number of vehicles 10 years old or older has increased steadily during the past decade, but statistics now indicate the numbers are accelerating dramatically.
Longer-lasting cars hurt climate: Report
2007/11/21
Vehicles are lasting dramatically longer than even a few years ago, with 43 per cent of passenger cars built 15 years ago still on the road, and this is bad news for the environment, industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers reports.

So what are we supposed to take for this? We should all go and splash out on new cars -- with the resultant pollution and energy caused by producing a new car -- or keep on driving what we have in anticipation of keeping cash in the bank for the coming depression, noting that the sunk cost of energy and pollution caused in your old banger's production (say 10 years ago) will most likely offset any lower mileage per gallon and higher carbon emissions of a new Toyota? I know what GM would think. Health care! But what is The Star thinking? Oh yeah, ad revenue. It's a shame old newspapers don't keep their utility like old cars do.


For the record:

Longest-lasting cars

The proportion of passenger cars 11 to 15 years old still in use averages 60.6 per cent across the industry but varies widely among manufacturers. The latest numbers from 2006, according to DesRosiers Automotive Consultants with data from R.L. Polk Canada:

Porsche 98.7%
Volvo 87.2%
Lexus 83.8%
BMW 83.6%
Mercedes-Benz 82.6%
Jaguar 81.4%
Toyota 78.2%
Audi 76.5%
Honda 76.5%
Acura 75.9%
Cadillac 74.6%
Lincoln 72.8%
Saab 72.2%
Saturn 69.2%
Buick 68.8%
Chrysler 68.8%
Oldsmobile 67.2%
Infiniti 65.8%
Mazda 64.8%
Volkswagen 63.1%
Nissan 61.0%
Subaru 59.1%
Mercury 54.9%
Dodge 54.6%
Pontiac 53.6%
Ford 53.6%
Plymouth 52.5%
Eagle 51.6%
Chevrolet 48.6%
Hyundai 32.8%
Suzuki 30.8%
Isuzu 19.8%
Lada 5.1%
Industry Average 60.6%
Canadian Press

Of course, a Lada driver is perhaps likely to take less care of his eminently more practical Niva than a Porsche 911 Turbo as well as put much less miles on it, but who am I to say? I haven't seen a Niva for yonks.

Saw this Headline in the paper this morning: Lada is Nada

In all seriousness, I have always wanted a Niva. However, I do understand that the joke that a Lada is a Fiat built in the dark is not wholly untrue.

How to be Annoying from Someone Who Knows

1. At Lunch Time, Sit in Your Parked Car with Sunglasses on and point a Hair
Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.
3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, Ask If They Want Fries with
that.
4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label It "In."
5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once Everyone has Gotten Over
Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.
6. In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write "For Smuggling Diamonds"
7. Finish All Your sentences with "In Accordance With The Prophecy."
8. Don t use any punctuation
9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.
10. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat with a serious face.
11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is "To Go."
12. Sing Along At The Opera
13. Go To A Poetry Recital And Ask Why The Poems Don't Rhyme
14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area And Play tropical Sounds All Day.
15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party Because
You're Not In The Mood.
16. Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Bottom.
17. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream "I Won!, I Won!"
18. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking lot, Yelling "Run
For Your Lives, They're Loose!!"
19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner. "Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To
Let One Of You Go."
20. Blog Forwards Like This One

David and Sophie Get Down with Nintendo

 

Oh No, Mr. Bean's Stuck in Snow

Of course, little England has slowed down to a stand still. What's more, 'it's the wrong kind of snow' for British Rail.

Kramer Would Have Known; Yesterday was only the bid to get to play the Grey Cup

I have always admitted to being a fair weather sportsmen. This year, I was premature. Mea Culpa.

Cosmo Kramer Does Not Subscribe to the New York Times for its CFL Coverage

(Note: It's Broken.)

Looking for the spread for today's Grey Cup in the Sports Section of The New York Times -- I felt like a wager, it was the only way for me to take an interest -- I couldn't even find a mention of the Grey Cup, the most important sporting event in the Canadian calendar?

In other news, I hear that US CFL players who as a condition of their contracts had it that they be paid in US$, now wish to be paid in loons. As my old roommate would say, "Unlucky."

PS What is the spread anyhow? No matter. No bother. Going to make some Onion Soup with my new super duper broth pot.