Now that the personal website is up and running with the latest version of Drupal, it is with some excitement that I announce that I'm going to Chicago for DrupalCon, a four day conference for Drupal developers. How nerdy is that?

I was originally planning to go the the conference in London, England because it's closer, and London is always fun to visit (though I would never live there again). But there was a conflict. So I'm going to Chicago.

This is the first update to this site in over 10 months but it's a big one!

This web site is now managed by Drupal, a "content management system" (or CMS). It's a program that helped me organize a very messy garage. Pardon the mangled metaphor, but the old website had become a garage so filled up with junk that there was no room to park a car.

I had been fooling around with web technology for about a year and had built a couple of silly web pages just for fun. Once I had registered an official domain name, I needed a car to drive, so I built my own. The first edition looked something like this.

It's been awhile since there was a new blog on this site. There have been other diversions, which shall manifest themselves soon. Hee-hee, I've been up to some mischief.

This blog draws its inspiration from one of Scott Feschuk's caption challenges, a feature that appears in the Maclean's magazine online edition. The picture above shows Prime Minister Stephen Harper making some kind of gesture while Governor General Michaëlle Jean looks on.

Today's Goo page is dedicated to Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who penned this incredibly stupid op-ed piece in the National Post, Canada's national racist rag.

International law defines "apartheid" as a crime against humanity. Labelling Israel as an "apartheid" state is a deliberate attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state itself.

Hogwash. Poppycock. Bullplop. Nobody with ½ a brain is questioning the legitimacy of the state of Israel. What they are saying is that Israel is behaving like that infamous apartheid state of several decades ago. There is a difference you big brained moron.

Welcome to the Stephen Harper Goo page, your chance to have some fun with Stephen Harpers mug.

This page makes use of a java applet so in order to work properly, your browser must be java enabled.

Welcome to the Rex Murphy Goo page, which was inspired while listening to Rex go on about Harper's prorogation of Parliament while hosting CBC's Cross Country Checkup last night.

Rex Murphy looks so weird already that he doesn't really need his own Goo page, but having one does gives a Rex fan something to do while listening to one of his many diatribes. You can give him more hair, for instance, or make his cranium so small that future anthropologists will declare that he has no brain at all, which is what many of his contemporary critics also claim.

This page makes use of a java applet so in order to work properly, your browser must be java enabled.

Welcome to the Stephen Harper Goo page, your chance to have some fun with Stephen Harpers mug.

This page makes use of a java applet so in order to work properly, your browser must be java enabled.

Move the mouse pointer over something in the picture, like an eye or nose, hold down the mouse button and move the mouse around. You'll soon get the idea of why we call it a Goo picture.

Today was protest day. It was frantic for me. I had to make the Jan 22 news update. Living in the Netherlands, there is this time shift issue I have to deal with . Since I am 6 hours ahead of most of Canada, news arrives kind of late (yesterday's news today!) and the demonstration here in the Hague was one of the first to happen.

So I also had to get my news page updated, the Netherlands Facebook rally group page updated and prepare for a protest/rally that I organized at the last minute. I fully anticipated a rally of one.

Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm goin' to fade away

War children,
 it's just a shot away,
  it's just a shot away

War children,
 it's just a shot away,
  it's just a shot away

Stephen Harper put on another performance for his caucus the today, in a bid to stem the rising tide of protest about his prorogue of parliament.

With membership to the Facebook group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament approaching the 200,000 mark, demonstrations planned across Canada for January 23, and plunging poll numbers, conservative MP's are getting a little nervous about the situation.

Since he does it so well, Harper sang another song - this time a cover of a Rolling Stones hit, in yet another command performance.

Put ths one in the ROTFLMAO file. Travis Martin responded yesterday with a post to his favorite discussion thread. Apparently, we, all of us, are NOT illiterate donkeys. We had it ALL wrong!

Ha-ha, good one Travis, didn't see THAT ONE coming at all.

Here is what Travis had to say (emphasis mine)

If you read what I wrote, on my facebook page, which is now displayed on this thread, and soon to be published, you will know that, in fact I do not view anyone in this group as an "illiterate donkey" and that the initial reactionary statements I posted were nothing more than calculated baiting to the hypothesis I was prodding at.

I am rather more interested in how a group of people, if attacked, would respond. Would they respond with the intent to educate, or would they wallow in the muck?

The vast majority of Canadians, to their own shame, do the latter. This is too bad. I would expect any group of people, on any political issue, however to act in like kind. What was shocking was how little of an attempt was made to educate the troll that you thought you had in your midst.