When asked his view of the situation, Yousef took an unusual stand for someone in Gaza, where Israel is being cursed by most everyone. “I blame Hamas. It doesn’t want to recognize Israel. If they did so there could be peace,” he said. “Egypt made a peace treaty with Israel, and nothing is happening to them.”
via Amid a Buildup of Its Forces, Israel Ponders a Cease-Fire – NYTimes.com.
I thought it is interesting that someone in Gaza would have this view. For there to be lasting peace, it has to recognize that you can’t hit someone and expect peace from them.
You can’t expect someone to offer an olive branch while you’re launching rockets at them. To get peace, you first have to offer the olive branch, not expect one.
I’m sure though, that each individual side’s definition of “olive branch” differs.
This young gentleman Yousef, recognizes that first peace has to come from within. He could be the saviour of the Gazans when he grows up!
About 50 people braved the winter storm today, travelling from Mississauga to West 7 lounge in Halton to part take in a fundraiser for Princess Margaret Hospital as well as learn about cancer.
For Meadowvale Secondary School student Sharon Bhella, seeing fellow students put their health at risk by smoking was enough to motivate her to raise awareness within her school community about the causes of mouth cancer.
A video depicting a patient with mouth cancer provided some deterrance while Skate4Cancer representative Erin Hogue provided some hope as she told her story about her time spent documenting Rob Dryder’s skate from Los Angeles to Toronto.
I was pretty touched by the things people can do with photography. Lately having seen a lot of great organizations helping people in need, it has strenghtened my resolve to shoot more documentaries.
The first Unmanned Combat Air Systems UCAS developed by Northrop Grumman for the U.S. Navy was unveiled yesterday December 16, 2008 at the company’s manufacturing plant at Palmdale, California.
via UCAS-D X-47B Marks ‘Sea Change’ in Naval Strike, ISR Capabilities.
Yeah, one day in the future, “soldiers” will not be the big buff fit people you see today.
They’ll be the fat geeks who currently play video games. Who better to pilot these UCAS than the video gamer with 100’s of hours of “flight time” a week on the XBox / PS3 / WII?
In just 100 days, we have reached more than 10 million active users around the world (on all seven continents, no less) and released 14 updates to the product. We’re excited to announce that with today’s fifteenth release we are taking off the “beta” label!
via Official Google Blog: Google Chrome (BETA).
I have seen various other blogs wonder if Google Chrome should be out of beta. I have one thing to say about it. It is amazing.
I was testing it on my dual core Dell, until my Dell died for the FOURTH time. (Yes Dells are pieces of shit machines.)
Having no other PC to test it, since my other machine is a Mac, I decided to run it on my eight year old IBM Thinkpad which, despite a slow single core 700mhz processor, works perfectly fine after 8 years (unlike my 3-year old Dell).
I thought having a single core would not make much of a difference on Chrome’s multi-threaded architechture.
While I’m sure it is not quite benefiting from the multi-tasking, I must say that it is still FAST! Even as I am blogging this, there is no lag in typing when rendering TinyMCE at all!
It totally rocks and puts new life into my Thinkpad! Without official benchmarks, I would have to say that Firefox runs “noticibly” slower on my 700mhz Thinkpad. I will have to wait and see if 3.1 works better when it is out of Alpha. Until then, Chrome all the way! (I hope to get Foxmarks for Chrome soon although I don’t quite use this machinefor any serious browsing anyhow.)
One of hockey’s greats got his number retired today by the Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors hockey team. He gets the distinction of being the first Major to have his number retired.
It must be pretty cool to have your name and number remembered for eternity. Well, eternity being the lifespan of the club. The Majors, being one of the more storied clubs in history, are destined to be around for a long while.
http://mississauga.com/article/22057
Now here’s a great story of a generous team of girls. Instead of having their annual secret santa event, a parent suggest they donate the toys to Toys for Tots instead. These girls seemed enthusiastic to help those less fortunate kids and went shopping at the Mattel outlet store for the kids.
A whopping $1,200 was raised through allowances and parents and Mattel also donated some toys to the cause.
I love putting people who help out the community into the paper. (Or at least online if it doesn’t make it to print.) Hopefully I’ll get to shoot some of these girls games next season and they’ll do awesome!
http://mississauga.com/article/22039
Santa was sure up early this morning, greeting kids and parents having breakfast at the Erin Mills Town Centre.
Apparently all the tickets were sold out the day they went on sale and one parent even came up to me and said, “Remember my son? You put him in the paper last year!”
It’s awesome that they came back again this year!
http://mississauga.com/article/22056
These kids move like fish in water! It was one of those last minute jobs where I get assigned as I am preparing to head out to another job. However, the calibre of these kids made it an easy one to shoot, not to mention arriving during the medley race made for a great variety of shots!
To top it off, this boy, Victor Truong, qualified for the provicials during that heat according to his coach Andreas.
Quick and easy, off to the next job. I had a few good pictures of the girls, but this was the most relavent picture.
http://mississauga.com/article/22090
The Mississauga St. Michael Majors end up with a triumphant weekend, winning three games in three days and showing no signs of fatigue in this last game against the Frontenacs.
Coming out hitting hard, these Majors end up with yet another 7-4 win at home. This time, they outshot their opponents 42-41.
Not to take away from their play, they did an excellent job of taking the body and showing energy, but the opponent goalies also were really shaky.
However, if they keep up the great job they did this weekend, they will go far this season! They definitely didn’t disappoint and I was well entertained while working!
http://mississauga.com/article/22086
Niagara IceDogs’ goaltender Mark Visentin looks on helplessly as the puck sails past him. The puck hit the back of the net seven times between Visentin and starting goaltender John Cullen.
It was refreshing to shoot and watch a game where not only the Majors won, but they demolished the IceDogs with a score of 7-4. All that despite being outshot 38-29.
The last Majors game I shot was seriously lacking in energy. In fact, the game and lack of energy made me really sleepy shooting it. This one however, had big hits, lots of shots on net and a lot better puck movement. The players really looked like they were alert and trying to play.
I shoot the next one on Sunday. Hopefully it’ll be as awesome as this one!
http://mississauga.com/article/22043
