Nice, Al!

A view of a flooded Piazza San Marco, with St. Mark's Basilica in the background, in Venice, northern Italy, Monday, Dec. 1, 2008.

It's a little early but I thought I would confirm that we can have Bad Movie Night at my parent's house next Wednesday, the 10th. I taped a festive movie on their PVR which I hear is pretty awful. It's even in High Definition so it will be even more apparent that it sucks!

239 Bulyea Rd.

call me if you need directions (240-2287)

Also, with respect to the situation in Mumbai, some info about the group purported to be behind it, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Along the themes of Hezbollah and Hamas, it's a group with both militant and terrorist wings, as well as humanitarian and fundraising wings. Given that groups like this exist in a variety of places of strategic importance, I wonder how our approach to that kind of setup is evolving. Clearly it doesn't do the job to simply outlaw the group as a whole, given that fighting terrorism is as much a battle for public support as it is a military conflict. You can't just ignore that side of these groups, either, though.

If anyone's heard about this, and is curious, Mr. Liepert's brochure is available here, in both the short (eight-page) form, and the long (19-page) full plan. Either way, it'll take you about 10 minutes to read it, and it'll tell you nothing about their actual plans: either rehashing old goals, or sweeping statements about policy change. My favorite of the latter is that they're going to "change reimbursement incentives to align with new models of care."

I'm sure they're working on something substantive, though.

Found this on GraphJam. The narrator for this one is perfect.

Canada PM sees opposition revolt

Why does that whole situation feel like Gulliver being captured by the Lilliputians? It's definitely unique in our political history, though. Let other countries have their "interesting" elections. We change power the traditional way: through procedural motions, opposition party agreements of cooperation, and written pledges of support.

The things you miss by only reading BBC.com

Fun