How do they expect to do that?

h. Prohibit U.S. corporations from avoiding or evading payment of their taxes by banking abroad or locating their charters offshore.

This from the green party platform. What is the legal definition of a US corporation? It seems that unless they outlaw foreign ownership of us based assets (a remarkably foolish and probably illegal move) there is no way to prevent foreign corporations, substantial or mere holding corps, from offshoring ownership.

Sure looked good on paper. Keep on smokin', hippies.

Minneapolis Airport

Minneapolis Airport, originally uploaded by djuber.

NWA, the monopoly airline of Minnesota. Why aren't those planes in the air?

News about Tibet

The Tibetan spiritual leader also raised the possibility of himself naming a new Dalai Lama while he is still alive.

New rules declared that any reincarnations without government consent were illegal.

Emily Buchanan
BBC News

Thanksgiving

Got a call yesterday from Kevin L in Iraq! Happy holidays to all those deployed out of country on whatever missions, hope you all got a chance to call home this week.

This is Kevin's second trip to Iraq this year. He thinks he'll be home by Christmas. My brother is safely in the USA, enjoyed his thanksgiving with his family.

Beth and I drove up to Silverdale to spend time with my father and his family. All the children are growing, the old people are slowing, and my eating habits are showing.

Nexus Pass

A nexus pass is a joint identification and pre-approval system used at the US/Canada border which allows low risk travellers expedited access to the border. My experience at the Peace Arch makes it look like if the lane is open, it saves about 20 minutes getting into the US, and wouldn't make it worthwhile going through into Canada. I don't remember if the Pacific crossing (a few miles inland from the peace arch -- 24 hr truck port of entry) has a lane.

Nexus also has some improvements in US customs access. A similar program is Canpass Air, which gets your iris scan and prints a welcome to canada receipt once you prove you're you.

I shied away from it for a long time since the border is never very hectic for me. Driving home on a Friday from Vancouver might change my tune. Last time I tried, it was so long a man with an ice cream cart was wheeling through the idling cars, like a six flags water salesman (longer the line, the higher the cost!) It's $50 for a five year pass. Not a bad deal. Canpass Air is $50 /year, which was what I expected.

Of course, it may be time for the 2010 Olympics before the shiny new cbsa station at the peace arch is back in working order. By then we may have razor wire pulled for 3000 miles, and nobody gets across without a rectal exam...

Safety

The sense of security more frequently springs from habit than from conviction, and for this reason it often subsists after such a change in the conditions as might have been expected to suggest alarm. The lapse of time during which a given event has not happened is, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition which makes the event imminent. A man will tell you that he has worked in a mine for forty years unhurt by an accident as a reason why he should apprehend no danger, though the roof is beginning to sink; and it is often observable that the older a man gets the more difficult it is to him to retain a believing conception of his own death.

Wasted Life and its fruits

Ah, watching reruns of Who Wants to be a Millionaire on GSN last week. One man had made it to 250K and was asked what esperanto meant in esperanto. He still had two lifelines, called a friend, and took the 50/50. He didn't want to answer... I guess it proves that the easiest way to stump an American is to ask him a question about a foreign language.

Ironically, esperanto was designed to almost be intuitive to European language speakers. Esperanto itself means "hoper".