One Canuck's Radio Weblog

  Monday, 31 May 2004

.< 4:16:56 PM >
PEI fans dazzled by Lightning

[GAM-National] 'The 20-year-old is cheering on big brother Brad, the Lightning star centre, as is everyone else in Prince Edward Island -- the only province, arguably to a person, rooting against the Calgary Flames in the Stanley Cup finals. The Flames, who lead the series 2-1, may be Canada's adopted team, but PEI has embraced the Lightning.

Home for the Richards family is this postcard-pretty fishing village that boasts 350 residents, the best bar clams in the Maritimes and a Conn Smythe Trophy candidate.'

< 4:14:36 PM >

[GAM-National] '[Gauthier] signed up for service. And now, on June 6, 1944, after years of training and waiting, he joined in the vast assault on the northern coast of France. Pte. Gauthier scrambled across the beach and progressed inland the same day. Pausing in a field near the village of Bernières, he saw some French civilians approach.

They began speaking to the Allied soldiers in English, calling them Tommies, the slang for British soldiers. The civilians were stunned when the soldiers responded.

"We started answering questions in French. They said 'Vous êtes français!' I said, 'Absolument, on est des Canadiens-Français.' They were flabbergasted."'

< 4:07:19 PM >

Middle East dispatch: Gunmen who carried out a weekend killing spree in Saudi Arabia escaped after yet another security fiasco. It is time for the interior minister to go, writes Brian Whitaker. [Guardian Unlimited] 'How on earth can a small group of gunmen go on a shooting spree that kills 16 or more people, become totally surrounded by security forces on the ground and commandos hovering in helicopters overhead ... and then escape?

The answer is "very easily" - at least in Hollywood films and in Saudi Arabia.'

< 3:58:26 PM >

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi leaders were dismayed by the United States and United Nations Monday blocking their choice of a president to replace Saddam Hussein when the U.S. occupation authority is wound up in a month's time. [Reuters: World]

< 1:28:07 AM >

This small article is about the new breed of lossy audio formats that emerged after MP3 hit the world in late 90s. [snip] In the Second 128 kbps listening test by Roberto Amorim, the joint winners were aoTuV b2, (a third party tuning of Ogg Vorbis, which is 100% bitstream compatible with the reference encoder) and Musepack. The third place was taken by iTunes AAC closely followed by LAME MP3 (with a new VBR adjustment). WMA Standard came in fourth and in last was Sony's ATRAC3. These last two results were no big surprise for most of the Hydrogenaudio community. [Kuro5hin.org]

< 1:26:17 AM >

The Calgary Flames emerged from years of lackluster skating to become the first Canadian ice hockey club to make the Stanley Cup finals in a decade. [New York Times: International]

< 12:02:24 AM >

Did Cheney Okay a Deal? [TIME's Top Stories] 'But TIME has obtained an internal Pentagon e-mail sent by an Army Corps of Engineers official—whose name was blacked out by the Pentagon—that raises questions about Cheney's arm's-length policy toward his old employer. Dated March 5, 2003, the e-mail says "action" on a multibillion-dollar Halliburton contract was "coordinated" with Cheney's office. The e-mail says Douglas Feith, a high-ranking Pentagon hawk, got the "authority to execute RIO," or Restore Iraqi Oil, from his boss, who is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. RIO is one of several large contracts the U.S. awarded to Halliburton last year.'

Getting rich off the blood of others.