be the change you want to see in the world

It seems Joe Volpe’s youth wing may extend to children of foreigners as well. After revelations that 11 year old twins of Apotex Inc. vice-president Allen Shechtman donated big sums of cash to Volpe’s bid for the Liberal leadership, somebody started to ask questions about who the other kids backing Volpe were. This apparently led to the cracking of an international child-support ring for Volpe. According to CIRA:

June 2, 2006
CIRA RESPONDS TO HYPE ABOUT YOUTHFORVOLPE.CA
How can a website be shut down?

Ottawa, June 2, 2006 – The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) issued a statement today in which it clarifies erroneous information referencing its part in shutting down youthforvolpe.ca.

Recent events related through the media indicated that Liberal MP Joe Volpe’s staff had requested CIRA suspend youthforvolpe.ca.

Bernard Turcotte, CIRA’s President and CEO states “We have no record of any contact between CIRA and Mr. Volpe or his staff. Furthermore, CIRA does not deal with website content. This is and continues to be a guiding principle underlying our operations.”

He added that no CIRA staff undertook any actions with respect to youthforvolpe.ca but rather that the Registrar for the domain name requested, via CIRA’s automated systems, that the domain name be cancelled, as is allowed under the rules. The registrar advised CIRA that it made this request because its registrant would not provide valid Canadian contact information.

Under CIRA’s registrar rules, the registrar had to act once it confirmed it could not obtain valid Canadian contact information from the registrant.

This is in no way an exceptional case, CIRA and CIRA Certified Registrars cancel domain name registrations on a regular basis for these exact reasons.

What are these foreign kids up to? Is Joe Volpe wearing an adult suit? That he is in fact a child in disguise might explain his lack of political sense.

Joe Volpe appears to be just plain stupid. Aside from never having had a chance to win the Liberal Leadership, his endorsement at convention, which might deliver a few delegates to tip the scale for a front-runner, is now worthless as well.

At issue is “just not getting it” as a phenomenon amongst those who have been in power or close to power for too long:

Volpe returns money from young donors
Last Updated Thu, 01 Jun 2006 14:48:15 EDT
CBC News

Liberal leadership candidate Joe Volpe has returned $27,000 in donations from five donors under the age of 18 whose fathers are current and former executives with drug companies.
Joe Volpe is seeking to become the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)

The donors included the 11-year-old twins and 14-year-old son of former Apotex Inc. vice-president Allen Shechtman.

Volpe’s spokesman Corey Hobbs said no rules were broken, and returning the money is simply a way to avoid misperceptions.

How dumb is that? People don’t care that “no rules were broken”. People care that you have a shred of ethical sense in your spine. Volpe clearly does not.

Ok, as of tonight I’m officially an Internet Service Provider (ISP) whatever that means.

Actually, it means I’ll host your website for you for a decent price and give you access to all kinds of fun goodies.

It also means I get to be the guy at the other end of those e-mails I used to write to my ISP.

Gulp.

I’ve loved electronic music ever since I was a kid. When I was in grade three there was a synthesizer song called Popcorn that went to the top of the charts. When I was in grade ten Gary Numan was putting out some pretty cool tracks. Gary is considered the godfather of Darkwave…who knew? Check these out. I’m sure Gary won’t mind 27 years later…

Ok, this is one of those joyfully cool things with no meaning whatsoever.