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The UN long ago forgot that products and services cannot be "rights" in a society that's free of officially sanctioned theft and compulsory labor. The concept of "rights" has become so silly with these people that a nation can seriously propose such lunacy as this: UN document would give ``Mother Earth`` same rights as humans. They've become little more than a very expense three-ring circus who has no authority whatsoever on the subject.

You can try to universally provision a good or service free of charge, but you will bring it into a state of scarcity in the process.

He basically is of the position that the whole campaign to inoculate people against H1N1 is in and of itself a conspiracy.

No he isn't:

Also, I have never said there was a medical conspiracy. In fact, when Howard Dean asked me that, my response was "I wouldn't call it a conspiracy. But no, I don't think the A.M.A. and Big Pharma and Aetna and Dr. Frist's hospital chain all meet in a board room and cackle about keeping us sick. They meet on the golf course. (Just kidding.) Do pharmaceutical companies want to cure diabetes or do they want to sell diabetes drugs and equipment? Well, they sure do sell a lot these days, and the food companies are what make that possible. Read David Kessler's book about the deliberate way food companies use salt, fat and sugar as foodcrack to get people literally addicted to eating bad food and too much of it. Is that a conspiracy? Only if you define corporations putting profit ahead of human health as conspiracy. The fact that Americans will do anything to each other for money is not a conspiracy, it's a scandal.

I'd call it a scandal, too, as diabetes was cured over 4 years ago in a Toronto lab. I wonder what the profits on insulin are in the US.

Yes. (although seriously, they're rare, that's the only one on record.)

Of course, in a casino, the house always wins

Not true.

In Ontario, Canada, where the casinos are owned & run by Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (a corporation owned by the government), they managed to LOSE MONEY.

Sad. The usual complaint is that how many of the poor & dim-witted waste their money at casinos.

I guess my point was to tackle the things that we had the technology for and the capability today,

Where is this nuclear technology?

France successfully powers the country on Nuclear power very economically

"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."

though their reactors are generally much more modern designs that waste far less fuel

Citation needed. Here's some of my own:

Finland's Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant, designed and being built by the French Government owned AREVA was supposed to be compleated last year, 2009, but is not scheduled to be done before 2012 3 years behind schedule. And because of cost overruns "there is a real risk now that the utility will default". In Finland, Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble.

"Cost overruns and delays have jeopardized the fate of nuclear plants around the world." Study warns of steep cost overruns at new reactors. Is it time to press reset on nuclear?: "Cost overruns, delays in building reactors are sapping a nuclear revival".

"Boiling The Frog: Nuclear Optimism Hides True Costs Till It's Too Late".

And those are just some of the links I have in my bookmarks.

What I think people fail to realize is that we don't have to solve all our problems in a day

But isn't that exactly what proponents of nuclear power are advocating today? "Build more nuclear power plants, we'll fix the problems later." It's either that or they ignore the problems and say they don't exist.

Falcon

we could have sent up thirty Hubble telescopes ($5B).

Just sayin'.

Though I get what you are sayin', I don't think that would be true. Iff there were no ISS, there probably would be a huge increase in how much it would cost to put people up into space. For one, maintaining the shuttle program for the Hubble would not have happened, so it might be the $50B Hubble telescope, or the nice idea that never was.

The ISS kept (keeps) the space program in operation, and without it, I doubt there would be much drive to keep going back into space. The ISS is more than just NASA too. Don't forget about ESA, that probably wouldn't have existed, the CSA that barely is, in Canada, and the RSFA (Russia) that would be much worse off without it.

This is a big deal throughout the world, and is a significant contribution to space exploration, etc.

If you don't care about space exploration, then fine. $100B is a bunch of money. But then we can compare with other big recent expenses like oil spills, $3 billion for the BP disaster in the gulf canada.com -- which arguably didn't help humanity in any good way. Or, $750B for the Iraq war and the $300B for the Afghanistan war and the $28B for higher security (at airports? really?)... Then a $100B starts looking like the good looking sister. infoplease.com

Numbers at these huge values are always deceiving on what they bring and value they produce. Saying that spending x on y would do better is nonsense... it would bring something equally increased, but, also, something completely different. Spend it on oil spills and we'd have great oil pick up technology and nothing for space... Or maybe we would have some really nice houses and crappy oil pick up technology still, and nothing for space. It looks like the $30B for security brought us much better civic spying technology. I wonder if that is improving humanity? Maybe not as much as the ISS after all.

Licensing costs are too expensive to justify anything but the 1600 MWe behemoths using standard fuel cycles with proven technology.

Citation needed.

Here's my own, The average non-fuel O&M cost for a nuclear power plant in 2009 was 1.46 cents / kWh. That includes licensing. Or this:

Issue #1: The New Licensing Process [ppt]

• The Mythology: The old licensing process was a major factor in the collapse of nuclear power in the U.S.
• It has now been repaired by changes in law and regulatory policy, paving the way for the renaissance.

As if that's not enough here are some more links:

1. Hooked on Subsidies...
   "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
2. Is it time to press reset on nuclear?
   "Cost overruns, delays in building reactors are sapping a nuclear revival"
3. Study warns of cost overruns at proposed reactors - MarketWatch
4. Cost Overruns at Finland Reactor Hold Lessons
5. Boiling The Frog: Nuclear Optimism Hides True Costs Till It's Too Late
   "The Frog Jumps: The Ontario Story. Last week the Ontario government put plans to build 2 new next-generation reactors on hold, after it received bids "more than three times higher than what the Province expected to pay", according to a story in the Toronto Star. The only "compliant" bid -- one where the supplier would be sufficiently at risk if costs exceeded the amount quoted -- was reportedly a $26 billion quote from Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd, equal to roughly $10,800 per kW."
6. Nuclear construction delays in Finland's Olkiluoto 3
7. Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant

'I sometimes engage in a mental exercise I call the Laura Ingalls Test. What would Laura Ingalls, prairie girl, make of this freeway interchange? This Target? This cell phone?

Oh good, I am not the only crazy one here, although I always thought that Carrie was the cute one.

http://kayeskorner.com/jpegimages/lauraingalls.jpg
http://kayeskorner.com/jpegimages/ingallsfamily.jpg
http://media.canada.com/1785a528-bef3-4f04-af39-9312146bfd98/melissasueanderson.jpg

It should be criminal because accusing the saints also known as police of illegal activity, abuse of power or bullying is unheard of in Canada!

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/city/story.html?id=68d7e7bd-f65c-4e7e-9964-812b43f31172

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/06/28/g20-rosenfeld-police.html

http://www.canada.com/news/Bubbles+exchange+between+protester+police+blows+online/3291512/story.html

It should be criminal because accusing the saints also known as police of illegal activity, abuse of power or bullying is unheard of in Canada!

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/city/story.html?id=68d7e7bd-f65c-4e7e-9964-812b43f31172

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/06/28/g20-rosenfeld-police.html

http://www.canada.com/news/Bubbles+exchange+between+protester+police+blows+online/3291512/story.html

Scientists very rarely drive out dissenting views.

The Andrew Weaver complaining about the Harper government is the same guy who sued the National Post for not covering his science the way he wished them to.

UVic's Andrew Weaver sues National Post

Any scientist who disregards Stephen McIntyre because he's unqualified to offer an opinion is a douche bag. Not sure if Weaver himself crossed this line, but he seems sorely tempted.

Portrait of a local climate skeptic

Stephen's criticism of the statistics behind the original hockey stick graph have been upheld by eminent statisticians. The original peer review of the hockey stick study failed to encompass statistical competence, so it was a failed process. The adhesive on the gold star dried up, the sticker fell off. If you ask guys with only average competence in statistics to performed the peer review, they fail to spot subtle errors. An error is an error is an error. No amount of groupthink will spare your conclusion.

Yes, scientists can be plenty good at driving out dissenting views.

1) You have no scientific training.
2) Why don't you publish a paper in a peer reviewed journal if you think you have something to say? (Our anonymous review process will soon send you straight to hell and you'll have hardly any recourse.)

Much less often:
3) That's an excellence point. I'll fix my paper immediately. I disappointed this error made it through peer review. We should fix that, too.

No, the usual argument is that peer review is good because it's the best we have. Sadly, the conclusion does not follow the argument. Peer review has an acceptable track record in coming to long term consensus. For climate change, another century of study would restore my faith in the consensus of peer review. Peer review is a low pass filter. Science is deeply, deeply, deeply wrong for decades at a time. Many of our greatest theories had to first outgrow the pimply teenage years (where peer review is at its most intense).

Back to Harper, I'm beginning to get the feeling that liberalism is the politics of oil surplus. When it's all about grabbing a giant share of a shrinking pie and holding on for dear life, fear and conservatism seems to rule the day.

Scientists resent having their work misconstrued as the ignorant (but powerful) race to the bottom. Sometimes they get a little too worked up and put the boots to Stephen McIntyre in defense of science, when in fact their doing the exact opposite: immunizing science against criticism that points out loose ends in a cherished conviction.

The whole enterprise of science is based on the premise that the smallest valid criticism is worth more than the largest flawed conviction. But I don't have to earn my living as a scientist, so it's cheap for me to espouse lofty views, and I'm able to actually express my views because I'm not a minion of the Harper government.

Wikipedia JSF edits traced to Defence computers in Alberta

Harper really needs to brush up on his Mandarin. Tanks are better for suppressing dissent, and cheaper, too. I wonder, however, if his ideological nose bone will make it hard for him to master tonal pronunciation.

Not directly answering your question, but:
PICTURES: Finnish F-18 engine check reveals effects of volcanic dust
Finnish fighter jets damaged by volcanic cloud
Original article of Finnish Air Force (in Finnish)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pengrowth_Saddledome
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=bb367c51-527e-4abc-b61a-39821fa3f0f9
"Working with British structural engineer Jan Bobrowski, whose firm still lists the Saddledome on its website, the design team came up with the concept of a roof made of precast concrete panels supported by a net of cables. Think of it as a giant tennis racket, a grid of cables, and on this net you drop these concrete panels,"

Canadian guards will grow the same way when everybody tries to leave the dying empire.

Like the Canadian border guards who murdered the Polish immigrant in Vancouver?

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/11/14/bc-taservideo.html
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=264ccebb-1696-44e7-9474-ff5a06f63db4
http://www.nationalpost.com/most-popular/story.html?id=1332958

Seeing zero reporting on this in the media (apart from the excellent interviews professor Geist linked on his blog). Big media all for this. The majority of "big media" business models are based on artificial scarcity

Over a year and a half back, our daily (paid) newspapers actually mentioned it.

The article was called "Is your iPod breaking the law?". Made the front page of one of them too, with a big iPod in a "prohibited" sign. (And to most laypeople, ACTA is an anti-TiVo, anti-iPod, anti-VCR deal, which is really the way to get awareness. If you call it an "anti-piracy" bill, people are for it, but they don't know the details.). Even Geist called it at one point an "iPod Bill".

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=4bf7de32-1f51-4629-9721-abef4381b8a4
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=ae997868-220b-4dae-bf4f-47f6fc96ce5e

Seeing zero reporting on this in the media (apart from the excellent interviews professor Geist linked on his blog). Big media all for this. The majority of "big media" business models are based on artificial scarcity

Over a year and a half back, our daily (paid) newspapers actually mentioned it.

The article was called "Is your iPod breaking the law?". Made the front page of one of them too, with a big iPod in a "prohibited" sign. (And to most laypeople, ACTA is an anti-TiVo, anti-iPod, anti-VCR deal, which is really the way to get awareness. If you call it an "anti-piracy" bill, people are for it, but they don't know the details.). Even Geist called it at one point an "iPod Bill".

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=4bf7de32-1f51-4629-9721-abef4381b8a4
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=ae997868-220b-4dae-bf4f-47f6fc96ce5e

"I can choose not to carry (a cellphone), but if there's a huge antenna in my neighbourhood, I can't choose not to be within (its range)."

Of course of you drive down the main street of North Vancouver and look near the top of every building with any height, you'll see dozens of cel antennas.

The question whether we should be cruel enough to point that out.

In the 1970's the then current and accepted theory by the high priests was that pollution (i.e industrial waste gases) was going to freeze the Earth. Now it is going to burn it.

For someone who claims to be skeptical and demanding of evidence before accepting something as true... why does that go away when you start making claims? You make a mockery of yourself when you claim that there was a accepted theory in the 70's about global freezing. There was no such thing.

There were some articles in Newsweek and similar magazines that made that sort of claim... but they didn't reference any conclusive peer reviewed work.

In short, you're more then happy to make claims without a shred of evidence. Instead of expecting us to show you the data and experiments, if you want to get to the bottom of it... you need to go read, learn, and understand what's already out there. Scientists have done the work; the onus is on you to understand it before you dismiss it.

Games are good for your eyesight, social life, physical health, learning, stress, language skills and economy, among other things.

Oh, and gaming addiction is mostly bunk.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=25526754-e53a-4899-84af-5d9089a5dcb6

Because of the high importance of this realization, in 1994 Dr. Jaworowski, together with a team from the Norwegian Institute for Energy Technics, proposed a research project on the reliability of trace-gas determinations in the polar ice. The prospective sponsors of the research refused to fund it, claiming the research would be "immoral" if it served to undermine the foundations of climate research.

The refusal did not come as a surprise. Several years earlier, in a peer-reviewed article published by the Norwegian Polar Institute, Dr. Jaworowski criticized the methods by which CO2 levels were ascertained from ice cores, and cast doubt on the global-warming hypothesis. The institute's director, while agreeing to publish his article, also warned Dr. Jaworowski that "this is not the way one gets research projects." Once published, the institute came under fire, especially since the report soon sold out and was reprinted. Said one prominent critic, "this paper puts the Norsk Polarinstitutt in disrepute." Although none of the critics faulted Dr. Jaworowski's science, the institute nevertheless fired him to maintain its access to funding.

---

Does "we won't fund the research because it "MIGHT" undermine climate research and so is immoral" sound like an impartial search for the truth?

The global warming agenda stinks of corporate propaganda and group think to me.

The "existence of a record" in a database is not the same thing as having a criminal record. That is strictly a data retention policy, for internal usage (administrative purposes). The person who is granted an absolute discharge at the time of their trial does not have a criminal conviction, despite the presence of a notation in the database that they received the discharge. An absolute discharge means that the judge never convicted them, even though they pled guilty. The judge has the absolute right to order that the person not be convicted of a crime when there is no minimum sentence, even if the accused has pled guilty.

Or perhaps you forgot the case where a JUDGE turned out to have had an absolute discharge for an offense when he was a lot younger. It came out years later, and his argument was quite simple - absolute discharge == no criminal conviction, as per the law. It happens all the time. It's not hard to find cases where that happened. It took me less than a minute to find one, and only a few minutes more to cut-n-paste a bunch more.

Here - recent cases: read them and weep.

SAGUENAY, Que. -- The son of former Montreal Canadiens goaltender Patrick Roy received an absolute discharge Wednesday after pleading guilty to an assault charge in connection with a nasty hockey fight last year.

Jonathan Roy, a former goalie for the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League now turned singer, will not have a criminal record. He will have to donate $5,000 to local charitable organizations.

The younger Roy was charged after pounding rival goalie Bobby Nadeau during a hockey brawl in March 2008.

Another case from July of 2009

P.E.I. MLA gets absolute discharge for assault

P.E.I. Progressive Conservative MLA Mike Currie has been given an absolute discharge for assault during a sentencing hearing in Charlottetown on Friday.

Currie, MLA for Georgetown-St. Peter's, said he was relieved by the judge's decision to grant him an absolute discharge, which means he will not have a criminal record.

And Another one, April of 2009

Quebec boy's record cleared despite kirpan conviction

Judge says case has been given too much attention, gives boy unconditional discharge

Jan Ravensbergen, Canwest News Service
Thursday, Apr. 16, 2009

A 13-year-old LaSalle youth involved in Quebec's latest skirmish over the kirpan was declared guilty yesterday in Quebec Youth Court of having threatened two schoolmates with a hairpin normally used to secure his turban.

But Judge Gilles Ouellet then removed the sting from that conviction by handing the youth an absolute discharge -- ensuring the boy remains free of any criminal record.

One form BC in February, 2009

B.C. Supreme Court Madam Justice Marvyn Koenigsberg also found the man at the centre of the ruling, a worker for a marijuana compassion club on Vancouver Island, guilty of producing and possessing for the purpose of trafficking the drug, but gave him an absolute discharge.

Same with an RCMP Officer in Nova Scotia

Truro, N.S. (Canadian Press) - An RCMP officer was granted an absolute discharge today on a fraud charge in Nova Scotia provincial court.

In passing sentence in Truro, Judge Robert Stroud said Ron Lamb has an u

A lot of what we have seen so far on this is second hand, conjecture, etc. The "leaked document" in this case doesn't seem to exist -- it looks like Michael Geist's blog entry is what is being referenced. I think it is reasonable to suppose that the blog entry may be accurate, but we don't really know that it is.

So what do we know? What conclusions can we draw from the information we have?

1. It is called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The word "counterfeiting" in there seems like an important data point.
2. It has been quashed by citing national security. National security has certainly become an extraordinarily loose standard, but it still means something.
3. Lots of copyright bigwigs have signed the NDA.
4. Three Google representatives have signed the NDA. (not sure what that contributes to this post, but I think it is worth noting)

Relevant links from the Internet (from a Google search for "google acta"):

Result #2: http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/bitsandbytes/archive/2008/09/24/google-takes-up-the-fight-against-acta.aspx

Result #12: http://guardianhost.com/realweeklynews/uploads/Google_ACTA_Comments2008.pdf

Disclaimer: I work for Google, but any opinion is my own. I also don't have any internal information on this topic.

Eivind.

Thank you for that link to General Confusion. Made my day. Check out the freshman T-rex with his lava lamp and the sordid diatripe:

http://www.generalfusion.com/fossil_fuel_crisis.php

The planet was covered with dense clouds and the atmosphere contained a high concentration of carbon dioxide, producing tropical conditions north of the 45th parallel. For example, many dinosaur fossils were excavated in Alberta, Canada. As the earth's crust cooled down, volcanic activity reduced.

Riddle of Burgess Shale's fossil-rich deposits solved

The site, close to the B.C.-Alberta border, is considered crucial to understanding the so-called Cambrian "explosion" of life - a time when the future Canadian land mass was drifting in tropical climes close to the Earth's equator.

In my historical atlas, the equator is considerably south of the 45th latitude. The dinosaur fossils in Alberta are equatorial in origin. But hey, if you can't get that right, no obstacle to solving the fusion problem. Like it's not a hard problem or anything. The typical Alberta fat cat oilman probably doesn't believe in plate tectonics to begin with. Just a bunch of mud we turn into money. Now they're all excited about version 2: just a bunch of water we turn into money.

BTW, the Royal Tyrrell Museum in the Alberta badlands is pretty kick-ass if you're into bones.

I replied to the parent as AC also, just so you get an idea of who this is.

I wanted to clarify again: the microwave systems are NOT passive. If it looks like this, it is an active microwave system, basically a radar. (I have to question their sanity in that the URL contains "xray"... real smart guys, real smart.) These systems produce images like this.

Passive narrowband terahertz systems produce images like this. (this is actually one of ThruVision's... it's in an SPIE conference paper from a few years back.) Passive broadband terahertz systems produce images like this. As the parent said, passive terahertz is the way to go, but IMHO, only broadband actually works very well.

Hmm that's actually quite reasonable, I can agree with that. A surprisingly level-headed law from the province with insane penalties for speeding. (BTW, if your car is found to be modified, it will be crushed)

The West (including Israel) have a blind spot, thinking "collateral casualties don't count".

[citation required]

Whatever else our new strategy entails, "no civilian casualties" needs to be the cornerstone, or we're never going to win.

I'm pretty sure this is impossible. I'm equally sure that it is already official doctrine to minimize civilian casualties to the extent possible.

Remember, it's not the West that sends suicide bombers to blow up little kids who are being given candy by "enemy" soldiers. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=b63bbd28-fded-46e6-aaf1-3489fb7a5d54&k=12319 And it's not the West that fires weapons from inside mosques and apartment buildings. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=6559859

Among other things, the Geneva conventions were intended to minimize collateral damage to civilians; but they don't work unless both sides follow them.

Returning to the subject of drones, it's ironic that you raise these points in a discussion of drones. Minimized collateral damages is one of the reasons the military likes drones: they have drones look around with a video camera, they identify a target, they attack that target. This is much more precise than having a B-52 carpet-bomb the area.

steveha

Is being a nigger a bad thing? They get Nobel Peace prizes for being very tanned.

I'm not claiming giant conspiracies amongst scientists, however, I think the author raises some valid points that require further explanation.

There was once a time when it was consciences that the earth was flat. A didn't take a scientist to prove them wrong. Okay, I understand that we are much more sophisticated in sorting out what is truth and what is not. But I also wish to point out that there was a time were all sorts of "models" that accurately predicted the movement of celestial bodies under premise that the earth was in the center of the galaxy. One notable multi-disciplined individual begged to differ. We know what happened to him when he did.

Bottom line? I naturally wary scientific "consciences". It doesn't exist. So until the views of the educated and qualified folks who don't write for the New Scientist are addressed w/o name calling (i.e. skeptics) I think it is utter foolishness to consider the science settled. Anyone who doesn't take into account and rejects the views of qualified folks in order to establish scientific theory as consciences should be regarded with suspicion.

By the way, the loss of glaciers are non-events. It has occurred before and will occur again.

Until scientists models start predicting the future accurately, GW is going to be a hard sell.

I will agree with you that I certainly have more reading to do. However, I must say that the New Scientist is not he end all be all and neither is it a final authority. It is troubling to me that you reject papers from other peer-reviewed journals (as seems apparent in one of the responses to posts to your article). It raises questions in my mind why include some and exclude others.

Bottom line, there are too many creditable people who argue against your point of view. The most prominent and surprising is Claude Allegre, who was one of the first to warn about man-mande global warming. He has sense recanted and now considers global warming to be:

"...over-hyped and an environmental concern of second rank." (see Allegre's second thoughts

I look forward to a continued lively debate on the subject.

What's really disgusting is that the RIAA/CRIA, in this case through their lapdogs in the AFM, are still firmly convinced that they speak for all musicians everywhere.

It ain't true. Really.

The average person in their average life does not need privacy. They need discretion from their peers and the public regarding their personal life and laws which protect their right to live how they choose without discrimination.

And the day a national newspaper publishes pictures of your private sexual encounters for millions of perverts to salivate over, will you still think we don't need privacy then?

And the day someone steals a silly video you made, publishes it online a you personally become a worldwide joke, will you still think we don't need privacy then?

And the day you are arrested for urinating behind a bush and are now subject to the all prying eyes of termagants and vigilantes the world over, will you still think we don't need privacy then?

People's private habits will always be a source of derision, ridicule and contempt for others, even those with habits of their own. People will used any excuse to laugh at, mock and inflict violence on others. You go find the nicest homosexual couple in your town and put up a big sign outside their house saying "Nicest gay couple in town reside here"; I guarantee you they will be egged, stoned, assaulted or killed with a month, no matter how placid the local populace. Now ask yourself, how easy should it be to put that tag up in Google maps?

Privacy means more than just keeping your private details a secret. It means keeping yourself safe from other human beings. We are social animals, and that means we will gang up and rip someone apart as easily as we gather together and cooperate on anything else. All we need is sufficient excuse.

You say people don't need privacy. Well I think that Max Mosely needed privacy. I think that the Star Wars Kids needs privacy. I think that people who were caught taking photgraphs of themselves in high school need privacy. I think these people were vulnerable and needed our protection from newspapers, databases and the crowing mobs howling with delight at their misfortune. I think they needed it and we let them down. What right should any of use have to any privacy whatsoever if we can't protect the people that need it most?

The whole "Canada doesn't value American concepts" thing can have its advantages, however. For example, if you commit a capital crime in one of the United States, flee to Canada. They won't extradite you until that state promises that you won't fry.

So if these wack-jobs had burned down a black church full of kids in Alabama and then fled to Canada, they wouldn't be extradited? My, my.....I'll bet Canadians go to bed every night with a hard-on over how much more progressive they are than Americans.

The whole "Canada doesn't value American concepts" thing can have its advantages, however. For example, if you commit a capital crime in one of the United States, flee to Canada. They won't extradite you until that state promises that you won't fry.

I generally seek to avoid time-vampires like Twitter (or Slashdot, and we can all see how well that's working out for me) but this is the 4th or 5th thing I've read about using Twitter to shame/force companies into providing adequate customer service.

This one is among the most recent examples I've found.

The only reason cows aren't considered part of the natural carbon cycle is because there is money to be gained from labeling them otherwise. In the last two cap and trade bill that has come out of commties, livestock has been attacked with a tax.

But here is the problem. Cow don't make methane or any greenhouse gas. They emit sequestered GHG's usually in the form of methane as part of their process to extract nutrients from the feed. Now we don't dig live stock feed from 2 miles under the ground, we don't drill the bottom of the ocean to get livestock feed, we grow the food either in a field as pasture land, hay, or corn with some other products going in too. If the cows did not exist, the only difference would be how much GHG's are pulled from the air by the planting of these feeds and how long it would take to go back into the air.

So without cows or other livestock, the only thing that would change is that instead of a cow eating the food and turning it back into GHG's, it woulod fall and decay in the fields and be released as Co2 or Ch4 or whatever. And no, there won't be any difference in the greenhouse potential because of methane is converted to Co2, the volume of Co2 increases and contains the same thermal effects. In other words, 1 bale of hay eaten by a cow will produce the same effective amounts of GHGs as it would sitting there rotting and decaying naturally. If your not planting hay, it would be field grass or whatever.

Trees are the same, Canada did a study to see if their forested lands could offset their Kyoto obligations and it was found that all stored GHG's in trees will be released into the air again when the trees die and rot. If they aren't cut down and taken out of the ecosystem and used for something useful, they release everything they soaked up in their lifetime creating a zero sum gain over their lifetime. Cows are just a middle man in the process.

Well, unless these guys are wrong (or lying, paid for by big oil and coal of course!), our carbon emissions are heating Mars and Jupiter...

I suppose it would be a waste of time to explain to this genius that the "problem" of file sharing in Canada is largely a myth and has been discredited.

Americans definitely should not be even allowed, let alone required, to expose their bodies in this manner. And he is quite right to say this would be disturbingly accurate.

Swedes and Danes on the other hand...sign them up.

As long as the laws are consistent I'm fine with it.

You say video games cause people to be stationary and fat or obese? They need to be taxed? Ok.

What about reading? Watching cable television? Going to the movies and sitting?

Why single out video games for making people immobile? Why not have a 'stationary tax' that taxes all activities that aren't physical fitness? Isn't that the point? To get people to exercise more?

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1897920,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
"Why Kids' Exercise Matters Less Than We Think"

A study showing how exercise in children is not understood very well by the public.

http://www.canada.com/Health/Overeating+blame+obesity+epidemic/1584819/story.html
"Overeating to blame for U.S. obesity epidemic"

Exercise has very little to do with the fact that Americans are so fat. It's all over-consumption of calorie rich foods.

http://rochesterhomepage.net/content/fulltext/?cid=91611
Billionaire moves from NYS to Florida because of taxes.

The billionaires are moving because of the taxes...imagine how these taxes affect the working poor of NYC...it's awful.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090511/ap_on_re_us/us_nyc_transit_woes_3
NY mass transit increases fees by 10 percent.

I swear if NYS could figure out how to tax breathing they would. Governor Patterson has such a low approval rating right now that more New Yorkers, including myself, would prefer Elliot Spitzer back.
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20090505/NEWS/905050327/1006/RSS01

If you want good healthy food, go for fresh vegetables (and fruit, meat and fish) instead of the processed kind.

Unless it's tainted spinach. Or tainted peanuts. Or tainted organic eggs. Or tainted organic sesame seeds. Or tainted organic alfalfa....

Lithium-ion phosphate is not a bomb. Try a123 's batteries, now used in DeWalt batteries. Or Try Valence.com 's batteries getting set to be used to power electric-only Toyota Prius' in CA.

Aside from that, there is a woman up at MIT who is using viruses to build Li-ion-phosphate batteries.. So those may have even better lifetimes, and be cheaper yet while being stable.

That said, I'd still worry about DeWalt batteries blowing up. They're made in China, and China is the king of fake. DeWalt, if you're listening, kindly take your business elsewhere. I don't trust Chinese-manufactured stuff. They've committed murder for profit too many times, with only the most nominal penalties *after the fact*.

And whats to stop them from driving down the street your house is on and doing the same thing?

Maybe they live in another city. Maybe they judge that the cost of performing that check is not worth it. Maybe it doesn't even occur to them to check out the neighborhood except for the fact that Google makes it trivial for them to do so, without leaving their chairs.

Yes, I am aware that it is counterintuitive to a lot of people that what Google should be restricted* from doing in the large scale is something that anybody is allowed to do in a small scale. Nobody's arguing that it should be forbidden to take a photo of somebody's house. The argument is that systematically taking a full-coverage photo set of every street and every house amounts to systematic surveillance of the whole population, and that putting that geo-tagged database online amounts to indiscriminate disclosure of facts about others.

*And when I say "restricted," I don't necessarily mean "prohibited." I am perfectly willing to consider relatively narrow restrictions that protect people's privacy.

You are talking about a problem of discrimination that is not solved by not allowing Google to take pictures of residential streets for Streetview.

I never claimed that restricting Street View would solve the problem. My claim is that its existence aggravates problems we already have, in countless, unexpected ways.

If you want to conceal the side of your property facing a public street, then get a fence. Your neighborhood could also organize to make the street privately maintained and gated. You have given no justifiable reason to restrict another entity's rights.

Or, as an alternative, my neighborhood could organize to change the laws to forbid Google from freely disseminating the results of their systematic surveillance of our community. Basically, I don't think Google has the right to do that, and that the law, which was written before this problem came into being, needs to change to reflect this (just like the law has needed to change for new problems like upskirt photography and texting while driving).

A form of the petition has the names of petitioners written in a circle, so no one can be singled out as having signed first.

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (S.L.A.P.P.) have become a threat to free speech by the public who is always a stakeholder when it comes to issues affecting communities or the environment. To prevent unfair targeting and financial/legal leverage by corporate entities and government bodies, anonymity becomes essential for free discourse by individuals since it allows "free speech" to be unencumbered by legal and financial harassment.

We have a lot of green power. For example, BC Hydro (company) generates most of the electricity for BC (province) and several nearby states with hydro-dams. Just look at the link - it says 50% of the power used in Canada comes from Hydro.

The only pollution there is the land you use up to make the dam work... plus construction materials.

Alberta (province) is packed with wind turbines. I've also seen them where I live, on Vancouver Island. (in BC)

There's a new wind farm being built in northern BC. Apparently it'll produce ~144 megawatts.

We have projects like this all over the place. A huge amount of our power comes from green solutions.

Unfortunately, we have distance working against us - we all need cars, and we all have to drive them long distances to get places. Cars are probably our biggest source of pollution.

Even despite our "incredibly dirty oil sands", we're doing better than a lot of other countries. :P We're trying to keep our emissions in check.

Please remove the "Mormons" tag. Not all Mormons think that way.

But most Mormons do. They are a fairly conservative bunch on the whole. The story is about a conservative, Republican, Mormon dominated legislature trying to get the internet to play by corporate rules. The "mormon" tag is just as appropriate as a "republican" or "conservative" or "corporations" tag on the story.

People can legitimately object to stereotypes and prejudices. But sometimes those stereotypes are things that are legitimately true and that need to be said, even if they do offend. Not allowing this leads to situations in which we now find ourselves. According to the UN, we can now no longer "defame" religions or their followers, no matter how much we disagree with their beliefs or practices.

Forget the rough stuff. Mormons, by dogma, can't drink coffee and tea. I personally think this is a stupid prohibition. Muslims, again by dogma, can't draw pictures of Mohammad. I personally think this a really stupid prohibition. Catholics( especially in third world countries), again by dogma, can't use condoms. I personally think this is an appallingly stupid prohibition which costs lives every single day. I think the people who follow these prohibitions are being unreasonable, inconsiderate and irresponsible.

My opinions here could land me in jail in many countries for being "bigoted" or for "stereotyping" or for "hate speech". Some people will say that I'm tarnishing the image of whole groups of people, or that not all people in those groups support these prohibitions. Tell that to the people living in Utah, or Saudi Arabia, or Italy, who have to put up with prohibitions imposed on them in the name of the silent religious majority.

In conclusion, it is not automatically "Wrong(TM)" to stereotype a religious community. In fact, when that communities religious practices start to infringe on others liberties, it is right to stereotype, lampoon and indeed "defame" those practices, and to force that community to reflect upon itself. Religion should never be except from criticism, and especially satire.

In the last election this fall, the Conservative party was accused of using clips of a song in a commercial without paying for it. This is the same party that was poised to introduce new copyright legislation that would have brought in similar rules to the DMCA. The song was the O'Jay's 1974 For the Love of Money.

There's got to be some double-plus irony prize for that one, and it wasn't the only instance of lax attention to copyright.

In the last election this fall, the Conservative party was accused of using clips of a song in a commercial without paying for it. This is the same party that was poised to introduce new copyright legislation that would have brought in similar rules to the DMCA. The song was the O'Jay's 1974 For the Love of Money.

There's got to be some double-plus irony prize for that one, and it wasn't the only instance of lax attention to copyright.

So are we now going to get goverment subsidised canadian porn?

Funny you should mention it, and I can't believe nobody has brought up the story of Northern Peaks:

Quote:"CRTC approves Canadian porn channel"

Having a 2 year old dial 911 and not be able to recite the address might be another.

Tragically, similar events have happened.

Umm, actually yes, that would be at the higher end of the range, but still within reason. Even in years of lower immigration, more immigrants arrive in Toronto than the US issues H1b visas. 52% of Toronto's population was born overseas, and it's the fifth most populous municipality in N. America. More immigrants apparently settle in Toronto each year than any other N. American city, including places like Miami or Los Angeles. The most recent figures I found are 87,136 in 2007 and 99,293 in 2006.

Maybe the Gulf Stream is slowing down already

No it's not. Stop spreading refuted myths.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=18a82eea-b683-44db-a46c-47ad6c3ae6c1

... besides, it wouldn't even be that important if it slowed down:

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/gs/