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Quebec is NOT a bilingual province, the only official language is French. New Brunswick is the only constitutionally bilingual province.

Check out the very recent bruhaha caused by an Irish Pub in Montreal having Guinness posters on the wall that didn't have French on them. I'm a anglophone born and raised in Montreal, who has since moved down the river to Ottawa, and man, I don't miss that shit.

There is no shortage of perjury cases against experts.

Really? I don't doubt what you say, I am just interested in the source of your information. That is something I would like to hear more about.

I would need to know more about what you consider to be the criteria of a "good example" of a patent before I could even hazard a guess about whether a "good" software patent could exist. However, I would have to wonder whether the criteria for "good" are specifically selected to exclude software due to personal biases.

You sir are a moron.

So essentially you are saying if American's had sold and mailed conch meat to Canadians (which is illegal in Canada) that the Canadian government couldn't try to get the sellers fined?

If you are in a global business selling good X you had better make sure that you can even sell it in certain countries or you should expect to be fined.

I personally don't care if someone smokes pot or not, but don't let your prejudices run away with you. He could have not sold marijuana to people who are in a jurisdiction where that is illegal to posses, purchase, or SELL.

If a tourist is selling hand grenades in England they sure as hell are going to arrest him. If someone does the same thing on the Internet you can bet SOME nation is going to go after his ass. The only difference is the good in question being sold.

It's illegal in Canada to import many kinds of dairy as well. Any American company importing the goods illegally will get prosecuted by the Canadian government. So stop being a hypocrite.

Canadians are cool

Anything around here that allows you to hook up to a PC is ridiculously expensive and works like crap, and they still reserve the right to mysteriously cap your "unlimited" usage or to bill you extra if you go over that limit. That's the plans that do allow hooking up to a PC at all. Mine, like many, is "unlimited" for the phone, but I still have to pay per kB to hook it to another device and let that use the connection.

There was a news story not long ago about a guy on a plan like mine in Canada who ran up an $85,000 phone bill because he didn't see the distinction in the fine print. Yahoo, DSL Reports, The Huffington Post, CNet UK, Canada.com, Geek.com, and /.'s own Firehose have had the story, among many other sources.

I can get Sprint, AT&T, or possibly Verizon (haven't check on their coverage and plans here lately for data) here that will allow me to hook up to my PC for "unlimited" data transfer, but it runs about $100 a month on top of a required voice plan, and although most phones will do it only certain phones or a dedicated cell modem is allowed to have the plan. Sprint says theirs is both "unlimited" and "broadband", but they also say it's not to be used to replace a leased line Internet service. So which is it?

-FL

Here's the issue - your sense of humor is broken. Retardation is not funny - but my joke is.

Let's hit wikipedia real quick: Today's Feng Shui schools teach that it is the ancient Chinese practice of placement and arrangement of space to achieve harmony with the environment. Fen Shui originated in China. The picture came from China. See the connection? That my statement is absurd is what makes it funny. That Feng Shui would be banned by the Chinese government makes the joke that much funnier. This does not 'diss' (why do you diss english with this lame slang?) Taiwanese culture in the least. Taiwan doesn't even enter the picture - unless you are running around with some kind of chip on your shoulder.

Oh and as far as our supporting Taiwan - I personally took part in operations like this that have been a part of Taiwan remaining free from Chinese control. But I'm wandering now - the issue is your inability to get a joke. Pointing fingers at Christians and laughing at Allah could be funny too in the right context.

I'll take it as given that you don't live within 100 miles of the Canadian border. To call it unwatched is a slight exaggeration. Border security operation busts human-smuggling ring {November 29]

Yeah, that's great.

I tell you what, I'll vote for a socialized health-care system if you volunteer you and yours to always lose the treatment lotto for cancer patients.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=5720758a-c427-45b0-96f1-0960771f6278&k=85427&p=1
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061120.wxcancerdrugs20/BNStory/cancer
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5413132.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/politics_show/regions/east_midlands/7012406.stm

Or when the treatment stinks, guess what Canadians do?

" In Ontario, new drugs have become bogged down in paperwork and a slow review process, the report says. Private cancer clinics have sprung up to offer the drugs to patients who can afford to pay for them." Quoted from the first link above.

"The United Kingdom in particular comes out badly in the tables, showing cancer survival rates that are among the worst in Europe." Quoted from the article below.

Essentially you're saying that we should scrap the entire US system that has it's ups and downs but has covered the essential needs of all fairly well. For instance, all of Europe lags behind the US in detection and treatment of cancer, therefore survival rates are lower.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/561737 Reg required (sorry) interesting bits below.
colon and rectum (56.2% in Europe vs 65.5% in the United States)
breast (79.0% vs 90.1%)
prostate cancer (77.5% vs 99.3%)

The above statistics were compiled in a study by an Italian doctor.

Thanks, but no thanks. As the government has been shown to be incompetent at everything it attempts to do, I would rather it do less, so that I can do more. Your inability to cope with responsibility casts a shadow on your parents and educators, who should have taught you more about the ideology behind the USA's governmental system.

perhaps we should produce our own power and fuel domestically rather than rely on fickle foreign sources. In the past, this hasn't been a strong enough inducement, but with Opec restricting production to drive up price, we might be reconsidering that position.

Saudi is now promoting it's own oil as being more "cost-effective" than the Canadian oil that is poised to come into the US market over the next few years.

Map, (warning, large PDF) of producing, under-construction and planned heavy oil facilities in Alberta. Many of the "producing" facilities are in Phase 1 (low capacity pilot plants) or 2, with output being doubled, tripled or quadrupled via additional phases.

Sorry, but that's not super fair. If you have been following the stories, Chinese toy makers are now suing Mattel for damaging their reputation. The toys that were recalled were built completely to spec with the designs Mattel gave them. When a toy contains many small magnets that can be swallowed, how can you blame the manufacturers, and not the designers?
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/language_tips/cdaudio/2007-11/06/content_6234061.htm

Also, the latest round of recalls came from Mexico.
http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/business_agriculture/story.html?id=6bbd57b0-e1d3-48d9-9a14-ebe3e6b24c04

China can make high quality electronic equipment, and they can also make low quality toys. You can't really blame them for making what they were paid to make.

But my point is, the NCIC isn't some secretive blacklist like the infamous no-fly list. The NCIC is detailed, you can view your record and correct it, if it's incorrect.

Here's what I find when I look further, unvarnished outrage:

• An outraged Canadian MP. There others, including a powerful one representing Toronto.
• Border guards must obey the list and were ashamed of what they had to do.
• That you can go to jail for accessing the information.

The NCIC may not be as bad as no-fly lists but that makes it's abuse more shocking. The three arrests were for protesting and it is clear than the activists are not the violent felons the laws were designed to keep out of Canada. This is an evil political abuse that will keep these protesters legally out of Canada for five years.

But my point is, the NCIC isn't some secretive blacklist like the infamous no-fly list. The NCIC is detailed, you can view your record and correct it, if it's incorrect.

Here's what I find when I look further, unvarnished outrage:

• An outraged Canadian MP. There others, including a powerful one representing Toronto.
• Border guards must obey the list and were ashamed of what they had to do.
• That you can go to jail for accessing the information.

The NCIC may not be as bad as no-fly lists but that makes it's abuse more shocking. The three arrests were for protesting and it is clear than the activists are not the violent felons the laws were designed to keep out of Canada. This is an evil political abuse that will keep these protesters legally out of Canada for five years.

" how much is that in Canadian monopoly money? Ha ha, canucks, we love you miserable bastards, eh "

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=292a762e-5b3e-4909-9ea3-ca664b774391&k=97109

"Loonie soars to new 30-year high
Eric Beauchesne, CanWest News Service
Published: Saturday, May 26, 2007

OTTAWA -- The loonie soared to a new 30-year high of nearly 93 cents US Friday and toward what one Canadian bank is saying will be parity with the ailing U.S. greenback within two years.

The dollar, after hitting a high of 92.8 cents US, closed Friday at 92.64 cents US, its highest closing level since 1977."

"The strength of the Canadian dollar can no longer be laid solely to weakness of the greenback," Gignac said. "The loonie has appreciated against almost all currencies."

Now be nice or well hook the Chinese on Timbits and buy the US debt and turn your country into an amusement park. Eh.

From the Financial Post "Copyright might follow U.S. model":

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/printedition/story.html?id=375efc16-3e14-488d-915e-b880fae33d4a

I am surpeised that there hasn't been a thread on this.

I read an interesting article called Reading the Sun Spots that discusses sun spots and climate change.

The article makes the point that:

So what is the missing piece? Either it is human activity or something these researchers found (or both):

So they say based on mud core samples and other research that the increase in the solar activity isn't sufficient to cause the temperature increases we are experiencing, but if you add in the blocking effect of the cloud-forming radiation, then that does provide sufficient increase. An interesting note though is if this is correct about cloud formations not occurring as regularly during high sunspot activity, that could explain some of the drought conditions plaguing the world.

The really interesting point of the article is that if this proves out then by 2020 we are looking at a cooling period because with the decrease in sun spot activity not only will the Sun's heat drop, but the shielding effect of the solar winds will diminish, allowing increased cloud cover which will increase cooling.

So now the question is, will human activity make up for the variation and continue the warming trend, staving off another Little Ice Age or will the world cool?

For those of you old enough to remember, the 1970's environmental concern was the coming ice age, so here we are again.

A restraining order against an anonymous coward on Slashdot? Heh. Almost always, the people assigned to these sorts of duties are doing an "ammends project" to be allowed back "onlines" with the Cthurch of Scientology. They seem to get picked for the nasty jobs because (a) they're deniable as working for Scientology, (b) they're frequently judgment-proof because they have no assets or they're so dubious in sanity that no one would believe any liable and no damages could be proven. (There's also the danger that Scientology would help out in the legal fight in order to make it as time-consuming and expensive for a critic as possible. "The purpose of a lawsuit is to harass", in the words of L. Ron Hubbard.)

It's not worth my time because I can do more to help expose the organization in an hour of working on my media references page than wasting months in court.

It's no accident that he Godwin'ed himself immediately. When Scientology starts flinging poo at anyone who dares criticize the "most ethical organization on the planet" (their words), they always reach for Hitler and the Nazis first: Germany (which is why Cruise had recent troubles there), psychologists and psychiatrists, newspapers, journalists, Germany again (Bringing your kids along to a Nazi uniformed protest is weird by anyone's standard yes?), and probably a lot more. It's no wonder that some people occasionally fling it back, where it seems to sit better (and when the poo sits...):

*"[..] This is nothing compared to what will happen when we start taking SPs out of the government. They are rightly afraid. So don't you be. Tomorrow belongs to us. Inevitably there are bumps in the road."
L. Ron Hubbard

Since one of my best friends and my mother suffers from diabetes I try and keep my eye open for news on this kind of thing, while this is an interesting discovery there was this piece of news from back in December that seems even more promising:
    http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=a042812e-492c-4f07-8245-8a598ab5d1bf&k=63970&p=1/

I really home that one or both of these discoveries lead to better treatments for people with this disease.

Don't forget the Canadian researcher who cured mice of diabetes for a few months at a time with an injection of capsaicin, the active ingedient in hot peppers.
They state that the two diseases are very closely related - more so than previously thought. Oh, and something about them being chronic inflammatory diseases as well.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=a042812e-492c-4f07-8245-8a598ab5d1bf A quick link to a news story about it, since I'm almost positive you have to pay for the report itself.

And opinion piece came out today in a local paper with another view of the function of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

"Alan Greenspan, that mystifying Yoda of the global economy who sat for a century as chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, has published his memoirs." http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=b1f1d78d-ce1e-4e53-a2eb-c6e829b01d7b

Canadian dollars or U.S, it doesn't matter; the price is the same.

Have you noticed the value of the U.S. dollar lately? And let's not talk about the Euro, okay?

"An officer that's shown to abuse people can't keep his job unless an elected official/body allows him/her to"

"Why are you more afraid of a fleeting, non-damaging nerve stimulation than you are choking gas, or bruising clubs and water cannons, or agitated K-9 units?"

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=1ea8233f-14da-4a44-b839-b71a9e5df868&k=5287

Polar bear numbers up, but rescue continues
Don Martin in Ottawa, National Post
Published: Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Their status ranges from a "vulnerable" to "endangered" and could be declared "threatened" if the U.S. decides the polar bear is collateral damage of climate change.

Nobody talks about "overpopulated" when discussing the bears' outlook.

Yet despite the Canadian government 's $150-million commitment last week to fund 44 International Polar Year research projects, a key question is not up for detailed scientific assessment: If the polar bear is the 650-kilogram canary in the climate change coal mine, why are its numbers INCREASING?

The latest government survey of polar bears roaming the vast Arctic expanses of northern Quebec, Labrador and southern Baffin Island show the population of polar bears has jumped to 2,100 animals from around 800 in the mid-1980s.

As recently as three years ago, a less official count placed the number at 1,400.

The Inuit have always insisted the bears' demise was greatly exaggerated by scientists doing projections based on fly-over counts, but their input was usually dismissed as the ramblings of self-interested hunters.

As Nunavut government biologist Mitch Taylor observed in a front-page story in the Nunatsiaq News last month, "the Inuit were right. There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears."

Sorry, Bush already beat you to that with sabre rattling. Nobody "tours" Iraq other than troops, do they?

It sure would be nice to have one of these, maybe they should be included with every box of Microwave Popcorn.

2) When the orders come in, send out authentic-looking prescription medication, but instead of medicine the pills are made of fast-acting poison.

Here in the US we call it Democratism and it hasn't been a nasty..... Oh wait, never mind.

No no no no. That's an obvious cia attempt to misdirect people's attention.

There's a very simple solution: carbon tax + apply proceeds (in transparent process) to carbon sinks and to legitimate warming harm-abatement.

I think Ross McKitrick's little thought experiment is a better option -- you yourself point out some of the drawbacks of this strategy, though many of those you mention paint far too simplistic a picture of what an "environmentalist" wants. Even if you are right on this point, McKitrick's proposal takes this possibility into account more thoroughly and thoughtfully.

McKitrick says that there is an area of the atmosphere where everyone agrees temperature fluctuations are a result of human activity. Given this fact, create some tiny, baseline carbon tax. This tax would increase at a specified rate tied to the increase in temperatures in the tropical troposphere. If deniers are right, the tax should not go up much or even at all, industry will not be faced with onerous taxes, and the end-is-nigh-ers look like barking morons. If the global warming apocalypse people are right, the taxes should rise at a rate that will create a "natural" (i.e. market based) emissions cap as businesses adjust their practices to compensate for ever-rising taxes.

Okay, someone's a little trigger-happy eh? Double post? Sorry to burst your bubble (as excited as you are) buuut. You're a little off on that.

mods, go ahead and -1 me if ya feel like it. Offtopic and all

How is it any different than a drug raid uncovering a major drug ring, such as this one? http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.h tml?id=a79c12ab-4707-42f5-b3dd-aa89d05c5ba9&k=2925 3 Illegal software isn't the same as illegal drugs, but you'll still make a difference somewhere. It almost seems impossible that all illegal drugs will be stopped, just the same as it is impossible to stop all illegal software.

Let us not forget that Google has been quietly constructing a massive network that would put most telecommunication companies to shame: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/s tory.html?id=0d0fa453-8a22-4dd0-b244-53f03146da8e& k=11216 Google just needs permission to illuminate all of that dark fiber.

If it's like other stuff they make it's likely to get recalled. So no reason to worry.

We use goats: http://www.canada.com/vancouverisland/star/story.h tml?id=5f6a9175-79c7-4925-b35a-ac673c1ada5f

Why do people mod things up just because they're anti-US?

Most of the world's major maritime powers agree with the US position that this is an international strait. If anything, it's Canada here that is acting unilaterally.

Although the OP is correct; the Canadians who depend on the US for their defense do not have the means to defend their claim even if they wanted to. That's reality for you I guess.

It's really great that our airports are going to be secured against foreign visitors, but, as Andrew Stranger proved, we can't keep anyone with half a brain out of this country as our current security system exists, beefed up airports or not.

For anyone interested, this is great reading:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html ?id=065183f1-4240-407d-b27b-afc67a34cbf8&k=51026

Don't be so quick to say "Science has looked at those and ruled them out pretty simply" until you've reviewed all science research.

For example, this article goes into details of what you indicate that the sun's actual output isn't directly correlated to the increase in temperature, but identifies that the changes in solar winds affects the amount of cosmic radiation able to hit the earth and this does match up more closely with temperature variations.

I'm not proposing this is in anyway more or less definitive than anything you may have read, but the fact is climatology is just too immature to be making definitive statements. We are by no means at the end of this science, simply because the problem domain is just to large.

"Unfortunately for now, the only solution to this fountain of stupid is to get your "obscene" goods from Europe or Asia, where civilization comes from!"

Actually, it's been banned in the UK and Ireland, and Italy's Communications Minister has asked that Rockstar cancel their planned release. Might want to scratch Europe from that list.

But will it prepare us for global cooling?

Happily for us, according to a Canadian climate scientist, based on the sunspot cycles, we're due for global cooling to start in 2020, so I wouldn't sweat it.

So just maybe, if the "models" are accurate with regards to greenhouse gases, if we try really hard to produce more every year, we can reverse part of the eventual global cooling trend. Somehow I doubt that's likely.

However, 15 years from now we'll have the FAA talking about their plan to increase greenhouse gas emissions from planes at the behest of the environmentalists and their allies in big oil who want to regulate people into not using so many alternative energy sources that don't produce enough carbon dioxide.

Goldman Sachs is big capital. Big (capital [B]) Capital. They have people in house to analyze everything, and they are doing very well (Very Well) in the market right now.

I cannot comment for everywhere in North America, or at all for any parts of the world outside thereof, but I would argue that said cutback has already happened.

"No one gets anything out of believing in global warming."

Ask Al Gore if he gets nothing out of it. He's been damn near proclaimed the Second Coming of Christ by his followers because of his endless (well-paid) speeches on global warming and how it's all the fault of the big bad corporations. Ask the scientists that get all the grants to do further research when they release a paper supporting the "right side" of the debate.

"I'm sorry if all that hurts your feelings. Science doesn't care about your feelings."

Exactly. But then why are the scientists that produce results that say global warming is a natural phenomenon labeled as corporate shills, or morons, etc? The global warming advocates can't tolerate anything that might undermine their claims so they instantly resort to name-calling.

"The global warming deniers haven't come up with better science."

Umm, actually the problem is that the global warming "deniers" haven't come up with better PR people. The so-called "consensus" on global warming is anything but. In '92 Al Gore said that "Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled." From http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/s tory.html?id=c47c1209-233b-412c-b6d1-5c755457a8af& p=1 Amazingly, he made his claims despite much evidence of their falsity. A Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren't sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun. Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn't think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible and a mere 13% thought it probable.

Short version: the "global warming consensus" doesn't exists anywhere outside of political circles.

I regard anthropogenic global warming as an established fact, and find the minority opposition to be opposed on political grounds. It is a political conundrum, but one with an interesting possible solution from this Canadian.

The essence of his proposal is that an agreed upon yardstick that can measure anthropogenic warming be used as a tool to levy Carbon taxes on C02 emissions. He suggests that warming in the tropical troposphere is a good standard. The obviates all debate, and answers Michael Crichton's challenge. If anthropogenic warming goes up, we tax it and use the proceeds for counter measures, if it does not, there are no taxes. Everybody wins!

Israel didn't just target Hezbollah, they bombed ALL of Lebanon.

Israel *deliberately* targetted civilians in this war.

what we have here is two equally evil (but not equally powerful) terrorist organizations.