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Tell it like it is, Pat Buchanan!

"The US doesn't _need_ tarrifs, which is why it doesn't have any. "

That is a bald-faced lie (you might also want to find out what the US is doing in regards to steel, it's the same back-stabbing).

The US government is very happy to force tarrifs, taxes, etc, on imports. They don't like it when an unrefined resource producing country like Canada has a competitive advantage, even though it makes more sense economically for both parties (as you pointed out: the US gets the resources it wants, Canada gets the refined goods it wants, companies make the money they want).

If you wonder why this situation exists, it is because the US government continues to pander to special interest groups. Why do they do this? Because, as the most recent election showed, voting for a republocrat is throwing away your vote -- only a few people, the special interest groups, get to decide the entire fate of the country.

Kids have played violently since the begining but no one is trying to ban "cowboys and indians".

Bzzzt!

With every new school shooting, the knee-jerk overreactions get more ridiculous.

How much longer before they stop teaching kids history about things like World War II because (gasp!) people DIED, and GUNS were used! Oh, the horror! Won't someone PLEASE think of the children!?!?!?

If anything, we need MORE violence in schools. Let kids settle differences with a nice, healthy fistfight after school! Let them play dodgeball and cowboys and indians! When I was growing up, the weak, stupid kids died doing stupid things. Today, Darwinism has been taken out of the playground. These kids who grew up with 6" of soft rubber padding under the swings and monkeybars are living longer when they shouldn't have, and snapping violently later in life and taking other people with them when they do it.

~Philly

You should look at going into the trades you can make more then doing programming. Up hear in Canada the average age of a tradesman is in there mid fifties. I imagine the US is in a similar situation. The problem seems to be that all the Gen X people went to University because none of them wanted to be plumbers or carpenters. Now we have a shortage of trades people and it's going to get worse as most of them retire in the next 5 to 7 years.

If you love programming but are having trouble paying the bills then get a job as a carpenter and work on an open source project during the weekends.

I live in Vancouver, where Kim Rossmo got his Ph.d and started his geoprofiling.

He was very successful, and it led to his rapid advancement in the Vancouver Police Department. But like most police departments, it's still old-boys, and alot of them resented an educated individual rising through the ranks so quickly.

Finally, they told him they weren't extending his contract when he was promoted too far. He sued. During the trial, the senior VPD members were made to look like fools for lying under oath.

One of the interesting things that came out was that he suspected (back in June, 2001) that a serial killer was involved in the disappearance of 20 to 30 Vancouver women. Well, he was right. The Vancouver police are conducting a huge investigation at a pig farm in the Vancouver area, and Robert William Pickton is now Canada's most prolific known serial killer with 16 or so charges in the works, and more pending as they find more DNA at the farm.

I don't know much about the technology (or psychology) involved, but I do know that when he applied his software to some of Canada's other serial killers (Paul Bernardo, Cliffard Olsen, etc) his software picked a 4-block area which included the killer's home. It was also used to catch a killer in Abbotsford.

Thanks to a bunch of fat old men who's ego has extended past their intelligence, Vancouver has lost what appears to be a top-rate talent.

I've been thinking about this too - being so damned dependent on glasses. I don't know about the rest of you folks, but I can't wear contacts and work on a computer (I know, I know, we blink less while staring at the monitor) - so I've been looking for alternatives.

This one seems promising, though there's only 4 years of clinical testing (in Canada, at least). Basically, it is a contact lens, surgically implanted into your eye, made of a pig collagen tissue. It's completely reversible, so you should be safe from most goof-ups. And it's out-patient.

BUT - big caveat here, I don't know too much about this procedure, yet. Anyone else hear of it?

Here's a good head's up: www.canoe.ca/Health0107/25_collagen-cp.html

10 months ago I used Novell Netware on a 286 at my home office, where I served goatse.cx images to the poor, underprivileged trolls barely making it on Slashdot. I wanted a system I could take with me, to keep current on the latest link-munging techniques and image URLs.

None of the Windows laptops cut it with battery life or monitor durability (they tended to commit suicide after the fifth spreadeagled rectum). Worse, none of them could play the video of Ballmer hopping around like a cracked-up horny toad at a sufficient volume to frighten all the small children on a given flight.

So I looked at the iBook. I broke out my mad money, saved over the years from selling bumfight videos online, and bought the 1600Mhz DVD-ROM liquid-nitrogen-cooled iZilla. I had enough left over to buy the optional iHover attachment to prevent it from crushing my legs. I use it everywhere! Showing the finest in Internet goat-pr0n to those who intend to eat veal at restaurants, giving poor premeds a free view of the inside of the colon at med schools, and giving small children nightmares about drugged-up CEOs chasing them down and crushing them, my iBook is there! Its minature keys are perfectly sized for jizim removal, and its one-button mouse is perfect for one-handed Internet surfing.

Of course, I use nothing but OS X on the beast (up the RAM to at least 1200 Megs) and it's great. Proper terminal window to r00t other peoples' servers, Outlook-compliant email client for vectoring all the latest worms, 802.11b card for warwalking around looking for chalk, and best of all, unlike any other OS in the known Universe, IT JUST WORKS.

I've definately reached the point where I no longer want to have all my machines as play toys - the iBook is a workhorse and just keeps on slogging. Mmmm... horse.

My Name's Steve Jobs ... NO! ... it's ... Snurb ... and I'm a network administrator and CEO of ... NO! ... and ... uh ... al-Quaeda operative ... yeah, that's the ticket!

Better keep that cold laser out of the wrong hands.

Director Chris Colubus is the reason Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was as poor as it was. From where I was sitting, the continuity was crap and all the subtlety in the characters in the book went in one of Columbus's ears and out the other.

Take for example the scene where Madam Hooch drags Harry off for his horseplay in flying class. In the book the scene was extremely tense because you are wondering how Madam Hooch will react. The scene in the movie--because of the music choice, the way the scene is cut and the coaching of the actors--comes of completely flat.

It's sometimes hard to see because the story is so enchanting, but most of the scenes are just completely flat because of Columbus's shoddy directing. Thankfully, the third Harry Potter installment won't be directed by Columbus, but most likely Alfonso Cuaron, director of the current release "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and the 1998 remake of "Great Expectations" with Gwyneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke.

Though Cuaron might not be the best director in the world, perhaps he will avoid Columbus's biggest mistake. There are certain things that make a good movie that simply aren't necessary to make a good book. Chris Columbus took the parts of Harry Potter that make it a great book and put them on the screen, but he didn't make the necessary changes to make it into a great movie.

Erik

Then they came for the white hats
and I did not speak out -- because I was not a white hat.

Then they came for the file swappers
and I did not speak out -- because I was not a file swapper.

Then they came for me -- and by then there was no one left to speak out for me.

With apologies to Pastor Martin Niemöller

Not a Sop to Drink (February 6, 2001)
Water - the myth of 8 glasses (February 13, 2001)
How much water do we really need? (May 24, 2002)

First we had bees as mine detectors then came the ratbots and now the spyfly-report on CNN gets slashdotted. These are just small pieces in a bigger puzzle, obviously released one after the other. To get the larger picture at once, you have to go to the DARPA site about the Controlled biological systems and see, what will be promoted next...

From the AP wire:

Scientists said if it had hit a populated area, it would have released as much energy as a large nuclear weapon.

Forgive my ignorance of modern scientific theory, but why does the density of people affect the amount of energy released? Would it have been less energy if it hit the ocean?

Maybe there is some human fission reaction anticipated here? If so, I think I know how to solve our energy woes... It's time for Carousel. Renew!

According to the Canadian Press, the winning lawyer states that "On a legal level, it's the first case in Canada that a person who has lost their domain name at the quasi-arbitration stage ... has appealed to a Canadian court ... and it's the first case worldwide with respect to a dot-biz decision from a court."

I hope this decisive victory (for common sense) sets some precedent for future decisions and helps to discourage at least some of the rampant ICANN abuses. Perhaps unlikely, but every victory counts.

Finally, as a Canadian I love this line from The Star article: "We're all Canadian and everyone has the right to use that word. We successfully resisted Molson's attempt to turn us all into beer." Of course, I spent most of university trying to do the same thing to myself - but mostly without Molson's help.

I like Steve Tilly's take on this entire thing, found here.

If you want an overview of the ice storm, here's a good link :

http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSIceStorm/home.html

The did this in Quebec when the ice storm took down the power lines

Here's a photo.

Yeah, but look what happened to him

I can imagine that a list like this can (and probably will) be misused by the Australian Government in order to block the sites of certain people or organizations that dare to question the government, especially during political campaigns like elections.

Now I live in Canada and I can see some examples of attempted censorship by our news and media because they question the ethics of the polictial party currently in power.

does the artificial eye count? not exactly the same, but close enough.

Also, /. readers may be saddened to hear that in the past week DeeDee Ramone, of the Ramones died of an overdose in his apartment

Also, Davey Boy Smith, the beloved Bristish Bulldog of professional wrestling, was found dead. Steroid abuse may have played a role.

In 1997, David Bowie issued bonds to pay interest from his old song royalties. Prudential Insurance Co. of America bought them all. Read about it, and David Pullman, the guy who helped him do it. The offering "allowed Bowie to collect $55 million up front, using some of the money to buy out a former manager and keep control of his music."

The faked-up bio and ghost-writing is nothing more than my own intuition based on observing the way the music industry usually generates and dumps manufactured flash-in-the-pan stars. Take it for what it's worth -- I thoroughly expect to be corroborated in a few years, but for now it's obviously just one moron's opinion.

The production team connection isn't a hidden secret or anything: the story of Suge Knight and Dr. Dre manhandling Vanilla Ice to get him to sign to Death Row records is an industry legend, and one that Van Winkle has confirmed himself. (Scroll down to the "Just Desserts" section of the linked article or search for "Suge Knight" in it.) Dr. Dre left Death Row records when Knight went to jail for racketeering, and Eminem is on Dre's new label.

Quick! We're inside, now! Pull up the drawbridge...

Can anyone spell hypocrisy, or is that too long a word for Hollywood?

More info here for those of you who aren't familiar with the case. Short story: Canadian citizen living in the US was convicted of the horrible crime of selling water filters to Cuba.

A damn shame. If only he sold guns to South American terrorists, he'd have been fine.

I used to have sympathy for you Americans. Sept 11 was a terrible crime, and hurt so many people. But between the Cuban embargo, crippling our industries for being too efficient and too high-quality, and violating the basic human rights of our citizens because they're not Americans, continuuing to use anti-personnel land mines, and basically pissing all over the Kyoto treaty and anti-ballistic missle treaty, you're doing your damnest to screw the world. You can all go fuck yourselves. (For those of you who actually vote and try to change how the US government acts, I apologize. But you're in the minority.)

And that's not even mentioning the DMCA and SSSCA, which have gotten plenty of airing here and don't even need explaining.

Do your worst moderation, you jingoistic sheep. I've got plenty of karma to burn.

I've seen a couple of highly rated posts here mentioning that everyone should just plant trees and then we wouldn't have this problem. As much as I agree with the sentiment there have been a few studies recently that point to the idea that forests aren't really all that efficient in storing carbon dioxide.

Study from this April
http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSScience0204/10_carbon-ap. html

Study from 1998
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2 36000/236276.stm

Also, don't forget that planting vast numbers of trees is something that in many places would be a huge ecological change. Just because they provide lots of nice benefits to people doesn't mean that trees wouldn't kill off native species in areas not currently forested.

Star Wars was just a rewritten Japanese film about a Samuari. The movie was titled Hidden Fortress

Thank god for the Japanese, or we might have Howard the Duck part V.

Barry Took, Monty Python's producer, died yesterday due to cancer. He was 73. link

I swear I'm not making this up. This is an article from yesterday's news page on canoe.ca.

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- NASA approved a mission Thursday designed to send a projectile hurtling into a comet in an effort to bare the dirty space snowball's nucleus for study.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials gave the Deep Impact mission team the nod to begin full-scale development of the spacecraft for a January 2004 launch.

The $240-million mission will take 18 months to arrive in the neighbourhood of Comet Tempel 1. Once at the comet, the main spacecraft will deploy a smaller, 350-kilogram impactor to smash into the body July 4, 2005.

The main spacecraft will remain at a safe distance to measure and image the outflow of gases from the blast hole, the size of a football field and seven storeys deep. The impact should cause the comet to brighten enough to be visible from Earth.

The artificial cratering of the comet won't destroy it but will kick up enough material to allow scientists to learn more about its composition. Preserved by the deep freeze of space, comets are thought to contain pristine examples of the primitive material that formed the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.

Comet Tempel 1 was discovered in 1867. It orbits the sun once every 5.5 years.

There is a book called "Letters from a Nut", and there is a sequel, "More Letters from a Nut" (a review of the first can be found here. These are HILARIOUS, and as they have a similar humour and approach, I thought I'd share what I have found to be my favorite bathroom book, as its a page or two at most of hilarious wit, just enough to finish you business, but entertaining enough to extend the visit for a couple more pages if you've got the time. The contents of the book consist of letters written to various corporations and organizations and the humorous responses to his rediculous comments. Here is the text from the back cover, which is a letter that he (Ted L. Nancy) wrote to Sara Lee (the last sentence is the best): Dear Sara Lee, I want to tell you an incident that happened to me yesterday. I have enjoyed your cookies, cakes, and goodies for years. I weigh quite a bit from eating Sara Lee (500). I know your slogan is "NOBODY DOESN"T LIKE SARA LEE." Yesterday at my mosh pary I put out one of your fudge swirl cakes. A female guest (also heavy - 600) said to me "I don't like this." I said, "What do you mean? Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee." She said, "Well, I don't like it." One thing led to another and she came at me with a shrimp fork. (She punctured my arm. Didnt' break skin - luckily). My question: She accused me of using poor English by saying Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee. Is this poor English? Who is uisng poor English? You and me or her? Can you tell me? Also, can you give me a list of your cakes that I can send her so she will find A SNACK SHE LIKES. To me, everybody do not like something, but NOBODY can say they will do not like Sara Lee. Thank you for clearing this English thing up. Sincerely, Ted L. Nancy

More Jim Carroll commentary for your enjoyment...

Clearly, our sources differ.

So fuckin what if it's the width of northern missouri?

Take a look at this page before talking about something you don't know about. Do you know how much energy you can get out of an electromagnetic field generated by a solenoid that's got 400km of wire? A hell of a lot. Oh, yah, do planes that fly at mach 7 burst into flames? It's gonna heat up like hell that's for sure. And by the way, the payload they accelerated was of the order of a few grams.

Have you ever heard of people being in a separate room? And the concrete wall being in the middle of a room with about 10 meters of water barrels behind it.

Don't think people are stupid before knowing the whole story. Every one aound would be dead, that has to be the stupidest I have ever heard. You check your physics dude, because expirements with explosives and high velocity projectiles happen everyday and people don't die.

Who cares about women's hockey. They all look like dykes except Cammi Granato anyway.

If you want to know more you can read the canoe article or read about what radio has been doing for a while (cash) in NYTimes.

Now, I saw you say that you were a separatist, which therefore makes you an official kook, but I think it's worth responding to a couple of these claims.

Okay, that's disturbing...but at least we don't give our taxes to an agency [nsa.gov] that routinely eavesdrop on its citizens AND those of other countries (Echelon, anyone?). Don't you think they have secret databases of their own, mmh?

The sad fact of the matter is that we do.

See:

• CSIS
• CSE
• A CP article on budget funding for CSIS and the CSE.

I can't be bothered to pay Stats Canada a few bucks to get the exact figure, but a CP article here puts CSIS's budget at roughly 200m per year. The link up above put the CSE's at 106m.

There's an article here that provides a couple alleged examples of illegal domestic operations by CSIS... Back in late September, there were a great number of newspaper articles from various sources discussing what CSIS does and doesn't do, among them were mentions of things such as statements by former foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy declaring that CSIS "does not undertake any kind of overseas operation," yet after musings about the creation of a new, foreign operations agency by the present government in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks in the USA, someone at CSIS, possibly the director, revealed that CSIS has, in the part, operated in foreign countries and maintained the ability to do so. It's so good to see the Liberal's foreign minister either deliberately lying about or actually ignorant of such goings-on.

Here is a page that gives brief summaries of several books about Canada's spy agencies, including one that gives details on a particular CSE operation in England.

Don't forget that any mail (ie, post), telephone conversation, or internet traffic that crosses an international border into or out of Canada is considered fair game, and can legally be intercepted. Again, there are many second hand reports that illegal domestic surveilance has also taken place for many years.

Next,
The National Post is one of Canada's most conservative newspapers. It is owned by Conrad Black

Incorrect. The National Post (I don't read it, myself) is now owned by CanWest (the Aspers), who are well-known Liberal supporters. If you've been following the news in the past week, you'll see many reports that they are *far* more restrictive of what gets printed in their papers than Conrad Black ever was. Black allowed dissent, apparently with *very* few topics (unknown to me) off limits. The Aspers are more than a little looser with the word 'taboo'. The Globe&Mail's search function never works for me, but I believe they ran something by a former National Post columnist titled 'Why I Quit the Post' on Monday or so.

Now, I saw you say that you were a separatist, which therefore makes you an official kook, but I think it's worth responding to a couple of these claims.

Okay, that's disturbing...but at least we don't give our taxes to an agency [nsa.gov] that routinely eavesdrop on its citizens AND those of other countries (Echelon, anyone?). Don't you think they have secret databases of their own, mmh?

The sad fact of the matter is that we do.

See:

• CSIS
• CSE
• A CP article on budget funding for CSIS and the CSE.

I can't be bothered to pay Stats Canada a few bucks to get the exact figure, but a CP article here puts CSIS's budget at roughly 200m per year. The link up above put the CSE's at 106m.

There's an article here that provides a couple alleged examples of illegal domestic operations by CSIS... Back in late September, there were a great number of newspaper articles from various sources discussing what CSIS does and doesn't do, among them were mentions of things such as statements by former foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy declaring that CSIS "does not undertake any kind of overseas operation," yet after musings about the creation of a new, foreign operations agency by the present government in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks in the USA, someone at CSIS, possibly the director, revealed that CSIS has, in the part, operated in foreign countries and maintained the ability to do so. It's so good to see the Liberal's foreign minister either deliberately lying about or actually ignorant of such goings-on.

Here is a page that gives brief summaries of several books about Canada's spy agencies, including one that gives details on a particular CSE operation in England.

Don't forget that any mail (ie, post), telephone conversation, or internet traffic that crosses an international border into or out of Canada is considered fair game, and can legally be intercepted. Again, there are many second hand reports that illegal domestic surveilance has also taken place for many years.

Next,
The National Post is one of Canada's most conservative newspapers. It is owned by Conrad Black

Incorrect. The National Post (I don't read it, myself) is now owned by CanWest (the Aspers), who are well-known Liberal supporters. If you've been following the news in the past week, you'll see many reports that they are *far* more restrictive of what gets printed in their papers than Conrad Black ever was. Black allowed dissent, apparently with *very* few topics (unknown to me) off limits. The Aspers are more than a little looser with the word 'taboo'. The Globe&Mail's search function never works for me, but I believe they ran something by a former National Post columnist titled 'Why I Quit the Post' on Monday or so.

60$ CDN dollars a month. its more than cable, but well worth it for the extra upstream in my opinion.

this service has now been replaced by a slower one, but nobody has to come to your house to install it.

George Lucas gave up his integrity for:

1) doing something for the sole reason of attracting the 12 year old girl market, or

2) letting anyone with some clout be in the film, just because they're famous (which is also what happened with Sam Jackson).

Pick one.

The basic issue is intellectual property rights, and how this applies to the artists who perform the music, and the record companies who market it. I'm not seeing much discussion about here, so I thought I'd do some research and post some more background.

The interesting thing to me is that recording artists and the record companies have vastly different opinions about the availability of music on the internet.

In general, artists would like to be able to sell their own music on the web -- however, they do want that music to be sold, not given away or stolen.

Artists who don't have labels are free to put their own stuff out there for download. They also have the ability to sell it on personally-made CDs or other media, although at this time they have no way to safeguard this media once it gets into someone else's hands.

Artists who are signed to a record company want to be able to market their music on the internet without going through their record companies (therefore getting the proceeds themselves, and not giving the record companies their 'cut'), presumably because the record companies are predatory. Predatory aspects of the record companies, for example, are a large part of Courtney Love's and LeAnn Rimes' opinions (below).

The record companies not only want to prevent 'their' CDs from showing up on morpheus, etc, they also want to prevent recording artists from putting other tracks onto the web for sale or for free. If artists could do this outside of their contracts, the record companies would of course lose money and customers.

Therefore, record companies want to prevent their CDs from being ripped or copied (hence this article), AND they want to prevent their artists from getting around their contracts by selling directly to consumers.

All in all, I think the record companies are RIGHT to try to keep their product from being pirated. However, not only is this basically impossible, but the MEANS they are going about it is going to cause a huge backlash and only hurt the record companies and the artists further.

Here's some more info:

From Intellectual Property Is an Oxymoron:

"There's an important difference between authors and publishers that the current intellectual property system ignores. Authors still perform a valuable service by creating intellectual property. Publishers perform an increasingly useless service, copying information that individuals who own computers connected by the Internet can copy on their own...

"...Publishers have become useless middlemen rendered obsolete by digital technology. The laws of supply and demand are driving their profit margins to zero... Notably, nearly 30 states are now suing the top record labels alleging CD price fixing."

Some artists' opinions:

Courtney Love: "Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. I'm not talking about Napster-type software. I'm talking about major label recording contracts. " (from her speech to the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference, given in New York on May 16, as quoted on Salon.com.)

Business Week, writing about the Recording Artists Coalition (RAC) testimony at a Senate hearing in April:

"Musical artists represented by RAC want to be able to sell their music on the Internet without going through the bureaucracy of record labels. While many artists supported the copyright-infringement lawsuit the RIAA brought against Napster, they now want labels to aggressively award licensing deals to legitimate independent music Web sites in addition to the labels' own online services. That's something that isn't happening as fast as artists hoped."

a variety of artists at a Senate hearing in September, including Courtney Love, Don Henley, and LeAnn Rimes.

Alanis Morrissette (from Billboard.com): "'Artists today are not being given a chance to experience the normal ebbs and flows that result in an artist's evolution.'

"In Morissette's opinion, the Internet at one time offered great promise. Such companies as MP3.com and Napster, she said, 'offered a link between artists and audiences and was a way for less-established artists to have a forum to reach those who will be touched by their art.' Now, she said, those same companies have been 'litigated, vilified, and ultimately consolidated to the point where these opportunities [don't exist].' "Pointing to Napster's relationship with Bertelsmann, and the acquisition of MP3.com and Emusic by Vivendi Universal, Morissette said that the Internet has become 'a bottleneck for creativity,' because the media conglomerates are attempting to apply traditional, profit-oriented business models to the new medium."

Too late. Apparently Americans only believe in free trade and open markets when it allows them to make Nikes in third world sweatshops. NAFTA is a complete fucking joke.

• Hacker School Teaches Security about a class in New York from March 2000.
  
• Hacker school open for business. Canada, February 2001.
  
• Cracking the Code. March 1999 (appears to be corporate seminars, rather than a truly public school though).
  

• In Spain, authorities can shut down newspapers and jail editors if they feel the publications defend Basque terrorists. (link)
• And regarding the UK/IRA ...
  • ... permits a police officer to arrest without a warrant a person whom she or he has reasonable grounds to suspect of being guilty
  • persons charged under the EPA or PTA are tried in Diplock courts by a single judge sitting without a jury
  • a detainee can be held for up to seven days without charge
  (link)

This isn't to knock the UK or Spain (both wonderful countries) it's mainly to point out that pretty much all countries react the same way to terrorism

How vulnerable are we? In June, a two-day simulation exercise called Dark Winter was held at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. It began with a fictional scenario depicting a covert smallpox attack by Iraq that left 24 infected in Oklahoma. After an imaginary two weeks, decisions by the assembled politicians coupled with the quick exhaustion of the stockpiled vaccine would have resulted in 16,000 people infected in 25 states and 1,000 dead, 10 other countries reporting cases and the grim prediction that within three weeks there would be 300,000 victims, a third of whom would die.

You can also try the following stories.
www.msnbc.com/news/652977.asp

money.cnn.com/2001/11/06/technology/microsoft/

www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,316946-412,00.sht ml

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,38145,00.html

www.nytimes.com/2001/11/06/business/06CND-SOFT.htm l (Reg Required)

canoe.ca/MoneyMicrosoft/nov6_msfttwothirds-ap.html

Well, the whole issue behind the softwood dispute is that there used to be no tarrif, except the US had volume restrictions on softwood imports. That agreement has now expired and the US still wants to protect its industries. That's not what free trade is about.

As to the original point of punishing a company twice by fining it and then giving money to competitors, read this .

From the article: "Under the Byrd amendment, enacted last year, tens of millions of dollars in fines collected by the U.S. government will be handed over to companies that lodge complaints against foreign exporters judged to be 'dumping' products at artificially low prices."

Sounds pretty fishy to me.

Nifty bit here about Canada's problems with video surveillance and their privacy laws. In short, they can monitor around the clock but only record "suspicious activity." I don't know how the face recognition technolgy would affect this. Any thoughts?

Unfortunateley, they aren't there anymore. Does Yahoo have an automatic link engine that add hyperlinks to some keywords? Or was it the work of our friend?

Another funny story was held on canoe.ca. The title was something like "President Bush called up 50,000 reservists" and beside the article was a photo of Bush on the phone...

Man, I don't think Slashdot can claim responsibility for most of online America and a good bit of the rest of the online world simultaneously hitting every news site.

The washington post is still responding and has updated their front page with a picture of the collapsed tower. I think they're hosted on Akamai.

I got the NYT login page for the article, but I didn't log in. Globe and Mail and Canoe are two Canadian news site still reachable from where I am.

CNN seems to have a stripped-down front page that's now struggling to stay up.

The LA Times is now reachable again from where I am, and has a different angle pic before the tower collapse.

My university is a long way from NYC (I'm in Canada) but some of my friends are leaving to go home and watch the news. I know that in the context of pain and suffering world-wide, this is a small event, but it is still a horrible tragedy and a sad, sad day for those whose loved ones are victims.

Christopher

This post is a little stale by now, since Slashdot's database seemed to take a hit too for a while, and I went home to watch the tv coverage myself, but I'm posting anyway just for posterity.

In the West Bank, meanwhile, the leader the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine denied his group was involved in the attacks.

Qais Abdel Rahim was reacting to reports that two Arab satellite stations in the Gulf had received anonymous claims of responsibility on behalf of the DFLP, a radical PLO faction. Abdel Rahim said his group condemned the attacks.