Slashdot Mirror

There are actual pictures of the clock floating around the interwebs. You might consider acquiring access to the information superhighway so that you can view these pictures.

There was no "disassembled alarm clock with wires soldered to it." There was a home-made circuit board, connected by ribbon cables to a small battery and digital display. There was no taken-apart alarm clock with drama-department wires attached to road flares, or any such nonsense. There was no Wile. E. Coyote alarm clock contraption. There was no part of the device that looked like explosives.

The teacher who claims to have "thought" it looked like a bomb picked it up and walked off with it, and sent the student to the office... without evacuating anybody. If the teacher has an IQ above 65, then I'm gonna call bull-pucky on having thought it actually looked like a bomb. If the teacher is a former special-ed student living the dream, OK, I can believe the story, and maybe it is just a "training issue."

Here is a picture of the clock, just so we know what we are discussing:
http://www.24hmontreal.canoe.c...

You say there is a "home-made circuit board" there, can you point it out to me? The clock he "invented" are just the innards of a production alarm clock mounted in a different case. If you look at the picture, there is a standard alarm clock cord, poorly spliced with electrical tape (presumably he had to cut the cord where it went through the case) connected to a small transformer. The transformer output is connected to a production PCB, which appears to be the logic board and LED display driver for the clock. That board is connected with 2 ribbon cables to another board, which is edge-on to the camera so it is difficult to see what is on it. It looks like this is probably an input board.

Here is what makes this appear to be just the innards of a mass-produced clock:
-None of the solder joints appear to be hand-done, they all have the look of a factory solder job. Something that is done in a reflow oven, not on a workbench.
-Production PCBs: He didn't make these PCBs, they were made in a factory. Yes, I know there are discrete LED display driver boards that you can buy, but that isn't what the main board appears to be, as the board appears to handle several different functions.
-There doesn't appear to be any home-brew technology in the device, no perf boards, no wire wrap, etc.
-The battery backup - this is something that is almost all production alarm clocks but would probably be implemented differently in a homebrew device (if implemented at all). If he designed this from scratch AND wanted to put a battery in it, he would have made the whole thing battery powered, there would be no reason to have an AC transformer.
-Screw marks on the LED. There are four mounting holes for the LED display but only two of them have screws. The other two show marks where larger screws (or plastic pegs) used to be, like this display was taken out of an existing device.
-The edge-on board appears to have the PCB traces that underlie membrane switches. The four grouped together are probably the clock/hour/minute/alarm switches with a single snooze? switch on the end where the power wires enter from the main board.
- The way the ribbon cables and power connect the 2 boards together makes it hard to mount them in his case. If this was designed for this case those boards would either have longer cables between them to allow for their position in the case.

Yes, it's possible that the kid designed a pair of custom PCBs, had them screened and shipped, assembled them and soldered them in the reflow oven in his room (instead of the soldering iron shown in the press pictures) and then stuffed them into his pencil case, but all the evidence points to this being the contents of a simpl

And when you throw them in jail they post about their "living the good life" smoking pot and drinking $250 bottles of cognacon facebook. Of course, they haven't met up with this Canadian street gang yet.

Oh don't worry, they "want" us to invest in expensive energy like solar and windmills. So you can go bankrupt trying to pay to refrigerate your food, or heat your house. I mean don't you want to be like Ontario(cdn), who will very soon have the most expensive electricity in North America? I mean we just got hit with a your electricity price will increase by 42% over the next 5 years. This is of course to cover the massive screw-over from FiT(Feed in Tariff) programs to pay for all of the green energy projects.

Yes I would take that bet. I don't know if you're being intentionally obtuse or are truly unable to understand what you read. Aspirin is the common name for acetylsalicylic acid. Acetylsalicylic acid is a member of a class of drugs called NSAIDs - NonSteroidal AntiInflammatory Drugs. All aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid. All acetylsalicylic acid is an NSAID.

REAL northerners are NOT making fun of the grief and hassle that the good people of Atlanta are facing. We've all seen what happens when the weather gets bad, and we're having problems right now ourselves so we can all relate. See: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Ca...

So I wish you the best of luck and hope you get sorted out soon!

That is evil... It is not the government's job or business in how I choose to raise my child...

Yeah...keep telling yourself that. The government raising your kids is an extension of a buttload of liberal policies in the 70's, 80's and 90's. To the point where educators believe they're "co-parents" and organizations like Children's Aid, will go out of their way to enforce their will and vision upon you, and your children.

First off, stop looking at "profit motive" as a bad thing. If the company doesn't make a profit, the many people employed by the company can't get paid. Profit needs to exist in order for things to continue. Would you go to your job every day if all it did was cover your costs of staying alive and left you with no extra money? Second, insurance is a gamble, both for the buyer and the seller. There's no guarantee the insurance you buy is going to completely cover you for everything. There's also no guarantee that the insurance company will collect enough premiums to cover all claims. Some years profits are big, some years they're small, and some years they suffer losses. Making the insurance a "government solution" isn't going to change any of this. There are still a bunch of employees who expect a nice paycheck at the end of the week. And there is still no guarantee that premiums will cover all claims. However, there is a big difference between a private company and a government department. Private companies need to run the business efficiently, because should they screw up, they're all out of a job. A government department, however, doesn't face this worry. This is why government bureaucracies become bloated and inefficient over time. Look at Canada's health system, where the average wait time from initial referral to actual treatment performed by a specialist is well over 20 weeks. http://blogs.canoe.ca/davidakin/health/our-embarrassing-health-care-wait-times/#.Um6B9aRk1Uk.twitter And because it's a "universal" health care system, there's no accountability in terms of costs versus services delivered.

If underdeclaring weight became a stability problem sufficient to sink the ship, my guess is that a substantial number of the containers were reporting numbers way off the real values.

It wasn't instability as evidenced by the summary, TFA and the especially telling photograph.

Maybe you should just buy a cheap bottle of generic aspirin...

I suffer from chronic migraines(upwards of 20/mo) with cluster headaches(near daily), aspirin is great stuff, as long as your stomach can handle it, along with the rest of your GI tract. Very hard on your stomach though, especially if you've been taking it for awhile. For a long time, my main anti-migraine breaker was tencal c 1/2 30mg , or a double totaling 60mg. Now for those that don't want to read the link, caffeine+barbiturates(butalbital)+codeine does wonder, especially with a massive dose of aspirin(330mg). Sadly my stomach can't take it anymore, and I'm on tramadol HCL.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8570506/Police-covered-up-violent-campaign-to-turn-London-area-Islamic.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1374443/Police-hid-abuse-60-girls-Asian-takeaway-workers-linked-Charlene-Downes-murder.html
http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/muslim-paedophile-gangs-have-been-operating-%E2%80%9Cdecades%E2%80%9D-admits-former-police-chief
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/iran-gay-men-executed-hanging_n_1515207.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/07/iran-executes-men-homosexuality-charges
http://www.gaypatriot.net/2006/11/27/gay-holocaust-in-iran-4000-killed-and-counting/
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/26/disgust-over-muslim-wife-beating-book
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2012/03/23/19543371.html
https://www.google.ca/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=police+in+UK+scared+of+muslims&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&redir_esc=&ei=PpFhUd0HwpaIAojLgagO#hl=en&gs_rn=8&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=YRHZtAg-ihnWR_44H-nTgw&pq=muslim%20wife%20beating%20canada&cp=11&gs_id=9oj&xhr=t&q=islam+acid+attacks&es_nrs=true&pf=p&client=ubuntu&hs=AVY&channel=fs&sclient=psy-ab&oq=islam+acid+&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44770516,d.cGE&fp=d05afac0920070b6&biw=1390&bih=672r
I could post links for you all day but it would be pointless you love Islam because it lets you be a terrorist and get away with it because people are to scared to stand up to terrorists of the false prophet Muhammad. Your above post is exactly what your Muhammad stands for, way to represent he must be proud.

US Status:
If you ordered your tablet with a case, charger or Nexus Q, your Nexus 7 will ship this week with overnight shipping, in some cases ahead of the rest of your order. But don’t worry, the rest of your order will be on its way soon.

UK Status:
All Nexus 7 8GB orders will ship by July 20 (BST). All Nexus 7 16GB orders placed through June 30 (BST), will ship by July 20 (BST).

AU Status:
All Nexus 7 8GB and Nexus 7 16GB orders will be fulfilled by the end of day on July 19 (AEST) and will arrive in 3-5 days.

CA Status:
We’ve shipped all Nexus 7 8GB orders. We are in the process of shipping Nexus 7 16GB orders and will ship them in 1-2 weeks.

========

So what the hell. Locally in the US, and on the other side of the world, google was shipping within days. For Canadians ordering the 16GB models, it's an additional 1-2 weeks (I ordered mine before Jun30). Beyond that, those that pre-ordered are getting their devices later AND paying more for shipping than if they had just ordered from Staples etc. Canoe has a good article on how Canadians are getting hosed in this regard.

It's a nice device, and I do support what Google is doing with the Android OS, but their respect for (esp Canadian) customers in this regard has been absolute shit.

apparently while there's no law that would force unjust imprisonment to have a compensation by default in canada, the courts can find it appropriate and do it anyways.

story at http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2011/04/14/17995011.html has a list of some large compensations.

Those long interruptions are great for channel surfing, as well as the aforementioned using the washroom, making a quick phone call, doing the dishes, or deciding "do I really want to spend another 30 minutes watching this crap?"

Most of the time, "do I really want to spend another 30 minutes watching this crap" wins. About the only exception is Two Broke Girls (when I remember to watch it), reruns of Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, and Rules of Engagement (I missed them the first time around) and the occasional TV interview (George Stroumboulopoulos on CBC, Denis Levesque on TVA).

You mean like in Canada with the Chalk River reactor? Ask Linda Keen how she liked losing her job over shutting down the reactor. There were rules Stephen Harper didn't care. (Look at the US government, what have rules and laws ever stopped them from doing whatever they want?) http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2009/01/27/8159396-sun.html

Paywall? You have not been trying hard enough!

Blame Canada!

Pedestrian on phone killed by truck

Toronto Police say the woman was standing on the northwest corner of Front St. and Blue Jays Way just before 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, waiting to cross to the south side of the street, when a southbound delivery truck pulled up to the intersection and turned right in front of her as the light changed.
"The victim was on a cellphone at the time and she literally walked into the side of the truck as it was making its turn," Sgt. Tim Burrows said yesterday. "She was knocked down and the rear wheels of the truck drove over top of her."

"I think society is in a sad state if it needs to pass a law to protect people from this," Burrows said, adding a little common sense should be all that's needed.

I wonder what this baby could dismantle:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2004/06/24/512617.html

Wonder how he's doing 6 years later...

Good for you. But now please explain to me how representative is this experience for the vast amount of US college graduates?

How exactly does your claim square with news like this?

What I am looking for are actual statistical valid comparisons. We can exchange anecdotal evidence until our fingertips turn blue from typing without learning a thing.

Believe it or not, I am actually interested in a factual comparison. My kids have American and German citizenship and we live in Canada. At some they will have to pick a college and I want the best bang for the bucks.

Really?
Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Quiet Manitoba Town, Toronto, Montreal,
and Snowstorm

So, we have shootings AND snowstorms in April.

I'll keep visiting Mexico during the coldest part of our winter.

if the guy was viewing CP and getting off on it, he's guilty, IMHO. Deviant bastid needs to be cut, then tied down over a fire ant hill. I just don't know what to think.

Just curious. Do you think you would think the same if all that CP were virtual? How about if it were merely text that the guy wrote for himself?

Maybe its a good thing I am Canadian then. We do have laws that do something about this.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2010/03/20/13300256-qmi.html

While what you say is true, and some may just be bigots, you might want to read this, which is why I put it in there. Isn't kinda strange that all the GOP "I Hate Queers" types ended up getting busted doing something gay? Sorta like the Catholics spreading hatred against gays and then they have a male prostitution ring busted in the vatican ?

You DO have to admit the irony is thick and delicious, wouldn't you agree?

They are:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/01/10/12412776-qmi.html

Canada does not, in fact have Cheap Beer

Generally... yeah.

Around here at least, the gangs are so large and the police are so useless that if something's stolen... your only choice is to write it off to bad luck, forget about it, and get a replacement.

It's truly both sad and pathetic. Primarily, this is see with car break-ins. Some people (can't find news articles at the moment, but it's been brought up) don't even bother calling the police or Autopac, and just get it repaired by their own means. It costs a lot less, and there's a lot less hassle and paperwork.

Oh, and we're usually the murder-capital of Canada too, due to the violent nature of said gangs... so going after them yourself is generally not wise.

Random statistic to throw out there... March 3rd of this year was the first entire day in decades in which a car wasn't stolen. Of course, one has to note "not one person in the whole city reported a stolen car". I can't prove it, but I'd put good money on that some just put it off until the next day, or didn't notice until the next day.

But yeah, in short... if a crime is done around here, you roll over and take it, and move on with your life.

Here in Calgary (Canada), we are going the opposite direction. These red light cameras are now going to be used to catch speeders on green lights as well. And the police want to ticket people for careless driving as well ($400).
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Platt_Michael/2009/03/23/8851066-sun.php

DUI (driving with more than 0.08) is only for motor driving (car, boat, snowmobile, tractor, plane).
But you still can get a ticket for riding a horse while drunk, though the consequences are a lot less important. A 100$ ticket.
http://lejournaldequebec.canoe.ca/journaldequebec/actualites/quebec/archives/2009/01/20090123-120605.html/ Two months ago in Trois-RiviÃres.

I regret I posted from an old article. As of yesterday: "U.S., Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and China" - http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2008/10/21/7155516-ap.html

Maybe UPann's Health care plan and the health care un Penn in general isn't as good as other areas of the country. I haven't needed to wait to see a specialist but this isn't really the same as in other countries.

In America, when we know what is wrong with someone, we schedule an appointment to take care of it. In countries with socialized health care, you sometimes go on a list and have to wait until your number is ready and if there isn't anyone in more need then you, you go. If there is someone who can, they will jump in front of you and you go back onto the list. Now, have you had your appointment bumped after waiting 2 months to see the specialist just to have to wait longer? And yes, you had the option of going somewhere else, even if that meant further away then your local area to see the specialist sooner. In other countries, you don't, you get what they give you.

This waiting isn't about someone waiting for a specialist to get time, you are after all, under the care of another doctor, it is about waiting 10 years for bowel surgery and having to goto other countries to get procedures done. It is about doctors deciding who gets treatment and who doesn't, regardless of anyone's ability to pay but because of perfectly legal acts like smoking or growing old. Sure, you can drink, but you won't get any surgury if you do, but it is still legal right? But there are other stark contrasts between the US system and other countries like England's. This piece actually offers a pretty good comparison so take the time to read it.

I know I have been picking on England's system so lets get into some of the problems with Canada's. Canada has wait time to see general practitioners that makes your specialist appointment look like a week long vacation. Granted the government is working on the problem and has supposedly worked out a plan that will be implemented in 10 years or so, but what about until then and what about everything up until people complained loudly enough for the government to act. It is so bad that companies are offering medical insurance in Canada that will take you to another location and even out of the country if your wait times are too long. Imagine that, the people of Canada are buying health insurance when they already had free health coverage from their very own government because the times they wait to get treatment is way to long.

Now maybe you just don't know about the wait and thing a 4 week wait or an 8 week wait to see a specialist is similar to a 16 week wait to see your general practitioner or having to wait 16.2 weeks to see an orthopedic surgeon, and another 24.2 weeks for treatment to be performed after the initial visit. Now those numbers are averages, this means that some are longer and some are shorter. But we every one that's shorter, there is one or more that is longer. You may think, well that isn't too long. Most back problems have healed themselves in 3-6 months, if the healing is improper (which is why surgery is often used), there will be problems with the back for the rest of the patient's life. So lest see, 14 weeks is over 3 months already. 24 weeks is six months longer, there is a good chance of a patient needing an orthopedic surgeon never regaining normal use and comfort levels in their back again simply from the wait between seeing and treatment. Of course this isn't always the case but it gets introduced and it shouldn't be there.

>Police later cleared themselves of any serious wrong-doing following an extensive investigation.

> I just love this quote so much, for so many reasons.

You should try living here. We Edmontonians hear that a lot on the news. "Police taser/shoot/run a red light and kill children " . . .and the internal investigation clears them of wrongdoing.

An offduty cop ran a red light in his BMW 735 wile drunk, and nearly killed 3 people, burned one of them quite badly. He was suspenede - with pay. It's laughable. (and how does a 5 year vet of the force afford a BMW 735 anyhow?)

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2008/05/12/5539571-sun.html

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/Suzuki/2008/03/19/5047676-ca.html

It looks like it is about about $1.1 - 1.35 billion per year according to http://money.canoe.ca/News/Sectors/Entertainment/2008/02/28/4883040-cp.html Still not free, but considering the radio as well as tv coverage, not so bad. 22 minutes alone might be worth it...

that's a good start, however for some time now I've been thinking that the government should be publishing real time expenses online through an easy to use interface. I live in Toronto, Ontario and our city has been suffering on the verge of bankruptcy even though the budget from the taxes is over 7.5 billion CAD/year. About 60% of the money goes to the unionized city workers, which is a shame, there is no competition for the city contracts really, it's all government based mafia. This is not a surprise given that the city is governed by an NDP idiot-troll and the province is yet again in the hands of a liberal pathological lier.

I would like to see the government's bank statements on line. If the city gets the 7.5 billion CAD a year from the taxes, I would like to see the current balance, look at all expenses in detail. If a million is given away here, another million there, I would like to see the details of every transaction.

If the city mayor suffers a defeat on his crazy tax proposals (something he concocted instead of looking at balancing the budget the correct way, without immediately imposing new taxes the NDP way,) then the mayor wants to punish the city with meaningless reduction in working hours of community centers and libraries, I want to see the savings in the budget. Of-course the truth is that there was no savings, since the union city workers are still sitting in those centers and libraries because the union will not allow the city not to pay these people and the only sufferers are the citizens who cannot use these public resources.

The government does not want the citizens to be able to see detail of every dollar that is spent, because if we did see these details, we would revolt.

Hmm, actually from what I've seen, they're happy to let you *talk* about democracy and freedom in the USA, it's just when you start trying to practice it that things start to turn downhill.

Of course, I'm Canadian, and while I'd like to be able to say that things are much better, there's a downhill slide here as well.

For example, the Ian Bush shooting, which has now faded somewhat from the news. We have a cop who insists that - as an act of self-defence - he shot and kill a young man being held in custody. Investigation into blood spatter showed the given account of events was unlikely, and then suddenly the blood-expert finds himself facing disciplinary hearings and investigation. Of course, they wouldn't need an expert if the camera o the holding-room hadn't been turned off at the time...

So yes, if you live in Canada, the USA, Germany, or wherever, have a good laugh at everywhere else in the world, but remember that - for average citizens - justice, freedom, democracy, and many others may end up being more of a concept than a reality. Maybe one day you too, will end up as a provocative but quickly forgotten news article.

As I said this was a separate from the point I was making.

At the moment Canada has no dedicated patrol resources (that I'm aware of) that could prevent even non-military vessels from going through the passage. Between 5 and 8 dedicated Arctic patrol boats are planned, but won't be available until 2013 at the earliest. We could theoretically fly a plane up to intercept any ship passing through, but without the ability to land or board troops on them what would that really accomplish?

We have icebreakers, but unlike the US our Coast Guard is civilian and can't assert Canadian sovereignty, which is a completely military responsibility.

I'm not too knowledgeable about Canadian military capabilities in the north though, so if you're aware of capabilities I've not mentioned feel free to enlighten me.

This fee is already charged in Alberta for the last couple of years. It was also introduced in Saskatchewan in February.

It could also soon be charged in Ontario:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2007/06/12/425 4704-cp.html

Actually, no they can't. You're talking about a people that, for the most part, live below the poverty line and in a climate where agriculture is radically limited at best.

My ancestors were like that. We got better. So yes, they can. Most of them have. It's only a small minority of Inuit communities that hunt whale - and for at least one (the Canadian community in Nunavut) they did just fine not hunting whales from 1930 through 2001. See: http://www.canoe.ca/AllAboutCanoesNewsMar00/20_wha le.html

So yes. They don't need to eat whales to survive any more.

It's early days yet, but here's a very interesting indication.

Last week, as reported here, Puretracks began offering DRM-free MP3s. They have 50,000 tracks, just 3.8% of their total catalog, available in this format. None of it is from the major labels.

Currently, a DRM-free album, Barenaked Ladies are Men, is at number 2 on Puretracks' top 100 chart (sorry, those last two links work in Canada only). It has been moving up steadily since Puretracks announced its MP3 offerings last week. By comparison, the album is at number 45 on the traditional Canadian albums charts. No other song in Puretracks' top 10 sits below number 15 on the SoundScan chart.

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summary released last Friday inflates the language of doom even as it deflates its predictions of temperature and sea level increases from previous reports.

The IPCC Climate Change 2007 report predicts world temperatures will possibly rise 1.8C to 4C (3.25 to 7.2F) from 1990 levels to the year 2100 and that sea levels might rise 28 to 43 cm (11 to 17 inches).

Just six years ago, however, the picture looked much bleaker.

The 2001 IPCC report predicted that from 1990 to 2100 temperatures would rise 1.4C to 5.8C causing sea levels to rise by .09 to .88 metres (3.5 to 34.6 inches or 9 to 88 cm).

In 2001, the UN body said the global net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming with radiative forcing of 2.43 watts per square metre.

Oops. Now they're saying it's 1.6 watts per square metre.

What's most troubling about all of this is the 21-page, much-hyped summary is not referenced at all.

This is problematic on many fronts, but as past IPCC reports have shown, the summary is not written by the scientists whose names appear on the cover, it's written by politicians and bureaucrats.

Indeed, some of those scientists after the fact have complained their work has been grossly misrepresented.

In 2001, two scientists complained publicly their work was misrepresented by those who wrote the summary, including MIT physicist Richard Lindzen.

In June 1996, Dr. Frederick Seitz, past-president of the National Academy of Sciences and president emeritus of Rockefeller University, wrote with regard to the 1995 IPCC report: "I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events that led to this IPCC report."

He continued: "This report is not what it appears to be -- it is not the version approved by the contributing scientists listed on the title page."

What the Russians did is small change compared to what might happen if the data from this heist http://money.canoe.ca/News/Other/2007/01/18/340157 9-cp.html becomes available to the wrong crowd.

circumvent the naming rights?

If this article is right Apple needs to be burned a little

http://money.canoe.ca/News/TopPhoto/2007/01/10/327 9889-ap.html

They should combine research with this guy.

Israel hasn't sworn to the destruction of any other states or ethnic groups.

And who has exactly?


How about this:

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News /2004/05/28/476115.html

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTI CLE_ID=41229

http://www.poe-news.com/stories.php?poeurlid=41572

Corrected link

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2006/10/31/219 6498-ap.html

Do you think that more sea life will just magically appear?

The National Fisheries Institute, a trade association for the seafood industry, does not share the researchers alarm.

"Fish stocks naturally fluctuate in population," the institute said in a statement. "By developing new technologies that capture target species more efficiently and result in less impact on other species or the environment, we are helping to ensure our industry does not adversely affect surrounding ecosystems or damage native species."

Steve Murawski, chief scientist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said the method the study's authors used to predict worldwide fish supplies is flawed.

"We have major problems with their forecast of no commercial fish stocks by 2048," said Murawski said Thursday. "We just don't think that forecast is credible for the United States."

Researchers are political too, and politics and dissemination of information is important.

Politicians do have a place in the plan.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/Suzuki/2006/09 /27/1905846.html

I don't want to suggest that researchers are unethical (most people, even scientists and lawyers are quite ethical IMO) but it isn't reasonable to assume someone will respond neutrally and unbiased about their own field of work.
Much of our technology is due to the passion of the researchers, which clearly involves their own views and opinions.

The Ace/K-Mart example was a great example. Those are two stores that WENT OUT OF BUSINESS ALREADY because they couldn't compete. What were they competing with? NOTHING! There wasn't a competing hardware store that I can find, and there isn't a single discount store other than a K-Mart fifteen minutes away!

Yes, but few stores can survive just on selling the things that Wal Mart doesn't. Wal Mart's strategy is to sell the lowest common denominator products at the lowest common denominator prices, to maximize foot traffic (and sales). There simply isn't enough profit to sell other products to uphold a store.

Maybe in your reality. I lived for 22 years in an area where Wal-Mart was in every town. I can't think of any stores that closed because of Wal-Mart (except Fred's and K-Mart, both of which are comparable big-box discount stores). The stores that I've watched close have clsoed for one of two reasons: A. the owners retired, B. the store opened after Wal-Mart entered the area, found the market was too small, and died off. These aren't established local stores. Those rarely close because of Wal-Mart.

Having a surviving Target store in the area, on the other hand, means Wal Mart has to compete, and if they only want to sell ubercheap DVD players that die in 2 weeks, Target has better ones to sell, and they have the muscle and bone to survive the hits from Wal Mart. But make no mistake, if Wal Mart could force Target out of business, they would; just like they are trying, right now with studios doing business with iTunes.

Guess what? Target sells the same crappy imported junk electronics that Wal-Mart and everybody else does. The only difference is that Wal-Mart does direct importing and sells the goods under a house brand, while many of the other companies like Target pay importers who stamp it with the importers' brands. You'd be amazed how many names some of those junk players go under (for exactly the same hardware, built at the same plant).

Case in point: the cheapest TV set I ever saw was $15. It was not at a Wal-Mart. It was at a CVS pharmacy. Wal-Mart isn't the only company selling cheap junk. :-)

Allow me to dumb it down: go visit a city with a Wal Mart and ask yourself why so many stores closed down right afterwards, and why so few new ones came up, and then ask yourself where are all the newly unemployed people going to work, since Wal Mart typically closes down 5000 jobs in a city, in exchange for about 500-1000?

Um... No. Studies show that Wal-Mart has no statistically significant effect on the number of retail jobs in an area, though at least two studies have shown very slight (but again, statistically insignificant) retail job GROWTH as a result of Wal-Mart moving into an area.

In fact, your numbers are so wrong, they're laughable. The average place where Wal-Mart moves into doesn't even HAVE 5000 jobs TOTAL. Your incorrect statistics are starting to make me laugh out loud.

Did you know that wherever Wal Mart opens up shop, the taxpayers wind up picking up the extra burden of many of their workers' health care costs?

Did you know that five out of every six Wal-Mart employees have health insurance? That's better than almost ANY non-unionized retail sector employer. It is better than K-Mart and Target. Get your facts straight.

Our health care system would be better off if these Wal Mart workers just accepted their lot and dropped dead instead of trying to get medicaid when they can't afford cancer treatment or antibiotics for a bacterial infection on a Wal Mart salary.

Funny that you should mention that. Wal-Mart just announced a plan to reduce prices from 20-90% on various generic prescription drugs.

Reality: Wal-Mart is not evil. The people who try to scare people into chasing Wal-Mart out to protect the price-gouging of major supermarket chains are evil. Don't fall for it. Do the research and get the facts for yourself.

http://live.canoe.ca/TheShow/Archives/2006/09/14/1 839452.html

Denny Ledonne (developer) vs. some douchebag from the Sun

Definitely an entertaining watch, as Danny is logical, calm, collected, and RIGHT.

Captcha = "develops" ... how coincidental.